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Update June 27 2004 CTV Toronto streets filled with Gay Pride
CTV.ca News Staff
As many as one million revellers crowded the streets of downtown Toronto on Sunday, for a parade capping the city's week-long Gay Pride festival.
Toronto mayor David Miller was on hand.
"There are families from all over our city here and what that says is that in Toronto we respect everybody," he told CTV's Toronto affiliate, CFTO News.
"Everybody's welcome here."
Last year, Pride celebrations coincided with the introduction of same-sex marriage rights in Ontario.
But this year, coming just one day before the nation goes to the polls, politics were at the top of the agenda.
Toronto city councillor Kyle Rae told CFTO that the day's events were a political rally of sorts.
"The people who are here... their rights are threatened by a Conservative majority tomorrow."
But politics of a different kind were on the mind of a parade participant from Memphis, Tennessee.
"Mr. Bush in America had started this homeland security. And good queens that we are, we thought we'd bring to Toronto homo-land security. So everybody's safe and secure."
With its colourful floats, raucous music and often beyond-daring outfits, the parade wound its way through downtown without incident.
An Ohio couple who got married in Toronto during Pride week last year hope some of the spirit of the event will follow them home.
"The U.S. is behind Canada in its thinking and we need to catch up," one of the men told CFTO.
Organizers estimate the parade, which marks the unofficial beginning of Toronto's summer tourist season, pumps about $80 million into the city economy.
From Berlin to Mexico City, revelers around the world attended Gay Pride celebrations this weekend.
Alongside similar events in New York City, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia, Toronto's week-long Pride celebration is considered one of the biggest in the world
