Toronto Mayoral Candidates Promise To Address CARIBANA’S “Hijacking’’

By Lincoln Depradine
Pride Contributing Writer

TORONTO, Ontario – Since 2006, the City of Toronto has been in the middle of a virtual family dispute involving Caribbean nationals and the summer carnival that began in 1967 as CARIBANA.

And some of the people campaigning to be Toronto’s mayor are promising to address the carnival controversy head on if elected as the city’s chief political administrator on Monday.

“I am committed and will work with you. I know what needs to be done,” mayoral candidate Olivia Chow told a meeting of the Caribana Arts Group (CAG) Saturday.

The CAG was formerly the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC), the group that inaugurated the carnival festival 47 years ago to commemorate the centenary of the founding of Canada.

Last Saturday was advertised as a “townhall meeting” by the CAG “to address the state of CARIBANA and issues regarding community control of the festival, economic development and the cultural integrity of CARIBANA”.

At the meeting, the City of Toronto was accused of “hijacking” CARIBANA. It’s a reference to the city’s decision eight years ago to withhold funding from the CCC and place the organizing of CARIBANA under the jurisdiction of a newly formed Festival Management Committee (FMC).

CCC/CAG members say the agreement, facilitated by councillor Joe Mihevc, to have the FMC run the festival, “was to end December 31^st, 2006”.

They are peeved that the city-funded FMC is still in charge of the festival that now carries the name, “Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival”.

“The cultural integrity of the festival is being lost,” CAG chairman Knia Singh said Saturday.

And, CAG executive member Henry “Cosmos” Gomez demanded that the name, CARIBANA, “should be restored” to the festival.

There was stinging criticism of this summer’s festival parade, which was described as “abominable” and “disappointing”.

The meeting’s participants also complained that the festival now is not “Community-owned and controlled,” and pointed to how little the community benefits from more than $450 million that is generated each year from the Toronto summer carnival.

Like Chow, D!ONNE Renée and Dewitt Lee III expressed support for the CAG. Lee and Renée are the only two African-Canadians in the mayoral race.

Renée offered suggestions to the CAG executive, including the need to recruit more members by allowing for online membership.

“I am asking for your vote so that we can help inspire change in Toronto,” said Lee.

He said because he is engaged in a “cause” and not a “campaign”, he’ll be involved in the issue of the future of CARIBANA, irrespective of how he finishes in Monday’s election contest.

Mayoral candidate John Tory, who was not at the townhall, was asked about his position on the CARIBANA issue at a campaign event Sunday.

“If I can play a useful role by being part of a meeting between the two groups (CAG and FMC), going back and forth to try and help mediate this dispute, I would do that. But, I would only do it if they requested me to,” Tory told Pride News Magazine. “But I would certainly like to see it resolved. I give it an open offer to help anytime I can.”