Montreal Pride launches rebrand, says it's confident parade will go on as planned this year

Montreal Pride says it's doing everything it can to avoid a last-minute cancellation of the city's Pride parade again this year. 

Thursday, the nonprofit launched a flashy new website and logo and said it had restructured the organization and hired a team of 200 people with major events planning experience to handle this year's parade, which will take place on Aug. 13. 

"We're not alone. We're many, many players working together on that. And this year's going to be very, very solid," said Simon Gamache, the executive director of Montreal Pride, the organization in charge of the city's Pride parade and festival. 

"I'd say we're two months ahead from last year." 

Last year, on the morning of the August day the parade was scheduled to unfold with 12,000 participants along several kilometres of one of the city's busiest boulevards, Gamache arrived to find an empty room where personnel were supposed to be getting ready.

Staff members had already made the call to cancel after they discovered their organization had failed to recruit nearly 100 security volunteers.

The bungle sparked rumours that Montreal Pride had experienced threats or internal conflicts, as well as a conversation about the parade's place and importance within Pride week, which now also features a large festival held near the Olympic Stadium. 

But perhaps owing to the endurance and grassroots nature of Pride parades, which originated from protests against state repression and homophobia, an impromptu march was held hours later on Aug. 7, 2022 in Montreal's Gay Village.

A report commissioned by Mayor Valérie Plante found months later that a simple lack of organization had been to blame for the parade cancellation.

The author of the report, Philippe Schnobb, the former chair of Montreal's transit agency, found that a lack of communication among an overloaded staff, including the departure of two key members, had contributed to the recruiting omission. 

Pride team remained intact

In an interview Thursday, Gamache said Montreal Pride's core team has remained intact. 

"We retained everybody. We're really proud of that and as a team, we're coming together to deliver this thing again," he said. 

The nonprofit also managed to retain its sponsors, Gamache said. "They said, 'Mistakes happen. We want to be back,'" he said. 

The City of Montreal said in a statement Friday that it had maintained its funding of the festival, given Pride's role as an "event at the heart of the city's identity."

The statement noted that Pride had hired an external firm, Dotti&Cie, to help organize the parade. Dotti&Cie has also organized the Montreal Santa Claus parade that takes place downtown every fall. 

Montreal's Pride festival will begin Aug. 3 and run until the day of the parade 10 days later. Events will take place in the Village as well as on the Olympic Park's Esplanade. 

Gabrielle Rondy, the head of the Village's Société de développement commercial District Central, the SDC du Village, said she hopes the festival will give the neighbourhood a much-needed boost after three years of pandemic.

"Pride Week for the Village is like the Super Bowl," Rondy said. "We're hoping this year, you know, after last year was cancelled, we're hoping this will be like a big hug of love for all the community." 

More than 100,000 people are expected at this year's parade, Gamache said.