New Westminster’s Canada Day celebration will continue to be held at Pier Park in 2025 – but that could change in the years ahead.
In September, Coun. Paul Minhas brought forward a motion for council’s consideration related to selecting an inclusive and accessible site for the city’s 2025 Canada Day celebrations.
At its Sept. 9 meeting, council approved a motion to have staff report back on resources required for a fulsome public engagement process for the 2025 Canada Day festivities. The motion also stated that several locations across New Westminster be offered to the public as a potential site for next year’s festivities, including at least one site in Queensborough.
In a Dec. 16 report to council, staff said a fulsome engagement process would typically cost from $5,000 to $10,000, excluding consultant’s costs. It stated that planning, implementation and reporting back on a fulsome public engagement process typically takes four to five months – and would be “challenging to complete” in time to incorporate for Canada Day 2025.
“Canada Day generally takes three to four months of planning, with all event details finalized about one month in advance to allow for time for marketing,” said the report. “Staff in community partnerships typically begin the initial planning for Canada Day in December, with contractor reservations made in January or February, and the bulk of the planning work taking place in March. Reservations for some contractors are best made early in the year to secure preferred vendors, given that Canada Day is a widely celebrated holiday in the region.”
According to a staff report, staff anticipate the engagement work will take place in 2025 and the results would be applied to the planning of Canada Day 2026 and onwards.
In addition, staff noted that the Community Advisory Assembly has been discussing and developing recommendations for the City of New Westminster on cultural observances, with a focus on how the city could formalize its practices in this area to be more inclusive and equitable and to support community belonging.
“The assembly recommended that the city annually lead a few large-scale observances that promote a sense of shared community identity and bring people together across differences,” said the report. “Seasonal, intercultural celebrations involving large-scale, public, festival-like events, such as Canada Day, were identified as a priority event type.”
Council unanimously approved a staff recommendation to proceed with a fulsome public engagement process about Canda Day events in New Westminster for the planning of events for 2026 and beyond, including engagement on cultural observances recommendations from the Community Advisory Assembly.
Minhas said he understands why the location of Canada Day won’t be changed for 2025, but he hopes that changes in the future.
“Based on the staff report, with all the challenges that they struggle with at the waterfront, just all the more reason to have it in different parts of the city, whether we were talking about Queen’s Park or Queensborough,” he said. “So, I'm looking forward to it. The staff has laid out in very detail with all the challenges, so I fully appreciate that.”
The staff report said Canada Day 2024 saw “moderate success in terms of attendance” at Westminster Pier Park. Construction and road closures in the area challenged both vendors and attendees. Other challenges at that location include restrictions accessing the site, constraints on the size and scope of activations due to weight restrictions on the pier, and the expanded timeline for set-up and tear-down because vendors needed to be brought in individually through a single entrance to the site.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said the staff report highlighted a variety of challenges with hosting the Canada Day event at Westminster Pier Park. He said it also noted there had been “some very legitimate concerns” about the location, such as the number of washrooms, the lack of food truck choices (because of weight restrictions on the pier), and the lack of activities for younger children.
“Not to say that we'll never have it back on the pier again after 2025, but I think that there's a lot of other locations in the city that would definitely prove less challenging and less physically constraining than the waterfront pier that was identified,” he said.
Jen Arbo, the city’s supervisor of community partnerships, said attendance at Canada Day was about 6,000 in both 2024 and 2023.
“The numbers stayed pretty consistent. The truth is, that's probably about all the people that would fit at Westminster Pier Park,” she said. “There was a conscious effort to move it from Queen's Park back in the day, where it was; essentially, it was an opportunity to highlight and celebrate Westminster Pier Park and the connection to the riverfront. And it was also an opportunity to bring activity into the downtown core.”
Coun. Tasha Henderson agreed that there are constraints at Westminster Pier Park, and she’d like to see accessibility to the waterfront park improved as much as possible, and not just for Canada Day. She said bringing 6,000 people to the downtown core is important at a time when businesses are struggling.
“We've heard from businesses with the Front Street closures that they're struggling,” she said. “And I think bringing 6,000 people downtown is positive for our economic development in that area.”
If the city opts to have multiple Canada Day celebrations in smaller sites across the city, Henderson said it will need to consider how it can meet the needs of the 6,000 people who have been attending the event.
“I’m supportive of the direction here, but I do just want to keep in mind the the scope of that event when it is at Pier Park and how we can replicate that in other locations,” she said.
Coun. Ruby Campell supported the staff recommendation but believes it’s critical that the city have conversations with the Downtown Business Improvement Association if it wants to change the location of Canada Day festivities. She said the event was relocated from Queen’s Park to Westminster Pier Park as part of an effort to support downtown revitalization.
“And gosh, that area needs it more now than ever,” she said. “I really think that it's important to look at events also in a different way. Maybe there's not a stage, maybe there's something else. Maybe there's more place-making activities throughout the downtown core. I just really, really want to refrain from saying that it's impossible or challenging. Yes, there are challenges, but there's also very clever ways to activate downtown New Westminster, and I think we need to really look at that.”
Campbell, however, is supportive of hosting events in other locations and partnering with local community groups.
“We need to just be really mindful when we change up the activities,” she said. “But I'm open to the possibilities.”
