Prime Minister Mark Carney attends Vancouver Pride parade

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks with a drag performer during the Vancouver Pride Parade in Vancouver, on Sunday, August 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

Prime Minister Mark Carney surprised attendees at Vancouver’s Pride parade Sunday after meeting with Premier David Eby and officials from the Vancouver port.

Carney met with Vancouver Fraser Port Authority president and CEO Peter Xotta and DP World Canada chief operating officer Joel Werner in the morning, briefly appearing at a photo op with the two executives after pacing the port facility as a large container ship loomed above.

The prime minister was then scheduled for a meeting with B.C. Premier David Eby that was closed to media as the province grapples with U.S. tariffs and renewed animosity in the long running softwood lumber dispute.

Carney later surprised attendees at the Vancouver Pride parade, marching for about a kilometre along the route beginning outside B.C. Place Stadium.

He says the Pride parade represents the “essence of Canada,” celebrating diversity in a “very positive way.”

Carney was greeted by loud cheers from parade-goers lining the sidewalks along the route, and he zigzagged across the street several times to meet and greet supporters as his security detail followed closely.

The prime minister at one point was handed a microphone by a drag queen who thanked him for coming, and Carney said the parade was “the best of Canada.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 3, 2025.