Underdog (25 page)

As we suspected, with a feisty mayoralty campaign underway in 2010, our crusade, and particularly Martin's film, hit a responsive chord. Councillor Kyle Rae, to his credit, wrote then Pride executive director Tracey Sandilands a strongly worded letter noting he'd seen Martin's film and found the “intervention” of QuAIA in the 2009 parade completely not in keeping with the “spirit and values” of Pride Toronto. “If political dialogue and criticism is to be welcomed at Pride, surely we should be supporting our brothers and sisters who find themselves victims of institutionalized
homophobia and transphobia,” he wrote. “Free speech is to be encouraged but free speech of this nature is not in keeping with the expression of Pride.” Amen. That would prove to be one of the few times I would agree with Mr. Rae. It wasn't long before the media pressure began to mount. All four newspapers agreed – for once – that QuAIA should be kicked out of the parade. My columnist colleagues and radio talk hosts like John Tory weighed in repeatedly on the subject, all contending that QuAIA had absolutely nothing to do with gay rights – that its sole purpose was to stigmatize Israel by portraying it as an apartheid state. There was general agreement in the mainstream media that this was not a freedom of speech issue, as QuAIA supporters and the radical leftists tried to make it. QuAIA only found support in the fringe left-wing media, particularly radical leftist
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magazine and its resident reporter at the time, a woman named Andrea Houston, who, without the slightest bit of shame, would soon come to be the mouthpiece of and advocate for QuAIA. But the cowardly bureaucrats at City Hall continued to pander to QuAIA, issuing a milquetoast briefing note at the end of April indicating that while Pride likely violated the city's anti-discrimination policies by allowing QuAIA to participate in the 2009 parade, they were “satisfied” and convinced that Pride had put a plan in place to monitor the (hate) messaging of all participants for 2010. We were not informed what that plan was, but as we were to quickly discover, the briefing note was just a stalling tactic. We soon realized that, in addition to the almost incestuous relationship between the city's culture bureaucrats and the Pride organizers, city bureaucrats were far more concerned with being branded what they thought was politically incorrect than with doing what was right. The
officials who ran Pride, particularly Ms. Sandilands, played games with the media, saying one thing until their funding was in the bank, and then, unable to stand up to the bullying from the QuAIA contingent, doing the exact opposite.

In May, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who was still in the race for mayor at that point, led the charge at council to force Pride's organizers to prove by mid-June that they had received, and rejected, an application from QuAIA to march in that year's parade. By May 30, the board of Pride, conceding they'd experienced an “operational crisis” as a result of the negative media attention over the QuAIA issue – a loss of funding, lower participation rates, and lower staff morale – agreed to ban the group from the July 4 parade. But this was just a clever ruse. On June 22, one week after the city's weak-kneed culture officials handed them their grant cheque (instead of waiting until after the parade as they should have), Pride's organizers flip-flopped, saying QuAIA could march, provided they signed a document committing to respect the city's anti-discrimination policies. Once again, the city's cowardly bureaucrats were complicit in enabling this hate group to march.

It was no surprise that QuAIA doubled down on their hate messaging in the July 4 Pride Parade, with support from the Canadian Auto Workers union and the city's outside workers, CUPE 416, who not only marched with the group but prepared signs of support with their union logos on them.
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magazine made it pretty clear where it stood by handing out signs that read “My Pride Includes Free Speech” – as if this was nothing more than a free speech issue. Denise and I marched with Kulanu that day, braving searing heat as we danced and sang Israeli songs along the Yonge Street parade route. Some five hundred members of
Toronto's Jewish community and a few community leaders joined us that year, along with mayoralty candidate Rocco Rossi. It was an excellent turnout – but securing support from Jewish community leaders would be an uphill battle, and their participation would be hit and miss, with key (and well-funded) Jewish groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress (and its successor the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs) and the Canadian Jewish Political Action Committee (CJPAC) more often than not MIA at crucial points in our fight. A strong and sustained showing of support from these groups would have given us a far better chance of getting QuAIA out of the parade much, much sooner.

The most frustrating missed opportunity was the race for councillor in Ward 27 in the fall of 2010. It was a very close fight between gay centrist Ken Chan (who was anti-QuAIA) and NDPer Kristyn Wong-Tam, a radical leftist lesbian art gallery owner and real estate agent with ties to QuAIA. Ms. Wong-Tam had strong support from CUPE 416, whose members were spotted working in her campaign office. In late September 2010, I revealed that Ms. Wong-Tam wasn't just linked to QuAIA but appeared to be one of its founding members, having been the registered owner of the group's website for fourteen months until that was suddenly changed in late August 2010, just before the municipal election. When I finally tracked her down after days of unreturned phone calls and e-mails, she claimed she'd only lent QuAIA her credit card – for fourteen long months, it seems. At that point, CJPAC and Bernie Farber, the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (a good talker, but not a doer) should have jumped into action to ensure Ms. Wong-Tam and her dangerous views didn't get into office. Mr. Chan lost by a mere 462 votes. It was so disheartening. Had a few Jewish
groups taken the race seriously and advocated (even quietly behind the scenes) for Mr. Chan, as CUPE did for Ms. Wong-Tam, the result likely would have been different. As the representative of the ward in which Toronto's Gay Village is located, and as a lesbian, she was council's go-to person to set the tone for the gay agenda and the parade. Ms. Wong-Tam is too much of a politician to ever admit any disdain toward Israel or the Jews. Nevertheless, it was always darn clear through her actions that her sentiments were with QuAIA.

I will always have to give credit to Giorgio Mammoliti, who was so incensed that councillors had been duped and that QuAIA had marched in the July 4, 2010, parade that he called for Pride's organizers to pay back their $123,800 cultural grant. But knowing full well that this demand would never be supported by a leftist, pro-union (and likely anti-Israel) council, the organizers crafted a compromise stipulating that Pride wouldn't get any money until after the parade in 2011 – and would only receive it if all registered participants complied with the city's anti-discrimination policy. Still, when Ms. Wong-Tam got elected in October 2010, I suspected we were in for another circus in 2011.

Little did I know that the fight would get even dirtier and more personal. After the fiasco of 2010, Pride's organizers had named so-called gay community leaders to a community advisory panel (CAP) – headed by Reverend Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church – to determine what to do about the parade's crisis of conscience. Rev. Hawkes was only too eager to have exposure for his church, given that his days as an activist for same-sex rights and marriage were long behind him. But in February 2011 – after nine months and hundreds of consultations – Rev. Hawkes's CAP delivered
a 232-page report that deliberately skirted around the key issue of whether QuAIA should be marching in the Pride Parade. It was absolutely ludicrous. The whole reason for the panel was that the media attention and political pressure around QuAIA's involvement had created a crisis at Pride and had deeply divided the community. The panel was supposed to resolve that issue. But they couldn't, and wouldn't, do so – proposing instead to put in place some bogus dispute resolution process to air complaints about QuAIA's participation. I knew then and there that the process proposed by Rev. Hawkes would be an exercise in futility – and I was later proven right. It was on the night the CAP report was presented that I lost all respect for Rev. Hawkes. I saw him as nothing more than a shameless opportunist and I feel that way to this day. Instead of doing the right thing as the supposed moral leader of the gay community, he chose to play the part of politician and do what was right for him and his church. But whether he realized it at the time or not, choosing not to make a decision was in fact making decision. He was opting to sanction QuAIA's involvement in the parade. With the help of QuAIA's founder, Ms. Wong-Tam, Rev. Hawkes set about doing the rounds to try to intimidate councillors and bureaucrats into believing that any withdrawal of city funding for the Pride Parade would be an attack on the gay community and a “direct attack” on one of the LGBT community's beloved institutions. They knew that new mayor Rob Ford was prepared to stand up to Pride and not give the organizers their funding unless QuAIA and its hate speech agreed not to march in the 2011 parade. Knowing Ms. Wong-Tam, I have no doubt she was trying to leave the impression that Mr. Ford was homophobic for not wanting to fund Pride.
(Sadly, that whole issue did not end well for Mr. Ford. In 2011, he started the ball rolling by refusing to attend one single event during Pride Week, including the Pride Parade.)

As I saw Ms. Wong-Tam and Rev. Hawkes's reprehensible efforts ramping up with little pushback from the well-funded Jewish advocacy organizations, I grew more and more incensed and frustrated with them. Having chatted with the mayor's then director of stakeholder relations and now executive director of the Ontario Liberal Party, Earl Provost, I realized the so-called leaders of Toronto's Jewish organizations had to step up to the plate and express in no uncertain terms that QuAIA had no place in Toronto's Gay Pride Parade. In the heat of the moment, I wrote an e-mail to Avi Benlolo of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and to both Bernie Farber and Len Rudner of the then Canadian Jewish Congress. In it, I expressed concern that while Toronto's Jewish community had been absolutely silent on QuAIA,
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and Rev. Hawkes were working feverishly behind the scenes to ensure there were enough councillors prepared to vote to give Pride its funding that year. I also said it the way I saw it about Rev. Hawkes: that while he had promoted himself as the self-appointed leader of the gay community, he did not speak for Jewish gays and that his main concern was with saving face and keeping bums in the seats of his church. I urged them to get on board and start encouraging members of the Jewish community to send e-mails en masse to their councillors. My message was outspoken but heartfelt.

I meant well, and there was no question I was passionate about fighting QuAIA. My only mistake was writing that e-mail to Messrs. Farber, Rudner, and Benlolo on my
Toronto Sun
account. I should have done it from my personal e-mail
address. I never did find out who leaked the e-mail, but I have my suspicions. Former
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reporter, Ms. Houston (she was let go in early 2014), who ironically still didn't see herself as an advocate for QuAIA, wrote a story full of hyperbole about the e-mail and how I'd been “censured” from reporting on Pride because of it. She never did ask me to comment – not that I was surprised. The president of the City Hall press gallery, David Nickle, who became part of the unrelenting and vicious mob obsessed with Rob Ford, preached about my ethics (or lack thereof) in the
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story. Poor Rev. Hawkes said he was “reeling” from the e-mail and resented the “impression” I painted of him. “This damages my reputation, the church and the entire community,” he was quoted as saying. I wanted to tell him at the time that he'd already done that with his phony community advisory panel and his inability to do what was morally right about QuAIA. But knowing I'd said enough, I kept my mouth shut. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy abounded. It showed the double standard with which media are treated – those on the left handled with kid gloves while those on the right are subject to a virtual lynching, even by their own colleagues, for the slightest of transgressions.

I was not amused by Mr. Rudner's response. In the
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article, he claimed that my e-mail represented one approach and that they preferred to take a “different” one. To this day, I am not sure what he meant by “different,” but their approach certainly was not to take a strong stand against QuAIA or to galvanize Toronto's Jewish community. The greatest support came from my editor-in-chief at the time, James Wallace, who said the contents of the e-mail contained nothing over and above what I'd said in my columns – and that I'd never hidden the fact that I wanted funding to Pride cut.
Nevertheless, to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest, I was asked not to report on the issue until after the funding decision was made, which I agreed to. Still, the whole episode was predictably over-the-top and done deliberately to try to change the channel from the real issue of QuAIA not belonging in the Pride parade. Even if I had written from my personal e-mail address, people would have known that I was a columnist for the
Toronto Sun
who was passionate about keeping QuAIA out of the parade, and I bet the e-mail would have still been an issue.

Meanwhile, Martin was celebrated with a well-deserved honour for his work at Simon Wiesenthal's Spirit of Hope gala at the end of May 2011. Denise and I were so proud as we watched him share the stage with Salman Rushdie and Elie Wiesel that night. A small group of us also formed a kitchen cabinet with a small but dogged group of activists who included David Nitkin and the very colourful Vivienne Ziner. We decided we'd also target some of the big funders of the parade – particularly TD Bank. Denise arranged to have signs made with catchy slogans like “Morally Bankrupt,” “Investing in Hate Speech,” and “Pa$$ing the Buck,” and on a rainy Sunday a small group of us protested in front of the TD Bank in Lawrence Plaza. It was a tremendous grassroots effort, but as we were soon to discover, the man behind the funding of QuAIA, TD's vice-president of community relations, Scott Mullin, appeared not to care whether QuAIA was in the parade or not. Our pleas fell on deaf ears. I stayed out of the fray, not writing another column on the issue until mid-June of that year, happily missing a May executive committee meeting at which the pro-Israel contingent, the QuAIA supporters, and the supposed free speech
advocates took each other on. The mayor and Mr. Mammoliti held firm on their plan to withhold Pride's $123,807 cultural grant until after the July 3 parade. At that same council meeting, Councillor James Pasternak, who represents a sizable Jewish community, got approval on a motion directing city manager Joe Pennachetti to craft an updated city anti-discrimination policy. Mr. Pasternak meant well, but we soon wished he'd left it alone. The new policy ended up being far worse. The July 3 parade was a win on one front: QuAIA did not participate. But neither did Mr. Ford – proof not that he was homophobic but that he failed to understand nuance and was his own worst enemy. His snub of Pride proved to be the tipping point that started what would become an extremely acrimonious relationship between the radical left in the gay community and the mayor's office. From that point on, Pride insiders felt justified calling him a homophobe and our fight started to lose steam. QuAIA, Ms. Wong-Tam, and the free speech advocates were able to successfully divert attention away from the real issue – anti-Israel hate in the parade – by pinning Pride's funding problems on a supposedly homophobic mayor. It was simplistic and ridiculous but it worked.