Caribana Watcher-- Wrap up 2010

Caribbean People with Colin Rickards

New hands at helm of Caribana

By Colin Rickards

The hands which will move the Scotiabank Caribana Festival forward are now female ones. For Trinidad-born businesswoman Denise Herrera-Jackson has formally taken over as Chief Executive Officer of the Festival Management Committee (FMC), which actually stages the annual event. Outgoing CEO Joe Halstead formally stepped down on August 31, with Herrera-Jackson taking over the following day. Chief Operating Officer Eddison Doyle has now passed responsibilities to Grenada-born former banker Chris Alexander, who will be styled Chief Administrative Officer. The two new executives were formally introduced to the Caribana/City of Toronto Staff Liaison Committee at their 2010 Caribana Wrap-up meeting on Monday evening. Sam Lewis, who was on contract as the Festival’s General Manager - Operations, gave his final report, and left for Trinidad. Halstead, the new Chair of Ontario Place, is tasked with revamping the 40-year-old Ontario Government-owned waterfront facility. He will also have a role in planning the mass transit rail lines to the airport and to York University, and will also be involved with the 2015 PanAmerican Games. “This doesn’t mean that I am walking away from Caribana, and not looking back,” he said. “This is my City. Caribana is part of my culture. I’ll be around to jump up and wine.”

Many people forget that when Halstead took on the position of Chair and CEO of the FMC he already knew a good deal about Caribana and its owner, the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC), as he had been dealing with their grants and financial needs for almost a decade as Economic Commissioner of the City of Toronto. He leaves after presiding over the staging of five Caribana Festivals, and constantly striving to restore the credibility of the behind-the-scenes operations which make it happen.

There has been much criticism of the fact that Scotiabank came in as the title -- rather than lead -- sponsor and attached their name to the Caribana Festival, and that no outsider knows how much money this has involved. However, while this is true, it is not unusual. Very few corporate sponsors reveal how much they pump in to underpin events and festivals. Scotiabank certainly does not do so with Caribana, nor with the Scotiabank Busker Festival, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, or the other events it sponsors.

The bank’s commitment to Caribana runs to 2012, and that they have been a saviour for the Festival is undeniable. For example, when the FMC was faced with unexpected funding cutbacks by the Federal and Provincial Governments, the bank helped to top up the coffers with a one-time subvention -- amount not revealed -- as did an eve-of-Caribana-Weekend S175,000 grant from the Ontario Lottery Corporation.

Those who were members of the old CCC have made much of the fact that successive Boards were always pressured to produce audited statements in a timely fashion, and to account for taxpayer funding, and have criticized the fact that the FMC does not appear to have its feet held so close to the fire.

Actually, claims about the supposed lack of accountability/transparency are rather less than fair, and finding supposed parallels between the FMC, in this context, and the CCC is really comparing apples with oranges.

The CCC -- and this is true of its successor, the Carbana Arts Group (GAC) -- was a membership organization and, as such, was expected to report on its finances and activities to its membership, which over the years -- to a greater or lesser extent -- it generally did. The CAG also informs its -- much smaller -- membership about its activities. The FMC is not a membership organization, and the way it is structured it is not as a company or a corporation, with shareholders to whom a Board of Directors would report at an Annual General Meeting.

However, this does not mean that its business and finances are private -- much less secret. The FMC must provide an audited statement to each of the levels of government -- Federal, Provincial and City -- from whom it receives funding, as well as to its own Board of Directors and Sponsors. It is, therefore, idle, if not downright dishonest, to pretend that everything the FMC does is cloaked in mystery, but, having said that, there is room for complaint that communication by them has often been found wanting.

Although I have given these figures -- in this space -- before, in the interest of refreshing readers’ memories, here they are again -- and let it be remembered that as a matter of policy all three levels of Government automatically hold back 10 per cent of their grants, which are remitted to the FMC only when the audited statements and final report have been accepted. At the media conference held at the Royal Ontario Museum to give details of the imaginative “From the Soul” art exhibition Michael Chan, Ontario’s Minister of Tourism and Culture, announced that the Province’s grant would be $484,000, and Councillor Joe Mihevc, who has been the City of Toronto’s point man on Caribana for 14 years, told me that the City’s grant would be “at least as much as last year, and probably two per cent more.” In the event, the City of Toronto’s actual grant was $494.000. Moreover, as Mihevc publicly pointed out at the Scotiabank Caribana Gala, the City provided “another half million dollars in different kinds of staff support” by waiving various fees and charges.

So Denise Herrera-Jackson and Chris Alexander step up to the plate as the guiding lights for the Scotiabank Caribana Festival, and the whole process of putting things into position for 2011 begins.

We know what Caribana is worth

There are several articles in the Caribbean Camera latest edition. I have included Colin’s “Caribana earnings proven”.

Colin has demonstrated his skill, research ability and reporting acumen in his document. He tries not to offend others, because his work depends on being able to talk to people. I have no such qualities and my approach is totally different.

That’s why I am stating that we knew what our festival brought into this city, this province and this country. Decima gave us those figures many years ago. So this issue of Scotia just finding out who’s been benefitting from our hard labour is nothing new to many of us. What is glaring is how long they have been screwing our community while planning to take our festival.

What is new to many of us is how much jobs are created while many young blacks are unemployed in this city, this province and this country.

Colin’s piece didn’t go into where those jobs are created and who’s getting those jobs. It does however shows how they want to use our festival to pop-up the ROM and other money losing entities in the city. One year a group selling books was trying to muscle in on the festival. All these entities are now using us, just like the days of slavery and after. Check out Murphy Browne article “Africans bought land, establish villages in Guyana”. There was and still is a clear pattern to use black folks to create wealth for other folks. I lived in Wismar close to Mackenzie, when my father worked for Demba. Most of the profitable businesses were owned by Chinese, Indian and Portuguese people.

This pattern is found through the entire Caribbean and I now realize how it happened after reading Murphy Browne article. We never owned anything, as a matter of fact the system ensure we didn’t. Many black folks have dug themselves out of that hole, in spite of the odds against them. Things have not changed much. It remains the same except the way it’s being applied.

My last comment deals with the Camera’s editorial “Rethink Caribana”. This same editorial crucified CCC for years, even when the festival was successful. Suddenly it realizes that not enough money is pumped back into the festival. This has happened for the past 40 years. Where were these people? One of your members was on the board that destroyed CCC. That’s board answers to no one. So what the heck are you talking about when you talk about “our community”? There is no more community involvement.

So give me a break.

CCC was the link to our community. FMC was created to break that link and that’s why they don’t answer to our community. The mas’ men who you sided with don’t have as much balls as an ant. That’s the reason you don’t hear a noise when FMC squeeze. They are also being used, and don’t even know it. My prediction that we’d look at the festival one day and don’t recognize it is drawing near.

Caribbean People with Colin Rickards

What Caribana really earns

It has been 20 years since an oft-quoted -- and misquoted -- Decima Survey first quantified the amount of money brought into the city, Province and country by the annual Caribana Festival. Since then, every figure used -- and they’ve varied hugely -- has been extrapolated upwards from the Decima figure, and even educated guesswork has been just that -- guesswork.

No longer. Now, the well respected market research firm of Ipsos Reid has produced an Economic Impact Study of the 2009 Scotiabank Caribana Festival, made public on Tuesday morning, and making interesting reading.

“The festival,” it says, “made a significant contribution to the province of Ontario and the broader Canadian economy” -- then goes on to prove it.

The 2009 Scotiabank Caribana Festival “contributed in excess of $396 million to provincial GDP [Gross Domestic Product] -- 79 per cent of this gain was generated in Toronto and surrounding areas.”

The Total Economic Impact “was $438 million,” with the “strongest impact on accommodation, food & beverages, recreation & entertainment, retail.” Further, says the Study, “tax receipts were in excess of $198 million with the Federal government being the largest beneficiary” -- 55 per cent.

Labour income is “estimated at $260 million generating an equivalence of more than 5,600 jobs in Toronto alone,” the Study says, and it provides tables of where visitors originated, where they spent their money, and other useful statistics, which fleshed out the overall picture.

News of the Ipsos Reid Impact Study was given by Joe Halstead, Chair of the Festival Management Committee (FMC) at a media briefing at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), graced by the colourful presence of several of the glamourous mas’ dancers who went to Vancouver to appear on stage at Ontario House during the Winter Olympics.

“This proves once and for all that our Festival is the real thing,” Halstead said. “Scotiabank Caribana is big business for the city, big business for the Province, and, indeed, big business for the country.”

The Impact Study was conducted by Dr. Gervan Fearon, Dean of The Chang School at Ryerson University, Carlyle Farrell, Chair of Global Management Studies at Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Business Management, and Alyssa Fearon, in collaboration with Ipsos Reid.

Michael Chan, Ontario’s Minister of Tourism and Culture, attended the media briefing and announced that the Government of Ontario will provide a grant of $484,000 for the Caribana Festival this year. Councillor Joe Mihevc, the City of Toronto’s point man for Caribana, said that the City will provide “at least as much as last year, and probably two per cent more.”

In an exercise in semantics what have in the past been called Sponsors are described as Partners. Apart from Scotiabank -- in fact the Title Sponsor, but described as the Official Partner -- the main sponsors/partners include the three political levels -- Federal, Provincial and City -- as Government Partners. The ROM, the Toronto Convention & Visitors Association, Grace foods, the Liberty Entertainment Group, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Research in Motion (RIM)/BlackBerry and Ontario Place are described as Contributing Partners.

For the past several years The Toronto Sun has been the main print media sponsor, but, apparently, the sun has now set, as The Toronto Star is taking on that role, with involvement from Sway and Eye Weekly, which are Torstar publications, while CTV and CP24 are the other also Major Media Partners.

This year, for the first time, the Ontario Science Centre will have an involvement in the Scotiabank Caribana Festival, with a series of exhibits about the making of mas’ costumes and the technology of steelpans. There will be workshops and demonstrations in high traffic areas both within and outside the Science Centre.

Also for the first time, the Toronto Public Library system will be staging Caribana-related events and lectures, including several by Panman Pat McNeilly and one by barrister and historian Caldwell Taylor.

Halstead said that the FMC will be targeting New Media in its promotional efforts this year, which is hardly surprising, as the Scotiabank Caribana Festival won an award for the “Best Virtual Marketing Campaign” during the 2010 Festival and Events Ontario Conference in Ottawa earlier this year, where it was also hailed as being among “The Top 100 Festivals” and recognized as a “Festival of Distinction.”

The highly successful Virtual Marketing Campaign included social media, viral marketing and contesting, and this year’s campaign is to be upgraded and expanded. This may have been the impetus for an unusual legal action, in which Scotiabank -- at FMC’s request -- attempted to oust the owner of an Internet domain called caribana.com, which is held by the publishers of the Brampton-based Word magazine.

Legal papers were filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization -- WIPO -- a Geneva-based United Nations body, on February 4, and documents were coming and going for almost eight weeks, with Scotiabank, as the Complainant, spelling out it’s position.

The documents state: “Complainant states that as part of its title sponsorship of the Caribana festival, pursuant to the Title Sponsorship Agreement, it has been licensed by the Festival Management Committee to use the CARIBANA trademark. Complainant further states that it has been authorized to bring this proceeding.” On March 25 WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Centre appointed Ross Carson as sole panellist to adjudicate the issue, and on April 8 he handed down a 17-page decision, finding against Scotiabank and in favour of Working Word Co-operative Ltd.

massa day done

Hi All,

The late Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago Dr. Eric Williams said at the stroke of midnight on August 31st,1962, moving forward from this day onwards "massa day done"

You may ask why I am raising this point. Well, I have carefully looked around me, and I have searched for answers relating to the fact that all of the FMC masqueraders at the Ontario Pavilion in Vancouver were from two Toronto Mas Bands, and not "ONE" of them was from the AFRICAN/CANADIAN COMMUNITY. Moreover, as a matter of fact, information regarding the selection of individuals for this event was not brought to either the Executive or the General Membership. The decision was made by the President of TMBA. What a shame!

Now that the dog and pony show will be at the "ROM" on Tuesday April 27, 2010, I noticed that the information I received yesterday from Alicia Sealy stated that the performers from the Ontario Pavilion in Vancouver will be showcased at this event.

Imagine Toronto being acclaimed as the most MULTICULTURAL City in Canada, and the CARIBANA FESTIVAL is perceived WORLDWIDE as a "BLACK COMMUNITY FESTIVAL", yet a cast of NON-AFRICAN/CANADIAN will be showcasing the BLACK COMMUNITY at this event.

Some of us lead and others mislead. A prominent radio Jazz Show host once said on Air that he would be in cottage land on the CIVIC weekend, rather than be in the City with all of the NIGGERS in town. Who remembers this?

In point of fact, Courtney, the radio man’s name was Phil McKellar and he committed suicide a few weeks after the event. --

Hi Vere - consider sticking my Email subject line on your website as a question

Subject: Overt - TMBA/Parade evictions (2010); Covert - make Caribana a multicultural festival (2006 - 2010)

From the Caribana community website: " This is the insider - what side are you on"

Cheers

From: Vere Palmer [mailto:pvpalmer@yahoo.com]

Sent: April 26, 2010 12:03 AM

To: courtney doldron

Subject: Re: Fw: Re: massa day done

Hi Courtney:

You are a bit late: This has been going on for a while and very few people noticed. The two hundred years emancipation celebration was totally ignored. Jai wasn't booted off stage when he didn't mention any thing about the emancipation (I was informed he was asked to make an announcement). But then again, why should he? There is a big difference between how his ancestors get to the Caribbean, and how the ancestors of black folks came over.

The leading black we now have in charge couldn’t care less of protecting the culture. The blacks who feel that carnival celebration was an event, to shake off the years of oppression and discrimination, are few in numbers.

We watched as they destroyed CCC and reshape the entire event to remove any black Caribbean traces. They often point to FMC leaders, but they are not black leaders, they are leading blacks.

BACCHANAL IN TMBA MASCAMPS

I was one of Lennox’s staunches critics over the past years, but I have to give him credit for his insight into protecting the carnival culture in the black Diaspora. I thought he was stretching this too far, but he was dead on track.

He opined that some groups would join CCC in droves to displace the black presence that had dominated CCC and Caribana since its birth. It was obvious to me in the early 1990’s, but years later another friend was singing from the same hymn book, and I could see a pattern appearing on the horizon. They appeared on the door steps and waited for the right time.

Some came through the front door and created havoc once they settled on the board – illegally – I must add. The others got the Joe’s to do their dirty work, by cutting off funding to CCC and giving the parade to some usurpers.

These same usurpers are now having trouble. The voices that should have been raised earlier are now singing a different tune: One they should have sung when the rug was being pulled from under CCC. The rumour is that TMBA strongman has changed his name to Fidel. I have to check this out, because I can’t believe he’s doing the same thing he previously complained about.

I saw in an ethnic newspaper, that TMBA is running to city hall, because of legal actions by a rejected band leader. Let’s face it: The same person who screwed up the city of Toronto, and who is afraid to face the people (and destroyed CCC) is being asked to once again throw a spanner in the works. These white folks always think they know what’s best for black people, and we let them get away with it. We sat idly while they fornicate with our culture, which was passed down by our ancestors.

No wonder the bands now have to bring in sections (people) from outside to play mas in Toronto. My children who I introduced to Caribana are now turned off, by the action of the white folks at city hall. I am sure that’s the same with other children born into a carnival culture. That loving feeling for Caribana is gone. There is no way any of the groups’ vying for control can bring it back.

I am sure many of you have the same feeling deep down inside. The festival is not what it used to be. Of course there are still the PLATE RUNNERS and HOUSE NIGGERS who think our culture is in safe hands, but those numbers are declining each year.

Many folks who once sat on the sideline are now looking around and asking, “Man wha happen”? They didn't see this coming, in spite of all the warnings I issued in several emails, in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

This discussion needs some serious dialog, and that’s why I am putting it on http://www.caribana.ca . You can use the any of the available forums on the site to have you say. You can use the chat room (you don’t have to join) or you can join and use the BLABB section. It works just like Twitter.

Title sponsor for Carnival event in Toronto loses case to get Caribana.com domain name.

Bank of Nova Scotia, the title sponsor for Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival called “Caribana”, has lost a dispute to gain ownership of the domain name Caribana.com.

Bank of Nova Scotia — aka ScotiaBank — filed the complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to get the domain name from Working Word Co-operative, which publishes Word Magazine. Working Word told WIPO that it acquired the domain name in 1997 with the approval of the group that owned the trademark at the time. Due to financial problems with the festival, ownership of the Caribana mark has changed several times.

Bank of Nova Scotia entered into its sponsorship agreement with the current festival organizers in 2008, and claims that it has a licensing right to the Caribana mark.

The WIPO panel found in favor of Working Word, deciding that it registered the domain name in good faith in 1997 with the approval of the event’s organizers. The organizers frequently sent event information to Working Word for inclusion on the web site.

This case brings up an interesting point. I see trademark licenses handled in different ways when it comes to UDRP cases. Often times a panel will find that the owner of the mark, not a limited licensee, should bring the case. Here, if ScotiaBank had won the case, what would happen when it was no longer title sponsor of the event?

Sponsor tried to claim Caribana.com domain name.

Hello All,

Please go to the link below, read, then understand why the CARIBANA™ Arts Group (CAG) has to be much more agressive and determined to secure our property.

Apparently, Scotiabank, in a case against Word Magazine, presented itself as the owner of the the trade name caribana.com.

Despite its battery of lawyers, it lost the case. IF it had won, does it mean that Scotiabank would have ended up owning caribana.com? Frightening!

CAG, the owner of the web site, was never informed by the FMC that Scotiabank was taking Word to court.

One has to wonder: was Scotiabank and FMC trying to screw CAG, or was Scotiabank trying to screw every body?

Will responsible people still stand by while the City of Toronto and the FMC hold CAG to ransom? The founders of CARIBANA intended something much better for us.

Please let us reclaim it.

Things have a very interesting way of unfolding.

In light of this, I am open to feedback and suggestions

Henry Gomez

Chair

CARIBANA™ Arts Group

WITHOUT PREJUDICE OR MALICE

My dear friendly people, please advise me, "WHEN DID CAG BECOME THE OWNER OF THE CARIBANA.COM"? To the best of my knowledge, CCC-C approved the registration of www.caribana.com by "WORD MAGAZINE.

This question should be asked; was the current CHAIR of CAG involved when WORD MAGAZINE was asked to do the registration, as he was involved in "HANDS OFF CARIBANA, and sat on the first FMC Advisory Board as a REPRESENTATIVE of CCC-C, which gave the FMC FULL rights to use the name CARIBANA.? Vere & Parker, why was www.caribana.ca registered?

Courtney Shango Doldron