Latest news with #PrideToronto
CTV News
3 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Pride Toronto's $900K shortfall sparks NDP call for ‘stable' and ‘predictable' funding
With Pride Toronto facing a $900,000 deficit and warning next year's event could look drastically different, Ontario's New Democrats are urging the province to step up their financial commitment. 'The provincial government has largely left arts and culture funding the same since 2009,' Toronto Centre MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam, told CTV News Toronto. 'It hasn't kept up with the rate of inflation and any funding that the government says that they have infused is largely related to COVID activity, which was one-time funding.' The Ontario NDP says it has introduced a motion in legislature that calls for 'stable' and 'predictable' funding for major cultural events such as Pride Toronto, which they say generates enormous economic returns. While Pride Toronto has dominated headlines in recent weeks, Wong-Tam says it's part of a wider crisis stemming from over a decade of flat funding for Ontario's $26-billion arts and culture sector, which employs 270,000 people. 'Organizations like Pride Toronto, plus all the other major festivals in Ontario, have been struggling to gain access to provincial funding,' they said. 'What that means is that they are so much more reliant on corporate partnerships and what we've seen is that corporate partnerships can be fickle.' 'Not asking for a handout' In a press conference held last week, Pride Toronto Executive Director Kojo Modeste confirmed losses from organizations such as Google, Home Depot, Nissan and Clorox — some of whom, he says, already committed to participate in this year's events. He says the loss, combined with soaring costs and security expenses, pushed the festival's projected shortfall to nearly $1 million, straining their $5-million budget. 'We are not asking for a handout; we are asking for our fair share of the pie,' Modeste said, noting that Pride generates $200 million in taxable revenue. 'As we face our current challenge, we're not asking for much, we're asking for less than one per cent of the taxable revenue we bring in annually.' Some governments have already answered the call. The City of Toronto increased its annual funding by 35 per cent to $350,000 this year. However, Modeste said there's been little movement from Queen's Park or Ottawa. Insurance costs alone have jumped nearly 200 per cent since 2022, and Modeste told CTV that they now spend over $425,000 on security annually. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming wrote to CTV News Toronto suggesting that they have already provided funding to Pride Toronto this year. 'This year our government is providing Pride Toronto with over $450,000 including advertising space and sponsorships, which includes $335,000 in direct grant funding from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming – part of the over $1.9 million we have provided directly to the organization since 2018," they wrote in an email. 'In addition to funding for Pride Toronto, our government provides support to eight other 2SLGBTQIA+ events across the province.' More than just emergency relief The motion introduced by the NDP is about more than just emergency relief, Wong-Tam explains — it's about rethinking how Ontario supports a major employer and economic driver. 'Whether it's through the collection of tax revenues or the employment of people, arts and culture does a lot to hit above its weight, to foster tourism and to promote social cohesion and the economy.' Wong-Tam added that festivals like Pride not only activate public space but also contribute to Ontario's brand as a vibrant, inclusive destination — something that both the Conservative and previous Liberal governments haven't made a priority. 'I would say that the Government of Ontario has very little relationship with a juggernaut like Pride Toronto,' they said. According to Ontario Art Council, their share of government's budget stands at just $60 million, adding that 'OAC's base budget has been mostly at this level since 2009.' 'Perfect time for Canadian corporations' Without stable government backing, Wong-Tam warns Ontario risks undermining years of both cultural and economic progress. 'Would you rather reduce the GDP by $26 billion annually? Would you rather see the unemployment lines go up?' they said. 'If their answer is yes, then they're not civic-minded people.' Wong-Tam points to Quebec as a model, where provincial funding is more robust and integrated into long-term cultural planning. 'Can you imagine what we would have in Toronto and Ontario if governments stepped up with a strategic plan to infuse money into these festivals that hire hundreds of thousands of people in Ontario?' For now, the motion has not been scheduled for debate. But Wong-Tam said the urgency is growing. 'This is the perfect time for Canadian corporations to step up if they can,' they said.
Winnipeg Free Press
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘We will not go anywhere': Toronto Pride celebrations continue despite financial woes
TORONTO – A Toronto-born drag king says he has performed in Pride festivals worldwide, but there is one thing that keeps bringing him back to the city. 'There's so many different people that come from all over the world to Toronto Pride because it feels like everyone is welcome,' said the artist who performs under the name Krēme Inakuchi. But a major shift in corporate support now looms over the future of the largest Pride festival in North America. Pride Toronto said Wednesday it's facing a $900,000 funding gap due to sponsors pulling out and the rising costs of running the festival. Executive director Kojo Modeste linked the corporate withdrawals to backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States under President Donald Trump's administration. Though this year's Pride won't look much different than usual, Modeste said next year's festival is likely to be scaled down as a result of the shortfall – a move that will threaten its reputation and status. Google, Nissan, Home Depot and Clorox are among the companies that decided not to contribute funds this year. Google said its employees will still be marching in this year's Pride parade on June 29, while Nissan Canada and Clorox said they still support diversity and inclusivity initiatives. The Home Depot Canada said it 'continually reviews' its non-profit giving and decided not to contribute to this year's event. 'These companies that are pulling out, it just shows that they were never really with us to begin with,' the drag king said. For him, a smaller festival isn't something to be afraid of, but rather an incentive to increase solidarity within the LGBTQ+ community. 'We've been actually calling for Pride Toronto to divest from certain companies that are not supporting queer people all over the world, including people in Palestine,' he said. While not all queer organizations are facing the same financial woes as Pride Toronto, some community members say they understand why Pride events have become unaffordable. 'I think the organization has grown and grown, and then the budget gets bigger and bigger and you realize that it's getting to the point where it's just not going to be functional anymore and I think we might be there,' said George Pratt, chairperson of the Church Wellesley Village BIA. While Pride Toronto hosts some of the city's largest Pride events, it isn't the only group behind the celebrations. The Church Wellesley Village – commonly known as The Village – is a vibrant neighbourhood in downtown Toronto historically known for its ties to the city's LGBTQ+ community. This year, it's hosting Pride celebrations the weekend before Pride Toronto's main events, known as Village Fest. 'I can't say we're going to see an immediate impact this year because for Pride for years people have flocked to Church Street before and after the parade and it generally is a wonderful time for everybody,' said Pratt, although he acknowledged rising costs for smaller Pride events as well, especially when it comes to security. But other LGBTQ+ community organizers say Pride Toronto's loss of corporate funding still cuts into the spirit of public celebrations. 'Seeing the erosion of funding for queer culture is also an erosion of the confidence of every individual queer kid who's looking to figure out if this is a place that they can feel safe and cared for,' said ted witzel, artistic director for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, a queer theatre based in Toronto that's also running Pride events this year. The theatre itself still has 'deep support' from corporate and government partnerships that are fundamental to queer organizations, witzel said. 'The origins of queer performance are truly grassroots, but with investment from our communities, from donors, the government and corporate partners, we've been able to scale the work that happens in queer arts organizations,' witzel said. 'We've come from the grassroots and we know how to go back to the grassroots. I will not go anywhere and we will not go anywhere.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2025.
CBC
12-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
Pride Toronto links funding woes to Trump's anti-DEI agenda
Pride Toronto says the festival faces a major financial shortfall after multiple corporate sponsors pulled their support, which the festival's executive director links to American companies moving away from DEI efforts under the Trump administration.
Toronto Star
12-06-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
Toronto's Pride parade is meant to be a celebration. But some participants say there's ‘a sense of heaviness'
Lee Dizon remembers last year's Pride parade in Toronto well. He, along with other members of SIBOL Filipino-Canadian Pride Network, danced and waved Filipino flags as they marched through the downtown streets. Crowds of people cheered from the sidewalks while music from other groups marching echoed between the surrounding skyscrapers. 'It was really a pivotal moment,' Dizon recalled, noting SIBOL was the first-ever Filipino organization to march in Toronto's annual Pride parade. It was also the group's one-year anniversary. Marching was also memorable on a personal level. 'We marched last year, yes, as a group,' Dizon said, 'but then we felt like each of us had our own stories to tell.' ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW SIBOL will be part of the Pride parade this year on June 29, but Dizon said there is 'a sense of heaviness' amid the excitement to march again. With Toronto's annual Pride parade and festival around Church Street just under three weeks away, news of corporate sponsors pulling their funding as they simultaneously roll back DEI programs have put a damper on the spirits of Dizon and others in the city's LGBTQ community during what is typically a time of celebration. Corporate sponsors turning their back on Pride is partially why Pride Toronto says it has $900,000 less this year compared to last. Star Exclusive Pride Toronto loses two more corporate sponsors just weeks before festival launch Ana Pereira Headlines coming out of the U.S., along with some from elsewhere in Canada, on governments targeting and pulling back protections for trans and gender-diverse people have also not helped people's moods. 'It feels like things are moving in the wrong direction,' said Curran Stikuts, director of advocacy and strategic communications for The 519 community centre in the Village. Since February, multiple past corporate supporters of Pride Toronto have pulled their funding, including Nissan, Google and Adidas. Meanwhile, The Abnormal Beauty Company (owned by Estée Lauder) and Tim Hortons lowered their contribution amounts. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW For its part, Pride Toronto says this year's festivities won't be noticeably different, even as the organization has fewer corporate sponsors and higher costs associated with running a large-scale event. 'We are moving ahead full steam,' Kojo Modeste, executive director of Pride Toronto, told the Star last week. But if the organization is not able to make up this loss of funding, Modeste warned that the 2026 celebrations will be affected. At a press conference Wednesday, the director noted that some have stepped up to fill the gap — including the City of Toronto, local businesses and individual people who have donated more than $10,000 — but Modeste appealed for more help. 'This is an opportunity,' he said, 'to come and support to make sure that Pride remains a staple in the city of Toronto.' Millions of people come to Toronto every year for the Pride festival at the end of June, and Pride Toronto says its event is the largest in Canada and second biggest in the world. This year's festival will start on June 26, with most of the events and parades taking place from June 27 to 29. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Gta Thousands sing, dance and celebrate at Pride Parade until protesters strand marchers and floats mid-route Mark Colley Queer people from around the GTA told the Star that news of corporations pulling back their support in Toronto and elsewhere is concerning, but that it has reminded them of Pride's origins as a resistance movement — which dates back to the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969. 'For some it is a party,' said Alyy Patel, founder of Queer South Asian Women's (QSAW) Network. 'But that party has always been grounded in very political roots.' For Patel, Pride has always meant coming together with other queer people, particularly women of colour, to feel liberated in a 'powerful space.' Jansher Saeed added that this year's Pride is an important reminder that the queer community can't become too dependent on corporations for support. 'It's more crucial for us to think of Pride as a protest,' he said, 'as a space where we can build community and where we can support one another, especially in a hard time.' There has been a 'real hunger' from community members at The 519 for these opportunities to be around other queer people, according to Stikuts. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'We recognize as a community the need for that joy in these moments that feel a little bit more perilous,' he said, adding that people just want to 'play and have fun.' As SIBOL prepares to march in its second Pride parade in a changed cultural climate, Dizon said corporations and governments turning their backs on the queer community shouldn't stop him and others from celebrating their identities in public. If anything, it's a reason to keep making their voices heard. 'The fight doesn't stop here,' Dizon said, 'We have a long, long way to go. So continue fighting and continue moving.'
Toronto Sun
11-06-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
Pride Toronto forges ahead with $900K shortfall while looking for more sponsors
Pride Toronto Executive Director Kojo Modeste is pictured in his LinkedIn photo. ( Pride Toronto's shortfall has increased to $900,000 — a jump from $700,000 10 days ago — due, in part, to such corporate sponsors as Google, Nissan, and Home Depot pulling out. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account But the organization's executive director Kojo Modeste is hoping others will still come on board — including the province and the feds — with other sponsors like The Ballroom, No Frills, Shoppers Drug Mart and SEIU Healthcare Union now stepping up to the plate. 'We stepped up not only because others have stepped back but to send a very clear message — the fight for workers' rights is inseparable from the fight for 2SLGBTQIA rights,' SEIU spokesperson Kristof Baroz told reporters at a Wednesday morning Pride Toronto news conference at The Ballroom. Added The Ballroom's spokesperson Paul Donato: 'We're getting very much behind the Pride festival this year. It's a total privilege to be here. We're super excited to be working with the team. And we need to have a lot of fun this year. We need to raise a lot more money. And we just need to be kind to each other. We are all the same. We're all equal.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Modeste told the Sun on June 1 that the 2025 version of Pride is 'full steam ahead' but 2026 is 'definitely up for debate right now in terms of what we can expect next year in terms of changes.' 'The entire festival is just over $5 million,' Modeste said to reporters at Wednesday's news conference. 'We are currently in a shortfall of close to $900,000. As I said earlier, this is just not a result of sponsors pulling out and the reduction, but this is also the cost of doing business (insurance, policing etc). For the ones who walked away to date, they're going to have to demonstrate that they are ready, they have done their work, in order to come back.' As Modeste told the Sun on June 1, he believes some corporate sponsors are pulling out just as they are down south as they fear backlash from the Trump administration in the U.S. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Speaking to some of my colleagues in the U.S., they're seeing the same thing,' Modeste said. 'I believe that a lot of this has to do with the decisions coming out of the White House, I think, with regard to the queer community. These American-based companies are strongly afraid of the backlash that they will receive from the current administration.' Read More In a statement to the Toronto Sun on June 2, Home Depot said: 'We work with an extensive network of nonprofits made up of thousands of local and national organizations to amplify our support to the communities we serve. We continually review our nonprofit giving and decided not to contribute to this event this year with no agreement in place to do so.' Modeste already confirmed the City of Toronto is providing a $90,000 grant for 2025 through its the Cultural Festivals Funding Program in addition to the $260,000 it already approved for a total of $350,000 to date. Pride Toronto is the largest festival of its kind in North America, second only in the world to Brazil with three million people expected to visit the city in June and the Pride Parade final weekend drawing about two million people. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Celebrity NHL Editorial Cartoons Toronto Maple Leafs Music
