WHAT IS "HAPPENING" WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS IN GRIMSBY?

By Scott Bird
Grimsby BIA Watch

Grimsby, ON,  Mayoral candidate Simon Duong has made respecting taxpayers part of his campaign message. In a recent social media post promoting the Happening in Grimsby Festival, Duong claimed,

“We raise every single dollar ourselves”

and he praised the Happening Festival as a shining example of funding community initiatives without

“Always reaching into the pockets of our taxpayers,”

The post event financial report submitted to the Building Communities Through Arts & Heritage (BCAH)  makes that claim extremely difficult for Simon to defend.

In 2025, the Happening Festival received $18,600 from the federal BCAH program, $8,000 directly from the Town of Grimsby, $12,000 in Town funded services, and $30,000 through the Downtown BIA levy.

The Town services included staffing, garbage removal, road closures, barricades, online promotion, and assistance with permits. Those are not privately raised dollars. They are public resources supporting the festival.

Together, the documented taxpayer and BIA levy support totalled $68,600. Happening reported $91,157.69 in expenses that year, meaning [tax-based] support was equivalent to approximately 75.3 percent of the festival’s reported expenses.

A festival receiving support equal to three quarters of its annual expenses cannot credibly be presented to taxpayers and downtown merchants as an event that “raises every single dollar ourselves.”

Public funding is not the issue. Transparency is.

Simon is asking Grimsby voters to trust him with their tax dollars while presenting a version of the Happening Festival finances that downplays the taxpayer contribution. That matters because he chaired the BIA that provided public money as well as the Happening Festival that received it. If Simon wants voters to trust his judgment with municipal finances, then the numbers he presents should be transparent.

Taxpayers should not have to dig through public records to discover how much of the bill they are actually paying.

Did you know that the Grimsby BIA under Mark Wood and Simon Duong has spent almost $100,000 of BIA levy tax dollars towards the Happening Festival since 2023? And 2026 was the only time there was any documentation to support it?

​​(Sources: GDBIA Minutes, BCAH Application, BCAH post event reports)