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Councillor targets Pride funding… again

Is it that time of year already?

In what’s becoming a rite of spring at City Hall, a councillor is vowing to withhold funding for this year’s Pride festival if controversial group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is allowed to take part, even if it means inviting legal action against the city.

On Tuesday morning the economic development committee voted without debate to award Pride Toronto $124,000 in funding this year. But the motion will go before city council next month for final approval, and Councillor James Pasternak says he’ll fight tooth and nail to stop any city money going to organizers if QuAIA is permitted to march in the Pride parade.

QuAIA has not yet registered to participate in this year’s LGBTQ festival, but according to media reports the group intends to file its application before the deadline expires on June 1.

While QuAIA bills itself as a queer Palestinian solidarity organization, Pasternak says the group is a political front dedicated to demonizing Israel.

“QuAIA is not welcome at our events. They don’t adhere to the values of respect and tolerance,” Pasternak told reporters Tuesday.

“We have a responsibility here to speak out against the bullying and demonization that they represent.”

If Pasternak succeeds in convincing council to withhold the money however, he could expose the city to litigation. The city manager concluded last year that there was no basis to ban QuAIA because the term “Israeli apartheid” does not constitute hate speech and so the group is not in contravention of the city’s anti-discrimination policy.

Even so several councillors, including Pasternak, continued to push for QuAIA’s exclusion from the 2011 event and the group, which marched in the 2010 parade, eventually agreed not to take part. Following the controversy council asked the city manager last summer to update Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy to avoid further disputes.

That update is expected June 12 at a meeting of Rob Ford’s executive committee, and Pasternak is confident a revamped policy will “plug the hole” that at the moment allows QuAIA to participate in city events.

If the policy towards QuAIA remains unchanged however, Pasternak says council should exercise its right overrule legal advice from city staff, and he’s willing to risk a lawsuit in the process.

“If QuAIA wants to litigate, that’s their prerogative. That’s what a free and open legal system is all about,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that they would take that route, but… we would defend the city because we want civic events that respect our diversity, that respect the views of others, and do not to turn them into a political demonstration.”

The councillor, who is Jewish, believes he has the support of a majority of his colleagues, but hopes Pride decides to reject QuAIA’s application before the matter goes to council.

Pride co-chair Francisco Alvarez says he has no intention of barring QuAIA however, and that any complaints against the activist group will be handled through a dispute resolution process Pride established last year.

“We are not going to take the position of censoring a community group,” Alvarez told NOW. “That’s why this whole process was established.”

Under the dispute resolution protocol, which has never been used, complaints against a participating group would go to a panel of roughly 10 volunteer legal experts, who would then render a binding decision.

While he says it would ultimately be up to the panel to decide, Alvarez believes that QuAIA is not discriminatory and is being unfairly singled out.

“QuAIA has every right to be there as far as I’m concerned, just as every group has a right to exist in a free society,” he said. “Other groups with different [controversial] messages are marching in the parade and nobody is asking them to withdraw. There’s a lobby group that doesn’t want any criticism of Israel.”

Alvarez wouldn’t speculate on whether Pride would take legal action if its funding is cut off, calling such discussion “premature.”

QuAIA did not immediately return a request for comment.

While Pride could likely survive a funding cut in 2012, the $124,000 in city money represents roughly eight per cent of its budget and losing it this year could jeopardize the group’s ability to host World Pride in 2014. An agreement with the international organization prohibits Pride Toronto from running a deficit in any one of the three years leading up to the event.

The 10-day Pride Week festival begins on June 22, and ends with the Pride Parade on July 1.

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