Advisory Panel offers sweeping 133 recommendations to Pride Toronto
After months of meetings, surveys, debate and mudslinging, 150 people streamed into the 519 Church Street Community Centre to hear the Community Advisory Panel’s report and recommendations.
The Community Advisory Panel (CAP) report is 232 pages and contains 133 recommendations.
The sweeping recommendations cover everything from finances to suggestions about entertainment. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to repairing rifts between Pride Toronto (PT), the trans community and people of colour.
The first recommendation is that "Pride Toronto should be saved and its programming considerably downsized."
As the early recommendations were read aloud, some points -- including a recommendation that PT apologize for its conduct -- were greeted with rousing applause.
Among CAP recommendations is a list of criteria for determining which groups should be allowed into the Parade. Queer and non-groups will both be allowed to march, but all participants must prominently display pro-gay or trans messages, if the recommendations are adopted.
About 10 of the 232 pages of the report deal with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). The recommendations stop short of saying whether or not QuAIA ought to be allowed to march.
Instead, CAP recommends the creation of an adjudication process which would determine whether controversial groups should be allowed to march. It would only be triggered in the event of a complaint.
"There's a lot of grey area here, and we know it," admits Brent Hawkes, CAP chair.
CAP also recommends that PT devote the bulk of its entertainment programming to acts that are from Toronto and are members of the gay or trans community.
Before the meeting, Francisco Alverez, chair of the Pride Toronto board of directors, told Xtra that the board would try to implement as many of the suggestions as possible. He said some were simply not practical, but did not elaborate before the meeting began.
Read the recommendations
here...
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