Living colours

>> Célébrations LGBTA paints a different
picture of Montreal’s queer community with their pride parade and community day

VERY MONTREAL: Célébrations LGBTA president Éric Pineault

by ANDREA ZANIN

Last fall, Divers/Cité announced that it would no longer be organizing Montreal’s traditional gay-pride community day and parade, choosing instead to focus on cultural festivities and performances (from August 1–5 this year). Since then, the responsibility for the two much-loved events has been tossed from group to group like a hot potato. But it’s finally come to rest in the hands of Célébrations LGBTA Montréal, a quickly assembled committee that has pulled off an organizational miracle in less than seven weeks—amassing an operating budget of $135,000 and coordinating both of the central events and a range of related parties and gatherings.

Saturday, July 28 is community day, during which queer organizations set up booths to tell the public about their activities, recruit members and do minor fundraising.

Éric Pineault, president of Célébrations LGBTA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allies), says, “For community day, we’ve got 87 groups—that’s 25 per cent more than last year. This year’s event has really grabbed the community’s interest and support.” Registration is free for groups with budgets of less than $100,000, and fully 77 of the participating booths are non-profit community organizations. “One group director told me that community day helps them recruit 25 per cent of their volunteers. So the day is really essential for them, and that’s true for most groups.”

In response to concerns that the new organization will place a greater priority on corporate participation and sponsorship, Pineault explains: “We didn’t want it to be a big commercial fair, so we decided that community day and the parade could have no more than 33 per cent corporate participation; we wanted the corporate to come second to the community.”

Daytime playtime

As for the parade—planned for the afternoon of Sunday, July 29, a change from the night parades of 2005 and 2006—Pineault reports, “Last year, there were 56 contingents. This year, we’ve got 68, including 16 floats, some of them from bars who haven’t been in the parade in 10 years.” For the first time, the parade has an artistic director (Claude Vaillancourt) and a theme—“the power of the four elements”—with prizes for the most creative contingents. “It will be a colourful parade,” says Pineault.

Another first is that this year’s parade will be led by three grand marshals. “In past years, we may have forgotten that the parade is about standing up for our rights,” Pineault explains. “We want to come back to our roots and show what it means to be a community.” The grand marshals were chosen with that in mind: for visibility, famed Quebec actor and writer André Montmorency; for entrepreneurship and women, Paryse Taillefer, who in 1980 opened La Paryse, a well-known local restaurant which is still going strong; and for history, Armand Monroe. Monroe has been a local gay activist since 1957, and secured Montreal same-sex couples the right to dance together in public in 1958; as his alter ego, Marilyn Monroe impersonator “La Monroe,” he marched in Montreal’s first-ever pride march in 1979.

T in the park

While there are a host of parties and events taking place over the weekend—including a kickoff cocktail, a bears’ brunch, women’s nights and leather parties—Célébrations LGBTA has taken a hands-off approach to them. “We’ve left the parties to the bars. We really wanted to concentrate on the parade and community day. We’re just organizing a T-dance on Sunday because people want to meet up after the parade.” Even the T-dance, which takes place at 2 p.m. in the park on Ste-Catherine and Wolfe, is taking a community tack; the Radical Queens will give a performance that commemorates the history of gay parades in Montreal.

This year’s Célébrations LGBTA events are a starting point for the new organization, and future editions may look very different—potentially including a forum for community groups, stronger efforts to attract tourists and more. But for now, Pineault sees this year’s events as a reaffirmation of local queer culture. “We want it to be festive, but also to keep it very Montreal.”

Community day takes place Saturday, July 28 from 11 a.m.–6 p.m. on Ste-Catherine between St-Hubert and Papineau. The pride parade starts at 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 29, and moves west along René-Lévesque from de Lorimier to St-Hubert. For more information and a full program, visit www.celebrations-lgbta.org.

FLOWER POWER: Armand Monroe (with sunglasses, right)
with La Brigade Rose at the first pride event in 1979