Crowds flocked to New Westminster’s waterfront on Saturday in celebration of Canada Day.
The day’s fun featured live music, multicultural performances, circus and arts activities, a yo-yo show, a kid’s zone that included face painting, balloon twisting, crafts and more.
Elsewhere in the city, Canada Day activities included a Canada Day drop-in and open sports activities at the Queensborough Community Centre, and Yoga in the Park at the Queen’s Park Bandshell.
The City of New Westminster’s Canada Day celebrations are intended to provide residents with an opportunity to reflect on the common elements found in all cultures – family, food, movement and creativity – and to enjoy a variety of free activities.
Many residents attending the city’s Canada Day festivities wore red, the colour featured in the Canadian flag, or orange, a colour often associated with survivors of residential schools.
Following the discovery of 215 children’s bodies at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021, the killing of a Muslim family in Ontario in June 2021, and the city’s ongoing work to address diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism, the City of New Westminster revamped its Canada Day programming in 2021 to emphasize opportunities for connecting cultures and people.
“Forevermore, Canada Day will not only be a day to celebrate the privilege of being Canadian but also to remember and to acknowledge that the price of that privilege was and continues to be impossibly high to Indigenous peoples and their communities,” said a statement on the City of New Westminster’s website. “It is our responsibility as a nation, as a city and as citizens of this land to make reparations for that history through our ongoing commitment to reconciliation.”
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