‘There’s a higher sense of patriotism’: how MPs plan to celebrate Canada Day this year
When Parliament is sitting, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux, parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, is usually holed up inside the House Chamber and is one of the most talkative MPs in the Commons. On Canada Day, he'll be out and about in his riding of Winnipeg North, Man.
Between zumba dancing at a local park, watching the Sisler’s Most Wanted local high school dance group, and taking in cultural performances from members of the Punjabi, Filipino, and Indigenous communities, he’ll be flying. It's going to be a busy day.
“We'll get several thousand people who now show up for it on an annual basis. So it becomes a little tight for parking,” Lamoureux said in an interview with The Hill Times. "There's a higher sense of patriotism ... you started seeing last year, like the flags, more people are wearing Canada Day T-shirts, and so forth. Now, I don't know if it's because Dollarama has them on sale."
Lamoureux, first elected federally in a byelection in 2010, said over the last two years, and ever since United States President Donald Trump has threatened to make Canada the 51st state, that he has felt more Canadians getting into the spirit and coming out to celebrate.
This year's festivities will take place at Kinver Park, next to a McDonald’s that he refers to as his second office because he likes to hold court there on Saturday mornings to meet constituents.
That corner of the riding is also in the heart of Inkster, the former riding he represented provincially in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1988 to 2010, and which is now named Tyndell Park and represented since 2016 by his daughter, Cindy Lamoureux.
Now that both are elected representatives in the community, they share responsibilities on the big day. Cindy Lamoureux has been helping her dad out on Canada Day since she was eight years old running the face-painting station, and is now organizing some stage performances and helping to make sure things run smoothly. Kevin Lamoureux will be partaking in the games starting around 4:30 p.m. and operating the biggest show of the night: the fireworks.
“I'm convinced some people go just to see me running around in my outfit lighting fireworks,” said Lamoureux. Though he said, in his decades of organizing the festivities, the level of safety has evolved with the times.
“In 1988, I set off fireworks for the first time, and all I did is I went to the sandbox where the kids were playing in and set off the fireworks from a sandbox. Safety just wasn't something that was there that was a concern back then in '88. Nowadays, there's a lot more safety involved. We get the fire department approval, and all this kind of stuff,” he said.
For Conservative MP Scot Davidson, who represents New Tecumseth–Gwillimbury, Ont., he plans to celebrate his seventh Canada Day as an MP in Alliston this year where there will be a flyover by the Royal Canadian Air Force in a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, after a year hiatus.
“Last year, because of the stresses on the Air Force, we couldn't get a flyover, so this will be the first time that it's going to happen in Alliston,” Davidson said in an interview with The Hill Times.
Canada Day in the mostly rural riding—which he calls the "soup and salad bowl of Canada" because of its large vegetable crops—means he will spend the day at a massive community barbecue, showcase a commemorative Honda Civic from the large Honda plant in the riding, and give away thousands of trees to his constituents.
“We do a big O Canada rendition, and, obviously, like I say, we try and time it with the flyover to really give it that patriotic sort of Team Canada spirit.” And with separatism in the headlines in the West and to the east of the riding, he said this year’s anthem will be extra special.
“We're going to yell 'Canada' and sing O Canada so loud, they're going to hear us in Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick, and south of the border.” But, he said, while the anthem singing may be louder, this year's Canada Day will be as proud as any other.
First-time Liberal MP Tim Watchorn, who represents Les Pays-d'en-Haut, Que., and is the former longtime mayor of Morin-Heights, said Canada Day in his riding is more low key.
“There's not a lot of celebrations in my riding for Canada Day, to be honest with you. Morin-Heights is one of the only ones, so it is the biggest one, so I will definitely be there. Normally, they get between [4,000] and 5,000 people,” said Watchorn.
The new riding, created during the 2022 redistribution process to accommodate for the growing population in the Laurentian region north of Montreal, notionally flipped to the Liberals in 2025 from the Bloc Québécois, which held all but one of the five seats that contributed ground to the new riding. With that Bloc majority came a larger Fête national du Québec—or Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day—celebration over Canada Day in the riding.
"Morin-Heights traditionally had a big anglophone community, and we're one of the biggest cities, so we always seem to be with one of the ones that organized one of the biggest Canada Days. ... It's more Saint-Jean that everybody goes and parties the week before," Watchorn said. But as mayor of the predominately anglophone community, he had a work around with a neighbouring town to bring more people to the Canada celebration.
“I had a deal with the mayor of Saint-Sauveur back in the day: instead of organizing two parties each, we'd save a little bit of money, and he would organize the Saint-Jean and invite our citizens there, and I would organize Canada Day, and invite all his citizens to come to Morin-Heights.”
As the largest anglophone town in the riding, Morin-Heights will be pulling out all the stops to don the red and white. At the ski hill in town there will be an egg toss, live bands, and this year’s additions will be Scottish dancing and a strawberry shortcake social at which Watchorn will serve.
Watchorn said he has been working Canada Days in Morin-Heights for as long as he can remember as his grandfather was mayor before him.
“We always used to follow him around everywhere for political stuff and Canada Day celebrations,” said Watchorn, but noted the celebrations in the town have changed a lot since he was a kid. “There used to be a ski hill, which is now Basler Park, and there used to be a bunch of volunteers that ran everything, like the beer, the food, there used to be hay rides, wheelbarrow race in the centre of town, and it just got too big. There was no room to park in the centre of town, so we moved it over to the ski hill at Ski Morin-Heights, and it's a lot safer for everybody.”
Even amid the ongoing referendum discussions, the MP said he doesn't think this year will be any different when it comes to celebrating Canada.
“I don't think so,” Watchorn told The Hill Times when asked if this year means a little more with the talk of separation coming most notably from Alberta but also his own province of Quebec. "I think Canada Day celebrates our country. I think the prime minister has some of the best ratings we've seen in years, so I think everybody wants to celebrate the country. You see, the separatist vote is like below 30 per cent, so I don't see a lot of people hopping on board with that. So, honestly, I think it should be even bigger, since Canada's taking its place again in the world stage, and I think that's a lot of that has to do with the prime minister, and our gang in Ottawa.”
For Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski, who won her first federal election in 2025 in Edmonton Centre, Alta., she said this year’s Canada Day has more gravity. “I'm going to say it feels more important. In my province it feels more important, absolutely,” she told The Hill Times outside the Commons Chamber in June.
“It's the last day of sitting, and I think for all of us it's a chance to reflect on why we're here, and it's not for ourselves, you know, it's for each and every Canadian, and so for myself, and I know my colleagues, all of my colleagues, whether they're Liberal or not, we all care deeply about serving Canadians.”
araynor@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times