Satisfaction Week proclaimed at metropolis corridor flag-raising ceremony

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The multi-hued “Progress” Satisfaction flag was raised at metropolis corridor and at a handful of different municipal areas Monday morning, formally proclaiming this Satisfaction week in Ottawa.

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Mayor Jim Watson, who got here out as homosexual in 2019, wore a rainbow T-shirt as he hoisted the colors at Marion Dewar Plaza. The ceremony was attended by a pair hundred supporters, together with a half-dozen councillors, MPs Yasir Naqvi and Mona Fortier, MPP Lisa MacLeod, appearing police chief Steve Bell, and the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen.

“That is kind of bittersweet,” admitted Watson, who isn’t operating for re-election. “I’m glad that the flag is up there, however alternatively, that is the final time that I’ll be the man who will get to crank it.

“The help I’ve acquired (since popping out) has been wonderful, like 95 per cent actually optimistic.”

Watching the mayor increase the flag was 12-year-old Avery Durocher, who took within the second whereas sporting a Satisfaction flag as a cape, waving a trans flag, his shirt adorned with pins bearing such slogans as “Rainbow sheep of the household” and “Let me be completely queer.”

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“I’m right here as a result of I wished to see the flag go up,” Durocher mentioned. “And I wished to see all of the supporters and all the opposite individuals, and to see how a lot the town cares in regards to the group. It’s necessary to acknowledge that the group has been by way of quite a bit, and it’s good to see that the town helps it.

“Comfortable Satisfaction!” added Durocher, who shall be taking within the Capital Satisfaction pageant occasions for the primary time this 12 months.

In the meantime, it was becoming, maybe, that the buoyant temper throughout Monday’s ceremony wasn’t dinted by a lone protestor with a megaphone, his trigger unclear past his repeated use of the phrase “genocide.”

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“Satisfaction has at all times been about protest,” mentioned Capital Satisfaction government director Toby Whitfield is response to the interruption, “and so protestors are welcome.”

Whitfield added that elevating the Progress flag was important for a lot of causes

“It’s necessary as a result of it serves as a visible reminder to the kickoff of Capital Satisfaction pageant, but additionally speaks to the necessity for progress. The flag itself consists of chevrons pointing left, and reminds us of the work that we nonetheless have to do as a group.”

 Ottawa-Centre MP Naqvi used Monday’s ceremony to announce a $150,000 grant, by way of the Federal financial Improvement Company for Southern Ontario’s Tourism Reduction Fund, to Capital Satisfaction to help six public artwork installations.

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“I don’t assume we will ever take inclusion as a right,” Naqvi mentioned. “We have to proceed preserve working at it. I nonetheless hear about homophobic incidents in our personal group, and we might assume that we’re in all probability some of the inclusive communities in Canada. So after we do issues like a delight season, we’re sending a really robust message that everyone should be handled equally.”

Capital Satisfaction’s festivities truly started Sunday at Hintonburg Park. The week options about 50 occasions and actions, together with a road social gathering, reside music, DJs, discussions, documentaries, poetry, artwork installations, storytelling and a pageant and drag present. It culminates on Sunday afternoon with the Satisfaction parade, with drag queen Icesis Couture as grand marshal, and activist Gillian Walsh as youth marshal.

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Outgoing Somerset ward councillor and overtly homosexual mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney, who took half in Monday’s flag ceremony, described the parade as their “homosexual Christmas.”

“I began coming to delight within the early ‘90s, and that was a time if you didn’t you didn’t truly register for a float,” mentioned McKenney. “You’d simply stroll up and down Elgin Avenue, and it was a time when the group didn’t essentially come out and line the streets and rejoice you. We simply celebrated one another, and I’ll always remember that first time being with individuals who have been like me; there have been individuals who had been afraid to return out and individuals who had struggled with their sexual orientation.

“However it’s important that we proceed to make sure that it’s an area the place individuals can be at liberty to protest. However on the identical time, it truly is such a celebration. And for me, that’s why it’s like a model of Christmas, the place it’s a giant celebration.”

College trustee Donna Blackburn additionally attended Monday’s ceremony. It was by way of her efforts after turning into a trustee in 2010 that the Ottawa-Carleton District College Board started collaborating within the parade in 2001. This 12 months’s parade, Blackburn mentioned, will mark the third time that the OCDSB will lead the parade and carry its flag.

“It’s about constructing group,” she mentioned. “It’s about all of us feeling pleased with who we’re, it doesn’t matter what our private circumstances.”

Go to capitalpride.ca for extra data.

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