Canada Day parade about to slip away

While it’s not the end of the world, and won’t be immortalized in verse, Peterborough’s Canada Day parade slips away to echoes of T.S. Eliot’s closing lines of “The Hollow Men”: “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

The parade, once a long, loud, red and white July 1 celebration of Canada’s birth as a nation, is scheduled to officially disappear Monday by bureaucratic order.

City council will see a report explaining the rationale, but the decision is left to city staff.

That’s the way things will play out according to the staff report, which says the $20,000 budget will be spent on other Canada Day events that get more participation.

There is a chance council will push pause to see if someone pops out of the heritage/national pride woodwork to organize and run a parade.

If so, a saviour would need to appear quickly. July 1 is just 10 weeks away.

It seems more likely council will wave goodbye to the parade’s departing shadow.

According to the staff report, 56 parade floats were registered in 2019 but only 16 showed up due to high heat and humidity.

COVID-19 cancelled the parade for the next two years. It returned in 2022 with 21 floats. Last year there were 25 and their passage, start to finish, clocked in at 20 minutes.

Examiner reports in recent years referred to “hundreds” of parade watchers along George Street, significantly fewer than turn out for the annual Santa Claus parade, which features roughly 60 floats.

Lack of interest in a Canada Day parade does not necessarily mean Peterborough residents are losing their sense of national pride. In fact, the one-time staple of July 1 celebrations lasted longer here than in many communities.

While is it hard to know when they cancelled their parades, a review of 2023 Canada Day celebrations reveals most municipalities don’t have one: Ottawa, Kingston, Oshawa, Toronto, Oakville, Guelph and London all celebrate the nation’s birthday, but do it without parade floats.

An events website that covers the GTA (Toronto and Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions) listed 2023 Canada Day events in 27 municipalities. Five had parades.

The city staff report cites the after-effects of COVID, declining community interest, heat and humidity related to climate change, higher costs, and rising insurance premiums for groups that enter a float as factors in the parade’s slow death.

Outside of costs, those could also be cited as the reason Canada Day festivities in general are on the wane here. A Canada Day multicultural event in Crary Park with dozens of food and crafts booths drew big crowds during its 10-year run, but has since moved to the previous weekend.

The city now organizes afternoon Canada Day events in the park and there are fireworks following the free Peterborough Musicfest concert that evening, but crowds are smaller than they were.

Could a parade return some day? The city is clearly not interested. The report notes it has been an off-the-side-of-the-desk task for recreation department staff, and does not suggest dedicating more resources would be worth the effort.

The demise of Canada Day parades coincides with an identified social trend toward more focus on personal and family interests, less in community-wide events and celebrations.

Unless a would-be saviour does appear, Peterborough is about to reinforce that trend with the end of its Canada Day parade. We prefer to think of it as leaving not with a whimper, but a fond farewell.

The demise of Canada Day parades coincides with an identified social trend toward more focus on personal and family interests