Help Santa Toy Parade set for Saturday in downtown Ottawa

Santa Claus will arrive in Ottawa this weekend.

A scaled-back version of the Help Santa Toy Parade will travel through Centretown and the Glebe on Saturday morning.

"It's a smaller parade than normal," said Bob Rainboth of the Help Santa Toy Parade. "We have 20 entries. It might be a little quicker than normal as well."

The Ottawa Professional Firefighters Association initially planned to hold three mini Santa Claus parades in Kanata, downtown Ottawa and Orleans. The association says following the "tragic incident" that occurred during the Santa Claus parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin last month; it was decided to hold one parade in downtown Ottawa instead.

The parade will begin at 11 a.m. at Ottawa City Hall on Laurier Avenue. It will travel west on Laurier to Bank Street, and then south on Bank Street to Fifth Avenue ending at Lansdowne.

Families attending the parade are asked to wear a mask and practice physical distancing along the route.

Firefighters will not be collecting new toy donations for Toy Mountain during the Santa Claus parade. Instead, you are asked to drop off new toy donations at any Ottawa Fire Station.

"We have a large toy wagon and currently it's about a quarter full. We expect by the weekend to have it filled," said Rainboth.

"Then hopefully after we drop off our toys next Wednesday to Toy Mountain we do hope to do a second run if we can. We've very optimistic that we're going to collect a lot and we'd like to encourage the public to do so."

Cash donations can be made at www.toyparade.ca.