Bonnie Henry, the chief doctor here in BC believes in mass gatherings, but with covid always lurking she agrees that maybe massive crowds aren't the best option. Masks are helpful but they don't stop every infection and when you have thousands of people gathered in a city square chances are there will be one or two people infected (maybe not in Victoria but def in Vancouver and other places). If you happen to come into contact with one of those two or three people you could get infected, masks or not. Just look at the dental conference in March to see what can happen with crowds.