Saskatoon Pride celebrations going digital for 2020

Saskatoon’s pride celebrations will be taking place online this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As pride month continues across Canada, organizers in Saskatoon are continuing to pivot a month’s worth of events online.

There will be no sprawling crowds in downtown Saskatoon, no colourful displays or shouts of support from the masses. Instead, there will be digital screens.

Saskatoon Pride co-chair Mike McCoy said preparations shifted in the last three months.

“Well, it hasn’t been easy,” he said.

“But at the same time I think that our issues around organizing and trying to have a public presence and connect people has been difficult for sure, but put against other issues that people are having with COVID-19, I wouldn’t want to complain too much.”

Nearly all of the events planned for pride week, June 14 to 20, will take place online. It all starts with the only physical event, a Pride Drive-in at the Saskatoon German Club on June 14th. Then a virtual version of the popular Pride Latte happens a day later where artists, poets and musicians share LGBTQ+ messages and stories over a cup of coffee.

Spark Your Pride follows that, with the full-day event combining keynote speakers, discussions, workshops and musicians. There’s also a trivia night and a two-spirit ball.

The week culminates with the annual parade on June 20th that would normally take over downtown Saskatoon, but instead will happen online at noon.

Spending five minutes listing off the various events is proof to McCoy how large pride celebrations have become in Saskatoon.

“It not only amazes me, it scares me a little bit at this point because it’s all new,” McCoy said. “We are working with some good people on the technology of it — I think we’ve been telling people that our first criteria for success is that we’ve even got this far.”

Not being able to see the thousands of happy faces along the parade route is going to affect McCoy the most.

“Just the idea of feeling the energy of five or 10 thousand people or more on the streets of Saskatoon at one time,” McCoy said. “That sort of re-energizes you for the year ahead.”

With large protests and demonstrations taking place across the world following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, the urge to ignore health protocols and hold physical celebrations has been largely ignored.

“We have noted that’s happening now, for sure,” McCoy said. “Some of our board and our leaders have participated (in the protests). We are certainly reassessing what we might be able to do, but at this point we haven’t made any sort of decision.”

Saskatoon police won’t be part of virtual parade

Saskatoon police won’t be participating in the online parade due to one of its officer’s conduct online.

On Friday morning, Saskatoon police chief Troy Cooper announced that one officer was placed on administrative leave for comments and posts on the officer’s personal social media account that “were harmful and offensive to the gender and sexually diverse community.”

On Saturday, Saskatoon Pride’s board issued a statement on Facebook condemning the actions of the officer. In the comments on the post, the board of directors responded to a question asking if the Saskatoon Police Service would participate in any future festivals.

“There will be no entry from the SPS in this year’s parade,” Saskatoon Pride responded. “Decisions for future years would be made by the elected board of that time.”