Estevan City Council did not budge Monday night in its opposition to a request from a group to fly a straight pride flag outside of city hall, in what turned out to be an emotional, passionate, and sometimes argumentative meeting rarely seen within Estevan City Council chambers.

A group of about 15 people calling themselves "Concerned Citizens SK" attended the council meeting Monday night. They were led by Myles Fichter, who presented to councillors.

"Concerned Citizens finds this denial extremely disturbing, in lieu of the City of Estevan currently hosting a similar type of event with a contrasting view titled 'Celebrate Pride Month with Estevan Public Library,'" said Fichter, referring to an event being put on by the library on Tuesday night.

Fichter then outlined how the Moose Jaw based Saskatchewan Pride Network has expanded Pride events from weekly celebrations to monthly recognition events in various communities across the province, including Estevan, from 2016 until now.

"Skip forward to where we are presently...this promotion has been expanded to now Pride Month with the Estevan Public Library," he said.

The group's request also included a proclamation to name July 10-17, 2023 "Mom and Dad Week" and to have the flag raised during this week.

"Concerned Citizens fully supports the concept of pride inclusivity, which is essentially enshrouded by the Canadian Charter," Fichter said. "The public promotion of sexual diversity by the City of Estevan however we do not."

"This can and often does by nature provide a setting violating constitutional rights of parents to raise and educate their own children. These rights include parents knowing where their children are, who has access to them, and what materials they're exposed to, and whether or not they are safe," he continued.

Estevan City CouncilPhoto credit: Nolan Kowal

The topic took up almost half of the council meeting, lasting about 25 minutes in total. Multiple members of council expressed their disagreement with Fichter, including Councillor Rebecca Foord who read from a prepared statement.

"Our flag and proclamation policy specifically states that flag raising or proclamation requests will not be approved if it's considered controversial, contentious, or divisive within the community," said Foord, who wore an equal rights pride shirt during the meeting. "It is my belief that flying the straight flag at city hall will be all three of those things. In our country, people who are out or still finding their place in the LGBTQ2S+ community is getting increasingly dangerous and scary."

"Our world seems to be moving backwards when it comes to being accepting to all people, no matter who they are," she said.

Councillor Kirsten Walliser wore a pride ribbon during the meeting.

"This community remains underrepresented and marginalized at the decision making table to this day,' Walliser said. "Pride is a fight for equality, pride matters because I want to live in a world where everyone is safe to be who they are."

Each councillor's statement was backed by applause by fellow councillors and other members of the public who attended the meeting.

"I come from the same type of group as you are, where we marginalized, we oppressed those people. It was okay to walk down the street and say bad things about the gay community and to make them uncomfortable to live in our community," said an emotional Lindsay Clark. "I'm so glad that the next generation has accepted them. For my generation, it's a long ways to go yet. I think we still see it as a negative in the community."

"Heterosexual people have ran this country for 150 years. And we're out there going 'now things are bad in Estevan' and we want to come here and change Estevan. This isn't an Estevan issue...this is how we treated these people. We treated them awful. And now we need to say 'you know what, they have their day,'" he said.

Meanwhile, Councillor Shelly Veroba engaged in a heated exchange with a man from the Concerned Citizens group who was sitting in the gallery.

"I couldn't figure out, how can somebody hate somebody they haven't even met. And I just still can't get it, and I can't understand how you think you can stand behind a straight pride flag and act like it's not filled with hatred," Veroba said to the man.

"I have a gay son," the man replied.

After the councillors were done speaking, Fichter said there was no hatred as part of his group's request.

"I didn't indicate anywhere in here that we have any form of hate to these people," he said. "I stated that the interest of our group is we fully support inclusivity of the Pride community. The issue for us is the diversity."

"Concerned Citizens does not understand council's decision to deny a symbol of straight pride, representing the worldview of over 90 per cent of the citizenry," Fichter said. "At the same time while hosting a library event promoting symbols of sexual diversity. That's not very inclusive and diverse."

Council indicated its support to fly the pride flag, the matter was dismissed, and the meeting moved on to other agenda items.