With Jason Veltri

Jason Veltri has been heavily involved in Thunder Bay’s Pride community for the past couple of years. Born and raised in Thunder Bay, he spent over 10 years out west working in the oil and gas sector before returning in 2019. He’s a former chair of Thunder Pride and is now a co-founder of Rainbow Collective, a new organization that aims to further education and advocacy for gender and sexual diversity. Veltri joined us over the phone to talk about the new organization, his love of travelling, and how many times he’s seen Lady Gaga in concert.

On the Rainbow Collective:

The Rainbow Collective is a group of us who came together because we had [seen] a gap in our community on education and increased advocacy work on the gender and sexual diversity communities. We really wanted to provide the increased education component to our community because there’s lots of misinformation out there and we wanted to ensure that a healthy community is an educated community. We are doing that work now through a variety of workshops that we’re offering, and working with other community stakeholders to broaden their approach and make sure that their spaces, or businesses and organizations, are inclusive, open, and inviting for everybody who comes in under the gender and sexual diversity umbrella.

On his interests outside of work:

I’m an avid traveller, I enjoy my sports—I’ve curled for the better part of 20 years—and live music and concerts are probably a staple in my life, especially when I lived in the bigger communities. I could get to a lot more concerts than I can now. Maybe a fun fact is I’ve seen Lady Gaga 16 times. Seventeen was supposed to be this summer, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.

On spending time at camp:

We have a family camp in Rossport that has been there for over 125 years, [and so has] our family. So, that is my little slice of heaven. As I get older, I appreciate more the peace, the quiet. Time stands still in Rossport and it’s where you can kind of go and shut off and mow the lawn, fix the camp, do your chores, but also get out on the lake and take the boat and go put around the harbour or cast the line in and try to catch a fish. It’s where I grew up; it’s where, as I get older, I am the most happy. It’s somewhere I’m thankful that we have, and that we have our family down there and we all kind of come together. It’s the watering hole for everybody, especially in the summer, and [I get] to see my cousins and my aunts and uncles. That’s my one special place in the world.

On the most interesting place he’s travelled:

For me, it would have been Morocco—to not only go to the continent of Africa, but to travel around the entire country over 10 days was probably one of my most special trips. I also did it with my parents, and then my step-mom was also a teacher at the college, so she was with her students. Morocco’s a fantastic place because […] you’ve got almost everything—you’ve got mountains, you’ve got snow, you’ve got desert, you’ve got water. Every place we went, you could see the past as a Roman colony back in the day, and now it’s transformed into a predominantly Muslim country, but the influences are still there. It was just fascinating—the food, the culture. That was my first foray into a predominantly Muslim country and some of the things that you have to observe we were taught along the way. Morocco was a pretty spectacular country to see.

On what’s on his music playlist these days:

Top 40. I’m a Top 40 guy. I’m really enjoying the new Justin Bieber, believe it or not. Dua Lipa is another one that I’m really kind of into right now.

On who he has looked up to:

Not [any one] single person. I think in every different part of my life, there’s somebody that I kind of gravitate towards. I think of my curling days and gravitating towards Sandra Schmirler, who passed away in 2000. She was at the top of her class in everything in the sport, and being someone who identifies as male, I looked up to a very strong female athlete that way, and wanted to emulate everything about Sandra. In life, though, I take some of my cues from our leaders [but] I don’t have anyone specifically that I look up to. I pull from a little bit of everything.