Montreal Pride Parade bans Jewish groups from march over 'spreading hateful discourse'

Fierté Montréal, the group that organizes Montreal's Pride Parade, has banned the Jewish LGBTQ+ group Ga'ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) from participating. Fierté Montréal's statement said that they "made the decision to deny participation in the Pride Parade to organizations spreading hateful discourse."

Fierté Montréal reasoned that they "express their support for oppressed peoples, particularly the Palestinian people, and their opposition to genocide." Fierté Montréal has been running the Pride Parade in Montreal since 2007.

In the 2024 Pride Parade, activists supporting the Palestinian cause carried the flags representing the Palestinian people and chanted "free Palestine." These activists shut down the parade for an hour. The pro-Palestinian LGBTQ groups urged Fierté Montréal to take a pro-Palestinian position. They also targeted Fierté Montréal's corporate sponsors, National Post reported.

In a translated Instagram post, the group said, "We refuse to allow the spaces of the Fierté Montréal to be instrumentalized in the context of a conflict that involves major violations of fundamental human rights." They further expressed "solidarity with the Palestinian people” and demanded "an immediate and lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Carlos Godoy of Ga'ava said the prohibition was "a very hateful decision" that told "Jews that they can't walk together in the Montreal Pride Parade." Godoy reached out to both the Quebec government and sponsor TD Bank to condemn the exclusion.

The decision to ban the Jewish groups from Pride also faced backlash from pro-Palestinian activists who said that the anti-Israel stance was not genuine.

Lawyer Samya Amrani, who is part of a breakaway group called Wild Pride Montreal, said, "Please don’t be fooled friends — it’s a reaction to an internal crisis because they were going to lose all their employees and because artists and groups are withdrawing one by one. They don’t care about us, they never did. They just have no other choice."