Pride Toronto’s executive director says he signed a list of demands from Black Lives Matter to end the group’s blockade of Sunday’s Pride parade, but has no plans to honour them before consulting with his community.

Those demands — which include banning police floats from future parades — will now be for Pride’s membership and the community to pass judgment on, Mathieu Chantelois told the Star in a phone interview Monday.

“What’s important for people to know is that I’m not deciding what’s in the parade, Alica (Hall, co-chair of Pride’s board of directors) doesn’t decide what’s in the parade, Black Lives Matter doesn’t . . . decide what’s in the parade,” Chantelois said. “Who’s deciding what’s in the parade is the membership, and my community . . . We will let them have the final word.

“What I did (Sunday) was made the parade move.”

“Special meetings” and consultations will be held to address the issues brought up by Black Lives Matter and to make decisions on the demands, Chantelois said.

Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Janaya Khan said she wasn’t surprised by the news.

“We understand that . . . when it comes to creating more inclusive space, there’s going to be pushback and resistance around what that could look like,” Khan told the Star.

“It’s very unfortunate that (Chantelois’) reaction has been to backpedal after one day.”

Chantelois said Black Lives Matter describing Pride as anti-black was “really hurtful,” noting that this year’s events featured several black and trans performers and a panel on blackness and queer politics.

“Can we do better? Yes,” Chantelois said. “Did we do bad? Not so much.”

Chantelois added that he would “absolutely” like to meet with Toronto police to discuss the demand, how police can improve their relationship with “marginalized communities” and how the force can participate in Pride in the future.

“Of course I want the police to be part of Pride in many ways,” Chantelois said. “And if it’s not a float, it’s going to be something else, but for me, Pride’s for everybody and that includes our police force.”

Chantelois said he’s reached out to the force’s LGBTQ liaison officer and hasn’t heard back yet, but emphasized that a meeting “will happen for sure.”

LeRoi Newbold, a Black Lives Matter steering committee member, said that Chantelois had appeared genuine when agreeing to the demands Sunday.

“At the moment when Mathieu signed the agreement, he was smiling, he was hugging members of our community, he was celebratory,” Newbold said, noting that members of 2-Spirit and Latinx groups were present as well. “It would be very disappointing to find out that his engagement with this political act was disingenuous.”

The group is looking forward to Pride meeting at least one of the demands, though, Khan said — holding a town hall meeting for marginalized communities within six months, where Black Lives Matter expects Pride to present an action plan on how it will address the other demands, which included increased funding and support for Black Queer Youth events and Blockorama, the Pride showcase for black performers; a reinstatement of the South Asian stage; the hiring of more black deaf and ASL interpreters and black trans women, indigenous people, and others from vulnerable communities.

“We didn’t have expectations that there would be a cease-and-desist immediately, that the police floats in this year’s Pride would suddenly disappear,” Khan said. “Rather, it was really opening up the space for dialogue and to bring Pride back to its political roots, which has always been its history.”

“We’ve kept in line with our politic and our practice, and I’m waiting for Pride to do the same.”

In a news release Monday evening, Pride Toronto said it would be holding a townhall next month to “gather feedback about the 2016 festival.”

Earlier Monday, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters that “there really isn’t much that I can say or offer” about the Black Lives Matter demand that police be excluded from future Pride parades.

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Black Lives Matter, an honoured guest at this year’s parade, stopped floats and marchers at Yonge and College Sts. until Pride officials agreed to their demands, which included excluding police floats from future marches.

Police also wouldn’t be allowed to have booths at future Pride celebrations, if the demands are met.

Saunders said he hasn’t yet heard from the Pride executive about the Black Lives Matter demands and so he can’t comment.

“I’m going to wait until the executive talks to me,” Saunders said, adding he doesn’t know when that will happen.

Saunders vigorously defended his force’s attempts to be inclusive, and said he will always try to improve relations with the LGBT community.

“We’re always looking for ways to be progressive,” Saunders said. “We have to get it right.”

He noted that other police forces, including the RCMP and OPP, also participate in the annual Pride marches.

Particular work needs to be spent building positive relationships with the transgender community, he said.

“We need to fix that,” Saunders said. “It’s not a one-day-a-year thing.”

He added that officers enjoy participating in the Pride parade.

“A lot of people volunteer to work the parade because it’s a fantastic parade,” Saunders said.

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Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack was more blunt. On Sunday he called the agreement to exclude police from future Pride parades “a slap in the face” to all police officers.

He is calling for an apology from Pride Toronto organizers.

“Our officers feel thrown under the bus, as it were, or betrayed by the organizers,” he said Monday. “They’re saying that they signed the document just to move things along . . . If that’s what you did, you should apologize.”

The Star reached out to members of the local LGBTQ community who participated in or attended Sunday’s Pride Parade for their reactions and thoughts on Black Lives Matter bringing the event to a standstill for close to 30 minutes.

Black Lives Matter vs. Pride: Perspectives on the parade and the protest

The Star reached out to members of the local LGBTQ community who participated in or attended Sunday’s Pride Parade for their reactions and thoughts on Black Lives Matter bringing the event to a standstill for close to 30 minutes.

Quotes edited for length and clarity.

Vivek Shraya, 2016 Pride Toronto Grand Marshal

“I am so incredibly in awe of the action taken by Black Lives Matter. Going through my social media feed yesterday and today, I felt as though I was watching history in the making. There is a disturbing idea that because gay marriage is legal, that the battle has been won for LGBTQ people, but this isn’t the case for so many trans and queer people, especially black, indigenous and trans and queer people of colour. The only reason we get to have a giant gay parade in 2016 is because of protests by black, indigenous and trans and queer people of colour decades ago, not unlike Black Lives Matter’s protest this weekend. White gay culture consistently appropriates from Black culture, so the backlash is particularly disturbing and speaks volumes about anti-Black racism in LGTBQ communities.”

James Fajardo, who was watching at College and Yonge when the protest began

“It was really confusing for me. The delay wasn’t as bad. Yes, it was an inconvenience, but history of the LGBTQ community shows that sometimes it’s necessary to inconvenience society to get a point across. On the other hand, I think that since they were honoured guests, maybe it was a bit too aggressive.”

Cheryl Dobinson, member of the Toronto Bisexual Network and Pride attendee for the past 22 years

“I’m fully in support of them taking that action and I think that they know better than I do what their needs are and what the steps are that need to be taken to achieve those, so I support them in having done that.”

“For me, it was not something that felt disrespectful and I think that a lot of times, the way that social change happens, it doesn’t happen through good manners and etiquette, it happens through things that can feel uncomfortable and might feel like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t feel 100 per cent great to everybody,’ but part of that is the growing pains and necessary pains of change and transformation.”

Sarah Rayner, Internal Coordinator at TBLGAY (Trans Bisexual Lesbian Gay Asexual at York)

“As a white queer person, I fully support Black Lives Matter. It was an impressive tactic to get their demands acknowledged and passed.”

“I urge those who believe it was disrespectful to reflect on the roots of Pride and that Pride started as a protest. And I believe that Pride should always be political. People are that saying this wasn’t the time and the place for a protest, and that’s erasing queer and trans people of colour. The demands will make Pride more accessible and inclusive for everyone, I believe.”

Michael Rusek, coordinator and founder of Danforth & Woodbine Pride

“I think that they have a valid point of view and something that I think reasonable people sympathize with, but I think that their tactic was counterproductive. They’ve needlessly set up a tension between our LGBT allies in the police services. I think we all recognize that there are problems within policing, within the larger community in terms of race-relations and treatment of minorities. I think that all Black Lives Matter has done is to make the discussion about themselves and the tactics that they used and the overall goals that they’re trying to achieve, and I think that’s unfortunate.”

Naomi Martey, LGBT Youth Line service coordinator

“Youth Line definitely supports Black Lives Matter and the fact that they did take the time and the space in the parade. Pride is exciting and amazing, but Pride is also about safety, it’s about being able to walk through spaces without being harmed or feeling fearful, it’s about being able to exist, and the work that Black Lives Matter is doing is making sure that people in our community can exist . . . I think Pride is exactly the space to be doing this because we all come to a place every year where we can have a giant celebration, but we also need to realize that we are celebrating liberation, our freedom and our progress forward.”

With files from Sarah-Joyce Battersby and Wendy Gillis

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