Death of a Gay Ghetto 11

Vancouver's Gay Pride:  Fact, Fib or Fibonacci......?

Our analysis of the death of Gay Vancouver takes a fascinating twist, courtesy of a reader over there who sent us a series of links about the Pride Parade held on 4 August 2013.

The gist of the matter is the publicly quoted figure for the estimated size of the crowd that would purportedly throng the streets to watch the parade. The higher the figure, the more taxpayer funding for the event.

(Underlining and bold print by FuelMix):

"Skepticism should drive journalism. To fulfill its role in a democracy, the news media, in whatever form, must always question the official story. Sometimes the official story is true. Sometimes it isn't. Journalism must bridge that gap. Anything less is public relations.....................

Anyway, the parade's not for everyone. And that's fine.

But thanks to Vancouver city council, almost everyone in Vancouver is now paying for it.  Council, armed with a report from Jerry Dobrovolny, the city's director of transportation, voted unanimously in May to grant civic status to the Vaisakhi Parade, the Chinatown Spring Festival Parade and the Pride Parade. Which means taxpayers will help pay for these events in perpetuity.

But here's the key. The level of city funding depends on parade attendance figures. The more folks on the sidewalk, the more money for the parade. If a parade eclipses the 400,000 attendee threshold, it qualifies for the maximum amount of money available to civic parades. The Sikhs and the Chinese didn't come close. But according to the Dobrovolny report, the Pride Parade attracts "crowds close to half a million people."

Cha-ching.

Now taxpayers will provide up to $50,000 for "city services related specifically" to the Pride Parade. Policing, sanitation and such. The Pride Society, the non-profit in charge of the Pride Parade, will receive up to $20,000 for "planning support" and $10,000 for a "green parade initiative." Not bad for an organization that already cashes big sponsorship cheques from corporations such as TD and Telus.

Considering the pivotal role parade attendance figures play in the public funding process, the obvious question arises: Where did Dobrovolny, and by extension, city council obtain their Pride Parade attendance figures?"

--------"Vancouver Pride Parade Numbers Just Don't Add Up" by Mark Hasiuk, Huffpost British Columbia, 2 August 2013

Good question indeed.


Where Do The Crowd Figures Come From ?

The official answer from the City Council is that the figures came from attendance figures from previous years, the applicant (the Vancouver Pride Society) and the Police.

But, as Mark Hasiuk discovered:

• "attendance figures from previous years" and "the applicant" simply mean that the figures came from the Vancouver Pride Society;
• the Police have never kept any estimates of crowd figures for Pride.  In fact, the Police explicitly said the figures would come from the Vancouver Pride Society.

It would appear that the Vancouver Pride Society has considerable discretion in estimating crowd support for the Pride Parade. Anything less than 400,000 people (which other parades were NOT able to match) and full funding would be denied.  So, in 2010, they claimed crowd figures of 700,000; in 2013, they promoted a figure of  650,000 people (Hasiuk points out that would be 1/4 of the population of Metro Vancouver's 2.4 million people........)


Mathematical Calculations of Crowd Figures

Hasiuk enlisted the help of a Maths Teacher to estimate crowd figures for the 2010 Pride Parade Route, which was the same route used for the 2013 Parade:

"According to Robinson's calculations, considering the route length (2.7 kilometres), a crowd of 700,000 would be packed 47 deep, shoulder-to-shoulder, on both sides of the route from start to finish, a physical impossibility thanks to sidewalks and storefronts. A crowd of 10 deep, shoulder-to-shoulder, on both sides of the route produces an attendance figure of less than 150,000. Because of the narrow viewing areas, concluded Robinson, particularly on Denman, the 2010 parade likely attracted roughly 90,000 attendees.

Yikes. That kind of estimate would disqualify the Pride Parade from civic status, which, according to the Dobrovolny report, requires an "average attendance of 100,000 or more."

OK..  .it's not clear whether the math  calculations take into account the time spent watching the parade (which lasts about 3 hours), the frequency at which the crowd would build along the route during that time, or whether people are actually moving with the parade and merging with other crowds already there.

There are no doubt other criteria that professional stats and math whizzes could throw into the mix for greater accuracy. And that's the point. Shouldn't the City be demanding estimation analysis with "Good", "Bad" and "Ugly" figures from professionals qualified to make such estimations? After all, Pride Parade is touted as a revenue spinner.

But roughly 90,000 attendees estimated to be at the Pride Parade in 2010 compared to the Pride Society's estimates of 700,000 for that year......??? Whoa........What's going on here........?

The answer is not hard to find.


The Warfare / Welfare Mentality

We make no comment on Hasiuk's specific assertions that the Vancouver Pride Society has forced the city council into submission.

As a general comment based on our observations of life in the West, once individuals and organizations operating in a socialist economy, discover how they can milk the system through enforced political correctness, intimidation, smear and outrage, there's no end to the political favours that can be squeezed. That's how the Warfare / Welfare mentality works.  It very quickly disconnects from analysis or reality.


Comment

1.   We're happy to accept that in the context of Vancouver's small town status - and even smaller village mentality - (we shit with laughter every time we hear the World Class City moniker), the Pride Parade might be a big deal and like any other public event, would bring dollars to the local economy.

2.   We're also happy to accept that a public event like the Vancouver Fireworks, could attract around 700,000 people (or more) to watch it from both sides of English Bay. And that requires street closures and traffic diversions.  But the Pride Parade along a highly limited route "downtown", repeated annually,  we would say at best about 280,000 peeps (and that's including those leaning from the balconies)...........No.......on reflection we think it's much lower, probably around 80,000.

3.   There are 4 obvious omissions from Hasiuk's article:

• whether he attempted a personal interview with Jerry Dobrovolny of Vancouver City Council to clarify how the crowd figure of 500,000 was arrived at;
• whether he contacted Vancouver Pride Society for an explanation as to how their estimates originated. In particular, if in 2010 crowd figures were estimated at 700,000 why were the crowd figures for 2013 "reduced" to 650,000 when Vancouver's population was growing and the alleged popularity of the Pride Parade was increasing?
• what were Vancouver Pride Society's estimates for 2011 and 2012?
• whether he attempted to arrange a meeting between mathematicians, the Vancouver Pride Society and Vancouver City Council to rationally explain and extrapolate historical and current estimates for crowd figures;

4.    Some will allege that Hasiuk has an axe to grind. We didn't get that impression from reading the full article.  He's right in pointing out the reticence to confront issues involving sexuality, money and politics. In  a town like Vancouver where corruption and political correctness are entrenched and endemic (and have been for generations), it's hardly surprising that "sensitive" issues don't get the scrutiny they deserve. It's all about the photo-op, the campaign promises, the harm reduction, the meaningful dialogue, the inclusion of "diversity"...........the result is the distinct impression that the local politicos swallow anything ejaculated into their mouths.

5.  If  Hasiuk's assertions are correct, then  it's laughable that the Vancouver Pride Society appears exempt from meaningful oversight from Vancouver City Council. What for example are "the green parade initiatives"  for which the Society received $10,000.00 ? 

6.   It's also laughable that the police, responsible for crowd control every year have no independent estimations of their own, at the very least for logistical purposes. If there really were 650,000 people watching the Parade, most of central Vancouver would be gridlocked. The police's failure to prepare based on past crowd estimations, would mean they were negligent. The only reason the Police haven't kept crowd estimations of their own was because they took the view that the Parade wasn't such a big deal.

7.   What's surprising is that not even the newspapers (Vancouver Sun or Globe And Mail) questioned such massive estimations of crowd figures, but merely said, "A record crowd of approximately 500,000 people was expected to attend the event".  In other words, they followed the City Council line. We suspect that enforced political correctness meant this was as far as they dared go. See here and here.  We entirely agree with the first paragraph in Hasiuk's article that at this point, journalism became public relations.

8.   The joke is that the newspapers actually fucked the Vancouver Pride Society.  Think about it.........if it's alleged to be a "record crowd of approximately 500,000...." then by definition, that figure could NEVER have been matched in the past 35 years of the Pride Parade in that town - whether by promotional estimation or actual attendance. So it once again, begs the questions where did the Vancouver Pride Society get these figures of 700,000 for 2010 and 650,000 for 2013 AND how was the figure of 500,000 ultimately swallowed by the City Council.......??

9.   Check this out from what we assume is the Vancouver Pride Society for the 2013 Parade. Underlining by FuelMix:

" Attracting crowds of more than 650,000, the Pride Parade is renowned on the international stage among the largest and most successful events in the world in support of LGBTQ communities, with spectator and participants outnumbering the host City’s residents."

--------- http://vancouver.gaycities.com/events/247183-vancouver-pride-parade-festival

Our response:

• Bullshit
• Ever seen photos of the crowds at Sydney's Gay Mardi Gras......?
• CKNW Radio in Vancouver put the actual crowd at......38,000

10.   If taxpayers are now partially funding the Pride Parade based on unilaterally spewed (and skewed...??) figures, what accounting and auditing oversight mechanisms are in place?  And if not, why not?  What recourse do the main sponsors have to check where and why the money went?

11.  Our series on Gay Vancouver has included reader's descriptions and photographs of the West End ghetto. We can politely say that the urban landscape there is depressing and underwhelming. If, according to the Vancouver Pride Society, 650,000 people were estimated to watch the Parade in 2013, all it means is that 650,000 people would soon find out the actual physical state of the Gay Ghetto. Is that something to brag about.........?

12.  To summarize:

• Pride Society's promotional crowd figure 2010      700,000
• Math teacher's estimated crowd figure 2010            90,000    
• Pride Society's promotional crowd figure 2013      650,000
• Vancouver City Council promotional figure 2013   500,000
• Vancouver Sun promotional figure 2013                500,000
• Globe And Mail promotional figure 2013               500,000
• CKNW Radio reporting from 2013 parade              38,000

We refer readers to what we wrote in Death of a Gay Ghetto 3 for a macro-view of why things are the way they are in Gay Vancouver.

Shitting with laughter yet.........?



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