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As Pride crosswalks across Canada continue to divide Canadians, new crosswalks honouring veterans — a joint venture between the Legion and local municipalities — may now serve to unite them.

On Friday’s Rebel Roundtable livestream, Drea Humphrey and Tamara Lich were joined by Canadian Armed Forces veteran Jeff Evely to discuss the initiative, which encourages a new kind of Canadian pride. 

“I’m frankly ecstatic to see this,” said Jeff. “We’re not seeing as much hysteria around Pride month this year as we have in previous years. So I’m starting to feel like maybe the pendulum is coming back on this a little bit, and this is one of those little wins that we should celebrate.” 

Pride crosswalks can cost taxpayers as much as $15,000, compared to about $4,000 for a standard crosswalk. For this particular veterans' crosswalk, the city spent only $5,000, with the Legion contributing the remaining $4,500. That makes the veterans' crosswalk only slightly more expensive for taxpayers than a regular one. 

Drea pointed out that this recognition of Canada's veterans is long overdue, especially when compared to the significant government attention given to the LGBTQ+ community. 

“If you look at how many days our government, nationally, recognizes to celebrate LGBTQ-whatever activism, and it’s outrageous. They will acknowledge between 30 and 40 days, and they call it ‘Pride season,’” she said. “In contrast to veterans, I could only find… around 11 days that are dedicated for us to remember our veterans. And, of course, most people only know about November 11.” 

Jeff noted both Indigenous Veterans Day and Trans Day of Remembrance, which immediately surround November 11. 

“It just seems like a lot of these left-wing causes are… almost designed to crowd out veterans,” he said. “I think it’s another part of the culture war.”