‘Too much red tape’ behind decision to cancel Montreal’s Canada Day parade

The annual Canada Day parade has been cancelled in Montreal this year less than two weeks before the event, citing excessive bureaucratic hurdles with the city administration.

Organizer Nicolas Cowen, who has been running the parade since 2015, says because he can’t guarantee public safety at the event due to a lack of volunteers and security staff linked to issues with filing paperwork and obtaining licenses, he’s made the “really disappointing” decision to cancel.

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Cowen says the issues are mainly stemming from the City of Montreal, which he blames for what he says is an overwhelming amount of complicated regulation at every turn and the equally overwhelming amount of construction happening in the city’s downtown core.

“There’s too much red tape,” Cowen said, referring to the road work specifically on Saint-Catherine Street, which led Cowen to look for an alternative route. “At this point, I’ve decided not to go ahead,” he said, saying the process was becoming too difficult with too many hurdles.

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While the city did not provide Global News with a comment, leader of the opposition at city hall, Aref Salem, said the issue brings up the wider problem the current administration has with its permits process becoming far too complicated and slow.

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“Instead of facilitating permits in the city, we’re just making life harder and this is unacceptable,” the Ensemble Montréal leader said in an interview with Global on Thursday. “It’s a problem.”

This comes a year after the city’s Caribbean carnival Carifiesta parade was cancelled after the city turned down long-time organizers, citing governance concerns with the group.

The year before, Montreal’s Pride parade was abruptly cancelled hours before it was scheduled to begin. A probe into the mess later blamed miscommunication among Pride Montreal staff regarding the discovery that nearly half of the 200 volunteers needed to work security for the event were never recruited.

Canada Day celebrations are still scheduled to go ahead in the city’s Old Port, organized and paid for by Heritage Canada, who declined to provide Global News a comment on the parade’s cancellation.

– with files from Tim Sargeant, Global