Emails obtained by the Ottawa Citizen show city staff discussing a plan to launch the unused Canada Day fireworks as early as July 3, about a week before the opening night of Bluesfest.

A week before the unannounced launch of unexploded Canada Day fireworks, members of the City of Ottawa’s special events team received a “CONFIDENTIAL UPDATE” on plans for the live shells then lying dormant on Lemieux Island.

Documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen under the Access to Information Act show city staff discussing a plan for the unused fireworks in emails dating back to July 3, less than two days after the Canada Day show was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms and about a week before the date of the rescheduled display at the start of Bluesfest.

“This information is being shared to those who need-to-know only and is not to be shared externally or within your service unless operationally necessary,” reads a bolded sentence in a July 3 email from Barbara Stacey, a program manager with the City of Ottawa’s event co-ordination office.

Stacey’s email, which was flagged “NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE,” walked members of the city’s Special Events Advisory Team (SEAT) through the decision by Canadian Heritage, in consultation with Bluesfest organizers, to discharge the fireworks on July 9 following the opening night performance at the music festival.

Because the federal department and its fireworks contractor were left with “live fireworks,” options were limited, Stacey said.

The fireworks contractor could either disarm each individual shell, an “extremely dangerous” process that would have involved manually reaching into the shells, or it could discharge the fireworks and remediate the site as normal.

The latter option was deemed “less dangerous,” Stacey said, but did require all parties to consider the “potential impacts of the full spectacle of the fireworks display.”

“This will be done without publicity or promotion to the public,” Stacey wrote. “This allows for the fireworks to be discharged in the safest way possible with the added benefit of Bluesfest’s existing closures and deployments to support any potential impacts to the public.”

If there had been thunderstorms on July 9, documents show officials planned to set the unused fireworks off the following night instead.

Ultimately, Canadian Heritage opted to launch the fireworks shortly before 11 p.m. on Thursday, July 9, putting on a show that lasted about 11 minutes, startled many residents, prompted 46 bylaw complaints and drew condemnation from several city councillors.

“It seems that Heritage Canada determined that it was safer to do this than try to remove the unexploded shells from Lemieux Island,” Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster wrote in a social-media post at the time.

“But on a weeknight, so late, with no notice = unacceptable.”

The following Monday, the city’s general manager of emergency and protective services, Ryan Perrault, apologized for the surprise display.

“It’s very clear to me that it had impacts on the community, and for that I’m extremely sorry for that experience that those residents felt,” he said at a July 13 news conference.

“That’s something that we’re going to have to take away and look at as part of our processes.”

According to a report from CTV Ottawa earlier in September, Bluesfest organizers expressed some initial concerns about keeping the fireworks display secret.

Referencing a July 9 email obtained under the provincial freedom of information act, CTV reported that Bluesfest CEO Mark Monahan told the city’s SEAT team it would be irresponsible to set off a large fireworks display without first informing the public.

“This would open up liability and reputational risk that affects the entire organization,” Monahan wrote, according to the report.

Bluesfest eventually agreed to go along with the plan.

In an email statement, Perrault said the decision not to proactively notify residents of the July 9 fireworks display was made collaboratively by members of the SEAT team after considering the risks to public safety.

“Given concerns that broad promotion could attract large crowds outside the ticketed event footprint and create additional safety and crowd-management challenges, staff and partners determined that limiting advance notification was the most prudent course of action under the circumstances,” he said.

Spokespeople for the Department of Canadian Heritage and Bluesfest did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

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