Compared to previous years, the 2017 Canada Day celebration was a little more low key, mostly because of tough budget decisions, Community & Leisure Services Director says Michael Ulriksen.
City staff were excited to see the amount of federal government funding available for Canada 150 celebrations but most of that was only available to new programs, he says.
“We were looking to ramp it up and make it a bigger and better celebration...but it was found out the funding only applied to new events, that they would not fund any existing events just to make them bigger and better.”
Last year’s Friday program did have a drop in attendance since most people were making plans outside the city for the long weekend. With this year’s event being on a Saturday, Ulriksen says they were expecting the same problem but were still going to go forward with a similar event.
That was until April hit and the provincal budget.
“It was hard to justify keeping Canada Day celebrations at the level we’ve had in the past with all the other stuff we were looking to cut.”
In order to have the funding for Canada Day, Ulriksen says they had to take a hard look at the other services they would have had to cut in order to have a big Canada Day celebration.
Just in the Humboldt region, a lot of activities were going on with a lot of communities knowing they are competing with each other.
“We started looking at those things and thinking what are some ways we can contribute and provide something for those who aren’t leaving towns.”
Ulriksen says he still anticipated many Humboldt residents took in one or more events outside of Humboldt over the course of the weekend but Ulriksen says they still wanted to contribute.
The focus became recreation activities with free swimming, ball hockey, pickle ball, mini and disc golf throughout the day and everyone welcome to take in the spray park and cheap bowling.
“We’ve got a lot of amazing facilities in our community,” says Ulriksen so they set up the day for families to be able to enjoy these facilities.
Staffing also played a role in Canada Day planning with the day being a stretch on city staff with employees coming from the parks department to work the celebration.
“The Canada Day celebration is run entirely from our Community and Leisure Services Department and our staffing, without volunteers from the community,” he says, which is tough considering the work that went in to Summer Sizzler.
Ulriksen says the fireworks was something they could make bigger and better with a longer show at Water Ridge Park to conclude the day.
“That was a fantastic conclusion to Canada Day.”
Ulriksen says they fully expected some backlash for their decision but feedback on how they can make the celebration better for next year is always welcome, but to please call the city directly.
See more Canada Day photos here.
