Ottawa’s annual Pride parade was cancelled on Sunday after pro-Palestinian activists blocked the route near Parliament Hill and issued demands to organisers.The group Queers for Palestine – Ottawa (Q4P) stopped the march with what they said was the permission of the parade’s grand marshal. According to CBC, standing with banners and Palestinian flags, they chanted “This is what a village looks like!”, a nod to the parade’s 2025 theme, “We are a village.”Q4P demanded that Capital Pride commit to hosting a “boycott, divestment and sanctions” town hall, back cultural and academic boycotts of Israel, and push Ottawa’s mayor and other officials to apologise for boycotting Pride in 2024.“We are in the parade today to affirm very clearly that our Pride is not for sale, and that 2SLGBTQIA+ communities will not accept sponsors and elected officials dictating what we stand for,” the group said in a press release.Protesters also held a giant banner reading “All of us or none of us” and “Stonewall was an intifada,” while chanting slogans such as “No Pride in genocide” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” reported the Ottawa Citizen.By around 2:30 pm (local time), Capital Pride announced the remainder of the parade had been cancelled. As per CBC, a spokesperson later confirmed that rerouting was not possible after the march began and that road closures were only in place until 4 pm (local time).Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, who joined the parade, called the cancellation “deeply regrettable.” In a statement, he said, “My heart goes out to the many people in our city who were deprived of the opportunity to participate in this celebration of joy, resilience, and community.”The confrontation follows last year’s controversy when Capital Pride issued a statement condemning both Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The Jewish Federation of Ottawa labelled the statement “antisemitic” and withdrew support, prompting other groups and officials, including Sutcliffe, to boycott the 2024 parade. Although the statement has since been removed from Capital Pride’s website, organisers cited by CBC last week said they still stood by their “principles and values.”As per the Ottawa Citizen, more than 7,000 people from 175 groups had signed up to march this year. Many expressed disappointment at the abrupt end, with parade-goer Stefania Wheelhouse saying her group only walked a block and a half before being stopped, “We are bummed, of course, but we had a blast for the block and a half that we walked.”Despite the cancellation, the Pride street festival on Bank Street carried on until 8 pm (local time), with music, community stalls and performances.
