Vancouver unveiled Canada’s first permanent rainbow-coloured crosswalk Monday morning to kick off the city’s Pride Week celebrations in the heart its LGBTQ-friendly Davie Street Village.

Coun. Tim Stevenson, who was the first openly-gay provincial cabinet minister in Canada, announced the crosswalks at the intersection of Davie and Bute streets at 8:30 a.m. Monday. City crews painted on the rainbows late Sunday night.

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Over its 35-year history, the Vancouver Pride Parade has grown to be the fifth largest in the world with over 650,000 people involved last year. More than 150 floats from every part of the community will cover three kilometres over three hours.

Spencer Chandra Herbert, NDP MLA for the West End, welcomed the new crosswalks to an area that has “kind of been a cultural capital, so to speak, for LGBTQ folks across Canada.”

“This is where the Pride Parade started, it’s where the fight for marriage equality started, the right to adopt,” Herbert said. “It makes sense to mark that history and a little colour is a good thing.”

He predicted the busy intersection will even be a more popular place for “people to hang out and get their photos (taken).”

Events like these are held every summer in nearly every major city in the world both as a celebration of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning) culture and to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City that brought the struggle for gay and lesbian rights into the public eye.



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