Renaming the Long Weekend of May
May. 24th, 2021 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineOkay, Bob Hepburn at the Toronto Star has been arguing for the better part of this past ten years - actually all the way back to May 2008! - that we need to get rid of Victoria Day. Not that we need to rid ourselves of a long weekend at the end of May each Gregorian-calendar year in Canada, because we don't. We really don't. But rather, Hepburn argues that the name of and reason for such events needs changing up. His latest such reminder of his opinion was published on 20 May 2021.
After all, we're supposedly celebrating a fictional birthday for the very real British monarch who signed off on setting up Confederation in 1867 after all the drinking contests, under-the-table mutual blackmail and whatever else was going on at those three negotiation sessions that the "fathers of Confederation" put together in the middle years of the 1860's.
Does Queen Victoria - specifically - really count for a lot with most Canadians and Canadian-adjacent people these days? Our local Monarchists aside?
One of his suggestions for the change, Peacekeepers' Day, is already officially observed by the authorities, but is not a statutory holiday. It's observed by the UN on 29 May, and by the Canadian federal government on 9 August. Maybe we need our feds to harmonize with the UN on this? Maybe not?
Some other options were mentioned, too...I'm trying to get at Pressreader via OPL's website in order to refresh my memories of those. And I found them: "First Nations Day" and "Prime Ministers' Day". National Indigenous Peoples' Day is already set for 21 June each year. The latter option...is not appetizing to my ears.
After all, we're supposedly celebrating a fictional birthday for the very real British monarch who signed off on setting up Confederation in 1867 after all the drinking contests, under-the-table mutual blackmail and whatever else was going on at those three negotiation sessions that the "fathers of Confederation" put together in the middle years of the 1860's.
Does Queen Victoria - specifically - really count for a lot with most Canadians and Canadian-adjacent people these days? Our local Monarchists aside?
One of his suggestions for the change, Peacekeepers' Day, is already officially observed by the authorities, but is not a statutory holiday. It's observed by the UN on 29 May, and by the Canadian federal government on 9 August. Maybe we need our feds to harmonize with the UN on this? Maybe not?
Some other options were mentioned, too...I'm trying to get at Pressreader via OPL's website in order to refresh my memories of those. And I found them: "First Nations Day" and "Prime Ministers' Day". National Indigenous Peoples' Day is already set for 21 June each year. The latter option...is not appetizing to my ears.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-25 07:00 am (UTC)