Thousands pack streets for record Pride Parade

Organizer calls crowds ‘a real testament to Calgary’s commitment to diversity’

Rainbow flags and balloons lined 9th Avenue S.W. on Sunday as tens of thousands of Calgarians turned out for the city’s 26th Pride parade.

It was the largest parade in the event’s history, according to organizers, with 140 entries.

“We’re expecting 4,000 people to march in the parade today, and that’s a real testament to Calgary’s commitment to diversity,” said Craig Sklenar, co-director of the Calgary Pride Parade, moments before the parade got underway near the Calgary Tower.

Organizers also estimate the turnout of parade attendees was larger than last year’s 60,000.

“I can’t believe how many people there are,” Dave Ross said as he watched the parade from the street, surrounded by children, families, couples and groups of friends. “Things like the parade really open your eyes and you know that there’s a big community there to support you and make you feel at home.”

Parade marshal Rae Spoon said he was amazed by the turnout.

“I never went to the Pride parade when I was living in Calgary because I was living at home and it wasn’t safe for me, so to have this many people here, I feel a lot safer, and I think a lot of people do,” Spoon said.

Garth Goertz has been attending the Pride parade since its inception, and is impressed with how the event has grown.

“The representation that you had during the parade was all from LGBTQ community organizations, which weren’t that many, so it took us maybe 15 minutes to get through the parade,” he recalled.

“Now it’s a much wider representation of the diversity within Calgary, and I think that’s amazing to see.”

Premier Rachel Notley told a huge crowd at Millennium Park following the parade that Pride is something to be celebrated “every day of the year.”

She also reflected on the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., earlier this year. “It reminds us that we must never stop fighting to ensure that we all embrace and stand up for and fight for inclusion and respect and diversity,” she said.

Mykalah Paradis and Mikki Larsen, who travelled from central Alberta, said the event is not just a parade, but about “a fight to be recognized as a person.”

“I don’t think coming out should be a thing, it should just be normal,”

... we must never stop fighting to ensure that we all embrace and stand up for and fight for inclusion and respect and diversity.

said Paradis, 21, who believes it’s important that families and straight people attend the event.

Goertz said the growing support for the parade makes him “very proud.”

“Proud of not just the LGBTQ community, but our society,” he said. But there’s still a long way to go. “Obviously, in this past year we’ve seen a lot of devastation and acts of violence toward LGBTQ people,” he said.

“But I think we need to continue to do this and to continue to have it grow, so that we can come together and realize that our differences in sexual orientation are not the issue, that there’s a lot more similarities than there are differences.”