The powerful fourth wave of COVID-19 forced the cancellation of this Saturday's Pride St. Albert celebration.
Organizer Terry Soetaert, who was ready to go ahead with the festival rain or shine, explained that when the province reported more than 4,700 new cases over the weekend, combined with a record high number of patients in ICU because of it as well, there was only one informed, reasonable, and emotionally difficult choice to make.
"I guess we're all really disappointed, but at the same time, we're more fearful ... that the numbers are going to get worse, and that people could actually catch COVID at an event like this," he said Tuesday morning.
"That's not something that we wanted to do so we decided that we wanted to put it off until spring, which seems like a long time away. It's the safest thing to do, the smartest thing to do, and definitely not the easiest thing to do."
Pride, he added, is meant to be a time of community, joy, and support, all wrapped up in a rainbow with no figurative dark clouds looming around. The fact that COVID-19 is hitting younger demographic age groups harder during this wave would have been too much of a specter on the day.
"That was one of our biggest deciding factors, too. Are we going to be on pins and needles this whole day, and it's not going to be a celebration? It's going to be like a freakout session kind of thing? Really, that's not what pride is supposed to be about. We want to have it added as being something fun, not something that's a detriment or something."
Pride 2020 was also canceled last July because of the pandemic, which is the same reason why this year’s summer plans were put off until the fall. The plan for this weekend was to move the festival from Lions Park to Rotary Park to make it a larger event as well. Soetaert and the organizing team were still ready to roll rain or shine even if public-health rules put down stronger restrictions on large social gatherings as they have in the past. OutLoud has been doing a booming business with selling rainbow and other LGBTQ2S+-themed masks through its online store.
That site will also be where people can pay attention to future Pride plans, as well as other OutLoud news and supports.
