Tantramar seems poised to move ahead with plans for this year’s Pride Parade in Sackville.
At last week’s committee of the whole meeting, council unanimously voted to send a proposed street closure for the annual parade to its July 14 regular meeting for final approval.
If approved, the parade will take place Monday, Sept. 21 as part of Pride Week. Participants will gather at Mount Allison University before marching along York Street and Main Street to the Tantramar municipal office, where a Pride flag raising is planned.
Matt Pryde, Tantramar’s director of active living and culture, explained the reason Pride Week is held in September.
“That’s when the students are here, and they really make up the bulk of the participants in the parade.”
Pryde also told council, “We’re looking at ways to grow Pride Week and make it more than just the parade.”
Sackville has held annual Pride celebrations for more than a decade. The town held its first official Pride flag raising in 2012, and annual Pride parades have become a regular part of the community calendar in recent years.
One notable chapter in that history dates back to the mid-1980s and 1990s when Mount Allison professor and United Church minister Eldon Hay became a leading advocate for LGBTQ+ rights after his son came out. Hay helped establish early Maritime chapters of PFLAG in 1996, received the New Brunswick Human Rights Award in 1997, and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2003 for his work supporting gay, lesbian and bisexual Canadians
