Montreal Pride organizer says parade was cancelled because hiring staff was 'never done'
CBC
The reasons behind the shocking, last-minute cancellation of the Montreal Pride festival can be boiled down to a simple yet glaring oversight, according to the event's lead organizer: a failure to hire security staff.
The parade was cancelled on Sunday morning, just hours before it was set to kick off.
In an interview with CBC Montreal's Daybreak host Sean Henry, Simon Gamache said that was when he learned "about 100" security staff needed to monitor the parade route had never been hired.
"It was never done," said Gamache, Montreal Pride's executive director.
"It's something we're going to investigate. As you can imagine, we're taking it very seriously. I don't want to speculate at this moment," he said.
"Obviously, I am the executive director for this organization so ultimately I am the person responsible for this."
With tens of thousands of expected spectators and participants left disappointed — some holding impromptu events on their own — Gamache is left having to explain what went wrong, why and what it all means for the future of the organization.
Gamache, who has been executive director of the organization for less than a year, said Montreal Pride had enough resources to complete the hiring process, but for some reason the task was overlooked.
Sunday's march would have been the city's first large-scale Pride parade since the start of the pandemic.
Initially, Montreal Pride had tweeted that the decision to cancel the event was made in collaboration with Montreal police. The organization later corrected its statement, saying the decision was made by the organizers alone.
The cancellation caught a lot of people off guard, including Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
"If we had been made aware of the lack of staff or anything else, [we] would have put in the necessary energy," the mayor said during a news conference on Sunday.
"My frustration this morning is realizing that it seems there were decisions made, but we were never informed, and that's disappointing."
In a tweet, Montreal police emphasized that it was not involved in the decision to cancel the parade and that it was ready to help with event security.