Everyone’s favourite festival, Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival returns this year to Midland on Saturday June 8, 2024. The butter tart is an important dessert with a strong connection to the community. It’s invention taking place in Barrie, Ontario. Although, the recipe for the inner syrup having been brought to Canada by the Filles du Roi, the Kings Daughters, in the 1600s when 800 French women travelled to New France to marry French settlers who made what is now known as Quebec their home. This beloved treat is celebrated year round, but the butter tart festival shows us how diverse the dessert has become over the last few hundred years, with the addition of everything from nuts to candies.

With the countdown to the festival in four months, preparation for this internationally known event are already on their way and the event was brought up during a Midland City Council meeting. The festival is one of Simcoe County’s biggest tourist attractions, bringing in over 60 000 outside visitors a year. Not only are there butter tarts, but the family friendly event hosts musical performances, and over 200 vendors. The city of Midland will also open its streets to the local merchants to allow for them to expand their storefronts to the sidewalks. With some businesses still recovering from the damage done by Covid, this event is an opportunity for local businesses to increase revenue.

Midland City Council raised concerns about possibly expanding this popular festival from one to two days due to the high demand of attendees at the festival. The advantage of a two-day festival would be the economic boom that local businesses and vendors would have to sell their goods over the two-day period. One of the concerns raised during the meeting was if the city had the capacity to host a second day. A motion was unanimously passed to have a staff report completed to discuss the feasibility of extending the festival from one day to two.