Belleville, ON, Canada / Quinte News
John Spitters
Apr 17, 2023

After its very successful debut last year with around 7,000 people attending, there’s no doubt the Belleville Caribbean Festival has room for growth.

And now, through happenstance or cosmic karma, none other than the Chair of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival is getting involved to help make it happen.

Jennifer Hirlehey, a lawyer by profession and a native of Trinidad, moved to Belleville last April and heard about Belleville’s first ever Caribbean festival.  She headed to the Downtown District to check it out.

“It was lovely, the music and dancing, the smell of jerk chicken in the air, and you could tell that everyone involved was having a really good time.  And I thought to myself, I have the skills, I have the contacts, and I should bond here, I have lots of family in the area and I thought I wanted to get involved.

Hirlehey approached  Chamber of Commerce staff and met with the Chair of the Belleville Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee Councillor Sean Kelly, all of whom she described as “very welcoming,” and is now directly involved with the committee putting together the second festival under the auspices of the Chamber.

That committee has  several members of the local Caribbean community on it.

Hirlehey has some ideas on how to grow Belleville’s festival with the main one being that it continue to be held as a stand-alone event, separate from the annual July Belleville Waterfront and Multicultural Festival.

“I think there could be and should be more of a Caribbean presence at the multicultural festival but for the festival (Caribbean) to grow and to have the kind of economic impact that it has in Toronto, it has to be a stand-alone event and and we’ve agreed to do that.  And to grow we have go out and get sponsors so we can bring in really good bands and artists and to do that we need money.  So we’re going to try and attract sponsors and hopefully some from Toronto as well.”

Hirlehey also believes that while Zwick’s Park is a beautiful setting for community events, Belleville’s Caribbean Festival should remain right where it started, in the Downtown District.

“The carnival is a street festival.  If you want to grow it into a parade, as it is in Toronto, it has to be a parade through the streets.  And the economic impact of having the parade go through the downtown streets is amazing.  In Toronto the spinoffs are estimated at half a billion dollars.  If we can grow the festival to be just one-tenth of that it would be $50 million.  A festival with a parade has to be on the streets and the economic impact could be amazing.  It could really help revitalize the downtown core.”

Hirlehey says that obviously most of the Caribbean community in the province is in the greater Toronto area but Belleville’s is growing and there’s already close contact between the local and Toronto communities through family and association.  “We want a nice mix in the festival between the Belleville and Toronto communities.  I’m already talking to my contacts in Toronto and I don’t want to make any announcements before contracts are signed but I think we have an opportunity to bring down some really good entertainers for the festival here.”

The Belleville Caribbean Festival is scheduled for Saturday August 19.  The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, which Hirlehey continues to lead, runs for about a month from mid-July to mid-August, attracting tens of thousands of people to the events.  Its Grand Parade is August 5.