Reclaiming Caribana from Corporate Control
By Anthony Joseph
There is a creeping tragedy unfolding in our midst. It is quiet but suffocating. It hides behind polished press releases, government funding, and public celebrations. But at its core lies a betrayal of community trust, cultural legacy and our right to self-determination.
We, the Caribbean community in Canada, are being recolonized and re-victimized, not by chains or ships this time, but by funding formulas, corporate non-profits and polite exclusion.
It is a new kind of slavery – a slavery to the organization with the government money, that strips away our ownership of Caribana, even as it waves our flags and plays our music.
Let’s tell the truth: Caribana was stolen. Not through brute force, but through boardrooms and bylaws.
The Festival Management Committee (FMC), a private non-profit organization, now holds the keys to our most important cultural festival. But it does not answer to the community. It does not reflect it. And it certainly do not empower it. Its control is cloaked in community language but it operates like a private club.
All the successful elements of Caribana/Carnival, the Parades junior and grand, King and Queen Showcase, Panorama, Calypso Monarch, the Official Launch, predate FMC’s control. These were created by our mas’ makers, artists, and cultural elders.
Since taking over, the FMC has introduced no widely embraced innovations. Worse, their few new events this year were scheduled in direct competition with long-standing traditions like Panorama and the Grand Parade.
Why cannibalize your own culture?
The answer is simple: it’s not theirs. It’s ours. But they’re running it like it belongs to them. And instead of resisting, we, the community, have been far too accommodating.
Case in point: we allowed the FMC to use our most prestigious editorial space, Page 7 of the Caribbean Camera newspaper, to publish what was titled “A Love Letter from the Toronto Caribbean Carnival to the Government of Canada.”
A love letter.
While the community is shut out of decision-making, while elders and builders of this festival are ignored, while transparency is absent, we published the love letter.
Perhaps it worked. This year, the FMC received $3.1 million in funding from the federal government. But we must ask: at what cost?
What message are we sending when we let an organization, which many feel no longer serves the people, use our voice to curry favour with the state? And how can they accept our platform, but not our criticism?
This year, for the first time in over three decades, FMC placed no advertising with Caribbean Camera in the week before the Parade. Not because we lacked space. Not because we weren’t willing. But because, allegedly, someone within the organization was offended by a column that dared to ask tough questions about governance and accountability.
What kind of leadership is this? What kind of community organization punishes the only major Black and Caribbean newspaper in the city for doing its job? If this is true, it is nothing short of a personal vendetta wrapped in public money.
This is not inclusion. This is exploitation. We are watching history repeat itself. We are being asked to be grateful for our own marginalization.
Even our community innovators are being dismissed. A prominent Caribbean Canadian recently proposed a major “Soca Friday” event ahead of the Parade.
It was a fully fleshed-out plan, financials, logistics, potential partners, everything. The estimated audience: 50,000 people. Potential revenue: $3 million. After initial skepticism, many came on board. But the idea never reached the FMC. Why?
Because the last time this individual merely requested a media pass, he was ignored. Not rejected.
Ignored.
This is how community is silenced, through the quiet brutality of indifference.
This is a colonial structure in Blackface, and we are allowing it. We keep giving ideas, time, energy, and platforms to an organization that gives us nothing but closed doors in return. We play mas’. We sing. We write. We promote. All while being erased.
Enough is enough.
The time has come for the Caribbean community, members of the mas’ bands, steelbands, calypso tents, promoters, DJs, vendors, community media, youth groups, and cultural leaders, to form an umbrella organization rooted in transparency, community accountability, and cultural preservation that reflects the people who gave birth to Caribana.
This isn’t about competing with FMC. This is about reclaiming what is ours.
Caribana was never just a party. It was born from the spirit of civil rights, emancipation, and cultural resistance. It was a declaration of Black and Caribbean presence in a Canada that often pretended not to see us. We danced, yes, but we also defied. It was activism in feathers and rhythm.
Today, that spirit is fading. In its place is a sanitized version of our culture, sold for tourism dollars, controlled by gatekeepers, and celebrated with a smile while our elders are pushed to the margins.
And yet, we still behave like guests at our event, pleading to be included. But let’s ask: What good is funding if it buys silence? What good is visibility if it’s on someone else’s terms? What good is growth if it leaves our community behind?
We are being paid not to complain. Funded into silence. And praised when we stay in line.
This is slavery of a new kind.
This is colonization of a new kind.
And it must end.
We don’t need another committee with a fancy logo. We need a movement, a collective of builders, thinkers, elders, and youth who refuse to let Caribana die on someone else’s altar. We must demand public funding with public accountability, media access for our own newspapers and broadcasters, and leadership that comes from the culture, not just over it.
This is our moment. The window is closing. Every year we wait, the chains get tighter. The gatekeepers grow bolder. And our children grow up believing they must ask for permission to be Caribbean in public.
We must act now.
We must organize now.
We must reclaim Caribana now.
Or risk losing it forever.
To register yourself or your group, send an email to: reclaimcaribana@bibda.org
Anthony Joseph is the publisher of The Caribbean Camera newspaper. He writes on politics, culture, and the intersection of race and democracy in Canada. Thecaribbeancamera.com
Link to the offending comments:
#ReclaimCaribana #CaribbeanCulture #BlackVoicesCanada
#CarnivalJustice #OwnOurCulture #TorontoCarnival #MasIsResistanc
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