By Roger Gibbs

It will be 56 years since the Toronto Caribbean Carnival (TCC) or Caribana has been celebrated. After a 2-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic, the festival roared back in 2022. With a new management team installed just over a year earlier, the Festival Management Committee (FMC) staged an incident-free Grand Parade – the finale event on the Lakeshore which everyone uses as a yardstick to judge the festival.

Those who follow the fortunes of the festival were beginning to feel optimistic that the festival’s governance was entering a new positive phase. Then in the fall of 2022 without warning the new CEO/Board Chair Laverne Garcia was gone under confusing circumstances. There was a huge uproar from the mas’ band leaders, with whom Ms. Garcia had developed a good relationship.

It should be known that while the festival is a celebration of the Caribbean Carnival Arts – steelpan, mas’ and calypso/soca – it is the mas’ band leaders who are the most powerful of the artistic stakeholders and who wield the greatest influence. Mas’ band leaders did what they normally do – run to the City to complain and disparage the FMC. Naturally, the City, core funders of the festival, politely explained that the City’s contract is with the FMC and not with the mas’ bands. Please go sort it out yourselves.

City managers of the festival cannot be faulted for keeping the taxpayers’ investment in the festival to a minimum, given the circumstances.  Would you be keen to invest more money in a business whose employees are constantly at odds with their management?

Last month we received the surprising news that a few of the longest serving members of the FMC had resigned – mere weeks before the festival. Since the FMC is in the throes of preparing for this year’s festival, it is very worrisome to see experienced senior board members walk.

Amidst all this discouraging news, I am still hopeful. Call me a fool and God knows many have, but I choose to remain hopeful. I continue to hope the festival – the largest and most valuable cultural asset in the Canadian Caribbean community – will one day live up to its potential.

Festival governance is always challenging and the TCC has been a particularly difficult case. The Caribbean Carnival Arts community – the folks who create the work we enjoy, is a notoriously fractious one. The FMC was installed back in 2005 to save the festival from a near-death experience. The previous organization – the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC) – had failed to produce audited book and the whole project was in jeopardy.

The FMC was supposed to be merely a temporary solution until the festival stakeholders could come up with a better plan. They never did, and 18 years later the FMC remains in charge. Unfortunately, the FMC was never designed to be a permanent fix. They have soldiered on under difficult circumstances, unaware themselves that they are running an arts organization. The FMC unspoken model was what they called the “mall manager” model. Simply put, they provide all the necessary arrangements to let the various festival productions and special events take place. But please do not look to them for any grand vision of the festival. After all, they are not artists.

And so it remains. Those who hope to see the festival governing body publish a vision of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival or Caribana – a coherent, inspiring artistic vision of the festival – will remain disappointed.

The festival will continue, as it must. There will be occasional bursts of creativity and brilliance. And the miracle on the Lakeshore will continue, no matter what constraints are placed upon it.

I wish the FMC success in its efforts. I wish you all a safe and fun-filled festival.

Roger Gibb is a calypsonian musician and ex-board member of the FMC and has a keen interest in Caribbean culture