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Community Advisory Panel Presentation:

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(PHOTO: Jane Farrow speaks during the Q&A portion of the Feb 17 public meeting)


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The Sunday service at Metropolitan Community Church erupted in cheers Jan 9 when Pastor Brent Hawkes announced the largest gift ever received by the denomination, anywhere in the world.

The $1 million donation came from Margaret and Wallace McCain, who co-founded McCain Foods Limited, an admirer of the progressive church. Martha McCain, the couple's daughter, represented her family.

McCain says the gift from her family is to ensure MCC continues to grow in Toronto and transform lives while spreading a positive message internationally. 

She says she has always been attracted to the social justice work done by MCC.

“Mom and Dad are proud, honoured and humbled to commit to the vision this church has already put forward,” she told Xtra. “We’re just adding momentum to [Hawkes’s] mission, and my family is happy to do so.”

Hawkes says he's overwhelmed.

“Thank you for the love you have for your daughter and your amazing gift,” he says.

 

Where the money will go:

$150,000 – Over three years to build social-justice refugee-support work

$100,000 – For technology such as webcasting

$55,000 – Over three years for vision and outreach planning, marketing and communications

$180,000 – Over three years to help with senior staffing

$300,000 – To pay off debt, primarily the mortgage

$215,000 – To build reserves for future repairs and endowments 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE - JAN 6: Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes told Xtra the names of the Toronto city staff members at the Community Advisory Panel targetted consultation on Jan 5.

The staff members include Mike Williams, general manager of economic development; Chris Brillinger, director of social policy analysis and research; Lori Martin, senior affairs officer; Rita Davies, executive director of culture and Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, the former manager of diversity and community engagement, who has since left the city for a new post but asked to attend the meeting, Hawkes says.

 

JAN 5: The list of groups and individuals requesting targeted consultations with the Pride Toronto (PT) Community Advisory Panel (CAP) has been posted publicly.

The release of the list on Jan 5 comes after vocal demands at the five consultation sessions in December as well as on the CAP Facebook page.

There are 36 groups and organizations on the list. Some come as no surprise: Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), Pride Toronto staff, Church Wellesley Business Improvement Area (BIA) and Ward 27 Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam.

Then there are unnamed members of Toronto city staff.

Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes didn’t have his notes from the panel's meetings with the city in front of him, so he could not provide Xtra with the names of the city staff members that attended, nor could he provide their departments.

There were two meetings between the panel and city staff, he says. One meeting was held about a month ago, and the most recent meeting, with five city staff members, was on Jan 5.

“From the city’s perspective, we heard what some of the key issues are, what the city feels Pride needs to work on,” he said. “For the city there are two issues: policy issues and political issues.

“But at the policy level, the city has requirements of all grant recipients. And finding out what Pride needs to do to ensure the funding is not in jeopardy because of a policy issue.”

Hawkes said the panel came away from its meeting with the city with much more clarity on policy issues.

This is a developing story.

Roughly three months after the concept was first broached, Pride Toronto (PT) has announced the names of the members of its Community Advisory Panel.

The list of nine -- not seven, as previously reported -- includes several lawyers, a member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and a staffer at the Toronto Police Service.

As we've reported previously:

The panel came about as part of PT’s June resolution to rescind its censorious ban on the phrase “Israeli apartheid” in this year’s Pride parade. Made up of “LGBTTIQQ2SA leaders and friends,” the panel is to “consult with the community” and make recommendations “regarding Pride Toronto’s ongoing working relationship with the broader LGBTTIQQ2SA communities.”

519 Church Street Community Centre executive director Maura Lawless consulted with an unnamed group of community organization executive directors in compiling the list of would-be panellists. Hawkes says he also consulted with MPP Glen Murray, mayoral candidate George Smitherman and Ward 27 city Councillor Kyle Rae.

Here's the final list: Brent Hawkes (chair), Doug Elliott, Michael Went, Lorraine Weinrib, Angela Robertson, Nicki Ward, Andre Goh, Kavita Joshi and Raja Khouri. Their full bios are available here. 

Pride Toronto’s (PT) announcement, on June 23, that it would get out of the censorship business altogether is a great victory for Toronto’s gay and lesbian communities. But as myriad ad hoc groups formed to organize protests against PT’s censorship of the term "Israeli apartheid" these past two weeks, the move seemed to come somewhat out of the blue.  

Xtra has learned the impasse was broken after a meeting at Liberal MPP Glen Murray’s office on the afternoon of June 18. Among those in attendance were Murray, Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes, 519 Church Street Community Centre executive director Maura Lawless, Egale Canada executive director and Pride Toronto board member Helen Kennedy, and PT human rights committee member and Coalition for Free Speech member Doug Kerr. Lawyer Douglas Elliott, who also signed onto the resolution and press release repealing the ban, was not present at that meeting but became involved subsequently.

“I got called in, tried to give Helen and Tracey some names [of those who could help],” Murray told Xtra last night. “My job is to protect PT’s funding, to keep government out of dictating the content of cultural, social and political events and to try to bring the community together. That’s what I’ve been up to. We were very lucky that those people stepped forward.”

So, what was the mechanism by which a small meeting of community diplomats who have been largely silent on this almost year-old issue led to PT’s resolution to rescind the ban?

“After the meeting, I called [PT executive director] Tracey Sandilands and met with her on the Monday of this week,” says Hawkes. “I spent a lot of time talking to her and explained to her both motions. After meeting with Tracey, I asked for a meeting with the folks on the Pride board who voted in favour of the ban, or who weren’t there and so weren’t part of the initial vote. Douglas, Maura and I went to that meeting. Tracey called those five board members and said we had a proposal. The Pride board met the next evening…. that group voted unanimously to approve the two motions.”

It seems so easy. Sandilands has so far declined Xtra's request for comment but it seems implausible that PT would have chosen to rescind its choice to act as censor without the direct activist pressure applied against it these past weeks. Questions about whether or not  PT intended to sanction arrest or ejection from the parade route of those it determined in violation of the city's anti-discrimination policy were hanging in air. Much of PT's consitituency was in open revolt. Repealing the ban and insisting the city take responsibility for interpreting its own anti-discrimination policy seemed the only reasonable and viable option.  

"It’s so weird to be in the backdrop of the G20 where all this protest and violence and security and police state is unfolding," says former 2010 honoured dyke Jane Farrow. "The opportunity for us to exhibit free speech and peaceful demonstration is so important. Maybe somebody did the optics and realized we could actually do this differently. The history and reputation of Toronto as being a place for that kind of protest, dissent and free speech could be upheld. Also, you think you had trouble raising money after a little skirmish with this group, try having some violence happen in your Pride parade and see how that affects the bottom line in the next year. Maybe someone did that. It was just escalating; it wasn’t going away."

Rescinding the ban "came about because I asked people to come together to try to find a solution,” says Kerr, who adds that he did not attend the meeting at Murray’s office as a representative of the Coalition but rather in his capacity as a PT human rights committee member. “The work that the coalition and QuAIA has been doing to raise the awareness of these issues and the public community meeting, the 23 award winners who gave back their awards, the activism, all of this community engagement all over the community is part of how this happened. You can’t look to what Brent and Doug and Maura have done in isolation.”

Still Murray and Hawkes encourage everyone to congratulate and support PT staff and directors for ultimately making the right decision. And in the end, PT did do the right thing. Yesterday's announcement is a huge leap toward a successful Pride celebration for 2010.

“There are a lot of young people on the PT board without a lot political experience,” says Murray. “I dare say that in the school of sharp learning curves these folks got a crash course in community politics 101. I think many people may not have given them a passing grade a couple of weeks ago; I think a lot of people will now show them some deserved respect.”