SONYA FATAH
The weekend’s Caribana parade was followed by parties and more parties that rocked late into the night, but at the family-friendly arts and culture festival yesterday at Olympic Island, the atmosphere was much more laid-back.
The closing event of the three-week-long Caribbean festival featured live calypso, soca and reggae music. And stalls offering the best in Caribbean cuisine featured a range of food from goat curry and jerk chicken to oxtail rice.
Organizers said 2006 was the most successful Caribana in the festival’s 39-year history. But, while visitors and Torontonians gave this years’ parade a thumbs up, others said the Olympic Island festival was disappointing.
There was also some disagreement about attendance figures.
Festival organizers said about 1.2-million people made their way to Lakeshore Boulevard to witness the dazzling array of costumed performers in Saturday’s parade.
“For the parade we had the largest number of spectators ever,” said Joe Halstead, chairman of the new festival organizing committee.
But Elsworth James, public relations director of the Caribbean Cultural Committee, which was prevented from running the festival this year amid a financial controversy, disagreed.
“This year there was a major drop in tourism. Last year we had more than one million [people at the parade]. You had way below that [this year]. I would say half of that.”
The Caribbean Cultural Committee owns the Caribana name and founded the festival, but lost the right to stage this year’s event after the city said it was ineligible for $400,000 in funding for failing to provide a proper audit of the 2005 event. The Toronto Mas Bands Association, responsible for the parade’s colourful bands, co-ordinated the festival this year, led by a city-appointed committee.
Conflicts between the groups has dogged Caribana this past year, but both Mr. Halstead and Mr. James said they wanted an amicable resolution.
Caribana enthusiasts say part of the problem is that there isn’t enough support in the community, in big business and in Canada in general.
Angie Rajkumar drove in from Mississauga for the arts and culture fest on Olympic Island. She was disappointed.
“When I came here last time, they had some really good bands. I heard that they are not getting enough funding to run Caribana. Somebody has to pay for some of the good bands from Trinidad, or wherever, to perform. A lot of the regular people won’t come today because of the performers. I’ve met a lot of first-timers.”
Despite tensions around the event planning, the festival attracted plenty of tourists.
“We are the pre-eminent multicultural city of North America in so far as diversity and cultural expressions are concerned,” said Mr. Halstead. “And for that, people come here. They like the feel of the city.”
Rob Angaw, a New Yorker who came to Toronto for the 10th year with a group of his friends, said he loved the festival. “This is what we come for. We come for all the activities every day.”
Festival organizers said they were pleased with the performance of the Toronto Police Service, which had more officers at events this year.
“They are not there as enforcers, they are there are community police people ensuring that people are safe,” Mr. Halstead said.
“We’ve had absolutely no serious concerns,” said Staff Sergeant Frank Besenthal, who spent the weekend attending Caribana events in an official capacity. “No injuries, no fights, no arguments.”
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