The joyous rebuke and rainbow diplomacy of Montreal Pride

MONTREAL—“A small minority—angry, frustrated group of racists—don’t get to define who we are as a country.” It seemed so easy when Justin Trudeau said it. No prevaricating, no moral equivalence, no discernibly conflicted allegiances. Just a direct statement summing up the moral principle and stakes at hand. Trudeau made that statement about a looming Quebec white supremacist rally Sunday and other recent demonstrations, in a joint news conference with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar before the two headed to the Montreal Pride parade. In a bit of landmark rainbow diplomacy, Varadkar, the first gay Taoiseach (prime minister), was also the first foreign leader to march in a Canadian pride event with the PM. The fact that Varadkar was marching in a city with such a deep Irish footprint—from the shamrock in its four-founding-peoples’-flag to the storied links between the West End Gang and Boston’s Winter Hill Gang to St. Patrick’s Basilica, which occupies a front-row seat on the parade route—was beautifully symbolic. The Ancient Order of Hibernians circa 1990 would’ve thought a gay taoiseach ever starring in Montreal’s Pride parade about as likely as...never mind. People in the crowd Sunday seemed to be there for the love. Love of community, of diversity, of music, and of resiliency. Grandmothers walking with canes, families gay and straight with babies in strollers, people of all ages, colours, and Tim Hortons beverage orders vibing to, among other atmospheric attractions, gorgeous weather and an agreeable absence of Nazis. The event began decades ago as an annual act of defiance. It then became the gay community putting on a show for the rest of the community. It has evolved into an exuberant declaration of solidarity, with no us-and-them demarcation between the marchers and the spectators, no distinction between the community and the Community. Pride now goes both ways. Flying the rainbow flag is now clearly an annual corporate imperative, with the staff of major banks, car companies, and legacy institutions including the Canadian Armed Forces dancing along with marchers from synagogues, churches, and, really, just about everybody but the Nazis. At a time when certain interests are seeking to divide and conquer groups within democracies by using fear and toxic melodrama, when retrograde threats are being revived to rewind progress, the Montreal Pride parade felt like not just a joyous rebuke but also a model. It was like a non-violent one-two punch after the marches in Boston, Vancouver, and elsewhere Saturday that dwarfed rallies intended to give free speech a bad name by defending it to spread hate. It’s as though people have taken to heart Martin Niemöller’s “First they came for the socialists…” quotation deploring the humanitarian myopia that enabled the original Nazis to industrialize evil on a multinational scale and are choosing “all for one” over “every man for himself.” Trudeau hasn’t been better than U.S. President Donald Trump at dealing with white supremacism because he’s a liberal and a Canadian. Aside from his apparent lack of conflict of interest, Trudeau evidently uses his imagination to empathize with and defend the rights of people who are not like him—women and Syrian refugees, among others—as opposed to fearing what their empowerment could cost him because he views power as a zero-sum game. Mr. Trump might be surprised to know that it’s not just a Canadian thing. It’s not even just a white-guy thing. It’s the same moral imagination that animated Barack Obama’s 2004 speech in Boston that made so many people, everywhere, stand up and cheer in their living rooms. Lisa Van Dusen, associate editor of Policy Magazine, was a Washington columnist for The Ottawa Citizen, Washington bureau chief for Sun Media, and international news writer for Peter Jennings at ABC World News Tonight, as well as an editor at AP in New York and UPI in Washington. The Hill Times