Hundreds of marchers and revellers decked in rainbows, feathers and sequins descended on downtown Victoria Sunday for the annual Victoria Pride Parade.

The parade, which made its way down Pandora and Government streets to MacDonald Park in James Bay, marked the end of the capital’s Pride Week, with dozens of floats and groups marching to support the LGBTQ2 community.

Despite the unseasonably dark clouds overhead, organizers were thrilled with the turnout and the atmosphere brought to the event.

“We’ve made so much progress [as a community], and I think with 25 years of the festival and 50 years of [the Stonewall Riots], it’s a good time to reflect on that progress but know there’s more to work towards,” Scott Daly with the Victoria Pride Society said.

The most notable change to Sunday’s event was the lack of uniformed police officers, who instead took to the streets wearing T-shirts that read, “Love Proudly, Live Proudly, Police Proudly.”

The decision to keep police uniforms out of the parade for the first time was made last week after extensive discussions between the LGBTQ2 community, the Pride society, Victoria police and the Greater Victoria Police Diversity Advisory Committee.

“We wanted to make Pride more accessible, especially to marginalized people,” Daly said.

“Marginalized people, especially people of colour and trans people, they’re really the ones that led Pride from the beginning, so it’s important we’re inclusive for them.”

The change didn’t appear to dampen the spirits of Chief Del Manek and others who took part, which Daly was happy to see.

“I think it shows they want to work with the community,” he said.

Victoria is the latest community to include only non-uniformed police members in their Pride parade. Vancouver banned uniforms starting with the 2018 parade.

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps led other members of city council down the parade route, while community groups from Greater Victoria, including Saanich and Oak Bay, also took part.

Daly said Pride events like the parade and festival are still very much needed as the community continues to fight oppression and stigmas.

“There’s still a lot of issues people are dealing with like homelessness and violence, so to make ourselves visible is very important,” he said.

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