It's been over three years now since a new team assumed office at Fierté Montréal. Working for an organization like ours means there is no "business as usual". Humility, active listening, and empathy are essential; you cannot slack off, there are no "typical" work week. Every day, my colleagues and I strive to amplify the voices of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in collaboration with a host of organizations whose missions, perspectives and tactics vary widely. To serve these communities, involving so many people — nearly 350 stakeholders — is quite demanding, but also incredibly stimulating.
We are in constant dialogue with the community sector, arts & culture, tourism and other economic stakeholders, including governmental agencies, Crown corporations, private businesses and above all, with 2SLGBTQIA+ community organizations, to whom since 2023 have had a voice at our general meetings. From 15 individual members in 2021, our membership boasts 133 organizations, including 74 voting members that are themselves community organizations. This type of governance, altogether a kaleidoscope of stakeholders, is, as far as we know, unique in the international Pride ecosystem.
But why do we work with quite so many people? It is because we fundamentally believe that anyone who wants to contribute to 2SLGBTQIA+ representation, inclusion and advocacy should not be left aside.
We need 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy organizations to fight for our communities. We need community organizations who have the capacity to reach the growing number of people who need their services. We need businesses to be proud allies of our communities. We need Montréal's diasporic communities to draw attention to a backlash against communities of sexual and gender diversity here and around the world. We need cultural institutions to program queer artists and curate queer artwork. We need affinity group from the private sector to uphold the dignity of people from our communities and respect their rights to the fullest.
And who are the people behind these associations and organizations? They are people, very often 2SLGBTQIA+ people, who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Every day, these are the real people my team and I talk to. None of them is just a logo.
How does Fierté Montréal fit into all this? What's our tactic? We provide a platform for it all to happen by producing the Pride Parade, the Community Days, the Festival, content, visibility agreements, support for community projects, event expertise and networking events.
I know that in reading the points I make above, some will argue that we are being too tough, while others say we're too soft. There is no consensus within the community on what the priorities should be in the movement for civil rights affecting sexuality and gender diversity, let alone on what Fierté Montréal should be for and what role it should play in that movement. Stonewall: 2025 or the biggest party of the year?
The Montréal pride movement has evolved from a demo to a large-scale festival. Since the very first activist march in 1979, artistic activities were organized in tandem. In 1993, during the city's festival-founding heyday, Divers/Cité emerged as the key entity and public funders along sponsors came on board. Starting in 2007, Fierté Montréal gradually assumed the role with which we have since been entrusted. The result is that today, public funders finance us to stimulate culture, tourism, and economic development — and, as an intended byproduct, progress in civil rights. In other words, any public money Fierté Montréal receives does not come from the same government sources from which community organizations receive their funding: Fierté Montréal is funded as a festival. And yet, these government grant/subsidies account for only 31% of our revenues. In fact, 24% of our funding comes from our sponsors, 11% from ticket event revenues, 7% from operating revenues and nearly 27% from the sales of relevant goods and services, helping keep costs lower. All this in a tightly managed budget of over $7 million.
This is not written to brag about our budget, nor to demonstrate how expensive it is to produce a festival of this scale. I just want to convey in simple terms where Fierté Montréal is at in 2025. In my humble opinion, I believe it should be a source of collective pride for communities to have access to such a platform for visibility. All the more so, as outlined above, since we have restructured our governance to ensure that diverse perspectives are heard so that our organization can keep up with the time and adapt within a societal context.
Again, there's no consensus on what Fierté Montréal should be — and sometimes, it feels like there a lack of comprehension about what we do. It's up to us as an organization to explain our work better.
Unfortunately, there are some instances when Fierté gets a lot of flack. Since last spring, some accusations have become quite public, sometimes even inciting hatred towards us. Towards our team. I watch employees, board members, contractors and volunteers, who work hard to advance our mission, get targeted personally or collectively and they suffer for it. I've been leading teams for over 15 years. Never have I encountered such an unbearable challenge with human relations. It is plain unacceptable.
I've long hoped that people would understand that Fierté Montréal works lucidly in an imperfect world in order to make it evolve, without falling into extreme or divisive rhetoric. It seems that this hope was naïve. So I am responding directly to the accusations we hear most often.
“Fierté Montréal is rich/loaded."
Fierté Montréal had been in the red for quite some time, forcing us to follow a strict financial recovery plan for the past two years. The size of the budget is adapted to the scope of our activities. There are no frivolous expenses. We do not have enough staff to meet the scale of community expectations, forcing us to rapidly evolve our business model and reallocate certain expenses to create new positions. Fierté Montréal is a non-profit organization that produces an overwhelmingly non-ticketed/free festival, presenting over 100 activities each year.
“Fierté Montréal is all white people."
“Fierté Montréal is racist.”
Since 2022, over 60% of the artists appearing on our stages are racialized people. Events highlighting the richness of these communities are systematically proposed. The board of directors is made up of a majority of racialized people, including the president, secretary and treasurer, as well as three committee chairs. Within the administrative team, two management roles are held by racialized people. As we create new positions, we are proactively reaching out to racialized/BIPOC communities to gradually diversify the team. A significant proportion of our 500 contract staff and 300 volunteers are from racialized communities; although we don't yet have the evidence, we aim to introduce voluntary self-identification surveys this year to track the evolution of our workforce. Anti-oppression training is offered to all Festival teams every year.
“Fierté Montréal is cisgender."
By 2022, around 20% of artists on our stages identified as trans or non-binary. This proportion is maintained year after year, with a constant renewal of artists. The Festival's programming features some events made by and for the trans communities. The Board of Directors and year-round/permanent team include trans and non-binary people, as does the Festival's seasonal contract team.
“Fierté Montréal encourages pinkwashing."
Any organization that partners with Fierté Montréal must demonstrate a genuine commitment to respecting the rights and dignity of 2SLGBTQIA+ people. We ensure that organizations make a genuine commitment to communities, without seeking to exploit 2SLGBTQIA+ causes solely to improve their image. We do not enter into any partnership agreement without in-depth discussions on the subject. Recently, we set up a mission alignment questionnaire, taking stock of our partners' progress in terms of equity, diversity and inclusion. When a company is not ready to ally with Fierté Montréal, we sometimes redirect them to organizations offering training or, in some instances, end discussions.
“Fierté Montréal is capitalist."
We all live in a capitalist world, a broken system that exacerbates all types of inequalities. Fierté Montréal was born into, and is still evolving, in this world. Rather than ignoring it, we have decided with clarity of purpose to work within this system to help reduce inequalities. The first step is to redistribute wealth in order to organize a festival, community projects and arts & culture initiatives that celebrate the creativity and resilience of our communities. This multivalent economic aspect is covered, and understood, by our financial sponsors and partners.
“Fierté Montréal is Zionist."
“Fierté Montréal funds Israeli organizations."
Fierté Montréal does not finance any Israeli organization, nor any international organization. Fierté Montréal does not take political positions at the international level. We listen to local 2SLGBTQIA+ communities who suffer directly or indirectly from geopolitical upheavals and conflicts and remain in solidarity within a safe and caring framework. This includes ensuring the safety of these people when they participate in our activities. Last summer, local pro-Palestinian queer groups and local Jewish queer groups wanted to take part in the Pride Parade, which, it should be remembered, is a form of protest that brings together people from all walks of life. As solidarity means ensuring the safety of all, we offered both groups additional security support so that they could march and express themselves in a safe manner. Fierté Montréal understands and honours the intention of 2SLGBTQIA+ community members whose actions show us the power activism has to change minds and influence decision-makers.
“Montréal Pride promotes police brutality.”
“Fierté Montréal is anti-police.”
“Fierté Montréal is pro-police."
Fierté Montréal is a pacifist and humanist organization that believes in respecting the dignity of every people and person. Ever mindful of our communities' safety during Festival, as part of our technical support agreement with the Ville de Montréal, we benefit from SPVM capacity, including local police stations, operational planning, emergency measures, and the Unit for Hate Incident and Hate Crime Reporting (MICH). In our current social context, it is not possible for a Festival primarily dedicated for marginalized people to ensure the safety of nearly 800,000 participants on its own. To this must be added a host of other private security measures. The SPVM is an important operational and strategic ally of Fierté Montréal. We learn from each other, without forgetting the mistakes of the past, in order to improve support for communities of sexual and gender diversity.
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We have put up with a lot of misinformation about Fierté Montréal over the past year. It was a mistake, we should have responded sooner. Many colleagues from community organizations came to us, demoralized by the rhetoric, wanting to support us, but begging us to speak up first. We will now respond to cases of disinformation. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
Freedom of expression is a right; disinformation is dangerous.
In the current context of trans and non-binary identities being denied or erased, increased bullying and polarization in schools, the elimination of fact-checking on social networks, disturbing rhetoric from political leaders on our side of the border, and the very real rollback of 2SLGBTQIA+ community rights around the globe, Fierté Montréal calls for our communities to seak common ground, i.e. to rebuild solidarity.
We do not have to agree on everything, but we do hope that, at a minimum, everyone respects personal dignity and diversity of tactics.
Otherwise, we give ammunition to racist, sexist, transphobic, lesbophobic, homophobic, biphobic, serophobic and anti-human rights forces.
In times such as these, we do not have time for divisiveness.
Simon Gamache
Executive Director, Fierté Montréal
