Ottawa Pride parade brings out thousands

Thousands of people lined the streets of Centretown Sunday afternoon for Ottawa's annual Prideparade.

"We have over 150 participating floats, marching groups, we've got sports teams, community organizations, politicians [and]local businesses," Capital Pride chair Toby Whitfield said before the parade got underway.

"We expect tens of thousands of people to belining the streets to celebrate Pride."

The parade started at 1:30 p.m. at Bank Street and Gladstone Avenue andheaded north on Kent. It included floats andlive music.

"Pride is unifying all of us together, people from Orlans, Kanata, Barrhaven who are maybe far away from downtown," saidBryan Quinones, who plannedto participate in this year's parade.

"[They have] this very nice and festive day of colours and love."

Spectators sat and stood along the streets waving rainbow-coloured flags as floats and marchers passed by.

"I just want to show them that it's okay to be who you want to be," said Christine McLaren, who brought her two children, ages nine and 14, to the parade. "They are totally for diversity."

Traffic for Aug. 26

Capital Pride is all over Centretown this weekend and that means some streets are pedestrian-only.

On Saturday, Bank Street closedfor the weekend from Somerset Street West to Gladstone Avenue starting at 7 a.m., as does Somerset from Bank to O'Connor Street.

Here are the closures for Sunday:

• Bank between Catherine Street and Gladstone: 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• O'Connor between Gladstone and MacLaren Street, Gladstone between O'Connor and Bank, and Argyle Street between O'Connor and Bank: all 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• McLeod Street between O'Connor and Bank: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Gladstone between Lyon and Kent streets: 12:30 to 3 p.m.