'That’s extortion': Ontario mayor refuses to pay $5,000 fine for not flying Pride flag

The mayor of Emo, Ontario is fighting back after a tribunal of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) fined his township $10,000 and himself $5,000 for not flying a “Pride” flag during Pride month in June 2020.

The tribunal ruled against the Mayor Harold McQuaker and Emo in November and decreed that both must pay the LBGTQ group "Borderland Pride” in order to compensate the group after it asked the town council to honor Pride month by raising the rainbow flag. In addition to the fine, the mayor is expected to undergo a Human Rights 101 indoctrination course and to arrange for a drag queen story hour at his local library. McQuaker is telling the tribunal to forget those measures as well.

“I utterly refuse to pay the $5,000 because that’s extortion,” McQuaker told the Toronto Sun Monday. As for whether the town will pay the remaining $10,000, that will be up to the town council to decide on Tuesday. “I have a lot of respect for our four councillors,” the mayor told The Sun. “We have a special meeting of council, and they will decide that and what to do next. Either pay the fine or appeal it?”

The story has gone viral around the world and has been reported in media outlets from Fox News to dozens of YouTube podcasts.

“The Township shall pay to Borderland Pride the sum of $10,000 as compensation for infringement of the Code,” OHRC Commissioner Karen Dawson said on Nov. 20 as she ruled against McQuaker and the town. “Mayor McQuaker shall pay to Borderland Pride the sum of $5,000 as compensation for infringement of the Code.”

Borderland Pride has been celebrating the decision as evidence that conservative rural areas of the province can’t just unilaterally decide to ignore the pressure from woke groups and left-wing government agencies. The group called the snub from Emo a “bigoted and discriminatory decision,” according to the Sun.

Douglas W. Judson, the director of Borderland Pride, had originally asked the tribunal to demand an apology from the town, mandate a“diversity and inclusion training for council, and a commitment to adopt Pride proclamations in the future without stripping out their 2SLGBTQIA+-affirming language.”

But McQuaker says there was another good reason for not displaying the flag. “I don’t hate anybody,” he told the Sun. “We just don’t have a flagpole at our town hall.”