WATCH ABOVE: Seven days of some of the summer’s most colourful parties wrapped up on Sunday with the annual Montreal Pride Parade. Now in its tenth year, some say it’s the best parade yet.
MONTREAL – After seven days of festivities, featuring 115 activities, the world’s largest francophone LGBTQ festival wrapped up in Montreal with the much anticipated Pride Parade.
The parade started at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, following a route east along René-Lévesque Boulevard from Saint-Mathieu Street to Sanguinet Street ending in the Village.
PHOTO GALLERY: Montreal Pride Parade 2015
For the fourth consecutive year, the theme of the Pride Parade was inspired by the rainbow flag: this year’s colour is yellow, symbolizing the sun, energy and light.
And the sun was certainly shining down on this year’s parade, with temperatures expected to reach 30 degrees.
Environment Canada issued a heat warning for Montreal with maximum humidex values approaching 40 degrees.
Revelers were being warned to drink plenty of liquids especially water before feeling thirsty to decrease the risk of dehydration.
Organziers say that Pride Montréal’s mission is to highlight the advances made by the LGBT communities in a festive way, while raising public awareness of the injustices and inequalities that persist throughout the world.
“2015 is a very important year for the advancement of LGBT rights, particularly because of the high visibility given to the plight of trans people and the United States’ Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage,” said Éric Pineault, president of Montréal Pride.
Pineault also admits that there is still a lot of work to do, pointing to the recent stabbing death of a 16-year-old girl at the Jerusalem gay pride parade earlier in August and the violent opposition to Ukraine’s pro-gay march in June.
READ MORE: Diving into the bigger issues of Pride Week in Montreal
But today was about celebrating and even the federal party leaders, except Stephen Harper, took part in the march.
After the parade, celebrations were expected to continue at Place Émilie-Gamelin for the MEGA T-DANCE party followed by the closing show.
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