Will a parade be a part of the June Lakeshore Festival? Should there be a parade - the Mayor thinks so

By Pepper Parr

February 15th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Adam Vickers was explaining to Council how the first Lakeshore Festival would play out in June of this year.

Mayor Meed Ward asks:

“I notice at the moment that there’s no parade component. The parade was what got the Sound of Music started over 40 years ago.  It was a marching band parade. I don’t know if the muster is the right word, but they would gather in the park and march there. And that’s really how the Sound of Music started. I’m very passionate about the parade and just wondering if you are open to that.

Adam Vickers the MRGLive point person on the event said: “We’ve had conversations with city contacts, and we’ve gone down this path, and I’ve been asked this question,

There are a couple different reasons we didn’t include it in the initial proposal. One was the financial side of it. We didn’t understand enough of what it took financially to put the parade on. And I’ve come to learn that past versions were free of charge to the parade participants. There’s a lot of associated costs to actually do it, street closures, you know, crew planning.

“That is not to say we couldn’t do a parade, but it’s not something we have a ton of experience doing.

“We would be open to exploring them for other years. I know that the parade is very important, so the other piece of that is that the sound of music was based on the parade. The Sound of Music was its own event. We are looking to separate ourselves from them and create something new.

“Then that is not to say that it’s off the table?

Councillor Paul Sharman asked: “Well, you know, I was just thinking, could the Teen Tour Band march down the Promenade on the Saturday morning if the team tour band wanted to walk down there, march down there?

Vickers, not wanting to commit to anything at this point, responds: “So again, this is not something that has been confirmed, but when we first started having these discussions, my first idea was to have the marching band on Saturday come through the site, up onto the stage and do a performance as part of the festival. I love drum lines, anything where I can get a bunch of drums in one place. I think it’s such a cool idea.

Sharman: “That wasn’t my question. My question was actually much more practical. Will the promenade be vacant? Will that space be open on Saturday morning? There was an opportunity to have the Teen Tour Band march down there.

Vickers: “It could be done, correct.”

The matter was left at that.  Later in the day Staff had comments to make.

The conversations that followed the MRGLive presentation are funny, a furious waste of time and reveal a need to spend as much tax payers money as they can.

Council members really get into the weeds with their amendments and amendments to amendments stuff with the Motions they put forward.  We will spare you as much as we can without losing the point.

Mayor Meed Ward ” I get that MRG does not want to do the parade, and that’s totally fine.

“I think we can keep it clean. They (MRG) are not eligible for the funding that we set aside( the $150,000) because they’re a for profit.

“There is a little bit of money – we wouldn’t need anywhere near that for a parade. But I’m just wondering if staff could undertake to ( I’m not going to suggest run it) but I think there are a number of community organizations that may be willing to step forward and deliver that for us as a as a partnership or an add on to the parade, and we’ve got some ability to provide some funding for that, should a partner, step forward.

“Rotary might be interested. They do festivals, even the folks that deliver this, the Santa Claus parade. For us, it’s just such a critical part of our heritage. And I did hear the the folks at MRG saying they are trying to brand their own Festival, and I absolutely get that. And so I’m not asking them to to deliver this, but I think it could be a neat add on. So what can you tell us about what we could do? I do have a motion to try my hand at whether we can get council to at least explore the options

Commissioner Jackie Johnson, serving as the Acting CAO, said “I’ll start by saying that we do understand that this has been something that some folks have wanted to see happen. And given the shortened timeline for this year’s event and the reduced amount of days for the festival, it isn’t something, we were going to be able to deliver. I would like to have the Director of Recreation, Community and Culture, Emily Cote, as well as Manager Kim if she wants to add some context around what this would look like, and sort of the rationale around why this is something that was not going to be  feasible anyway, for 2026

Emilie Cote: “Thanks, Jackie To reiterate kind of what Jackie said. The runway for parade is around a year. So that is typically the runway time that it takes to book bands do all the logistics. Given the short runway for MRG, that was also kind of why it wasn’t possible for them, given a lot of the new factors that are coming in this year as well, that’s also as part of the discussion. I just also wanted to point council back to the survey that we also did with the community back when we went out for a new provider. We asked folks to highlight themes and things that were imported for them. Parade didn’t show up as one of the items. So that was surprising to us.

“I do want to flag that we’re, of course, at the mercy of Council and the community in terms of if we were to go forward to run something, Our preference would be to have a longer runway. Look at 2027 that would be our preference. We’ve have had conversations with certain folks already. I mentioned last time we were here around the Burlington Teen Tour band alumni, they have expressed interest in doing something, especially with the next year being a large anniversary for the band. That said, if 2026 is really where we want to head to, we would need in the upwards of $50 to $60,000 to put that together. Even if we were to look to a service club to do that, there is a large aspect of logistics that would fall on our team, regarding the road closures, all the planning, as well as the going back and forth with MRG to make sure that the logistics really fits well with their event plan.

Mayor Meed Ward: Can you kind of walk us through what would be in there? Because I’m thinking, you know, a couple of grand for pay duty police officers  to close the road. So how does it get up to 50 or 60,000 and is there a way to trim those expenses?

Emilie Cote:  “The 50k is really around all the logistics behind the road closure. It includes vehicle mitigation, there’s also on a rear ends that go out to all the bands. So that’s a part of that. There are staffing costs. There’s police cost. Attached to that marketing, communications, as well. That’s been typically the budget that our prior vendor had worked with as well.  Road closure is still being finalized, so depending on what that road closure looks like, if we’re looking at a completely different parade route, the cost could go up from that as well.

Mayor Meed Ward: Okay,  “I’ll have more questions, but I’ll get back in line. (Members of Council can only ask two questions each time they speak).

Councilor Nissan: “Thank you for the chair, just confirming that they are going out with the for-profit model for this year.

Cote: ” Counselor they were exploring a not for profit arm, but just due to the runway, they weren’t able to make it happen for this year.

Nisan: “So it hasn’t been the door hasn’t been closed for future years.

Cote: “That’s correct.

Mayor Mead Ward returns:  “I recall actually taking that survey myself. And I don’t think we asked at all about the parade, so it wouldn’t have come up. But I can tell you that on June, whatever it is, 18th, when we show up and there’s no parade, I can guarantee you’re going to hear about it. We won’t be able to do anything about it then.  You didn’t ask at all about the parade, so it was just silent on that matter. Correct?

Cote: “Thank you for the correction. It wasn’t specifically asked.

Meed Ward: Okay, so we really don’t have a line of sight in the community unless we were to do another survey and ask them how important that was and then my next question is around.

“I was surprised to hear that we pay the bands an honorarium. I always thought people had to pay to be a float in the parade. Is there a way to, at least, for this year, to say, Hey, anybody that wants to participate and has a band, You’re welcome, but we’re not paying you to be there. And maybe you can contribute to the cost of it if we need them to. But I think we’ve got some funding to close the streets, and I know that it’s nowhere near 50 grand for for pay duty officers to close the street, but it’s, it’s, it’d be less than 5000 I would guess, for sure.

Cote:  We absolutely could do a scaled down version, you know, and what that looks like, we’d have to, we have to look at it for sure.  Definitely, the runway to book bands is too small , so we’d have to see who’s available for sure. But that definitely could be something, if that’s the will of Council, and we could look at different funding models for sure.

Councillor Bentivegna  What are you commenting on?

Staff: Commenting on the report or the mayor’s proposal?  She hasn’t put it forward yet.

Bentivegna: I want to wait until she puts it forward. Are you going to put it forward now.

Mayor MeedWard: First of all, thank you to staff for helping with the wording. And I’m not suggesting that you agree. It’s just always helpful to have some wording in advance, so we do have that circulated with the clerk. And this is, pretty flexible. It’s pretty wide open. It’s to explore opportunities for a parade in conjunction with, not saying that MRG needs to run it.

They’ve made it clear that they don’t have the bandwidth, which is totally fine. There might be a community group that could run it, and we don’t know what the costs are. I personally don’t think we need to pay honorarium for people to participate. I think we put a call out and say, who wants to participate?  I think this is an important part of our music heritage and history, our marching band history, and this is an opportunity to showcase it. I don’t think it competes with the rebranding of the MRG Lakeside Festival; I think it can complement, and I think there’s opportunities even what Paul Sharman suggested to have the, you know, the Teen Tour band go down the Promenade, but I think we need to provide some direction and come to ground. I may be a lone voice here, which is fine, but I need to speak for what I think the community wants. We didn’t ask them, but I do know that anytime there’s a change to parades, we got it at the Santa Claus parade, people feel very passionately, and they will reach out and ask us to fix it and to make sure there’s participation. I want to get ahead of this early. If Council doesn’t want to go there, that’s totally fine, but I think it’s really important to do this. So this is here for council’s consideration. I think it gives you the flexibility you need, and you’ve certainly got some funding you can use as well.

I’ll let Councillor Bentivegna because he’s been so eager to speak to this.

Bentivegna: First of all, I still want to talk about MRG, what isthe debate? The MRG delegation, did an absolutely incredible job. I don’t know about you guys, but I got a little excited about some of the things that he was proposing; I mean, it was just unbelievable.

“I’m concerned about us making some decisions outside of the MRG concept. We did discuss the parade with them and he he said he just didn’t know enough about the financing side of it, we doesn’t have enough time. And I know we were talking about someone else doing it, but when someone else does something that I’m doing in a big picture, I don’t want it to sort of mix up what I’m doing and what they’re doing and so on. But I look at it from a business standpoint. When you take over a business, it’s a new business, it’s new ideas, new excitement and a new look, and that’s what we need to evaluate on.

And he did say he would look at the following year, 2027, of doing something.

,Just my opinion. I know we all wanted to do well, so do I.  We all have great ideas,I think we have a good operator,

Councilor Sharman: Well, the Teen Tour Band has come out for the last 14 years to the  Appleby Line Street Festival. I can tell you, talk about excitement and professionalism, we have it all. The MRG people are also fabulous and professional and know exactly what they’re doing. I think the possibility of the combination could be phenomenal. I kind of take to heart, you know, the question of, would there be an overlap? Would they feel like we’re interfering with their flexibility and the logistics on the day? Clearly, that would have to be a discussion to be had. But, you know, he responded to the question, is the promenade going to be used and it was no. I don’t know about closing roads because I don’t know which part of the promenade would close. My question is, why not talk about it? Let’s see what we can do. Is the Teen Tour Band available on the Saturday morning?

We heard Adam this morning indicate that they would love to incorporate the band in some way, shape or form. So that’s already underway, but I think we’re talking about a little bit of it more than that with the parade discussion now.

Why not just proceed with the motion?

Councillor Nissan: Can we estimate what the approximate attendance of the parade is, ideally, in comparison with the Santa Claus parade?

Cote:  I’m not sure we have that data, because we didn’t run the parade, and we did those ground-level insights last year in collaboration with BEDT. I don’t think we had specific details around attendance for the parade.

Nisan: Has Lakeshore  said it’s not possible to do it this year. So is that the case?

Cote: Councilor, anything is possible if you asked me last year if we’d be able to find a successful vendor to deliver a festival here, I don’t know if we’d be here, and we are here so anything is possible for sure. I mean, certainly when staff are asked about our best decision, our best recommendation, you know, just given their resources and everything else we have going on in June, but we could do it, to your question.

Nisan:  I’m open to exploring it more for 2027 rather than trying to make something work for this year. That being said, we’re aren’t talking about a significant amount of funding, and I would rather at least explore where else that funding could be used in the community, at least on a one-year basis, or going forward from there. There’s a lot of good we can do with that, with that money at this time, but I would be open to looking into it for future years. Seems very hard to pull off for 2026, very hard on the staff.

CouncilorStolte:  I’m definitely in support of this motion. I would love to hear more about this. There have been rumblings of a group of volunteers who may or may not have a space to participate in the Lakeside Music Festival, who would very much like to put their efforts towards maintaining the parade and keeping it from disappearing. I don’t think it will take a ton of money, and I think we have a very engaged community who would like tests of staffing get that going. So I’d like to hear more about it.

Councillor Galbraith: Just gonna add my two cents. I only heard about this parade for the first time last week when the Mayor told me about it. Wasn’t aware that it started out as a Sound of Music event. I find it challenging to to put this together. After hearing staff for 2026 I  can definitely support having a look at it for 2027 but I’m having a hard time with looking at it this year, so I think I’m going to pass on it.

But back to Councillor Nissan: Yeah, I’m actually wondering whether this amendment is necessary to potentially achieve the goals, as noted, particularly like Councillor Stolte,  because she’s mentioning that there might be community partners interested. So my question to you, Emily and the team, what would you do if a community party came forward with an interest in doing a road closure, we have a road closure fund and doing a road closure to do a parade, you would evaluate that in the context of others and and we have the kinds of funding envelopes that could contribute to that.

So if we do, we need this amendment to allow that. . And they’ll have their own budget.  I’m not sure who’s interested. If they came forward, we could look at that, right? Is there anything like whether we approve this motion or not, just whether we do the exploring, or whether the community does the exploring with us? I think we need a partner. I don’t think it works without a partner, and I like the optimism that there might be one. I haven’t heard it myself, but I’d rather let the community try if they want to so would that work.

. I think I read this amendment as us being a little bit more proactive and getting out there and soliciting interests and seeing if we can find someone. We have heard rumblings councilors, and we’ve heard groups and, you know, but so we would be a little bit more aggressive in that, in that approach. If this amendment were to go forward,

Thank you, Chair,  I’m going to ask staff either way, whether we find a partner who’s going to do this, or whether we do it internally.  How much time does it take to organize stuff like that? The questions that I  have for staff is how much staff time are we talking about here?  And can we be doing something more productive, I should say that something that is more within our means.

I think there’d just be a lot of logistics involved in trying to meet MRG street festival, road closure, and then where the best route could be. Obviously, when you can use an existing route. There’s some efficiency there, but I just can’t confirm that we’d be able to do that.

I’m just cautioning we have six months before this organization gets going, and we should be helping them do they want to do. I’m going to open my door to say, hey, come and see me. If you need help from me, I do anything I can.

Councilor Sherman: What happens if, for this year we just did the promenade? No road closures, nothing. They get out of their cars right there at the west end of the Parr, they congregate, they march down the promenade. And how much money is all that?

Cote: I think what we’re trying to say with with being politically correct, as conversations are still happening with MRG, because they’ve been running it like something like that is being planned.

Sharman: Okay, thank you. Let’s do that.

Councillor Stolte:  Thank you, . Councilor Sherman. My mind was blown there when we talked there a little bit about the extent of the parade historically, because it’s been done for how many years, a long time, a long time.  I would still like to seriously see if the community groups coming forward have the capacity to fill in 90% of the blanks that will require only 10% of staff’s time to guide them or give them a little booklet, as in, this is how it’s been done for 45 years. This is what you need to let us know and see if we can make that happen.

Meed Ward: , It is very well attended and and your inboxes will be filling up if it  doesn’t happen. We have actually a lovely picture of Takeshi Sakamoto in a open air vehicle. They came one year our twin city from Japan, during Sound of Music Festival. That’s one of our legacy historical pieces from our twin city relationship. They were just tickled pink to participate in that parade. And I personally think that I agree with Councilor Stolte, we have residents that are able to do this, but unless we put some kind of call out or proactive, if we just sit back and wait for people to wonder if the city wants to do it, wonder if there’s a possibility, wonder if there’s even money, we can actually be more helpful to our residents to say, actually, there’s all that. So let’s, let’s just see. Here’s a call out, not an RFQ, or an RFP, or any of that stuff. But I think when you said it, you know, in terms of predictability, if you had thought we would been here with a brand new vendor, we would, we wouldn’t be here if, if council didn’t push a little to say, We think you can do it. We think the community can do it. So let’s run a run something up the flagpole, so to speak, and see what comes back. And I have every confidence, just as I did when we asked if there was a new vendor that we’d get one.

I didn’t know it was going to be them, but wow, I have every confidence that will land this and for me, it’s do we do a parade or not? The logistics sort themselves out. If Council wants a parade, I think we have to do this direction. If you don’t, that’s okay. I’m going to send all the emails I get on this to you.

I think we can sort all of this out, honestly. Let’s not make it a bigger deal than it is. We’re good at this and, and we can figure it out. And I think the community will benefit from it.

And, and I think MRG actually, when I ask them the question directly, they’re not opposed to this at all. They just don’t want it to be part of what they’re doing, which is totally fine. We don’t need them to do we got other folks that can do it, and they’re already looking at potentially thinking about it for 2027 we don’t need to direct that today, but we do need to direct it if we want to keep it alive for 2026 and have that continuity so the motion stays, and we’ll see where the votes are.

Nisan: I have an amendment to the amendment. So let’s give it a quick shot here.  I’m trying to thread the needle and put the community in the driver’s seat and let them come to us, because staff are clear that they are not going to get delivered this year, that it’s asking too much, and they have other events that they need to deliver as well.

I don’t think it’s it’s fair to say that, Oh, we could have done it, but we didn’t this. This is coming together quite late. And, you know, I’m open to 2027 but for 2026 this is what I would suggest  I would let staff figure out how to communicate this to the community. How is the best way to do it, you know, whether it’s a press release or otherwise, reach out to the groups, but the idea is to be available to support a community driven parade.

So, yeah, that would be my amendment. I can, obviously goes without saying, support this. We have a harder time supporting the one that came before it.

Thanks. Okay, a couple speakers, Mayor, Mead, Ward.

Yeah, I’m fine with this. That was the intent of exploring opportunities. So it’s just a different way of saying the same thing. In my mind, I’m just wanting to clarify that part of this would be making some funding available if, if they don’t think there’s funding available, we’re not going to get anybody. So do you need additional direction on making funding available from the pool that was already set aside for the the lakeside festival that is not being drawn upon?

Thank you, Mayor. I would suggest we add that in there, to be funded from the Community Investment reserve fund. Okay, I will make that further. Sorry, yes, if you’re good with that, I’m good, yeah, I’m good with that. Okay, so we’ll amend the and it’s not really an amendment to the amendment, but it’s it. That’s okay.

Councilor Bentivegnia:  This is my last word on this. I will not be supporting this. I just see some red flags here because we got Lakeside music and art festival in this motion and this amendment, which means we’re involving them into this program, and then we’re wide open to be funded $1,000 $100,000 $200,000 you know, we should put at least an amount. I’m not going to support it either way.

Councillor Stolte: I’m actually really pleased to see this amendment. It’s something that I was considering bringing forward.   I think it exactly words what we’re hoping to do just to support a community driven parade. I think the funding should be available. And to tell you the truth, given what we heard from our delegate this morning from MRG, I think they might actually be quite pleased to know that they’re off the hook for planning future parades, because I don’t think they’re in the parade business.

Chair: Okay, seeing no further comments, I will now call the vote on the amendment to the amendment,

All those in favour, any opposed, and that carries.

Now back to the amendment as amended.

All those in favour, and any opposed, and that carries,

An then, the main motion as amended.  All those in favour,  any opposed, and that carries.

This goes to a City Council meeting on Tuesday.