Pride parade to take new route

Ottawa’s new Capital Pride festival will receive the same city funding as last year, when the former pride organization was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said Thursday that the $37,000 grant from the city will flow through the Bank Street Business Improvement Area.

The Bank Street BIA stepped in to help this year after the nowdefunct former pride organization failed to pay more than $100,000 owed to suppliers and performers, including the City of Ottawa.

The festival is a long-standing event celebrating Ottawa’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

“What happened last year was challenging for the whole community, and it was disappointing. But we had 28 years of great pride festivals, and we had one year that had some economic challenges, so to simply turn our back on the whole GLBT community and the pride week was the wrong thing to do,” Watson said following a media event to announce details of this year’s festival, at city hall on Thursday.

In March, council unanimously approved the funding for the pride festival, which runs from Aug. 17 to 23.

It wasn’t long ago, Watson noted, that the annual Canadian Tulip Festival was in trouble.

“We didn’t allow that festival to fail, and we weren’t going to allow the pride festival to fail,” he said, adding, “I think the city would be a poorer place if we didn’t have these kinds of festivals — whether

The city would be a poorer place if we didn’t have these kinds of festivals — whether it’s pride or tulip.

it’s pride or tulip.”

The mayor said he hoped the city’s early commitment of cash sent “a very positive signal” to other potential sponsors.

At Thursday’s event, festival organizers presented a list of nearly two dozen sponsors.

The parade, which is Aug. 23, will follow a different route this year.

It will start at the intersection of Bank Street and Gladstone Avenue, travel west on Gladstone to Kent Street, then north on Kent to Laurier Avenue and east on Laurier back to Bank.

Festival organizers said the parade’s “big finish” at Bank and Somerset streets will draw it into the heart of Ottawa’s gay village and the location of the festival’s Community Fair and beer garden. The parade will start at 1 p.m.

The Pride parade won’t feature a single parade marshal, instead honouring past parade marshals by recognizing their contributions to the community, according to organizers.

The parade is among more than 30 different events during the festival.

Tammy Dopson, Capital Pride’s chairwoman, said marching down Kent and Bank streets will attract a lot of LGBT residents who live nearby.

“We like the idea of keeping the momentum around the village,” she said.

Watson said he’s a little sad the parade won’t end at Marion Dewar Plaza at city hall, as it did last year.

“The community wanted to have the festival in the village, and I hope that works out because, obviously, you want it to succeed,” he said.