BONNYVILLE – The details surroundings Santa Claus’ visit to the Town of Bonnyville have been decided.
Town council voted in favour of planning a reverse Santa Claus Parade during its Nov. 10 meeting, which will see families driving by St. Nick while his float stays in one place. The topic was originally discussed during a special meeting on Nov. 5.
Councillors Chad Colbourne and Elisa Brosseau were against the motion put forward for the town to go ahead with a drive-thru style parade with COVID-19 protocols in place.
Colbourne stressed “that the mental health issues within our community right now are rising. This is an opportunity to get people out and give them a little bit of Christmas. I think with it being outdoors, having a (regular) parade gives them the sense of old normal.”
According to CAO Bill Rogers, administration looked into putting on a regular parade, but didn’t see it being possible after the town was put under watch by the province on Nov. 6.
“Being added to the watch list adds a number of extra challenges and things that we need to take into account if we’re doing a parade. For example, we would need to find a way to notify all event attendees of potential exposure,” he noted, adding that while a number of these obstacles will still make it difficult for a static event, it was the more doable option.
“There’s a number of complications that even having a drive-thru event will be a challenge logistically, but we think we can pull it off.”
Set-up for the event will begin at the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre around 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 4. The public will be allowed to start making their way through an hour later, with the area being open from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The provincial guidelines for drive-in style events include encouraging attendees to stay with their family cohorts in their vehicles for the duration of the time, having a plan to provide isolation for a symptomatic worker or volunteer if needed, social distancing should be practiced and masks should be worn when distancing isn’t possible. Organizers must also elimiate or reduce the number of items that will be handled by multiple people, and staff should perform hand hygiene before and after handling a shared item, among others precautions.
It appeared to be a difficult decision for council not to go ahead with the traditional parade that makes its way down main street, but most were in favour of administration’s suggestion to proceed with a static parade.
“I was at the Centennial Centre this (past) Saturday and there were some people who were following protocol, which is great to see, and there’s other people who just weren’t,” Brosseau recalled. “It was packed in there and it’s terrible when we want to go ahead and we want to do something for the public and keep things somewhat regular, somewhat the same so we don’t have big changes. I don’t want to see big changes because I’m sure people will want to see the same thing, but it’s becoming more difficult when people, I feel, aren’t respecting what’s suggested for them.”
Coun. Ray Prevost agreed, “Everybody’s trying to do something that resembles some sort of normalcy around this COVID-19 issue but I think we have to be cautious. I support this option, I’ve not changed my mind (since our special meeting) and this reinforces everything for me. I think we’ve got to go with the reverse parade... I just wouldn’t want to put the town in a predicament if something was to happen, then where would that leave us and how would we feel about it at that point? It hurts to cancel the parade. Bad enough we cancelled the Canada Day Parade and Canada Day period. Now this one, hopefully, things will get back to some resemblance of 2019 soon.”