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By Alex McCuaig

Not a happy birthday

Canada Day Society dissolves, blames City Hall

Jun 30, 2020 | 9:12 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat’s Canada Day celebration was already going to be like no other due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But following the announcement the society which put the event on is dissolving, there will be no other Canada Day put on by the group.

The event attracted an estimated 40,000 people annually to Kin Coulee which ran all day with the Sandfly Festival running into the evening, all of which were topped off with a fireworks display.

But the chair of the Medicine Hat and District Canada Day Society says there were long-standing issues with city hall. Those included the city locking the park’s bathrooms, power being cut off, parking stalls being blocked and high costs for municipal services required for the event such as shuttle buses and garbage collection. However, the city contributed $26,000 annually to fund the festivities.

The decision to cancel the fireworks event which would have been the only Canada Day event this year – without notifying the society – was too much to bare for its members who voted unanimously earlier this month to disband the society.

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“The city doesn’t have the decency to pick up the phone and phone to discuss with us or their employees, their liaison, their people that they put in charge to work with us,” said Gary Procter, society chair. “They don’t have the decency to talk with them to discuss it with them to come up with an educated decision. That’s why you have boards, so you put two heads together to come up with something intelligent.”

Procter said the society was examining the possibility of having the fireworks working within the limits of having no more than 50-person gatherings at the time the city announced the event would be cancelled in early May.

“Now of course it would have been very doable, very doable,” said Procter. “And the citizens of Medicine Hat, let’s give them some credit. You don’t have to babysit them. If they’re told to stay six-feet apart and not more than 50 in a group, they are going to accommodate.”

City public services commissioner says the disbanding of the society is regrettable and acknowledged there had been operational issues in the past.

“That is not unusual when you put on an event of this scale and it was my understanding that they had been worked through and addressed. And I thought if we didn’t have a pandemic to deal with in 2020, we would have seen another successful Canada Day event on July 1,” said Brian Mastel.

Mastel said the city was working on the best information they had at the time of the cancellation of the fireworks display.

“The guidelines and restrictions that came from the provincial level for the protection of the community was to not have events through the duration of the summer,” he said. “And in light of that, we proceeded to cancel all events through the summer months and this was one of them.”

Mastel added the city has realigned its community event grants and is hoping another group will pick up the mantle to organize next year’s Canada Day.

The society will now liquidate its assets in accordance with provincial regulations.

Note: This sorry has been updated to correct the month the decision to cancel the fireworks was made.