Victoria Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe has stepped back from Canada Day event planning after more than 20 years.
She told fellow councillors last week she no longer wanted to serve as a liaison to the event, after councillors opted to pursue an event without fireworks that is oriented around Indigenous culture and performances.
Thornton-Joe said she felt it was time to step back because the event was moving in a new direction and it became a struggle “of trying to be all things to everyone.”
“You can only do so much with so much funding support, so because we couldn’t achieve everyone’s desires, there was often criticism,” she said.
Hearing some councillors talk about the need to make the event as inclusive as possible was frustrating, because that had always been the goal, said Thornton-Joe, who first got involved with the celebration in 2000 as a board member and president of the Inter-cultural Association of Greater Victoria.
“My heart’s been involved with Canada Day for 22 years and some of the comments broke my heart, I guess,” she said.
Part of Thornton-Joe’s job was to ensure the event reflected the region’s diversity. To do so, organizers brought in many performers who were born outside of Canada, as well as Indigenous performers.
She approached the chiefs of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations a few years ago to ask what the event needed to meaningfully acknowledge their traditional lands. At the time, she was told it was important to start with a welcome acknowledging the Lekwungen land and for the Lekwungen Traditional Dancers to perform first, Thornton-Joe said.
For Thornton-Joe, whose grandparents immigrated to Canada from China, the event is deeply personal. Growing up, she was ashamed of being Chinese because of the discrimination she faced in school. It took her a long time to feel proud of her heritage and appreciate the hardships her relatives endured to come to Canada in search of a better life, she said.
“When I celebrate Canada Day, I’m celebrating going from a child that was ashamed of my culture, to a person that not only has accepted, but that works on an event to help others celebrate,” she said.
While she’s now proud of her roots, she also feels conflicted, because her great-grandmother was Indigenous.
“I spend a lot of time in a conflict with those feelings,” she said.
Councillors were asked by staff Thursday to provide direction about the scope of next year’s event ahead of a deadline for federal funding. While some pushed for fireworks, councillors ultimately voted to forgo the traditional event finale. They asked staff to engage the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations about co-hosting or participating in an event.
Thornton-Joe said she was disappointed that councillors voted against fireworks and discussed shortening the event.
The city’s 2020 Canada Day celebration was a casualty of the pandemic and this year’s planned July 1 broadcast was cancelled after the Lekwungen Traditional Dancers said they wouldn’t participate as usual, because they were grieving the recent discovery of probable unmarked graves near a former residential school in Kamloops.
Lead singer Lyla Dick said at the time they weren’t trying to pressure the city into cancelling the broadcast, but the group appreciated the gesture. They had no plans to boycott future Canada Day events, she said.
Thornton-Joe said she agreed with cancelling the broadcast this summer, because it wasn’t a time to celebrate the pride of being Canadian when the atrocities of residential school deaths were front and centre.
She said while she recognizes the need for the event to evolve, she doesn’t want to see an event that makes one group feel welcome while others feel ashamed or unwelcome.
