This year Canada Day was back being celebrated around Fairy Lake at Legion and Prospect Park. Prospect Park’s event was put on by the BIA which concurrently ran with an event at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 197. The fireworks, as usual, were put on by the Acton Firefighter Association, who celebrated their 50th time lighting the fireworks. Roughly 700 shells and cakes were set off this year. BIA Manager Alex Hilson who helped plan this year’s event comments,
“We got the return on the annual Canada Day in the park, organized by the Downtown Acton BIA. We have a bunch of different activities happening today, face painting, cake and sweets. This is my first time organizing the event, this year is more like a farmer's market and it's a little different for us. I started planning this event in 2020, but obviously, everything was canceled so it's like three years in the making.”
Mayor Rick Bonnette also made an appearance at the Canada Day festivities, this year will be his last Canada Day as Mayor. Although a bittersweet day for Bonnette he feels an overwhelming sense of joy spending his last Canada Day as Mayor with the community he loves.
“It is a little emotional, I am going to retire and say goodbye to politics. But, Canada Day won't be over for me. Today is the 50th anniversary of the AFA doing fireworks, I mean this is Acton. This is what Acton is all about.”
Bruce Bundy, the Chairman of the Acton Firefighters Association was in charge of the fireworks at this year's event. As Bonette mentioned, the AFA has been running the Acton Fireworks for 50 years. The fireworks show was about half an hour and the show costs about twenty thousand dollars which is aided by donations through various events. “The help we received this year was excellent, we had help from Georgetown firefighters and we had great help from the Halton Hills fire department and we couldn’t have done this without them.”
Peggy Graham President of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 197 Acton and Les Bentley First Vice President helped run the Legion event at Fairy Lake. First Vice President Bentley was in charge of the food and barbecue that was served to guests. “The importance of the event is to keep the community together,” comments Bentley, “we want to bring the younger community out and realize what the Legion itself stands for and give back to the community.”
It was extremely important to the community this year to celebrate Canada Day due to the last two years being held off due to Covid. As Mayor Bonette says, “nothing's gonna compare to this, this is Acton’s thing.”
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