What will Canada Day look like in Pemberton this year?
At its April 26 Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting, VOP elected officials and staff discussed how the town should proceed with Canada Day celebrations in 2022.
In 2020, Canada Day celebrations were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, in the wake of the discovery of the remains of 215 children buried at the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, council discussed cancelling the celebration altogether, before ultimately proceeding with planned activities while promoting the event as an opportunity for family activities rather than a celebration.
In November 2021, staff presented an idea to collaborate with the Lil’wat Nation to plan activities and events for the following summer beginning on National Indigenous People’s Day on June 21 and running through to Canada Day.
Unfortunately, funding for that plan, sought through the national heritage grant program, was unsuccessful, and council is now considering other options for this year’s Canada Day activities.
In a presentation to the COW, manager of recreation services Christine Burns suggested that, instead of celebrating Canada, the VOP should instead invite the community’s families out to celebrate Pemberton, while acknowledging and incorporating “pieces of our First Nations history and the fact that we operate on First Nations lands.”
Elected officials ultimately decided that they didn’t want to avoid celebrating Canada, but they wanted to do it in a different way with an educational aspect to it, to help bring more awareness to reconciliation efforts and educate people on the colonialist and residential history in the area, according to Mayor Mike Richman.
