The City of Montreal blames the promoter of the Carifiesta for the cancellation of the 2023 edition of the traditional Caribbean parade. She says she contacted him a dozen times to inform him that the funding rules had changed, but says she never got a response from him.
Result: the grant application sent by the Association of Caribbean Cultural Festivals (AFCC) this year was therefore not in conformity. Municipal funding, which accounts for approximately 70% of the event’s budget, was not granted. The AFCC thus announced the cancellation of the 47e edition of the Carifiesta, which was to take place on July 8 in the city center.
In an email sent to Duty, the City explains that it has done everything to prevent the event from being canceled. Certainly, the terms of the grant application have changed since last year, but the municipal administration ensures that the organization has been informed several times.
“The promoter was notified of these changes upstream and the City communicated with him through more than seven emails, in addition to the six calls made to accompany him in the filing of his project”, reports the City of Montreal, which said he never received an acknowledgment of receipt.
The City says it has, among other things, invited the organizer to public information sessions explaining the new subsidy program, but he did not take part.
If it is too late for the 2023 edition, the City indicates that the door is not closed for the next few years. The municipal councilor Ericka Alneus, who is responsible for culture on the executive committee, would also have met the promoter of the Carifiesta, Everiste Blaize, on Wednesday, according to the CityNews channel.
“I don’t like the story [de la Ville] wanting us to be unorganized,” Blaize told the same media. Contacted by The duty Wednesday and Thursday, the AFCC president did not respond to our interview request.
I don’t like the story [de la Ville] wanting us to be unorganized
On Monday, Mr. Blaize told the press that he did not understand why his application for the grant had been rejected. The email he received from the City mentioned that, “given the quality of the applications received”, the evaluation committee had to discard certain projects to choose those that best suited the program.