Vancouver Asked To Confer Civic Status To Gay Pride Parade In Effort To Cover More Costs

The Non-Partisan Association PA is calling on the city of Vancouver, British Columbia to pay their part in the upcoming Pride Parade, and the city does not necessarily disagree, The Province reporting Sean Bickerton, council candidate for the NPA, would like Vision Vancouver to grant Civic status to at least three different parades which attract more than 50,000 people. That would mean core costs such as policing and sanitation would be covered by the city. “These are all volunteer, non-profit organizations that are reconstituted every year . . . and they have a tremendous burden just organizing the logistics for the parade and finding enough fundraising and sponsors to pay for the whole thing,” said Bickerton. 2010 Pride Parade organizers paid the city of Vancouver $58,425 last year for police services, transit, park permits, and sanitation. While Bickerton feels parade organizers should pay for park permits and transit costs, he says the core costs of police and sanitation (which cost Pride 2010 organizers “between $35,000 and $40,000”) should be shouldered by the city. “It’s the second largest parade in Western Canada, the second largest civic event in the city’s calendar. It attracts 640,000 people, is a main driver for tourism. . . . We believe there is tremendous benefit in this,” Bickerton said. Councillor Tim Stevenson of Vision Vancouver says that while he supports the initiative, the money just isn’t there — especially when other parades, such as the Chinese New Year Parade and Vancouver’s Vaisakhi Parade, among others, will also want to be granted Civic status. Currently, only the Celebration of Lights fireworks competition and the Grey Cup Parade have Civic status. “I’ve been in discussions for a fair bit of time, both in this council and others before about this, and, of course, as a gay person I’m supportive of what we can do to help the Pride Parade out, given it does bring in hundreds of thousands of people in the city,” Stevenson said. “But where does that money come from in our budget? We don’t have any room for that at the moment in the budget so we’d either be looking at having to drop some other things we’re doing right now to pay for it or, ultimately, we’d have to increase our taxes,” Stevenson said. Stevenson says each of these parades gets a grant, although he is not sure how much. “I’m certain the grants wouldn’t equal the costs,” said Bickerton, who thinks he knows the answer to the funding question.“This administration has a Car-Free Days budget of $600,000 a year in spending, and that could easily absorb a few tens of thousands of dollars in costs,” Bickerton said. Stevenson says the costs would be in the “hundreds of thousands,” but is supportive of funding these parades as long as the money falls within “the fiscal reality that we find ourselves in.” Stevenson, who is proud to say he has been “running as an openly-gay man” since he was an MLA in 1996, has organized past events at city hall for Vancouver’s Gay and Lesbian community and says it’s “a bit rich” the NPA would be making such a stance. “This is the first time I know the NPA has spoken out on issues about gays and lesbians,” said Stevenson. “They have not been at all supportive nor have they been forthcoming and I think . . . Sean Bickerton doesn’t have a history in the NPA and doesn’t know they cancelled these events under [former NPA mayor] Sam Sullivan.” Bickerton disagrees, saying “The NPA is proud to have the first gay councillor [Alan Herbert] elected. We’ve had a proud tradition . . . of diversity and celebrating that diversity.”