Niagara-on-the-Lake says it is reviewing a new offer of free support for Pride flag raising ceremonies, but will proceed with its own event as planned.
“The correspondence is under review,” said spokesperson Marah Minor. “At this time, the offer does not change the town’s plans.”
The offer comes from OUTNiagara, an advocacy group focused on bringing momentum to Niagara’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.
The organization said its no-charge support is meant to help municipalities hold Pride flag raisings, potentially filling a gap created by recent disagreements over participation in this year’s Pride activities led by Pride Niagara.
The disconnect centres on Pride Niagara’s new participation framework that asks municipalities to purchase a roughly $480 table at its UNITY Awards as part of Pride involvement, a request some towns declined.
“We’ve heard from the community and it is divided,” said Mike Eybel, vice-chair of OUTNiagara. “We’re not picking sides.”
Eybel said people differ on what meaningful support looks like, reflecting the range of perspectives within the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
But no matter what municipalities believe on that front, he said it’s “very important that the Pride flag be raised.”
To Eybel, meaningful support does not have to mean funding, but should go beyond symbolic gestures.
“I’ll take issue with symbolic as a term,” he said. “We do want to see real commitment and actions.”
“I’m not going to go down the road of saying that that has to be funding.”
He said symbolic gestures are “much like performative gestures.”
But “simply throwing money into an organization” is not the answer either, he said.
“A simple conversation, a community round table, having discussions at the municipal level, at the regional level, having discussions with community partners like OUTNiagara, that would be sufficient.”
He said the organization is not looking to support ceremonies that are performative.
“This isn’t necessarily a, ‘We’ll step in and do it,’” Eybel said.
“What we’re looking for, is to see that the municipalities are taking inclusivity and equity seriously and they’ve made meaningful steps in the last year.”
Eybel said a federally funded OUTNiagara community strengths and needs assessment launched in late 2020 identified areas municipalities should be working to address.
“We’d like to see that municipalities have been looking at that report and striving to fill some of the gaps,” he said.
The town said it will proceed with its annual Pride flag raising on June 1 at 11 a.m. at the flagpole in front of the town administration building.
“The town has held a Pride flag-raising ceremony for several years and plans to do so again this year,” Minor said. “All members of the community are welcome to attend and participate.”
