Montreal Pride Parade organizers bar Jewish groups from march

Two Jewish groups say they have been excluded from participating in Montreal’s upcoming Pride Parade next Sunday.

Ga’ava, a Jewish LGBTQ+ group in Quebec, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a large community political organization, said they were informed on Wednesday by event organizer, Fierté Montréal, that they would be barred from attending.

A public statement from Fierté Montréal published later that day does not name either group but explained that the festival’s board of directors had “made the decision to deny participation in the Pride Parade to organizations spreading hateful discourse.”

“We refuse to allow the spaces of the Fierté Montréal to be instrumentalized in the context of a conflict that involves major violations of fundamental human rights,” the g