During this week’s committee of the whole, council approved a motion seeking to increase spending on this year’s Canada Day festivities by $100,000.
The approved motion will also see Victoria seek cost-sharing options from the BC government, as many other provinces share Canada Day costs with their capital cities. They will also seek Canada Day event funding from the federal government.
This motion was penned by Mayor Marianne Alto and Councillor Jeremy Caradonna, who noted that spending for this year’s events have been reduced significantly.
As Victoria city council has been trying to reduce property tax increases for 2026, many budget items have been reduced or eliminated entirely. Canada Day events were no exception to this process.
City council reduced the Canada Day funding to $110,800, when in 2025, the budget had been just over $400,000.
Alto and Caradonna do not want to see a reduction of public turnout to this year’s festivities as a result of a reduced budget.
Their idea was to take the remaining, unspent $100,000 from the Major Community Initiatives and Events Grant (MCIEG) and add it to the current Canada Day budget.
The downside of allocating that $100,000 to Canada Day is that now the MCIEG funding has been spent and will no longer be able to support other emerging initiatives.
“I think it’s fair to say that at this moment in time the celebration of Canada and of Canadians is uniquely important,” said Mayor Alto.
“I think that this is warranted, I certainly acknowledge that it comes at the expense of other potential major events which this fund is intended to support, but I would argue that this year in particular, it is a unique opportunity for us to maintain our commitment to the expression of our Canadian identity in a time where that is paramount.”
Caradonna echoed Mayor Alto’s sentiments and added that in order to properly celebrate the occasion, he believes that spending as much as $400,000 on one event is an easy decision.
“We’ve earmarked about $110,000 for this event in the budget, which frankly isn’t enough to have a proper Canada Day—it would be a pretty ‘rinky-dink’ celebration,” said Caradonna.
With the added MCIEG funds, the Canada Day event now has a total budget of $210,800.
The decision to allocate the additional funding to Canada Day was unanimous.
