Despite shortfall, City Hall says no talks about Pride Toronto bailout
· Toronto Sun
While the City of Toronto is affirming its commitment to Pride Toronto, the non-profit that puts on LGBTQ events and programming in the city, it says there have been no discussions about helping to resolve a reported $700,000 funding shortfall.
Pride Toronto did not respond to a request for comment from the Toronto Sun but has told other news outlets that it has a $700,000 hole in its budget for this year, despite scaling back programming from 2025.
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Kojo Modeste, Pride Toronto’s executive director, told CBC that next’s year’s festival will “look very different” given the cash crunch.
That warning comes just ahead of the group’s big events this weekend, including Sunday’s pride parade.
Pride Toronto hoping taxpayers fill funding gap
Modeste also told CTV that sponsors have fallen off, and Pride Toronto hopes taxpayers will fill the funding gap.
But City Hall told the Sun in a statement that it hasn’t had “specific discussions” with Pride Toronto related to the reported shortfall. It already provides the group with hundreds of thousands of dollars each year plus other support, the statement said.
“The city remains committed to supporting Pride Toronto,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Culture Ministry told the Sun in a statement that Toronto Pride has already “been approved for the maximum eligible funding available through Experience Ontario 2026,” the province’s fund for festivals.
Pride T.O.’s money woes
The funding trouble has become a recent theme for Pride Toronto. Last year, Modeste warned the Sun that its 2026 programming was “definitely up for debate right now” given what was then a $900,000 funding shortage.
Modeste said at the time that not only were sponsors “pulling out,” security costs were climbing.
The city has not ignored the issue of security costs. In its statement, City Hall said Pride Toronto gets money from a special events stabilization fund for public safety expenses, and first responders are assigned to the group’s programming.
But Pride Toronto’s main source of city money comes out of the cultural festivals funding program, and the amount keeps going up.
Last year, the city hiked Pride Toronto’s payout from that fund by $90,000 to $350,000. That’s growing to $385,000 this year and scheduled to reach $420,000 next year.
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News of the funding shortfall comes as a larger pedestrianization project on Church St. , in a stretch around Wellesley St. that serves as the heart of Pride Toronto’s programming, reportedly faces its own deficit.
Reports have quoted the local councillor, Chris Moise, as saying the city has to pay $300,000 for patrols of the two-block area closed off to vehicle traffic. Moise’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Toronto Police told the Sun in an email that figure is “not accurate,” with the estimated cost of policing closer to $50,000 for paid-duty cops at peak periods, with on-duty officers doing most of the work.