While the opening ceremony for the Sochi Games unfolded in Russia, City of Edmonton officials quietly raised the rainbow flag at City Hall.

The city said the move was in support of the LGBTQ communities worldwide, and joined similar action in other Canadian cities including St. Albert, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and St. John’s.

“I think a lot of Canadian cities are showing solidarity with our LGBTQ communities,” Mayor Don Iveson said Friday. “In Canada, diversity, and embracing our different communities is very important to us, it’s just a message that local communities are sending out across the country.

“Edmonton’s going to be a part of that.”

The city said the rainbow flag will stay up, on the 'community flag pole', located on the southwest side of the City Hall plaza, through the duration of the Sochi Games.

Officials with the Alberta government announced Friday that one of the provincial flags on the legislature grounds would be replaced that afternoon with a rainbow flag - a flag that would stay up until the end of the Paralympic Games.

Associate Minister Sandra Jansen announced the move on Twitter Friday afternoon, and posted a photo of the raised flag online.

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“The reality that all of the large cities in Canada are doing this may carry some significance,” political scientist Jim Lightbody said. “Much more than one city alone.”

The rainbow flag usually only flies at Edmonton’s City Hall during Pride Week.

“As citizens and taxpayers, we are part of the nation, part of the province and we are citizens of the city and it’s entirely appropriate that city council speak out on things that are important to local residents,” Lightbody said.

With files from Breanna Karstens-Smith