Two years after Altona’s first Pride event, threats made against food truck operators have taken a bite out of this weekend’s celebrations.
“We’re not expecting the worst-case scenario, but we are planning for everything that could happen,” Altona Police Service Chief Dan Defer said Thursday.
A food truck business that posted online it would be at Saturday’s Altona Pride was targeted with threats of vandalism.
“While they’re in Altona, police would be present and afford the same security as any other participant at the Pride event. It was threats of vandalism to their vehicles and what would happen after they left Altona” that concerned the operators, Defer said.
“The president of Altona Pride said the food truck business received an email accusing them of supporting “an act of sin” and threatened to vandalize the vehicle. With another event to attend the next day, the operator feared having to repair or repaint the truck, and dropped out.
“Because of that, then another one dropped out and then another one dropped out. It was sort of a domino effect,” said Pauline Emerson-Froebe.
As a result, there will be no food trucks this weekend in the town 112 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.
“This is the first year we were having food trucks, which is very exciting because people had requested them in previous years,” said Emerson-Froebe, whose non-profit group supports the region’s LGBTTQ+ community, organizing Pride events in Morden in 2019 and 2023 and in Altona in 2022 and 2024.
“Someone’s been threatening their livelihood — for them just coming to an outdoor festival,” she said. “One of our drag performers got an Instagram message stating how they should kill themselves, and ‘are you dead yet?’ and all these other things. Unfortunately, that’s what we’ve been up against.”
She praised the Altona police and the Town of Altona. “They’ve been wonderful to work with,” Emerson-Froebe said. “They’ve been responsive to our requests and our concerns.”
Police said they are taking the threats seriously. “A lot of it is to be expected but not accepted,” said Defer. “You do have that real, far-right group that is opposed to anything Pride, anything drag-queen related, and they are vocal.”
“It’s the extremists,” added Emerson-Froebe. “Anything that has to do with Pride, they’re wanting to shut it down. They don’t want it to exist. They don’t want it — not just in their world, they don’t want it in the world.”
In addition to extra police officers, Pride organizers hired private security.
Altona Pride kicks off Friday at 6:30 p.m. with the Pride flag set to be raised outside the town office. A member of the town council will be on hand for the ceremony as Mayor Harv Schroeder is at a conference this weekend.
The Pride march will take place in Centennial Park on Saturday.
A statement issued on behalf of the mayor said “Altona is committed to being a safe and welcoming place for everyone, regardless of their background or identities. Hate speech and threats of violence have no place in our community.”
Altona’s MLA recently voted against proclaiming March 31 as Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility in Manitoba. Progressive Conservative Josh Guenter, who represents Borderland, was one of four Tories who opposed the private member’s bill, introduced by Manitoba’s first transgender MLA, New Democrat Logan Oxenham. The bill received royal assent June 4.
Having an MLA oppose such legislation encourages others, said Emerson-Froebe: “I think it emboldens them a bit… That this small group is saying, ‘Well, if he’s saying it, then it’s OK if I say it.’”
Oxenham said Guenter — and fellow PCs Ron Schuler, Konrad Narth and Kelvin Goertzen — sent a message to queer and transgender people in their constituencies when they voted against the bill: “They’re not there for them.”
The threats intended to keep people away from Altona Pride may backfire, said Emerson-Froebe, who anticipated 500 attendees on Saturday but now expects more.
“We’re hoping it has the reverse effect, that the people who are supportive are coming out to show support and to say ‘No, it is not OK to harass somebody. It is not OK to threaten somebody.’ And ‘Yes, we have your back.’”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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