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City of Guelph unveils its first rainbow crosswalk ahead of Pride Month

The City of Guelph's first rainbow crosswalk was unveiled Thursday morning. (Erin Caton/Twitter) The City of Guelph's first rainbow crosswalk was unveiled Thursday morning. (Erin Caton/Twitter)
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Downtown Guelph has gotten a bit more colourful as the city unveils its first-ever rainbow crosswalk days before Pride Month kicks off across Canada.

Crews took to the streets at the intersection of Gordon and Wilson streets overnight on Wednesday to paint the rainbow crosswalk -- a symbol of inclusion for the LGBTQ2S+ community.

While this will not be the first rainbow crosswalk in Guelph, it will be the first one installed by the city.

Last summer, Stone Road Mall in Guelph installed the first rainbow crosswalk in the city.

The City of Guelph announced in April it would be painting the symbol of inclusion at the busy downtown intersection.

Ahead of the painting, the City of Guelph was bombarded on its Twitter account with comments that opposed the crosswalk and took aim at the City of Guelph restricting the comment section on its post.

The city said for the first time ever it had to temporarily switch its Twitter account to private to allow staff to moderate comments.

The city noted that a majority of the comments appeared to come from outside of the region, and those that did come from residents showed their support for the crosswalk installation.

At the time, city staff told CTV News that the negative comments shone a spotlight on why the rainbow crosswalk is needed in the community.

“It has underscored the reason why this rainbow crosswalk is so important,” said Tammy Adkin, the City of Guelph’s manager of museums and culture. “Because we've witnessed over the past couple of days the kind of hate and discrimination that some of our members of our community have had to face. We're looking forward to bringing some light and joy with this rainbow crosswalk installation.”

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