A lot has happened at Capital Pride over the last year, and we know many people are curious to find out what has been going on. We recognize that Capital Pride, as an organization, has not checked in with our community in a long time and the impact of this disconnect. This spring the Board of Directors of Capital Pride started the work to reconnect with community members through our online survey, which will remain open through the summer, and community meetings. We invited over 100 different queer community organizations, business owners, sport and activity clubs, social groups, as well as local drag artists, performers, and organizers to meet with us through the month of May.
Two key themes resonated through the community meetings: the importance of Pride for everyone and the need for transparency from our organization. We hear you and we are committed to doing better. To start, we are opening up about who we are, our values, how decisions are made, and the limitations we face as an organization. We know one update won’t address every question, but this hopefully allows us to start the conversation.
So first things first. Hi! We are the volunteer board members of Capital Pride. Astara, Brenna, Julia, Felix, Nikhil and David. We all joined the board in May 2025, so we are still all a bit new. We are lawyers, public service workers, artists, community organizers and leaders, project managers, and union workers. Although we all have different reasons for getting involved, we all share a common goal: organizing a Pride Festival that allows our community to be authentically themselves.
Parade
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: the parade cancellation last year. We recognize how much time, energy, and money goes into preparing a float, organizing people, getting supplies, and renting equipment. We know for many groups this is your opportunity for visibility, for expression, and for joy. The cancellation was disappointing, frustrating and, for some, damaging. We did not want to cancel the parade, but with growing reports of dehydration and heat stroke, the logistical limitations we faced around road closures and permits, coordination with emergency services, and the constraints of rerouting a parade of over 7,000 people in the downtown core, it was the only decision we could make in the interest of public safety.
This year we have been working diligently to improve operations to ensure we have a successful 2026 festival. Some of this work includes: upgrading our communication system to keep Parade and Street Festival participants informed, increasing access to shade and water, and close coordination with city officials and community members.
What’s been happening
One of our first goals as new board members was to get to know the organisation, its values and how those values inform our policies. While a lot of the values represented in the policies resonated with us, like making sure that the vast majority of Pride events are free, paying our artists and performers fairly, and ensuring that performers reflect the diversity of our community, we also have some gaps we are addressing through a policy review.
Although this type of work is quiet and unexciting, it has real impacts on our community. For example, we don’t have a formal policy on AI (yet). Our current practice is to not use it and instead prioritize working with the many talented artists, performers, photographers, graphic designers, and translators in the city. By creating formal policies we can better ensure that Capital Pride will maintain these types of values into the future.
Capacity is another of our gaps. Right now, our only full time employee is our Executive Director. From September to May, they run the show by themself. Fortunately, through provincial and federal grant programs, we are able to grow to a larger team in the summer. But, the reality is that our ED needs more help year round.
What’s next
Although we’re busy planning Capital Pride 2026 and doing the internal work that guides our organization, we aren’t done engaging with our community. Our meetings we had in May were just the beginning. The feedback we received wasn’t always easy to hear, but we’re grateful that people took the time and courage to share with us. Although we can’t meet everyone in person, we encourage you to fill out our community survey.
Our conversations with community partners and results from the survey will help shape the future of Capital Pride. We also are looking to expand our Board of Directors to help with the planning and fundraising for Capital Pride. You can expect to hear more from us about it this fall.
As we continue these conversations, we also want to acknowledge the strong feelings some people have about Pride. Criticism, feedback and disagreement are all part of a healthy community conversation and we welcome those discussions. As an organization, we stand by our staff, performers, community leaders, volunteers, partners, grand marshalls and all the wonderful people that make our community what it is.
Unfortunately, too many of our community members have recently faced harassment, bullying, and personal attacks both online and in-person.The tragedy at Berlin Pride this summer shines a light on the real threats of violence we face and the injustice so many 2SLGBTQIA+ folks live with every day. At the end of the day, we are all individuals who deserve compassion, dignity, and respect.
A final thought. We know that we won’t do this perfectly and that change can be slow, but we are committed to this work. Pride is important to each of us and has given us so much, and we want to give back as best as we can.
With Pride,
Astara, Brenna, Julia, Felix, Nikhil and David