Toronto will not be having its popular Caribana festival this year, but the city will be home a new summer festival of calypso, steel band and mas to be organized by a new management committee.
After months of wrangling between Caribana organizers and the Toronto City Council, it has been revealed that a new festival to be called the Toronto Caribbean Committee will be staged instead of Caribana, which has been a feature of Canada' cultural landscape since 1967.

The newly appointed Festival Management Committee, which is charged with organizing the new festival, is being headed by Jamaican-born Joe Halstead, a former Economic Development, Cultural and Tourism Commissioner for the City of Toronto.

Frank Ramsaroop, who heads the Toronto Mas Bands Association (TMBA), said that members of the FMC were selected jointly by his association and Toronto City Council liaison Joe Mihevc. The Toronto Caribbean Carnival is to benefit from grants totaling C$800,000 (US $ 716,000) from the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario. Organizers said these funds are to be placed in a special account to be opened by the TMBA, and managed by the FMC. The new committee has promised accountability and efficient management in all its operations.

If all goes according to plan, these developments will complete the coup removing the organization of the West Indian festival from the hands of the Caribbean Cultural Committee.
However, it is understood that members of the CCC could be invited to join the FMC, if and when, the committee is expanded. Two CCC board members, Henry Gomez and Elsworth James, have conceded that they do not see how the CCC could organize this year's Caribana, but they made it clear that the festival had a future and they are looking forward to 2007 when the 40th anniversary of the show will be celebrated in grand style.

"As far as I am concerned, this year Caribana is not going to be possible," James said, with Gomez declared that as far as he was aware, "the prevailing sentiment is looking towards next year".

CCC/Caribana chairperson Monica Pollard has stressed there are plans to completely reorganize the CCC/Caribana board within a couple of months or so, to greatly increase its efficiency. "All the criteria are still being worked through," she explained. However, the organizers of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival said they too are looking forward to 2007 and beyond.
This year's Caribana was slated to run from July 15 to August 7 and the 2006 Toronto Caribbean Carnival will run from July 19 to August 7.