Posted on 06/20/2006 9:09:20 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
Pride Festival Denied Funding Josh Pringle Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Organizers of Ottawa-Gatineau Pride Week say the future of the festival is in jeopardy.
The comments were made after a City of Ottawa committee rejected a request for 20 million dollars in emergency funding.
The Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee did approve 30-thousand dollars in city services and debt forgiveness.
Vice-Chair of the Pride Week Committee Tamara Stammis says the board will have to meet to decide their next step.
Stammis says the cash request was an important element for the festival.
Councillor Diane Holmes tells CFRA News "is this a matter of prejudice or not? I certainly hope not. But it certainly doesn't look good when we have supported and provided for two festivals that were also in sort of extreme circumstances."
The City of Ottawa recently provided funding to the Canadian Tulip Festival and the Franco-Ontarien festival.
Diane Holmes represents downtown, which is the most liberal part of Ottawa. The suburbs and rural areas would freak at any of this.
What's wrong with the gays paying for their own parade?
ping
Why would a parade cost millions of dollars?
They can't afford it, at least it seems that way...too little attendance and corporate backing and too much expenditures.
The left don't carry wallets. They use yours.
I wonder how many people in that city knew they were being ripped off by the gay parade.
Exactly. From my understanding, Toronto Pride Week (which gets about 100,000 people although they claim over 1 million) has government agencies as most of its top sponsors...and the city spends millions on it. Then again, that council is dominated by socialists...
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Pay to play
I'm not sure. I believe there are about 25,000 gay people in the National Capital Region (population 1.3 million). The suburban and (especially) rural areas surrounding the city are not supportive of such; much of the support comes from the urban cores of Ottawa and Gatineau.
We should convince them to follow Charlotte, North Carolina's (similar sized city) lead and create a pro-family religious event instead...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1622199/posts
What were the pride festival promoters planning to do with $20,000,000? Hire interior decorators to redesign the city of Ottawa? That's an awful lot of money - more money than would be necessary to stage any festival I've ever heard of.
I don't know if Harper has anything to do with it; it was never well-attended (compared to Toronto or Montreal). It had to do with City Hall primarily; likely conservatives representing suburban and rural wards shutting it down.
Mid-sized cities seldom have huge gay pride events.
TWENTY MILLION?
What kind of a festival are we talking about here?
EMERGENCY FUNDING?
Uhhhh, Go slow when you explain the 'emergency' nature of a 'festival' of any sort... Is the funnel cake franchise in trouble? The Leather Booth ready to topple? What sort of 'emergency' could require TWENTY MILLION?
O Canaduh!
Why should the government support homosexual propaganda and public indecency?
http://www.ottawa.ca/city_hall/mayor_council/councillors/index_en.html
The city councillors' e-mail addresses and phone numbers are on that site. Find out where they stood on the issue and congratulate the councillors who went against the motion. I'll see if I can find the list of who voted for and against.
BTW, according to the city documents, it was a $20,000 grant, not a $20M grant.
Twenty million dollars for a Gay Pride parade? I don't even want to know.
http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/csedc/2006/06-20/ACS2006-CCS-CSE-0005.htm
Here is the defeated motion at City Council - it was a $20,000 grant denied (reallocated to debt repayment).
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