Pride Parade 2007

This morning I assumed that I was going to be posting about the Vancouver Pride parade and how I regretted missing it. However, after getting into the office and seeing what work I had to accomplish I realized that attending the parade was easily within the scope of what I wanted to do today. So after a brief chat with my wife (determining when/where we would meet up) I set out of the office.

In typical fashion, I would be arriving mere moments before things would get started, so finding that ideal spot to view the parade really was more of just finding ANY spot where we were able to see the road and still be in the shade. My wife did find a spot and we were able to enjoy most of it before I eventually had to start heading back to the office.

The parade started slow, I thought. Basically just a bunch of motorcycles running up and down the street at first. Still, they got the crowd started and it definitely added to the grass roots flavour of the event. Later the more substantiative floats passed by, including ones representing various public institutions such as public transit, police, firefighters and more. The mayor was in attendance, spinning circles in his wheelchair. I found it amusing to note that virtually EVERY union in town was also in the parade, almost immediately following Sam the mayor. In case you haven't put the two together yet, we still have that city workers strike underway, yet here we had most of the parties required for the negotiations off gallivanting in the sun instead of settling matters of business. Oh well, at least the unions were following Sam's lead.

This was my first chance to attend a pride parade and I am glad that I did. One of the things that make Vancouver such a great city to be in is its tolerance. Even though this was a fun celebration, there were still hints of sadness, like the float that was holding a moment's silence for those lost to AIDS or the other group highlighting the persecution of homosexuality in other countries where it is often punishable by death or torture. So long as stuff like that is still a reality, I guess we will still have a need for parades like this.