Mayor John Tory has written a letter to the Toronto Police Association expressing his support for continuing police participation in Toronto’s Pride parade. The letter comes in response to an incident during this year’s parade, when Black Lives Matter protesters blocked the parade until a Pride representative signed a commitment to ban police floats and booths from future Pride events. until Pride officials agreed to their demands, among them a ban on police floats at future marches. “I am confident Pride and its supporters, including me, will be successful in seeing this participation continue in the years to come.”During Sunday's Pride parade through downtown, members of Black Lives Matter Toronto — who Pride organizers had made honoured guests at the event — stopped floats and marchers at Yonge and College Sts. “I for one appreciate both the support for Pride and all that it represents coming from the police officers who march as well as the professional way in which they have kept Pride and its participants safe all these years,” Tory wrote to TPA president Mike McCormack on Tuesday, in a letter obtained by the Star.

Source: thestar July 06, 2016 13:52 UTC