Winnipeg Pride parade draws 10,000

About 10,000 people flooded Winnipeg's downtown Sunday to take part in what organizers are calling the largest Pride parade in the city's history.

Former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray, one of Canada's most prominent gay politicians, kicked off the parade with a speech at the Manitoba legislature.

Murray extolled Winnipeg as a centre for human rights and urged the crowd to carry a spirit of tolerance as they made their way east along Broadway from Manitoba's seat of political power to The Forks, where the party was slated to continue well into the night.

"As long as we can move from tolerance to celebration and have the personal courage to be who we are and live for what we hope for, live for the people we love and do not live in fear, this country will continue to grow to be the human rights capital of the world," Murray said.

Murray, who was mayor from 1998 to 2004, is known as the first openly gay mayor of a large Canadian city. He recently became the MPP for Toronto Centre, a diverse Ontario neighbourhood.

The annual Pride event, celebrating gay, lesbian, transgendered and two-spirited people, has humble origins in Winnipeg.

Just 250 participants turned out in 1987, the parade's inaugural year in the city.