Be You, Bring All of You: Pride marks 40 years

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Rainbow gear and dance took over Vancouver’s Pride Parade in the core.

It started at Bute and Robson and winded all the way down to Sunset Beach.

The Pride Society marked its 40th anniversary with thousands of people strutting, dancing, rollerblading and just plain old walking through downtown in this year’s parade.

The theme for 2018 theme was “Be You, Bring All of You”, inspiring people to bring it all according to Andrea Arnot with the Pride Society. She says they spent a lot of time thinking about the past of the movement.

“The original protest, people had to wear paper bags on their heads to be out in the streets and to think that we’ve come so far as to have a three-hour parade where we have sort of mainstream business and companies participating as well as all the queer groups that are represented. That’s an amazing accomplishment!”

However, Arnot says while there’s lots to celebrate, there’s still work to be done.

“I think there still are segments of the queer community who feel like the don’t have the same sense of safety or rights and freedoms as everyone else,” she says.

“We need to keep working so that no one’s left behind.”

Nearly 750,000 people lined the streets to take in the festivities–that’s not including those actually in the parade.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also in attendance.

The PM says more needs to be done to support the LGBTQ community, especially it’s younger members.

“We know that far too many homeless youth are LGBT,” Trudeau told reporters at the parade. “We know that rates of teenage suicide within the LGBT community are four times as much as in other communities and right times as much where kids don’t have the support of parents.”

He adds a lot of progress has been made in the past, but more can always be done. He was glad to be back in Vancouver to march in the parade again.

He became the first sitting Prime Minister to march in the Pride Parade in 2016.