Community members push forward with Pride events despite formal cancellation

Fredericton community members are pushing forward with some planned Pride events despite the organizing board's decision to cancel the festival this year.

Monarch Night Club owner Diane Wilson was hosting an event Thursday night when Fierté Fredericton Pride posted the notice to social media.

Fierté Fredericton Pride chair Jenna Lyn Albert declined an interview on Friday, but the statement cited concerns about "harassment board members have received."

Hearing the news, Wilson didn't waste any time.  By 3 a.m. Friday, she had applied to the city to organize a Pride parade.

"I wanted to help, and do whatever I could," she said.

She said she got immediate support from people at the bar that night for karaoke.

"Everybody has been eager to volunteer their time and their resources," Albert said. "None of us have slept for three days."

While the city has yet to approve the application, Wilson is hopeful her team will be able to pull a parade together.

"It was too important to not at least try," she said. "Who needs sleep when there's a Pride to be saved?"

Aside from the parade, Monarch will still host the events it had planned independent of Fierté Fredericton Pride, including drag shows, dance parties and karaoke.

The New Brunswick Coalition for Transgender Rights could not be reached for comment on Friday, but issued a call on social media for volunteers and resources to hold a parade.

Fredericton resident Corey Furlotte said he has asked the city about organizing a parade but created a Facebook event for a Pride march as a backup.

Evan Ford, who hosts a regular drag show at Monarch, published an online calendar to try to spread the word that events are still happening.

"A Pride board can step back, but they'll never take Pride from us," Ford said. "Pride cannot be cancelled. Not a chance. It will always go on, no matter what."

Ford said the biggest loss with Fierté Fredericton Pride stepping away is the daytime events geared toward families.

But Imprint Youth Association has a new event geared to families in the works for Sunday, and will go ahead with a game night that was scheduled for Wednesday, according to its chair Nicki Lyons-Macfarlane.

"Immediately people were coming together, everybody's kind of excited that it's still happening," they said.

On Saturday, the Fredericton Bouldering Co-op also held its Climbing Queers event as originally scheduled.

"I'm queer myself, and I would say probably about 90 per cent of our staff is part of the community, so I think we all feel like it's a pretty welcoming space and everyone is glad to be a part of it," said Emma Farlow-McAllister, the co-op's executive director.

"When I saw everything was cancelled I was pretty sad. I mean we're still in a day and age where people are still having to fight to exist. So I think it's wonderful that [Pride is] still forging ahead in whatever way that it is."

Fredericton also saw the city's Pride flag-raising go ahead as scheduled Friday.