Leo Varadkar, Ireland's first openly
gay prime minister, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
marched in Montreal's LGBT Pride parade on Sunday.
Varadkar was on his first day of a
three-day visit to Canada. The world leaders met for the first time
last month when Trudeau visited Ireland.
“I am very happy to be here,”
Varadkar said before the parade. “This is a marvelous celebration
of inclusiveness, tolerance and diversity.”
He added that Canada and Ireland must
play a leading role in advancing equal rights for the LGBT community
around the globe.
“One of the things we have in common
most of all is that we are countries that understand that diversity
is a strength and our differences make us stronger,” Varadkar is
quoted as saying by the
Montreal
Gazette. “Countries that are open, modern and diverse,
like Canada and Ireland, have a responsibility to other people in
other parts of the world where equality and people's rights are under
threat.”
Trudeau described Sunday's events as an
opportunity to “challenge ourselves in our thinking, to question
where we might not be as open as we think we are, to listen … and
to reflect on how we can dance and celebrate today, but how we can
change our actions tomorrow.”
According to organizers, roughly 7,000
people participated in Sunday's parade.