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On Tuesday afternoon, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) announced it was reversing its controversial decision to pull four awards from the 2025 Juno Awards, including the reggae, Christian/gospel, and children’s categories.
In a post shared on social media, Allan Reid, the president and CEO of the Juno Awards and CARAS, announced that organizers will reinstate three of the four categories.
“Over the course of last year, CARAS underwent an extensive process reviewing all Award categories, taking into consideration data such as consumption, number of submissions, and other metrics,” Reid wrote. “Given the feedback from the community, CARAS will not put these three categories on hiatus this year.”
Reid says that an official notice detailing all the changes for the 2025 Juno Awards will be shared on Monday, Sept. 23.
The post did not mention the fate of the international album of the year award, a fourth category that was also set to go on “hiatus” next year.
The decision to drop the four awards, which was first reported earlier this month, sparked outrage from Canadian artists, community leaders and music fans.
“It felt like a slap in the face to the reggae community, to the Caribbean community and to the Black community,” Dalton Higgins, a music writer and publicist in Toronto, told the Star on Tuesday.
Higgins, who describes the incident as “a PR nightmare of epic proportions” said that CARAS’s original decision was made without consulting the communities that it would impact the most.
“To not engage the Jamaican community or the broader Caribbean community in a healthy two-way dialogue … it felt like we were taking 20 steps backwards.”
Danae Peart, a Toronto-based music critic and consultant, told the Star that she is pleased to hear that Reid was willing to listen to the community’s “resounding response.”
“Reggae is not simply a genre,” Peart said. “It is a protected one per a UNESCO decision from 2018. Any music award process which doesn’t have it included as a category will always deserve ire. This is the carrier of an entire culture (Jamaica), and as a people, we will not go silently.”
Among the politicians who weighed in earlier this week were Michael Coteau, member of Parliament for Don Valley East and the former Ontario minister of Culture, and Toronto Councillor Josh Matlow.
“As a long-time advocate for the arts and cultural diversity in Canada, I am deeply concerned by the decision to remove these key categories from the JUNO Awards,” Coteau said in a press release on Tuesday. “Reggae and Gospel music are cornerstones of cultural expression for many communities in Canada, particularly in cities like Toronto, which have rich Caribbean and Gospel traditions.”
Matlow, who represents Toronto’s Little Jamaica neighbourhood, joined Coteau in demanding that the Junos reverse their decision.
“Little Jamaica, an area I’m proud to represent, has been a global centre of reggae music, and gospel could be heard from church on Sunday mornings- even out on the streets,” Matlow posted on X on Monday night. “I was also delighted to name a playground to honour Sharon, Lois & Bram because of how much their music touched so many of our childhoods.”
The 2025 Juno Awards are scheduled to take place in Vancouver on March 30.
— With files from the Canadian Press
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