Statement by the Provincial Executive, Communist Party of BC, June 23, 2021
For the second summer in a row, Pride events across British Columbia are sharply limited by the Covid-19 pandemic, but the growing and diverse Two-Spirit /Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual / Transgender / Intersex / Queer+ movements continue to organize. The Communist Party of BC extends our solidarity to the 2S/LGBTiQ+ community and to all those struggling against the impacts of Covid and the capitalist crisis during these difficult times.
Pride season should not be a time for pinkwashing by corporate interests and the imperialist Canadian state – this should be a summer of resistance. Despite all the rainbow marketing and online celebrations, queer people are still being beat up in streets and schools, hiding their true identities, kicked out of their homes or stuck living with abusive family members.
Queer branding makes big bucks for the elites, while racialized 2S/LGBTiQ+ people, trans and non-binary people, trans women of colour, and Indigenous Two-Spirit people experience a very different reality. About 40% of 2S/LGBTiQ+ people over 15 years of age in Canada make only $20,000 a year. 2S/LGBTiQ+ people made up an estimated 20–40% of the unhoused population, and one out of every three homeless youth in Canada identifies as 2S/ LGBTiQ+.
Here in BC, the NDP calls itself a party of social justice and equality, but the queer community in this province disproportionately suffer from poverty, homelessness and police brutality. The Horgan government claims to support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but it carries on the historic colonialist and capitalist economic strategies of resource extraction and exports on unceded Indigenous territories.
It’s time to demand real change, not capitalism with a rainbow face.
For more information, contact Communist Party of BC leader Kimball Cariou, 604-255-2041 Vancouver Island CPC Organizer Tyson Strandlund, 250-883-7321