The weekend in review

Well, this past weekend was Caribana weekend. It is the culmination of two weeks of parties, boat cruises, fetes, street fetes, eating, drinking, wining (not winning) down, drinking, costumes, floats, music, steel band, drinking, sun, fun, love, diversity and, er, uhm, yeah, drinking. Now, I am not going to tell you that this is a drinking festival. I am simply saying that a lot of drink (A L-O-T) gets drunk during the two weeks and especially on the weekend of the big parade.

For the uninitiated, Caribana is the second largest festival of its kind in North America and outside of the birthplace of it all; Trinidad and Tobago. To understand the beginnings of this great experience, you need to read up and understand the roots of how it all started. While Carnival has essentially stayed true to the original forms of display in music department (steel band, soca, calypso and nowadays, some reggae and raga), Caribana has had to attune itself more with the diversity of the city as more and more people wanted to be a part of it. So now you will find floats from reggae artists, radio stations like Flow 93.5 FM, the Toronto Police and City of Toronto and, one of my favourites, the Brazilian Dancers (how do their costumes stay on with all that... uhm, nevermind).

So, now to get a little political, in term of what the festival brings in during the two weeks compared to what the government funds to have it happen, the festival is woefully underfunded compared to other high profile events like the Molson Indy, Pride Week, The Jazz Festival and more. What makes this so ludicrous is that absolutely no other event that takes place in Toronto, Ontario and possibly all of Canada, attracts more people from more places around the world and brings in more money into the area. The most recent numbers I have heard are that over a million visitors pass through the area in the two weeks. Most times, there are a million people along the entire parade route (of which no other event requires as great a space). No other event fills as many hotels in the Golden Horseshoe area as does Caribana, yet the hotels super suck at helping the very program that fills their coffers. No other event, not even ones geared to food, brings as much business to the restaurants as this one does yet they too are not amongst the chief sponsors (even as a community and not a single business). The TTC has to run extra service to accommodate the steady flow on the Bathurst 511 to Exhibition place. The Taxis run non stop. The charted boats are booked months in advance. Halls are rented out for the various showcase fetes that happen around the city. Let's not forget all the regular tourist sites get a big boost as well; CN Tower, Skydome (yeah, I said it!), Casa Loma, Ontario Science Centre, Edwards gardens, etc.

At the last estimate I remember reading about, Caribana helps the city pull in (are you ready for this?) a BILLION dollars into all the players coffers. A (^%(&^%)* billion with a big fat 'B' people. Yet, the CCC (Caribana Cultural Committee)has to beg every year to get some funding which still leaves the band leaders shelling out their own money to enter kings and queens into competition and to fund the staging areas for the costumes and to fund things like the trucks and such. The bands almost never turn any kind of profit so you need to understand that they do it for the spirit and the love of being a part of it all. A billion dollars return and they can only cough up a couple of hundred grand? And bitch and moan about security and garbage and whatever?

Now, let me be fair in saying the CCC has had its share of turmoil including a treasurer or two who were a bit loose with the books. Typical black people and the disorganization and public fighting did not help in the least. Well, that has changed and things are much tighter now. In fact, my old geography teacher, Mr. Lennox Farrel is now the chair, I believe, of the CCC. This man never could stand for any nonsense and I fully support him.

Some years ago, the CCC had the opportunity to really shake things up and really hurt the slacker that simply feed from the Caribana through but never help pay for the privilege. They had cancelled all the boat cruises. Threatened to cancel Caribana completely. Then, they came up with the idea to move the whole damn thing to the Markham Fair Grounds. Those who have no clue of where this is, I will explain. The MFG is an establishment in Markham, which is immediately north of the north-east section of Toronto. While special bus route would need to be planned, it was definitely a doable switch. The festival was well established enough to survive the move. It would have woken up a lot of folks because the hotels in the north would have been full, not downtown. The taxis in the north would have be running 24/7, not downtown. The restaurants would have been booked in the north, not downtown. All the people, all the excitement, all the MONEY would have migrated north, not downtown. I was all for this disruption. I applauded the plan to wake them up around here. Then the inevitable happened. The city "found" some available funds to save the festival. The ball-less wonders of the CCC at the time caved and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, the CCC continues to live on the breadcrumbs of the government provided funding and the reapers of the benefits continue to laugh their way to the bank. I know I am just talking, but with Lennox in charge, maybe it is the right time to do more.

Peace.