The group in charge of organizing Ottawa’s annual Pride parade pledged to join a boycott of Israel in support of Palestine.
In a statement published on their official social media, Capital Pride accused Israel of committing genocide and of using gay rights to hide alleged “human rights violations” against Palestinians.
The statement released on Tuesday disavowed Israel and pledged to adopt the Palestinian Boycott Divest Sanction movement’s list of organizations to boycott. It also pledged to “recognize the ongoing genocide against Palestinians” in the opening remarks of its events this year while working with partners to bring an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
The term genocide is a legal term in international law involving mass killings with the intent to eradicate a people. To this day not a single international court has found that Israel has committed a genocide against Palestinians.
“While our mandate is focused on queer and trans communities in the region, the violence and instability we are witnessing around the globe have had far-reaching impacts on many members of our local communities. These issues demand our collective attention,” the statement said.
Dan Pujdak, a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, is Jewish and a part of the LGBT+ community in Ottawa. He thinks picking sides in a foreign conflict falls well beyond Ottawa Pride’s mandate as an organization.
“The Pride parade is supposed to be a protest for LGBTQ rights and not a protest against Israel. By reframing pride to be about foreign matters instead of the safety and inclusivity of the Ottawa community…it does so at the risk of excluding the Ottawa community,” Pujdak told True North.
“If they want to get engaged in foreign matters, there are other avenues to do so other than a parade that’s supposed to be about celebrating the local community, which is their mandate.”
Capital Pride did not respond to True North’s questions or request for comment. However, its statement argued that the rising prevalence of hate crimes in Canada affects all minority groups which historically have been targets of hate.
“We are deeply concerned by the rising tide of antisemitism and Islamophobia we are witnessing here in Canada,” the statement said. “As a community facing rising levels of hate-motivated crimes, we know all too well how hate erodes our security. In this climate, we reaffirm that intolerance has no place in our events.”
Pujdak said that their statement points to a rise of antisemitism as a problem and then says nothing in their commitments to address the issue.
“The list of actions that pride Ottawa says that they are going to undertake don’t actually touch on antisemitism at all,” Pujdak told True North in an interview. “Antisemitism is a very real problem in Ottawa. It’s a very real problem across Canada right now. I would commend the organization if they undertook efforts to address it during Pride. But sadly, it’s just a floating statement with no action attached to it.”
Pujdak noted that 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes reported in Canada in 2023 were against the Jewish community, according to Statistics Canada, a 71% increase from the previous year, bringing the total to 900 reported hate crimes against Jews.
There was a 94% increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims according to the same stats from the previous year, reaching a total of 211, just over 16% of all the religiously motivated hate crimes reported last year.
“I understand that people are upset about the war overseas. It’s tragic. It’s difficult to watch, but that has nothing to do with Pride,” said Pujdak.
Aside from accusing the Jewish state of committing genocide, the Ottawa-based gay rights group claims that Israel is guilty of “pinkwashing,” saying that Israel gives human rights to gay and trans people so that it could “draw attention from its abhorrent human rights abuses against Palestinians.”
However, Capital Pride did not mention that homosexuality is criminalized under Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Pride events in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria were derailed by anti-Israel protests in July and Winnipeg Pride faced a blockade in June. One host backed out of a Pride event in St. Johns Newfoundland due to the local pride organization’s boycott of Israel, with one of the local business sponsors being forced to back out due to ties to Pepsico – one of the organizations boycotted by the movement.
Pujdak thinks the group’s board of directors should “take a step back” and engage with the Jewish community quickly before the parade in two weeks’ time. He thinks they should reassess what they are “really trying to achieve” and positively work towards that.
He said if they are genuinely dedicated to “getting it right” they still have time to take those steps.