The mayor of Ottawa, Ontario, condemned recent anti-Israel LGBT protesters on Monday for effectively stopping the Canadian capital’s annual pride parade over the weekend while issuing political demands.
“I don’t think we want to have a situation where anybody can just block a parade, especially Capital Pride, put a bunch of demands on the table, and the parade doesn’t move forward unless people give in to those demands,” Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said during a press conference at Ottawa City Hall, according to CTV News.
“I don’t think that’s acceptable,” he added. “I don’t think that’s a proper way to advocate or discuss the issues that are important to those people, I certainly was not in a position to say, ‘Yes, I’ll do whatever they ask.'”
Hundreds of protesters associated with the group “Queers for Palestine – Ottawa (Q4P),” which describes itself as “an organization of queer and trans people advocating and organizing for liberation,” blocked the Capital Pride parade near Parliament Hill and demanded anti-Israel concessions from its organizers and the mayor, according to the Ottawa Citizen.
“We will not leave until our elected officials and Capital Pride come down and meet our demands,” Masha Davidovic, one of the Queers for Palestine group members, told the outlet.
The event, which reportedly boasted approximately 7,000 participants, was brought to a halt and ultimately canceled around 2:30 p.m. amid the protesters, who unfurled banners while calling for solidarity with the Palestinian cause, including supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
According to a flyer passed around at the parade, the group’s “immediate demands” included Capital Pride holding a “BDS townhall” and committing to the BDS-affiliated Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
The flyer also demanded that Sutcliffe “apologize for last year’s boycott and the call to defund Pride” and “commit to stand with us and all oppressed peoples, including Palestinians.”
In 2024, Sutcliffe and other high-profile supporters pulled out of Capital Pride’s parade following a statement from the group accusing Israel of genocide and vowing to integrate BDS-related blacklisting into its sponsorship program, as noted by The Jerusalem Post. The statement was subsequently removed following backlash last year.
Queers for Palestine has alleged that Sutcliffe is “still tied to right-wing business interests, still silencing criticism of Israel, and still trying to pinkwash his complicity.”
In a statement on social media Sunday after the parade’s unplanned cancellation, Capital Pride said they attempted “meaningful discussion” with Queers for Palestine, but realized they were “unwilling to engage in a good faith conversation and was insistent on misrepresenting our discussions.”
Capital Pride said during their hour-long tussle with Queers for Palestine demonstrators, the organizers’ realized their hands were tied given that the street closures for the parade were pre-scheduled and effective only until 4 p.m.
“This decision was not taken lightly, and we understand and appreciate the impact it had on our community,” they said.
In a celebratory Sunday Instagram post that claimed Ottawa is situated on “unceded, unsurrendered Algonquin land,” Queers for Palestine claimed victory. They said they are fighting for the “queer community globally.”
“We celebrated. We protested. We took our Pride back without fear,” the group wrote. “We love this queer and trans community in this city. We will never betray our queer community globally.”
“We will never stop fighting for our queer kin in Gaza and Palestine, and as queer people, we will NEVER turn our backs on oppressed and colonized people across the world and right here on Turtle Island,” they also wrote.
“Turtle Island” is a reference to the term historically used by some Native American groups to describe the North American continent, which some indigenous groups believed was created on the back of a giant turtle.
According to Equaldex, an online publication that tracks LGBTQ+ rights around the world, homosexual activity is legal in the West Bank, but punishable by up to 10 years in prison in Gaza, which retains the British Mandate’s 1936 criminal code prohibiting “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.”
Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza after Hamas, the terror group that has controlled Gaza since 2007, killed 1,200 people during a surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities say that over 60,000 people have died since the war began. Those figures don’t differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
