Montreal Multicultural Festival celebrates 3rd anniversary

The Montreal Multicultural Festival is back for a third year celebrating the city’s diverse identity as well as promoting inclusivity and cross-cultural exchange by showcasing music and dance performances along with other cultural activities from 25 local artists and groups. 

“Rich, poor, young, old, Black, white, Chinese, as I said, it’s multiculturalism and diversity, and we’re being inclusive. So everyone is welcome. It’s a free festival, it doesn’t cost anything, so it’s just really be present and enjoy the day. Beautiful sunny day, we want people to come down and experience different cultures,” said Kidel Reid, the executive director of The Multicultural & Diversity Project.

This year, the festival has grown to a two-day event located in the Jardins Gamelin in Montreal on Sunday and Monday over the long weekend. 

“The reason why we chose to do it here, because this enclave represents ethnicity, diversity, inclusion. This is like one of the areas that’s like the heartbeat of Montreal. So we like to appeal to everybody, so we couldn’t think of a better place to do it,” said Ried.

This festival is hosted by the Multicultural and Diversity Project — a BIPOC-led non-profit organization — that provides Quebec’s BIPOC and greater Canadian multicultural communities with programs and services aimed at breaking down barriers of racism and discrimination.   

“No one’s really highlighting multiculturalism, and we want an inclusive society. So therefore, we find it very important to highlight multiculturalism, and that’s what makes this festival unique, the fact that we’re promoting diversity and inclusion.”