By L.W.
This year’s Caribana was anticipated with mixed emotions, from the controversy around the name being changed to the “Scotiabank Caribbean Carnival”, the rumours of entrance fees, to the route changes: everything was hinged on that day.
But now it seems that all we can remember is the shooting, the wounding of 2 people and death of one man at the hands of an officer. Conveniently, the Soctiabanks Caribbean Carnival is now only referenced to as Caribana or the Caribbean festival by news sources.
It would seem that the efforts to charge an entrance fee were not enforced at the parade, in fact on the bus ride down of the 7 people asked none were even aware of said entrance fee and were clearly not willing to pay it. That being said there were people who bought their “entrance tickets” online at Scotiabank’s website, increasing revenue for the under-funded Festival Management Committee (FMC) and Scotiabank on a whole.
Once in the parade, the usual endless strip of food vendors, most of whom were run by families from Toronto’s caribbean community,were more sparse than ever. This is probably due to the raise in the cost of renting a vending spot from 50$ to 120$. Looks like the element of culture that the food brought to the festivities was not as important to the new Scotiabank ownership as the returns to be made.
Food vendors may have been one of the few ways the parade brought real revenue back to the Caribbean community, because all the clubs, the hotels, the stores and restaurants that get a total of 400+ million dollars pumped back into their industries are not giving back to the community or addressing any of it’s real and pressing issues.
Like the idea 45 years ago, when the parade started, to use the revenue to create a community centre and services for newly arrived immigrants, an initiative that never materialized. Or the glaring issue of 40% unemployment of young caribbean males.
Maybe that is where the Scotiabank got it’s percentage of 40% of the FMC’s budget was to come from revenue. That mean user-fees everyone! So if you aren’t one of us lucky ones who is (barely) physically able to jump the fences then come prepared next year, because the spiked fence separating you from the parade will only be getting higher.
It’s more than ironic that a community who has under and unemployment as a social issue is being pimped by a bank who is so rich that it continues to profit throughout the recession, not even needing a government bailout.
Scotiabank’s relationship as owner of the cultural festival is more than a name. It is an exploitative relationship: an appropriation of culture for profit, squeezing as much money out of one of the low-income communities in the city as possible. Should we be surprised that when real life problems of the community happen to emerge, like the violence against and murder of young caribbean men, the bank is no where to be found. This is enraging considering the orgins of the parade are in the celebration of emancipation from slavery, an element of the history of the parade that Scotiabank has no intention of promoting.
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