Parades in Regina will be following new routes going forward. Here’s why.

Queen City Pride Parade 2023. (David Prisciak/CTV News)

Parade routes throughout Regina will look a bit different going forward, due to some recent changes with safety and emergency access in mind.

The Regina Police Service (RPS) deals with all parade permits in the city. The service also acts as part of the planning committee tasked with weighing the pros and cons of parade routes.

Chris Jackiw is an inspector at the RPS. He said the safety of everyone participating in a parade, the impact on the rest of the public, and city and police resources were all taken into consideration with the changes.

“How to set them up, the routes so that it works with the flow of traffic. Trying to avoid any long runs of vehicle incursions,” he explained.

• Download the CTV News app to get breaking news alerts sent to your device

On Saturday, over 4,000 members of the Sikh community participated in a parade through south-central Regina.

Under the new regulations, organizers worked to make the parade as convenient as possible for residents unaware of the celebration.

“We were given instructions on how the vehicles would be put together. How motorcycles should not be leading,” explained Manmeet Singh, the secretary of the Sikh Society Regina.

“We tried to make sure Albert St. was blocked for the smallest amount of time. We tried our very best to minimize that inconvenience.”

The Queen City Pride Parade will be the first major event to be rerouted and adjusted.

In recent years, the event has seen huge growth. Despite missing some major Regina landmarks, organizers are looking forward to some of the new changes.

“The parade route is a nice loop so people can get back to their cars. The route still goes down Albert Street, in front of the legislative building, which means so much to us,” Regina Pride co-chair Riviera Bonneau noted.

The planning committee was established in 2025. Changes are planned for several different events, including sticking close to the route marked out for the Pride parade.

There’s a lot of advantages to the new route,“ Jackiw said. “Because it actually works with traffic.”