Regina residents wear red, white and orange to celebrate Canada Day
CBC
People from all different backgrounds celebrated what Canada means to them in Regina's Wascana Park Friday.
Hundreds of people took in live music, entertainment and plenty of poutine and snow cones to mark Canada Day.
Holly Paluck, a Regina Multicultural Council board member, said she was extremely happy to see all the families marking the occasion.
"We are just so excited to be out at a public event and connecting with other people," Paluck said.
There was a lot of red, white and orange in the crowds, as many people chose to wear orange to remember and honour victims, survivors and families of Indigenous people forced to attend residential schools.
Carol LaFayette-Boyd, volunteer executive director of the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum, said that Indigenous people and children weigh heavily on her mind.
"We're still remembering all of the things that they're experiencing and especially the lost young women," she said. "We remember them today also."
LaFayette-Boyd had a booth set up at the "Cultural Village" on Wascana Lake, where many creative groups including German dancers and young people from Somalia marked Canada Day.
And she reflected on how her own family came to Canada from Iowa in 1906 and from Oklahoma in 1910.
"We settled on land that really wasn't ours. And we thank the Indigenous people for allowing us to be here. So I'm grateful for Canada because my family left the United States to come have a better life here."
Kien Nguyen's family came from Vietnam 10 years ago and he said he's grateful for the health care, education and kindness Canadians have shown his family.
"We would like to thank your Canadian government" for the opportunity to live here, said Nguyen, who was all smiles in a Canada hat.
And Nguyen's young son Kenny said he loves Canada because "it's his favourite."
Saskatchewan Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport Laura Ross helped serve pancakes in the park, and noted that new Canadians were enjoying the celebration.
At a time when Canada is vastly expanding its child-care system, and just eight months after a major E. coli outbreak in Calgary child-care centres, an Alberta Health Services analysis shows the province is lagging in its rate of daycare inspections, falling far short of its guideline of at least two inspections per year at each of the province's licensed daycare centres.