Vancouver council approves $2M for one-day summer fireworks event
CBC
Vancouver councillors have voted to allocate up to $2 million in city funds to host a one-day free fireworks festival this August.
It comes months after the longstanding Celebration of Light event was cancelled due to a lack of senior government funding.
Mayor Ken Sim argued in a motion on Wednesday that the three-day Celebration of Light event attracted millions of people to downtown Vancouver, B.C., from around the region.
Sim said that the city had already committed an average of $1.4 million in operational funding to support emergency costs, traffic changes and post-event cleanup for the event — and free events like it were an important part of building community.
Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, who is part of Sim's ABC Vancouver slate, said that the budget with a zero per cent property tax increase showed that council was focused on affordability.
"In an era when people are really struggling with affordability, these free events really matter to people and they ... create a little bit less pressure," she said.
Sim's motion notes the $2 million was a "one-time, event-specific funding decision," and it includes a commitment to lobby the province and federal government for more funds to resume the Celebration of Light.
The Celebration of Light event, which had been held at English Bay Beach for three decades, saw a number of fireworks shows being held in July.
But organizers said the event was indefinitely cancelled last November, citing dwindling provincial and federal funding and private sector investment.
Though Sim's motion passed, opposition councillors were critical of it, saying committing funds to a one-day event went against the city's recently-passed "austerity budget" and staff cuts due to financial constraints.
"The fact of the matter is the Celebration of Light wasn't financially working," Green Coun. Pete Fry said in an interview.
"The business model had failed and the funding didn't come from senior levels of government ... the reality is that we're sacrificing a bunch of things to meet these budget commitments from the mayor."
Fry pointed out that hundreds of city staffers had seen their jobs cut due to budgetary pressures, and that Sim was "bailing out" the fireworks event in an election year.
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