Canadian PM Justin Trudeau set to make history as he joins Toronto Pride March
Image: Justin Trudeau, then part of the opposition, marching in the 2013 Pride March in Toronto. (Image source: www.liberal.ca; taken by Adam Scotti)
JUSTIN Trudeau will become the first Canadian Prime Minister to take part in an LGBTI pride event when he attends the Pride Toronto parade in July.
Executive Director of the parade Mathieu Chantelois believes this may be the first time any sitting leader of a country has taken part in a pride parade.
“[It’s] big news in Canada but big news around the world,” Chantelois told Buzzfeed News.
“Not only because he is probably the sexiest politician alive but also because there has never been a leader of a country to walk in a parade, at least not that we know of.”
Trudeau has previously participated in pride marches in Toronto and Vancouver and while he was in opposition.
“When we met him in his office, he was really serious about talking about trans rights, about equal rights, about immigration, about gay men donating blood,” Chantelois added.
“All these things are very important topics for him.”
The parade will also feature LGBTI Syrian refugees, after the Canadian government set special provisions for gender and sexuality diverse Syrians fleeing the civil war.
The Canadian Government, which has pledged to accept 25,000 refugees, plans to not accept unaccompanied males for security reasons — except in the case of gay men.
Gender and sexuality diverse people face persecution in Syria from the Assad regime, Daesh, as well as from a number of rebel groups.
It is unknown whether a sitting national leader has visited a gay pride event before now, but in 2014 Iceland’s Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, herself an out lesbian, opened the Rainbow Reykjavik festival.
Twenty per cent of Icelanders typically attend Rainbow Reykjavik in a given year.
There have been three gay or lesbian world leaders: Sigurdardóttir of Iceland, Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo of Belgium, and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg.
Bettel is the only openly gay national leader currently in office.
The Star Observer has contacted the office of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to see if he will be marching in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, which takes place in his Wentworth electorate and a few months before Pride Toronto.
Abolishing section 159 (the anal sex law) of the Canada Criminal Code and discrimination/hate crime protections for gender identity or expression should be a top priority for the federal government of Canada. But as per usual no comment from the government on these issues! The centre-left Liberal party is in power now, so they have no excuses now!