Victories for Pride Flags in Two Canadian Catholic School Districts

Two Canadian Catholic school boards are at the center of a controversy about whether schoos can display Pride flags.

Actually, the debate in one case centered in the Durham region of Ontario never even really started, reports Insauga. The Durham Catholic District School Board (DCDSB) shut down discussion over flying the Pride flag, not giving anti-LGBTQ+ people the ability to advocate to stop flying the flag.

A motion by Trustee Richard Damianopoulos for the board to meet with a delegation from Action4Canada—an organization known for holding anti-LGBTQ+ belief—was also voted down at Monday’s board meeting. 

Jessica Street from the DDSB Concerned Parents group said that the decisions were “another example of school boards shutting out parents and refusing to engage in real dialogue.” She added that students should not be “forced to participate in ideological celebrations,” and said that the Pride flag was a symbol of what she called “activist agendas.” 

Other parents pushed back against Street’s harmful agenda, writing messages like “Go away. Your hate isn’t wanted here” and “It was shut down because it’s not a legit concern and also the fact you won’t be satisfied with any response that doesn’t comply with your hateful agenda.” 

Parents at the protest in Kitchener.

In Ontario’s Waterloo region, protests took place in April when the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) saw protests against them when a proposal was introduced to ban all flags except the Canadian, provincial, and board flags from school properties. The motion, brought by Trustee Conrad Stanley, would effectively remove Pride flags from schools.

Hundreds of community members rallied outside the Catholic Education Centre in nearby Kitchener as a visible show of support for LGBTQ+ students, reported CBC Canada. Protesters dressed in rainbow colors, waved flags, and held signs demanding inclusivity and protection for the LGBTQ+ community.

Protestor Tanner Bergsma told CBC News that “As a society, we cannot be divided. We need to be uniting together as one and love.”

 “By banning the Pride flag, we are in fact dividing and putting segregation as our progress and Canada is better than this,”she said.

Joan Grundy, another protestor who worked as a teacher an administrator with the school board for 30 years said that she was “obviously . . . very supportive of the flag flying. [I] worked for decades in the board with lots of people to make sure it happened and am just not willing to see it go backwards. Kids need the support.”

Spectrum Waterloo Region, a local LGBTQ+ organization commented on the debate: “Banning Pride flags in schools doesn’t ‘protect’ kids—it silences them.”

The WCDSB voted at the end of April to allow the Pride flag to be displayed, reported Kitchener City News. A local pastor spoke in favor of keeping the flag;

“Father Toby Collins of St Mary Our Lady Of The Seven Sorrows delegated at the meeting in support of keeping the Pride flag and other political symbols in Waterloo Region Catholic schools. Collins said that in his role and through his support of the Pride flag, he has persevered through his own criticism and rejection, but that he believes Jesus would want all children to come bearing their own symbols.”

School board Trustee commented on the success of the final vote:

“Choosing to include does not divide us, it strengthens us.”

—Elsie Carson-Holt, New Ways Ministry, May 27, 2025