Roncesvalles BIA votes on festival renaming after community outcry

“I think everybody is happy. It’s a win for the Polish community,” says Mike Ostrowski, a resident who launched a petition to put the “Polish” back in the annual festival.

Thestar.com
July 22, 2022
Angela Liu

The Roncesvalles Polish Festival is back after the BIA voted to reverse a controversial name change on Thursday.

The local BIA (business improvement area), which organizes the festival, changed the name of the annual event to Roncesvalles Festival in late June, a decision that sparked a backlash from the Polish community, the Polish consulate and local politicians, who wanted the word “Polish” restored in the name.

Roncesvalles has historically been Little Poland, and the festival holds significant cultural importance to the Polish-Canadian community. In its 15-year history, the festival has always celebrated Polish culture and cuisine.

After the name change was announced, many opponents weighed in, including residents, Toronto City Council, the Consulate General of Poland in Toronto, MPP Natalia Kusendova (Mississauga Centre), the Canadian Polish Congress and Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma, asking that the festival’s original name be preserved. The BIA listened.

“I think everybody is happy. It’s a win for the Polish community, it’s a win for the festival, for the BIA,” said Mike Ostrowski, a resident who petitioned for the festival to keep its original name. “It’s now up to the Polish community to show up this year in their red and white, for Polish pride, and support the Polish vendors and the local vendors.”

The BIA decided last August to change the festival’s name to better fit the event’s programming after they merged the Polish festival with Roncy Rocks, an annual live music event put on by the BIA. Festival organizers also wanted to better reflect Roncesvalles and the businesses within the BIA, some of which are Polish and some of which are not.

BIA Chair David Neinstein said that once they saw the backlash from the community, they decided to reconsider.

The name change is a “win-win,” Neinstein told the Star. “I think that what we missed was the broader impact that it would have on the community and we should have done better at involving the stakeholders in the decision.”

According to Neinstein, Surma has promised to make up the $50,000 financial difference the name change will incur, “to ensure that the festival can run.”

At the BIA board meeting, the decision to reverse the festival name carried unanimously. Neinstein said that a big reason why they could do so was because of Surma’s fundraising pledge.

“She lobbied us to completely change the name back and gave us a lot of great reasons,” said Neinstein. “We explained the financial challenges to changing the name we were having, and so she pledged to help with funding through sponsors and other means.”

Mayor John Tory also tweeted out his support of the BIA’s decision on Thursday afternoon, writing “this was the right thing to do.”

The Roncesvalles Polish Festival is set to take place on Sept. 17 and 18 on Roncesvalles Avenue.