The Toronotist
By Jamie Bradburn
What began as a centennial year project grew into an annual summer tradition.
“Laughing girls in leopard skins dance along Bloor St in Saturday’s Caribana ’67 parade. Toronto’s 8,000 West Indians are throwing a week-long centennial party on Centre Island and inviting the rest of the city to join in the fun.” (The Telegram, August 8, 1967.) Photo by Lee Harrison.
Festival fever was in the air in 1967. Canada was in a celebratory mood during its centennial year and while most of the action was at Expo in Montreal, the federal government encouraged ethnic groups across the nation to showcase their contributions to a country starting to embrace its multicultural makeup. One such group was Toronto’s Caribbean community, who determined it was time to infuse the city with the colour and spirit of carnival. With less than a year of preparation, and long before there were any squabbles over management, financing, and name proprietorship, the first edition of Caribana was quickly embraced as a highlight of Toronto’s summer.
"Mayor (William) Dennison enjoys some West Indian culture." The Telegram, August 11, 1967.
The first discussions for a West Indian–themed festival occurred in a downtown fire hall in late 1966. Organizers felt the one cultural expression found on every Caribbean island was the colourful tradition of carnival, with the pre-Lenten celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago serving as a model to follow. The August long weekend was ideal for a celebration due to its close approximation of tropical heat and low risk of rain. Centre Island was chosen as the focal point for activities, though this would affect how much profit the festival could make due to municipal regulations which restricted admission fees on park property to 50 cents or less. The festival’s name, Caribana, was devised to convey notions of Canada, the Caribbean, and all-around fun. Packed volunteer meetings dealt with issues like muting the raunchier aspects of carnival so as to not offend Toronto’s prudish tastes (answer: discourage explicit dancing and public drunkenness). By the end of July 1967, an official organizing body (the Caribbean Centennial Committee, later the Caribbean Cultural Committee) was in place and volunteers geared up to prepare events ranging from balls to a book exhibit spotlighting the works of Austin Clarke.
“A calypso band supplies the throbbing beat to make the big day swing for the Caribana parade.” The Telegram, August 8, 1967.
The first Caribana parade was scheduled to begin at Varsity Stadium at 9 a.m. sharp on Saturday, August 5, 1967. But as organizer Dr. J. Alban Liverpool told the Telegram, “West Indian time is different than North American time.” Ten floats and over 1,000 participants didn’t leave the stadium until 11:30 a.m. Mounted police assigned to guide the parade were occasionally shocked to find nobody behind them, as participants moved in circles instead of a straight line (several years passed before police accepted that they couldn’t pace the Caribana parade with the military precision of the Santa Claus Parade). The inaugural route went east on Bloor Street, south on Yonge Street, then west on Queen Street to the still-new City Hall. The designated route was a symbolic one for festival organizers, who wanted to demonstrate that a minority group with little political clout belonged on major city arteries, while the backdrop of City Hall would show that the community was an integral part of the new Canada. Several participants noted that although the parade attracted 50,000 spectators, the cold reserve Torontonians were known for led to one of the quietest carnival celebrations they had ever seen.
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