Opinion: Montrealers deserve a Canada Day parade downtown

For the fourth straight year, there won’t be an official parade in the heart of our city, and that’s a shame, says a former member of the Black Watch Pipes and Drums.

Author of the article:

Kevin Bushell • Special to Montreal Gazette

Published Jun 30, 2023 • Last updated 47 minutes ago • 3 minute read

Participants in 2016’s Canada Day parade in Montreal walk along Ste-Catherine St. Photo by Peter McCabe /MONTREAL GAZETTE

Twenty years ago, I took a sabbatical and spent a year in Hungary writing my first book. I was young and not well travelled, so the year abroad was eye-opening in a number of ways. For example, Nov. 11 came and went and I couldn’t find a single poppy. Of course not. Hungary was on the losing side of both world wars.

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Instead, remembrance days endorsed by the Hungarian state include one to commemorate the martyrs of the 1956 uprising, and another to commemorate victims of the communist dictatorships. Their most celebrated holiday is March 15 — the memorial day of the 1848 Revolution, a significant event in Hungarian national identity.

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Looking at all this with a foreigner’s eyes, I realized that national holidays are a form of social engineering — what we are supposed to remember, what we are supposed to forget; what we can celebrate, what we should not.

Just take a look at the national holidays of North Korea. There’s one called Day of the Shining Star, which is Kim Jong Il’s birthday, and one celebrating his graduation from university and start of work in the Workers’ Party. There’s one celebrating his mother’s birthday, and of course one celebrating his dad’s. It’s pretty clear for North Koreans what, or rather, who, they should celebrate.

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But of course we don’t have to look that far to see how this works in Canada, and particularly in Quebec. Outside of Quebec, Canada marks Victoria Day in May, celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday. In Quebec, it’s the Journée nationale des Patriotes. Then there’s the Fête nationale du Québec, a.k.a. St-Jean-Baptiste Day, on June 24.

I’m thinking about all this now because, for the fourth year running, there will not be an official Canada Day parade in downtown Montreal. Apparently, there isn’t the budget for a parade. Instead, smaller-scale celebrations will take place at the Old Port.

This is a shame. As a former member of the Black Watch (RHR) of Canada Pipes and Drums, I’ve participated in many parades, and the Canada Day one was my favourite, even more than the St. Patrick’s parade. Ste-Catherine St. was always lined deep with people dressed in red, many of them recent immigrants happy to celebrate their adoptive country. It was moving and made me, like them, proud to be Canadian.

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My first thought was that the funding issues are the work of our current provincial government, but the financing of Canada Day celebrations largely falls under the federal Heritage Department, which has held budgets to 2015 levels amid rising costs due to inflation and increased security.

It’s not just Montreal’s parade that has been cut. Decisions to scale back Canada Day celebrations in Vancouver and Calgary have also become a source of dispute.

But really — let’s be honest — it’s not about the money. It’s about how we feel about our country. Recently, Canada Day festivities in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto were reinstated after news of their cancellation led to a huge public backlash. If we value something enough, money is no object.

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Meanwhile, thousands of people are waiting in tent camps along the Mexican border, risking their lives in an attempt to get into North America. Why? Maybe we need to look with foreigners’ eyes to see all that we have. We have access to education, health care, social welfare and, compared to many other parts of the world, justice and political systems relatively free of corruption.

Many of the migrants are seeking what is not available to them in their countries: safety and economic opportunity. No, we don’t have a perfect country — we’ve made our mistakes — but we have a lot to be proud of, and much to celebrate.

It’s unfortunate the Trudeau government seems not to agree.

Kevin Bushell lives in Pointe-Claire and teaches English at Vanier College. His book Invisible Sea, a poetic exploration of flight, is published by DC Books.