After a major overhaul, this year’s annual Christmas lights display on Parliament Hill will feature more than the usual festive twinkle.
The 31st edition of the federal government’s Christmas Lights Across Canada program will offer those who show up for Tuesday’s 7 p.m. illumination ceremony a new multimedia show and a performance by Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman with the Ottawa Regional Youth Choir.
The 13-minute multimedia show, developed and produced at a cost of $350,000, will employ equipment used for the summer sound-and-light show on Parliament Hill to project “magical winter landscapes” onto the Peace Tower and Centre Block.
The show features a musical soundtrack and three main characters — a grizzly, a fox and a snowman — on a quest for light, said Katherine Cyr, a spokeswoman for the Department of Canadian Heritage. “It’s a nice fairy tale.” It will play continuously between 5:30 p, m. and 11 p.m. until Jan. 7 and will be reprised in 2016 and 2017.
In total, more than 400,000 multicoloured lights — 100,000 more than last year — will light up Parliament Hill, Wellington Street, Sussex Drive, Mackenzie Avenue, Elgin Street, the Alexandra Bridge and Laurier Street in Gatineau.
Revitalizing the annual Christmas lights program was one of the Department of Canadian Heritage’s priorities this year. A 2013 consultant’s report commissioned by the National Capital Commission said the program was “mired in mediocrity” and needed a major rethink.
According to the report, the event’s budget hadn’t been increased for nearly three decades and the inventory of lights had dwindled from 400,000 to 150,000.
The consultants also said the event needed a new name, preferably one that didn’t include the word “Christmas,” which it said didn’t reflect Canada’s multicultural character. Canadian Heritage obviously disagreed, since the name remains unchanged.
As in past years, the illumination ceremony on the Hill will feature a “pyrotechnics display” and — while supplies last — free BeaverTails and hot chocolate.
While Ottawa is the epicentre of Christmas Lights Across Canada, as the name suggests, ceremonies are planned in 14 other cities across the country.
One of the largest displays will take place in the smallest capital, Iqaluit in Nunavut, where 100,000 lights will illuminate the legislative assembly.
