Woodstock to no longer fly Pride banners

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Woodstock won’t be flying Pride banners this year after council agreed to a new policy that limits what banners and flags can fly on municipal land and what types of proclamations will be given by the council.

And that’s not sitting well with The Rainbow Crosswalk, a Pride organization that supports the Woodstock area.

The new policy was adopted by the town in November, but the group only learned in March their request to have Pride banners exempted was denied.

Rainbow Crosswalk executive director Amanda Lightbody said after hearing the banner policy was being examined last year, the group spoke with the mayor and council to explain how important the banners were, and thanked the town for its work combating bigotry, and during that meeting, she said there was “no indication the banners were on the chopping block.”

Lightbody said the group also sent a letter to the town with ideas and recommendations on how the banners and flags could have a “greater place in the community.”

She said the group was unaware council passed a new banner policy in November, but when it did learn, it didn’t believe the policy would affect the Pride banners anyway, because those were a town directive to begin with. After a rainbow crosswalk was vandalized in 2017, council decided at that time to hoist Pride banners on lampposts as a show of support and less expensive than cleaning up the crosswalk.

“The original request to review the banner policy was to deal with the cost of banners to be placed that were not part of council’s own initiatives. “(The Pride) banner was part of their initiative,” she said. “These banners were not coming from us. They came from town council.”

Still, she said The Rainbow Crosswalk sent a letter to the council at the end of January, ensuring an exemption, stating the group does not represent a “special interest group, a club, a cause, or a tourist attraction.”

During the regular council meeting on March 26, the group learned a request for an exemption to the policy had been denied by Woodstock council.

Jones read a response to the request during the meeting that explained the policy was developed under the recommendation of a special ad hoc committee which considered striking a balance between the town’s “capital constraints” and the stakeholders to develop the policy.

“The policy was developed in an effort to ensure requests are reviewed and treated equitably by the town and to provide a clear and transparent framework to ensure fairness,” she said. “While the request set out in the letter does not fall within an exemption to the policy on behalf of council, I wish to reiterate that the town of Woodstock is for everyone, welcomes everyone and celebrates diversity.”

Lightbody said for her community seeing the Pride flags displayed is a “welcoming feeling” and a way to show everyone is welcome, “but this banner policy flies in the face of that for us.”

She said there’s been a growing concern as other municipalities across Canada are looking at similar rules.

“The policy we are seeing in so many communities across the country is we respect everybody so therefore we are not going to recognize anybody, and that is a dog whistle for some and it’s not all right,” she said.

In an email Friday, Jones said the Rainbow group has not reached out to the town since that March decision, so can’t speak to its reaction to the news, but will have more to say at the regular meeting of council next week.

“Council always encourages all community members to reach out to us through our regular channels of communication as we do not as a council communicate on such matters via social media,” she said.

Lightbody says the municipality gave the six banners it had flown in the past to The Rainbow Crosswalk group and it’s reached out to other western New Brunswick communities to have them flown there.

“We want to make sure we provide support to those who have seen those banners over the years and feel safer, recognized and seen,” she said. “When you don’t see them, you don’t see yourself represented, so we want to paint the western valley as rainbow as we can.”