Halifax Pride overhauls board, promises parade will go ahead in 2024

After a turbulent year that raised questions about the future of Halifax Pride and saw the weather-related cancellation of its annual parade, the organization is making significant changes in hopes of a successful 2024 event.

On Monday, Halifax Pride announced it has rehired former operations manager Fiona Kerr, who resigned from her role in 2022, in hopes of getting the organization back on track for next year. 

"I'm excited to share with everyone what we've been doing, and the work we're getting ready to do, and to let people know that there are plans in the works, that there will be a festival, there will be a parade [and] there's something to look forward to," Kerr said.

The announcement follows an overhaul of Halifax Pride's board at the organization's annual general meeting in October.

At that meeting, Kerr said several concerned former Pride members and community leaders decided to stand together, resulting in six new individuals joining the board, and the election of Adam Reid, the former Halifax Pride executive director, as chair.

"It's been a little bit of a rocky year for the organization," Kerr said, adding Halifax Pride had been operating on a strictly volunteer basis following the departure of her and Reid.

"I think they definitely needed a group of people with a lot of experience who could get something off the ground quite quickly. And I think they just had a lot of things working against them."

Communication was a problem for the previous leaders of the parade. Up until just weeks before the scheduled parade date in July, there were questions swirling in the community around whether it would go ahead, triggered by unanswered questions by organizers.

The parade nearly did go ahead in the end, but was postponed following July's historic floods in Nova Scotia and never rescheduled. 

Kerr said her first order of business as operations manager will be re-establishing communications with the public, working to secure grant and sponsorship funding, and reaching out to those who had paid to register for the 2023 parade and offering refunds.

Community stepped up 

Daniel MacKay, a community member who runs Halifax's Queer Encyclopedia and publishes Wayves Magazine, was a vocal critic of the previous board. 

He said that even without an official Pride festival this year, the community was more than capable of stepping up to fill the void, hosting what he believes were more Pride-related events than ever before.

But he's pleased to see things return to normal and expects Pride will happen again next year with these changes.

"I have full confidence that they're going to do the parade," he said.

A public meeting to discuss the changes will be held on Thursday night for all interested parties.