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Faced with shrinking Québec and federal government budgets for harm reduction work, Montréal youth organization Head & Hands has turned to an online funding competition in a valiant attempt to resurrect its street work programme. 2Bmag spoke with Jon McPhedran Waitzer, the young queer director of the NDG-based team that is looking to help youth where and how they need it most.

There are fewer corporate donations coming in for the Farha Foundation’s annual Ça Marche AIDS walkathon this year, but that’s not stopping the participating teams and organizations from showing up and making a difference. Linda Farha spoke to us about the challenges and joys of this 20th year taking to the streets. (Photo by Neal Rockwell: the Head & Hands team will be dancing the walk for the fifth year in a row!)

(This is our 5th of 6 party overviews on LGBT issues). The anti-homophobia Action Plan is the first and foremost undertaking that the Québec Liberal Party is serving the LGBT community in the years ahead. “If I had another promise today, they would ask me in March why I didn’t put it in the Action Plan and why I didn’t do it sooner,” says Jean-Marc Fournier diffidently. As Justice Minister, Fournier is also the rep for LGBT issues in the Charest government. Entre Elles spoke with him just a few days before he attended Montréal Pride.

(Our sixth of 6 party overviews on LGBT issues). Although not heavily present in the media, the Parti vert du Québec (Green Party) hopes to voice concerns that other parties have neglected either willingly or not. As for the environment, so it goes for LGBT issues: the party stands out for openly opposing Québec’s current ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men.

(The fourth of our 6 party overviews on LGBT issues) The Option Nationale party was not founded in 2011 for socially conscious reasons only: Jean-Martin Aussant did so believing that Pauline Marois’s PQ wasn’t doing enough to hasten Québec independence. You would expect then that everything, including LGBT issues, would take a (far) back seat to sovereignty for the Option Nationale. Not so, says Yanek Lauzière-Fillion, ON candidate for the Crémazie riding.

(The third of our 6 party overviews on LGBT issues). With the unveiling of the Charest government’s anti-homophobia Action Plan in May of 2011, the question on everyone’s mind was: How can the Parti québécois go further, when the measures adopted by the Liberals have been praised by numerous activists?

(This is the second of our 6 party overviews on LGBT issues). Manon Massé is an out lesbian feminist and one of the co-founders of the Québec Solidaire party. She will once again be running for MNA in the Village riding of Sainte-Marie-Saint-Jacques. Entre Elles asked her about the commitments to LGBT issues she and co-spokesman Amir Khadir made public during community day in Parc Serge-Garant, behind Beadry Metro (Sat. Aug 18).

(This is the first in our 6 party overviews on LGBT issues).“The Coalition unites everyone who is tired of the old parties’ debates,” Cédrick Beauregard tells us. This former political attaché to Education Minister Michelle Courchesne(!) is the de facto spokesman for LGBT issues for François Legault’s CAQ party. So what can the gay community expect from the CAQ?

Organizers were already happy with how things were going when Fierté Montréal’s culminating Pride Parade took to the streets yesterday, Sunday, Aug 19. Reuniting all of the community’s main LGBT groups, as well as an ad-hoc “red square” contingent, the 2.5-hour procession was watched by a crowd of thousands from all over Canada and abroad.

Tomorrow night (Tues. Aug 14), hundreds of lesbians will take to the streets to live a historic moment, claiming to be Montréal’s first ever Dyke March. Organized by an independent collective looking to repoliticize and give visibility to the lesbian community, the group also hopes to raise awareness and celebrate dyke identities.