Dozens of people gathered at the Conservation Park on Saturday to celebrate the third annual Pride festival in Greater Napanee.
The event, which has seen growing support in town over the last two years, saw its first ever parade over the weekend. Speeches by local politicians were followed by a two-kilometre march across the waterfront trail, after which some attendees headed down to the Strathcona Paper Centre for an evening drag show.
The festival marked the start of Pride month. It also comes on the heels of recent survey data that shows support for LGBTQ2 rights in the country is declining.
About 49 per cent of respondents of 1,000 Canadians surveyed in an Ipsos poll said they agreed with people being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity. That puts Canada in the bottom 10 of the 26 countries measured in the survey. It’s also down 12 percentage points from a similar poll in 2021.
“It is a wonderful celebration and it turned out to be an absolutely glorious day,” said Ric Breese, the MPP for the Hastings, Lennox, and Addington, to a crowd of attendees by the park’s pavilion.
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“I know you’ll have fun. … Enjoy the day. Be proud.”
Town Mayor Brian Calver said the event enables the community to make a statement to the world.
“Greater Napanee is the place to be where everyone can feel proud and welcomed for who they are,” he said.
Tiffany Lloyd, vice chair of Greater Napanee Pride, said she isn’t worried about any backlash from the community at large. Instead, she said the community has grown to be more supportive and accepting. That’s something attendees say they want to show to the rest of the country — that rural living doesn’t have to clash with who they are.
“It’s difficult sometimes, when you’re outside a large city, to get that representation. But the community has come out,” said Kathryn Anderson, an event volunteer from Ottawa. “Pride is a protest. (It’s) saying that we’re here, we’re not going anywhere.”
For Lloyd, the event and the support from the community has meant everything, “from our elected officials down to the people that live here in this community.”
— with files from Global’s Simon Little and Alissa Thibault
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