By Gary Kinsman
At the Pride Toronto Annual General Meeting on Feb. 16th , the new Auditing firm Crowe Soberman, reported on the major funding that Pride Toronto received in the previous financial year from TD Bank. TD Bank is the largest bank in ‘Canada’ with total assets of more than $1.73 trillion. It is the 26th largest bank in the world. It is also among the top financiers of the global fossil fuel industry which is responsible for the destruction of the environment and for climate change. It is a major supporter of the Coastal Gas Link ‘development’ (although behind the support of the Royal Bank of Canada) which is destroying the land and water of the unceded territories of the Wet’suwet’en nation, and that includes RCMP violence against Indigenous land and water defenders. It is also a major backer of the Trans Mountain Pipeline being pushed through unceded Indigenous territories.
In response, I asked a question as a member of the No Pride in Policing Coalition about whether Pride Toronto will break its ties with TD Bank as requested by many Indigenous organizations given its support for Coastal Gas Link and its attacks on the Wet’suwet’en people’s land and water. I was rather taken aback by the response of the co-chair of the Pride Board, Grant Gonzales, who said that there was the support of twenty elected (this word was emphasized) band councils along the Coastal Gas Link route while acknowledging that the Wet’suwet’en hereditary leadership was opposed to it. This undermined the opposition of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary leadership to the destruction of the unceded land and water of their Indigenous nation and instead prioritized the position of band councils created through the settler colonial Indian Act who have little jurisdiction over these territories. These band councils only have some jurisdiction, under the Indian Act, over about 2% of Wet’suwet’en territory. This was disturbing to hear since it meant that the Pride Board does not understand Indigenous land and water rights and the importance of hereditary leaderships in making these decisions. In other words, the band councils have no right to make decisions over unceded territory but only can make decisions over the small reserve territories the Canadian state has allowed them to have. Gonzales, the co-chair then went on to praise TD Bank for funding the 519 Community Centre, the LGBT Youth Line, Rainbow Railroad and other groups sidestepping the question I had asked about TD Bank’s role in destroying Indigenous land and water and its role in climate destruction.[1]
This discussion came up in the context of the first report from the Auditing Firm, Crowe Soberman, to a Pride AGM. After Pride members voted down the last auditing firm given the major problems pointed out by Tom Hooper with Pride Toronto grants[2] a discussion was held on the appointment of a new one at the last Special General Meeting. The name of the auditing firm was not released until half-way through that SGM so that members had no possibility of investigating Crowe Soberman themselves prior to the meeting. Javier Dávila of the No Pride in Policing Coalition did investigate the character of this firm after the meeting. He found that the firm has been involved in a number of pro-Israel charities, including the Jewish National Fund(JNF), an organization which is responsible for the destruction of Palestinian villages and settlements within Israel and the occupied territories and that staff members have supported and participated in financial and material support for Israeli militarism and occupation against the Palestinian people. Despite representatives from the firm saying at the Pride meeting that they had “scrubbed” their website for connections to the JNF, the following is still up. Firm partner, Mayeer Pearl, in audit and advisory is a board member of JNF Toronto according to the firm’s website.[3] And John Colomby, former founding member of the firm and currently a consultant in audit and advisory, “has been involved with fund-raising efforts for the Jewish National Fund” according to the firm’s website.[4] Many organizations across ‘Canada’ are calling for the revoking of the charitable status of the JNF in Canada given its direct participation in Israel apartheid (separation and subordination policies) directed against Palestinians.
This refusal by Pride Toronto to take up an anticolonial position in support of Palestinian human rights and to maintain its relationship with a firm associated with support for Israeli apartheid reminds me that more than a decade ago the Pride Toronto Executive Director and the Board tried to ban the queer and trans pro-Palestinian activist group — Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) — from the Pride parade. They met so much community opposition that they were forced to allow QuAIA to march. Many people in our communities understood that Palestinian freedom is bound up with queer and trans liberation.
Many supporting QuAIA also protested the growing influence of support from the TD Bank on the character of Pride Toronto – especially in moving it away from a liberationist approach. The comic group the Lesbian Billionaires in opposing banning QuAIA spoke in resistance to “Whose Pride? TD Pride” and “Can we buy your Pride?” We need to return to these sentiments in challenging corporate Pride Toronto right now.
Gary
Kinsman is a member of the No Pride in Policing Coalition and was a founding
member of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee in 1981 to celebrate Pride as
a commemoration of the Stonewall Rebellions in 1969. Thanks to Javier Dávila for his
assistance but I am responsible for what is written here.
[1] See https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ogbl#search/Pride+Toronto/FMfcgzGrcjTdxgTnMDjctfPDHnjrpttB?projector=1onsorship/
[2] See https://pridegrants.ca/
[3] Link: https://www.crowe.com/ca/crowesoberman/about-us/our-people/mayeer-pearl
[4] Link: https://www.crowe.com/ca/crowesoberman/about-us/our-people/john-colomby