Pride Week and Pride Month began in Prince Albert with the Pride Parade and Pride in the Park on Saturday.
Prince Albert Pride Chair Chelsea Bleau said they were excited to see all the supporters and allies of the LGBTQ community who numbered in the hundreds.
“We got here and it was a really good morning. Everything went super smooth,” Bleau said.
“I know in past years there have been quite a few more people at the parade and here at the park, but we’re also overlapping with Moose Jaw and Meadow Lake today,” they added.
Saskatoon Pride was in attendance as the two Pride events occasionally overlap.
According to PA Pride, the number of people in the Parade was well over 200. Bleau expected to be on the move until early in the morning.
Pride Week had important themes for the LGBT community this year.
“We chose self-care and community care as our theme this year,” Bleau said. “We had a lot
of different ideas and as a board, (and) we decided that that was absolutely the best one because that’s what we really need right now
“Self-care involves caring for ourselves and taking care of our mental health and making sure that we’re all good, but Community care is especially important because we need a really strong allyship right now.”
The Parade, as always, began at the Court of King’s Bench and ended at Kinsmen Park for Pride in the Park.
Pride in the Park opened with prayers from Elder Liz Settee and Nora Vedress of Calvary United Church. Some speeches were read by other members of Prince Albert Pride and UR Pride representative Ariana Giroux, there were also speeches from former MLA for Prince
Albert Northcote Nicole Rancourt and Vice-President of Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation Nathan Bromm.
Bleau said that all of the support showed strong allyship.
Having a happy day after a tough year for the LBTQ community is a positive thing, according to Bleau.
“I feel like after such a tough year, it really like when all the whole crowd shows up and
everybody’s smiling. It just goes to show that we will be okay no matter what,” Bleau said.
“It’s divided all across the country right now, but everybody’s got smiles on their faces today and the community care is really, really showing.”
Late in 2023 PA Pride created an Advocacy Committee and launched their own Year of
Advocacy, which was led by event emcees Troy Parenteau and Alex Zahara.
“They did a fantastic job,” Bleau said. “Alex did an awesome job going through some facts and they’ve just done such a wonderful job this year with the advocacy committee. We’ve
done a lot of presentations for organizations in this city, like YWCA I did one for the mental health and addictions program at Sask Polytech, which was awesome.”
The event had a long list of sponsors and supporters and that was because of the work of the Pride organizers.
“The sponsors were crazy this year. It was a very long list. We worked really hard to get in touch and personally connect, especially with local businesses and it was like there was so
much support in Prince Albert,” Bleau said.
“It was so reassuring and so empowering. Every year people show up and they know that that community care is needed to put on big events like this and they did a fantastic job and we are just so thankful to our sponsors.”
The event was also supported by the Prince Albert Police Service who provided an escort for
the Parade.
Other Pride Week events included the Calvary United Church Diversity Service on Sunday, and the Pride at the Rock Trout All Ages Show on Thursday, June 6 featuring Cupid’s Heart, Burning Pallets and LJ (Tyson). Events will continue throughout the week and month in Prince Albert.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca