Pride Toronto in 2017 was not an institution in need of better management. It was an institution that had lost the capacity to hold the tension at its centre — between the community it existed to serve and the civic systems it was required to navigate.
The mandate on arrival was dual: stabilize an organization mid-crisis and deliver one of the country’s largest public festivals on an accelerated timeline. Both mattered. But the deeper work was understanding that operational recovery and community legitimacy were not separate problems. An institution that couldn’t account for who it was accountable to couldn’t sustain either.
The question of uniformed police participation was not a communications challenge. It was a governance question about whose experience of safety the institution recognized as evidence. Leading through it meant holding that question honestly in public, without resolving it prematurely or deferring it indefinitely.
Revenue doubled to approximately $9M. Attendance grew year on year. The organization stabilized. What mattered most was that Pride emerged from the period with a clearer account of what it was for — and a leadership model that treated accountability to the most marginalized as a design condition, not an aspiration.