A flood of revellers will pour into Toronto on Sunday for the city's 38th annual Pride parade, the first since police charged an alleged serial killer with the deaths of eight men with ties the LGBTQ community.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to pack a two-kilometre parade route that winds its way adjacent the entire length of Toronto's iconic Gay Village, down Yonge street from Bloor Street in the north to Dundas Street East in the south.
Organizers are using this year's celebration, which caps off an entire month of events throughout the city, to recognize decades of HIV/AIDS activism in Canada.
"In Toronto, Pride Month focuses on remembering our fight for survival; it's unending and every year its importance grows. In 2018 … we celebrate those organizations that have been created to support the community and continue to act as cornerstones for all of us," the heads of Pride Toronto said in a statement.
Returning Pride to its activist roots has been a priority for the current board of directors and many front-line LGBTQ organizations. While the parade has undoubtedly become a corporate affair, it began as an act of defiance and solidarity.
Those roots have come to the fore during recent years with the ascendance of social justice groups like Black Lives Matter. For the second consecutive year, uniformed Toronto police officers are barred from marching in the parade, an extension of a policy spawned from a 2016 Black Lives Matter protest at the event.
Police had in fact applied to participate in this year's parade, a move that garnered backlash from the LGBTQ community despite ongoing efforts behind the scenes to mend the relationship. Just weeks later, Chief Mark Saunders withdrew the application.
In an April interview with CBC Radio's Metro Morning, Pride Toronto's executive director was blunt about what caused another breakdown between police and LGBTQ residents.
"What changed? What changed was Bruce McArthur, to be honest with you. What changed was the re-emergence of that feeling, of that feeling of a lack of safety," said Olivia Nuamah.
McArthur, a landscaper, was arrested in January and subsequently charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. Most of his alleged victims were men who spent time in the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, also called the Gay Village.
McArthur's apprehension came less than two months after Saunders said publicly that there was no evidence a serial killer was preying on gay men in Toronto.
Five of his alleged victims were subjects of two separate missing persons task forces established by Toronto police. As Nuamah and other activists have outlined, some in the LGBTQ community felt that concerns about the disappearances of men from the village were downplayed or outright ignored by investigators.
A contingent of marchers dressed entirely in black will follow behind the main parade this year in what organizers are calling the Until We're Safe March in a "tribute to community members lost as well as those who continue to feel unsafe in the community."
There will also be a moment of silence for LGBTQ victims of violence when the parade concludes at 3 p.m. ET.
Politics of Pride
Breaking from recent custom, Ontario's premier-designate Doug Ford will not attend this year's parade. During the provincial election campaign, Ford said he would consider going if uniformed police were allowed to participate.
The position is in keeping with that of Ford's late brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, who used to tell reporters that he couldn't attend the parade because it always fell on the same weekend as his annual family getaway to cottage country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a frequent presence at Pride events across Canada, won't be in Toronto for the parade either. Instead, he will be in Quebec for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations.