When locals watch Innisfail's Pierre Cadieux take off on his extraordinary journey on CTV's Amazing Race Canada on July 15, they will not only experience quality reality show entertainment but will witness yet another important benchmark on Canada's remarkable global leadership on tolerance, understanding and acceptance.
Cadieux, 38, is an accomplished banking institution executive. He is a widower and raising two boys.
He is also proudly gay.
Cadieux' s partner on the show, Airdrie's Jamie Cumberland, is also gay. Together they will face off against eight other teams to win.
CTV is hyping the show as a battle between “gay cowboys, contrary identical twins and brassy best buddies.” Like all networks, CTV needs a hook to attract viewers, so why not gay cowboys? The American version of the show, The Amazing Race, probably would not dare to be so brazen, worried vocal and influential Bible Belt folks might protest. But here in Canada it is no longer a big deal. Canada, after all, has set the bar for more than a decade in its ongoing quest to shove aside the ridiculous prejudice against gays and lesbians, and moving forward with a dedicated policy of full equality. Thankfully many other countries have followed this trend. The recent United States Supreme Court decisions are proof of this.
A few years ago as Canada's progressive equality policies towards gays and lesbians were gaining momentum, I penned a column that it would be a great day indeed when the time came there was no longer any need for Gay Pride parades, which for this scribbler serve only to underscore a perceived intolerance problem with society in general when it is actually diminishing without such public demonstrations. If Canadian society is actually getting a firm handle on this perceived problem why is there still a need to hold Gay Pride parades?
“I am not sure we don't need it anymore so much as I am so thankful that on one level it has come so mainstream and so acceptable,” said Cadieux. “I am happy that a Gay Pride parade is as equally celebrated as a parade that honours Jewish people or a different ethnic group as part of our community. I think it is great to have our straight friends and family members with us celebrating that we consider ourselves so uniquely different. In lots of ways we are not.”
What impresses me the most about Cadieux's statement here is the “we are not” part.
Cadieux is one of us. He is an Innisfailian. And lets now and forever more leave it at that. And when folks in town turn on the tube at 9 p.m. on July 15 to watch Amazing Race Canada, most locals will be rooting for the local man, not the gay fellow from Innisfail.
While Cadieux will be working hard to win the $250,000 prize money, he need not worry. He is already a winner. And so is this community, for its acceptance of the notion that it is the quality of the person that counts the most.
