Adjudicate This

At one time, and it wasn't so long ago,  cultural parades and festivals in Hogtown were thin on the ground. There was the Orangeman's Parade down Yonge Street, Eaton's Santa Claus Parade, the Warriors' Day Parade,  Caribana (as it was called), and of course the Labour Day Parade. All had official sanction. Unofficially, and back in the early 70s, I once watched a brave - or foolhardy - few who had dressed up on Halloween and who were heading for the defunct St. Charles Tavern, a well-known downtown gay bar, dodging abuse, ridicule, beer cans and anything else that could be thrown at them.

The film festival, then called the Festival of Festivals, was an itty bitty thing that made its headquarters in the bar of the Windsor Arms Hotel. There was Caravan, where different ethnic groups created approximations of "back home" - I always liked the Trinidadian pavilion because I'm crazy for steel pan music, roti and rum, not always in that order. The other festivals, I remember, tended to be put on by immigrants for immigrants to celebrate their home countries' independence day or something similar.

But that was then. Now, from spring to fall there are parades and festivals to satisfy every possible taste or persuasion. And that's the trouble. As they've grown in number and variety I can't help but notice that in very large part quality or their raisons d'etre haven't kept pace. Oh, TIFF, the Santa Claus Parade, the son of Caribana, Pride and perhaps one or two more are bigger and better. And some of the newer ones, Nuit Blanche, Hot Docs, Luminato (which again this year has far, far too few free events and may need a separate scolding for its ticket prices) are professional in approach and execution. But, from what I've seen, the other smaller parades and festivals just aren't cutting it. I know that they're run by volunteers on a $1.98 budget; I know that the effort to put them on is heartfelt; I know that the art or cause they espouse are worthy. But good intentions are not enough. Hogtown's parades and festivals need an adjudicator. I don't mean some bureaucrat from City Hall who'll dot the Is, cross the Ts and hand over a receipt for the permit fee. A prominent arts figure or two, say, or a professional event manager to decide whether an event is sufficiently well done. Our streets and parks are public spaces; we pay to create and maintain them. So we have the right to decide if a parade or festival is good enough to grace them with its presence.