In Montreal, kids decided that a dark and stormy night was perfect for trick or treating on Halloween. Despite the fact that forecasters had issued several weather warnings that predicted heavy rain, high winds, and even snow, many municipalities chose to ignore the advisories and go ahead with their Halloween festivities.
Montreal, Magog, Trois-Rivières, Drummondville, Longueuil and Saint-Lambert wanted to delay the annual celebration until Friday, but Quebec City, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Montreal-West and Châteauguay chose to follow their original plans.
John Belvedere, mayor of Pointe-Claire, said he it was up to parents to decide if their kids should go trick-or-treating. "I've been out on Halloween in snow, in rain, in sleet, in hail. We all survived so we're leaving it up to the parents, and I think the parents can make the proper decisions according to the weather conditions," he said.
Some kids hoped to take advantage of both Thursday and Friday night to hopefully double their candy haul. Melissa White, whose children go to school in Pointe-St-Charles, told CBC that her kids are insisting on going out twice. "That's what my son said: 'Oh, double candy! Two nights in a row!' I don't know, we'll see. They don't need that much candy," she said.
Sasha Dubrovsky, meanwhile, said that Montreal is famous for its unpredictable weather and joked that having the kids go out in the rain would add to the Halloween atmosphere by making them “gritty.”
Toronto, which was also facing some harsh weather conditions, took the opportunity to poke fun at Montreal's decision to delay Halloween with the office of Mayor John Tory saying it had no plans to "mess with Halloween." The office added, "Mayor Tory hopes families across the city have a fun Halloween night and assures kids that their costumes are still great even if they have a coat on as well."
On Wednesday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante asked parents and their kids via tweet to wait one more night to go trick or treating. The next day, however, she realized that not all of her constituents were happy with her suggestions, saying you’re "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
Meanwhile, Quebec Premier François Legault decided to keep his opinions to himself. "I wish all of our children to have fun tonight or tomorrow night," he told reporters in Quebec City. "I'll let the municipalities take the decision."
Sainte-Julie, on Montreal's South Shore, was one of the first to announce that it would delay trick-or-treating. Kristy Cullen, a Sainte-Julie resident and mother of four, said her oldest daughter, who is nine, cried on Wednesday when she came home. "She was like, 'That ruins everything. It's Halloween. It's tradition,'" Cullen told CBC Montreal's Daybreak.
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Cullen said her kids have gone trick-or-treating in the rain before and don’t mind wearing raincoats over their costumes. Meanwhile, Kim Pollock, a Longueuil mother, also said that the rain adds to the ghostly Halloween atmosphere. "Will we get wet? Yes. But, I mean, kids have to learn today that we're going to [get] dry. It's not going to hurt them," she said. "I think we're bubble-wrapping them a little too much."