OP-ED: Toronto Pride Parade eats itself in woke spectacle gone awry

Sue-Ann Levy writes, "After years of covering the steadily deteriorating Toronto Pride parade, I was thrilled to see the left eat its own yet again this year."

Source: Caryma Sa'ad

Author: Sue-Ann Levy

After years of covering the steadily deteriorating Toronto Pride parade, I was thrilled to see the left eat its own yet again this year.

The parade has become the epitome of the expression, “go woke, go broke.”

It wasn’t just that the terrorist sympathizers stopped the parade for a second year in a row, this year near the end of the more than three-hour procession.

But the floats were boring, and the marching groups looked like they were merely going through the motions.

Many looked wilted in the heat, especially the dozen or so I saw sporting keffiyehs as their badge of honour.

The security was terrible, and at certain points along the route, several observers wandered onto the road and were face to face with the marchers.

I can only imagine what could have happened if someone came with the intent to create harm.

There were only two groups that truly spoke to what was once the mission of Pride: Ukrainians protesting the homophobia in Russia and Iranians marching for freedom, including the freedom to love who they want.

I saw little of the joie de vivre or the cheekiness that once characterized the largest parade in Canada–except for the bare butt cheeks of sagging old gay men.

There were far fewer corporate entries than those singled out by Mayor Olivia Chow for pulling their sponsorship, namely Home Depot and Google.

Those corporate entries that did march stuck to safe slogans like OLG’s All in For Unity.

All of them carried the Pride Progress flag. Likely, they were warned not to use the beautiful Rainbow flag.

Instead, we saw group after group after group promoting gender diversity and transsexuality; Indigenous and two-spirited folk and anti-black racism.

The entire parade bordered on preachy and wokeness to the extreme.

Pride trotted out Fae Johnstone – a trans woman but biological male – who has turned her activism into a money-making scheme.

At one point 75-year-old Rev. Brent Hawkes, formerly of Metropolitan Community Church was spotted marching. I criticized him more than 10 years ago for doing everything he could to keep Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in the parade.

Waving to her peons and dressed in a one-piece yellow pantsuit, Chow was on a float at the outset of the parade, likely because she sensed the Hamasniks would stop it later on.

She was also spotted running along Yonge St. with a boa, high-fiving the crowd like she’s a rockstar.

I should have known that the Hamasniks would disrupt the parade this year as they did last year.

There were less than two dozen, mostly dykes, who were wrapped in their terror scarves despite the heat.

This year their list of hurts/demands included boycotting corporations from Pride in addition to stopping the non-genocide in Gaza and settler colonialism.

It always makes me wonder how dykes can support the very regime that would throw them off rooftops in Gaza. But one can’t make sense of mental illness and a clear disconnect from reality.

The terrorist sympathizers likely got their wish about banning corporate sponsors, considering how few I saw marching.

Who can blame corporations for wanting out of this chaotic woke mess?

This mess started years ago when a small but vocal group of activists pushed the police out of the parade.

To be honest, I don’t know how the corporate groups that marched this year felt being amongst a ragtag group of activists.

They appeared to be all trying so hard to be relevant.

So is it any wonder Pride has had financial problems for the last several years and is $900K in the hole this year?

They have been the authors of their own demise.

Until they wake up to the fact that their wokeness has turned off so many observers and sponsors, they will forever be broke and desperate for a bailout.