As Vancouver prepares for the economic stimulus of hosting the GLISA North America Outgames next week and what could be the largest-ever Vancouver Pride Parade July 31, civic politicians are squabbling about who should pick up the tab for police and garbage collection costs at large civic events.
The City of Toronto provides about $200,000 to cover police and clean-up costs at the largest parade in Canada – the Toronto Pride Parade, according to Pride Toronto interim executive director Glen Brown.
“That’s a significant part of our budget. I don’t know what we would do without it,” he said.
New York City also picks up the tab to cover police and sanitation costs for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is the largest parade in the U.S., Macy’s spokesman Orlando Veras told Business in Vancouver.
The Vancouver Pride Parade drew about 640,000 people last year, and organizers expect that, because the city is hosting an international gay sporting and cultural festival in the lead-up to the parade, this year’s attendance could be closer to 700,000.
That’s a fraction of the nearly one million people who watch the Toronto Pride Parade or the 3.5 million who watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
But the economic impact for merchants, hoteliers and restaurateurs in Vancouver is just as significant given Vancouver’s smaller economy.
The City of Vancouver provides a $10,000 cash grant and a $10,000 service grant to the Vancouver Pride Society for its parade, but Non Partisan Association (NPA) council candidate Sean Bickerton said his party’s policy is to change the status of the Vancouver Pride Parade, the Sikh community’s spring Vaisakhi Parade and the Chinese community’s winter Chinese New Year Parade to make them official civic events.
That means the city would pay both police and clean-up costs to host the events:
- about $58,000 for the pride;
- $15,000 for the Vaisakhi; and
- more than $10,000 for the Chinese New Year parade.
That money would come from the city’s $600,000 car-free budget, which covers costs involved with closing Main, Commercial, Granville and Denman streets as well as various streets in Kitsilano during the summer, Bickerton said.
“These [parade] events were the original car-free days,” Bickerton said. “[The Vision Vancouver-dominated council] shuts down Main, Commercial and other streets, and it really hasn’t helped business. Sometimes it has hurt business. We could cut back on some of these days and devote the money to the days that are car-free and really help business.”
He added that making the pride, Vaisakhi and Chinese New Year parades official civic events is also an equality matter given that the city long ago agreed to pay the costs for Grey Cup parades, as well as the three Celebration of Light fireworks nights July 30 and August 3 and 6.
Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson said he doesn’t understand how the NPA could just award civic event status to three new events, particularly because the Vaisakhi and Chinese New Year parades attract about 50,000 people, or one-tenth the audience of the pride parade.
Granting only the pride parade with new civic status might be justifiable because of its size, he said, but granting that same status on some smaller events means that size alone is not the criteria.
“If a motion comes forward, we would ask staff to look at what are the possibilities. Should we be sponsoring any public events?” Stevenson told BIV.
Bickerton said the NPA is open to including other events after a staff review.
“We should define a process and create a set of standards for what can be a civic event,” Bickerton said. “What exists now is ad hoc and arbitrary.”