Rural community members unite against pastor's anti-2SLGBTQ views, as Altona readies for 1st Pride parade
CBC
Manitobans will take to the streets of a rural town's first Pride parade Saturday, and while there's cause for celebration, organizers and community members are also calling out a local pastor who is publicly opposing it.
Pembina Valley Pride published a social media post on Friday encouraging people from the 2SLGBTQ community to take care of themselves, ignore protesters and "celebrate you" ahead of Altona's first Pride parade on Saturday.
It came on the heels of a blog post by Grace Covenant Church lead pastor Riley Toews, espousing views condemning the celebration.
"It is inflammatory," Pembina Valley Pride president Peter Wohlgemut said of the blog. "It's disappointing to hear that sort of thing still."
Toews, 30, who lives in Gretna, plans to hand out pamphlets at the Altona parade, just as he did in Morden at that community's first Pride in 2019.
He suggested the core of his message is consistent with that of Christianity.
"The whole question of Pride in general, it's a celebration of something that the Bible would say is sin," Toews told CBC News on Friday.
"The main message of the gospel is that Jesus came to die for our sins, to reconcile us to God, and so the way that we receive what Christ has done is by turning from our sin and turning to face him. So, something like Pride is celebrating that which actually separates people from God."
Wohlgemut said to many in the region, Toews' blog reinforces stereotypes about the area and local attitudes toward the queer community.
At the same time, Wohlgemut says they know the parade and marchers have the full support of the town of Altona, mayor, leaders of other local churches and many local allies.
That includes Tamara Franz, 56, who has lived in Altona off and on for 23 years. She posted a response calling out Toews' blog.
Her father was a Mennonite pastor in the community who led with a sense that "everyone is welcome at the table."
Franz said Toews' views seem to be coming from a place of fear and justify "shame and social stigma" as a way of deterring people from being who they are.
"I was raised with a very strong sense of social justice so it kind of is in me to rush to the defence of people when I feel that they are under attack," she said.
At a Tim Hortons in downtown Hamilton, drivers intent on getting their morning double doubles brave the murky waters of the parking lot, as sloshing waves reach as high as their car bumpers.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.