{"id":714521,"date":"2026-06-04T12:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714521\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:48:38","slug":"vancouver-pride-society-facing-significant-long-term-funding-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714521\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Pride Society facing significant long-term funding shortfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vancouver\u2019s Pride Society says it is facing significant shortfalls in funding, which jeopardizes the production of this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe ongoing problems that Prides, not just in Vancouver but all over the country, have been facing \u2014 I mean, it\u2019s an issue that\u2019s been ongoing for years now and I think we\u2019ve sort of seen the issue incrementally get bigger over the years and so it\u2019s no surprise that this year is no different,\u201d Michael Robach, the interim executive director for QMUNITY told Global News.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that we\u2019ve really seen over the last five years in particular is a pretty stark increase in transphobic and homophobic rhetorics that are permeating not just in cities like Vancouver and Victoria, but in smaller communities, especially, all across British Columbia and all across Canada and North America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robach said that affects corporate funding as it tends to come from a place of marketing big brands in positive spaces.<\/p>\n

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On Wednesday, Vancouver city councillor Rebecca Bligh put forward a motion asking the city to give the society a one-time cash injection of $75,000 to help prevent the festival from being scaled back.<\/p>\n

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Vancouver\u2019s council voted to approve the grant on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so hard to get the same corporate sponsorship that was there just a few years back, so I think the risk here is that it becomes a shorter parade, a shorter festival, less activations, all managing within very constrained budgets,\u201d Bligh said.<\/p>\n

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Robach said that while this funding is welcomed and needed, it\u2019s not a sustainable long-term plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operational capacity for organizations to be applying for this grant sometimes is greater than the work of executing the festivals and the work itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd when an organization is spending more of its capacity seeking, applying, and looking for funding to stay alive, it takes away our ability to better serve the communities whose needs we\u2019re trying to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robach said QMUNITY serves just under 20,000 people across B.C. each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for people in our community to see Pride getting smaller, I think feels very reflective of being told to be less and to be smaller,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s council has already approved one-time grants for several other local events this year, including Car Free Day and the Vaisakhi Festival.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vancouver\u2019s Pride Society says it is facing significant shortfalls in funding, which jeopardizes the production of this year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,890,714,55,221593,219245],"class_list":["post-714521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lifestyle","tag-politics","tag-vancouver","tag-vancouver-pride","tag-vancouver-pride-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}