Canada Day celebrations will likely have a big turnout, Coquitlam council said this week as city staff start to form a long-term festival and events strategy.
Coun. Craig Hodge said if the weather on July 1 is good, the municipality can expect to see more than 100,000 people flock to Town Centre Park for the city-run party to recognize the country’s birthday and to show patriotism in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation.
“If you just look at what is happening in our country and our community, people are wearing Canadian flags year-round now,” Hodge said at the April 8 strategic priorities standing committee. “I just think of what’s taking place south of the border [shows] that people are coming together in Canada.”
“This year is going to be extremely well-attended,” Coun. Teri Towner added.
Their comments about Canada Day came as Heidi Hughes, Coquitlam’s manager of tourism and visitor economy, spoke about the need to develop a festival and events roadmap as the population swells over the next decade.
The city will hire a consultant and form an internal working group to get a draft strategy before council next spring; however, the framework will not include sports tourism, she said, as that component will be a different report.
Currently, the city sets aside about $580,000 for city-led festivals and events, of which $450,000 comes from tax dollars and $130,000 is from sponsors.
For the community-led events, council OK’d a $402,000 bump from casino revenues this year to boost Festival du Bois; Charshanbe Suri (fire festival); ScotFest BC: The BC Highland Games; BC Dumpling Fest; Caribbean Days Festival; and HollyDaze in the Heights, an Austin Heights BIA winter fete.
The city also hosts about 35 small- to mid-sized community events in parks a year.
Hughes said festivals and events build connections and draw in visitors, and the city recently hired a community events and partnership supervisor to work with the organizing nonprofits and find ways to share civic information.
“We have lots of opportunities […] to build on the successes that we have,” Hodge said, while pressing for better metrics, funding models and locations.
Still, Towner said attendance numbers may not always be the best to measure success when guests can spend two hours in a line up to get food.
Towner wants the new strategy to ensure that community-led events are financially sustainable and don’t rely on the city for cash hand-outs.
Coun. Dennis Marsden said he doesn’t want to over-program parks as they “are for our residents,” and called for improved traffic flows and access points.
Marsden also urged staff to step back from getting too involved in organizing, asking the city to “turn it over to professionals” rather than taking the lead.
As well, Marsden dangled a hotel/visitor tax, like in Vancouver and Kelowna, to pay for festivals and events in Coquitlam instead of taxpayers footing the bill. “We need to make it clear that, as a city, we are going down that path.”
Coun. Steve Kim also spoke about the lack of area hotels, with out-of-towners staying overnight in Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver, for Coquitlam functions.
(Marcon and QuadReal are building a hotel on a former car dealership site at Lougheed and Barnet highways, while TransLink submitted a pre-application last December for its parking lot at Coquitlam Central, at 2920 Barnet Hwy., for eight towers, 3,400 residential units and combined hotel and office tower.)
With Coquitlam being north of the Fraser River and having a SkyTrain line, the city is well-situated geographically, Coun. Matt Djonlic, committee chair, said.
“We want to avoid Town Centre Park from being booked up every weekend,” he said, adding later, “or we are going to be victims of our own success.”
📣 Got an opinion on this story or any others in the Tri-Cities? Send us a letter or email your thoughts or story tips to [email protected].
📲 Want to stay updated on Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore and Belcarra news? Sign up for our free daily newsletter.
💬 Words missing in an article? Your adblocker might be preventing hyperlinked text from appearing.
