Pride Parade or Canada Day Parade?

Stand by for a Real Story deep dive into how Canada was transformed into a global safe haven for terror and extremism. But for this afternoon. . .

It didn’t have to be this way

Today is Canada's "Multiculturalism Day."

Having emerged as a healthy fact of life among Canadians in the years following the Second World War, by the 1960s multiculturalism had evolved to serve a useful purpose in challenging Canada’s dominant French-English metanarrative.

Without getting too deep into the weeds, and at the risk of oversimplifying things, here’s how we ended up where we are today.

Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal Party hitched the heavy wagon of federal multiculturalism policy to the horses of ethnic “vote-bank politics”, and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals oversaw the mutation of multiculturalism into a lavishly subsidized “diversity, equity and inclusion” strategy.

What all this ultimately required, among other things, was a federal policy of deliberate historical revisionism, rigid and officially-enforced speech policing, the deconstruction of Canada’s immigration and refugee system and the persistence of a hobbled, unserious and incoherent national-security establishment. To say nothing of a strange preoccupation with what are described generally as “2SLGBTQI+” issues.

Where we’ve ended up

Just one effect: Canada still hasn’t properly reckoned with the bloodiest act of terrorism in the history of aviation prior to the al-Qaida atrocities of September 11, 2001, the worst failure in security intelligence in Canadian history, the most outrageously bungled police investigation and the most humiliating rupture in the administration of justice in Canadian history.

We’re still not dealing with it honestly, we’re barely allowed to talk about it openly, and the monsters who committed the mass murder are still celebrated in the streets of Canada’s cities. I’m referring here to what fell out of the sky and landed in bits of fusilage and the sheen of jet fuel and 329 corpses in the sea on a Sunday morning 40 years ago, roughly 100 nautical miles southwest of County Cork’s Sheeps Head Peninsula: Air India Flight 182.

Flotsam and jetsam, All that was left after a Khalistani bomb was hidden in the baggage, at Vancouver International Airport.

The anniversary was this week, and it’s the subject of what I confess was a very angry column in the National Post yesterday. It’s a very personal story for reasons known to Real Story subscribers, and it sets the stage for the deep backstory I’ll have here in a couple of days. That upcoming piece will also get into a directly-related global sociopathology that has found safe harbour in Canada, which this newsletter’s subscribers and my National Post readers will be familiar with.

Because I was occupied with the Air India anniversary and the present-day implications of Khalistani terror, and because its release was embargoed to my usual column-filing day, the contents of this report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) was well covered by the Post’s Ari Blaff, here: Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar have established extensive network across Canada.

Because the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in Canada have ended up in my “beat” and I’ve been covering this stuff for years, I didn’t expect to find much I didn’’t already know, but there’s material in the 160-page report, especially about Qatar and Canada, that I knew almost nothing about. ISGAP’s done amazing work here.

Like the Khalistan file, this is also a bit of a personal story for reasons I don’t need to dwell on except to say the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t like me one bit. Neither does the at-long-last-terrorist-listed Samidoun organization (you’re welcome), which is also profiled in the report.

The ISGAP study’s sections on Islamist “lawfare” will illuminate why, for the moment, my ability to objectively report more than I already have about the Muslim Association of Canada, in the Post (for instance The Liberals are funding hate) has been somewhat encumbered.

But only somewhat, and it’s just protocol. A journalist shouldn’t report on an adversary plaintiff in a defamation case, no matter how transparently frivolous or vexatious or deliberately intimidating the complaint may be. I am wholly unencumbered here in the Real Story, though, so stand by for that.

What the hell is is the point of 2SLGBTQI+?

In the meantime, for the tragicomic side of all this, below is a guest post from our dear friend Fred Litwin. It’s immediately relevant, given their near confluence of Toronto’s upcoming Canada Day Parade with Toronto’s four-day Pride Festival and Parade, a cornerstone of Canada’s ‘diversity, equity and inclusion” preoccupations.

The Toronto festivities have been enlivened by an amusing rumpus over Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s “Don’t Shop At Home Depot” eruption over the decision by Home Depot and Google to pull its funding from the Pride extravaganza. Not to worry, though, Mayor Chow is boosting the city’s contribution to the “struggling” Pride organization by 62 percent over this year’s $350,000.

The Pride leadership is also embroiled in a similarly amusing conniption incited by its Queers for Palestine section, one of whose stalwarts is said to have been “physically attacked” by a Pride Toronto executive during a Queers disruption the other day. It seems the Queers for Palestine are upset that the Bank of Montreal, a festival bankroller, does business in Israel. Or something.

Anyway, here’s Fred.

Are there any gay people here?

By Fred Litwin

Yup, it’s that time of the year again. Pride season. And the Toronto Pride Guide asks the question, “We are all in. Are you?” Well, I am definitely not in. In fact, it seems that gay people are not really part of Pride at all.

There are many Pride events this year -- Rainbow Senior Pride, Newcomers Pride, Trans Pride, Asian Pride, Family Pride, Dyke Pride, Youth Pride, BI+ Pride, Two-Spirit and Indigenous Pride, Queer South Asian Pride, Pooch Pride (for dog lovers), Youth Pride Durham, and, of course, the all-inclusive Pride Parade.

There is also the 10,000-people rally which is “aimed at highlighting the growing oppression and discrimination faced by 2SLGBTQI+, indigenous, Black, POC, Immigrant, and Trans Communities.”

I think I know who is doing the oppressing, no? All of these events are to celebrate 2SLGBTQI+ people – gay people have now been relegated to just two letters.

The only event to celebrate gay men is the Gay History Walk. The organizers say that “although it covers mostly gay history, it should be of interest to the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community.” It figures that the only gay event at Pride looks backwards. Yup, there was a time when gay people walked amongst us.

The 2025 Pride Guide makes for some great reading. It not only has the obligatory land acknowledgment, but it also has an African Ancestral Acknowledgment in which they “pay tribute to those ancestors of African origin and descent.” All well and good. But how long will I have to wait until they include a Jewish Ancestral Acknowledgment? I’m even willing to chant it in Biblical Hebrew.

One of the co-chairs of Pride is leZliee lee kam who is “gender mysterious” and thus does not have or need any pronouns. Along with co-chair Nirmalen Vijeyakumar (he/him) they want us to join them at the “Two Spirit Powwow, our Community Connect events, the Trans and Dyke Marches, our mini Prides and the ultimate party Festival Weekend.”

The Executive Director of Pride, Kojo Modeste (no pronouns) says that he [have I misgendered him?] wants us to “highlight the rich history of 2SLGBTQI+ activism while amplifying the ongoing struggles for equality worldwide.”

If only that were true. That is about the only mention of the struggles of LGB people around the world. As I have long argued – isn’t about time we partied a little less at Pride and started to do something about the gay people around the world who are not only being discriminated but who also face execution if they come out. Homosexuality is criminalized in 64 countries with twelve of them having the death penalty for private same-sex activities.

Gay Pride has disappeared from the festivities.

The letter from Mayor Olivia Chow illustrates the problem. She writes “Pride began as a project when activists fought for equal rights and justice following the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids.” But those activists were gay and they fought for equal rights for gay people. It was gay men who were arrested in the raids, after all.

Gay men are now down to one letter, and who knows how long that will last?

This year, Pride has an International Grand Marshall -- Pau Gonzalez Sanchez, a trans masculine community leader in Panama. There are also four Trans Ambassadors: Cattleya Sage Keb, a proud transgender woman, Fae Johnstone, a champion for queer and trans rights, Pepper Espin (they/them) a non-binary opera singer and “peer support specialist,” and Lula Abdo, (she/her), a Yemeni trans advocate. Pride Toronto says she is a “beacon of resilience and empowerment.”

I have no idea what these trans ambassadors do.

But wait, there’s more.

Chelazon Lerous (she/he/they) is the two-spirit ambassador who is best known for her Auntie persona and TikTok posts. Jasper Bryan, a genderqueer expressive arts therapist, is the BI+ ambassador. The dyke ambassador is not named but is a “Black African lesbian, a survivor” and an advocate. Hale Nouri, a transgender woman from Iran, is the newcomer ambassador.

Haniya Amir, a Pakistani trans youth influencer, is the youth ambassador. Sharet lyengar, a gay man in recovery, is the sober ambassador.

I long for the day when where will be a gay ambassador. And so, I hereby announce that I am ready to serve.

Should I wait by the phone?