Canada's confusing system for holidays
When is the next holiday? It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer in Canada due to the complexity of the rules that determine days off.
Canada is a big country with three layers of government: federal, provincial and municipal. Holidays need to be coordinated across cities, provinces and terrotiries and nationwide. Some smaller countires benefit from a more streamlined holiday system in which every holiday is observed by everyone on the same day.
What is a statutory holiday?
Statutory holidays are holidays for the public that are mandated by the federal or provincial governments. Not every statutory holiday is observed across the entire country. As mentioned above, some are set on the provincial level and some by municipalities.
Provincial holidays
Most holidays are different across provinces and territories. The only exceptions are New Year's Day, Canada Day, Labour Day and Christmas that are holidays on the same day across the entire country.
While Easter is a national holiday in Canada, Good Friday and Easter Monday are observed differently in different regions. Easter Monday is a statutory holiday only in Alberta, New Brunswick and Quebec as well as Yukon, the NWT and Nunavut. Elsewhere it's a holiday at the discretion of local regional or municipal governments. For example in Ontario Easter Monday is not an official day off for everyone but City of Toronto employees and school boards have this day as a designated paid day off.
The February long weekend on the third Monday in February is observed in many provinces but with different names. In British Columnbia, Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan it's call Family Day. Elsewhere this day is called Islander Day, Heritage Day or Louis Riel Day.
It is a common misconception that Remembrance Day is a national holiday in Canada. It is not a holiday in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and in the Nortwest Territories.
Municipal or civic holidays
The Civic Holiday is not mandated by federal or provincial legislation, instead it's at the discretion of municipalities to declare their own holidays.
As such, the civic holiday goes by many names other than the standard "civic holiday". Some examples are: Regatta Day, Terry Fox Day, Natal Day, Simcoe Day, Colonel By Day, Heritage Day, Joseph Brant Dayen and Benjamin Vaughan day.
Can the holiday system be simplified in Canada?
A popular suggestion is to make the first Monday in every month a holiday across Canada and cancel all other holidays. This would provide 12 days off on a predictable schedule. However, the chances of this happening in the near future is very slim.
How would you change Canada's public holiday system? Let us know in the comments section below.
How would you change Canada's rules around holidays
I have taken a look at the holidays listed, and I couldn't help but notice that Women's Day isn't listed. We have other holidays that came into affect after women's day was mentioned and they're on the list. Could this be because women still aren't respected by the government? How difficult is it to provide equal pay? To recognize intimate partner violence deserve recognition. I'm not a overbearing feminist, but those two subjects upset me, know a government in 2024 still doesn't appreciate the opposite sex. It angers me because after being kidnapped and assaulted, watching the cops not charge the accused right after finding held in the accused residence. Then the justice system giving three months house arrest, while victim services from the courthouse believing a letter was efficient enough for contacting me, to the apartment I was too afraid to attend.
Pretty sure this was a breach of my human rights, but as a woman it won't be recognized.
Love the idea of cancelling christian holidays. its in my heritage and I've never understood why time off for a religion that I don't believe in . Monday mornings after the rush of the end-of-month in my shop would be awwwwsome. Let this poor Jesus come down from his torture device and walk away from our calendars.
I agree 100% with Richard's comments below. There's nothing confusing about holidays in Canada. The roots of a holiday were set on specific days which shall be the day it will be celebrated, keep them all as is. I also agree the Reconciliation Day, it should be made available to all Canadians not just federal workers. I am not religious, but strongly disagree they should be abolished as I grew up to respect them. This is Canada, love it for how it is!
I think reconciliation day should be either given to everyone or indigenous employees not just for federal workers to have a paid day off! And move it to June when there is no other holiday!
Religious holidays - entirely *christian* holidays - should be removed. Only 53% of Canadians (2022) identify as christian. the christian holidays like easter and christmas have been around for hundreds of years - it's time we recognize the other 47% of the 40,000,000 Canadians.
If the government pay for long weekends -no problem at all!!!! or long weekends will be no pay days, bat can you imagine the stress of the owners of small companies ? 2 weeks vacation plus 11 days long weekends -a month paid but not productivity ! Maybe is time for government to step up and pay for at lest long weekends ?
I agree with this for sure!!
In a time of increasing employment crossing Provincial boundaries it becomes harder and harder to find time with family when one's mandated time off doesn't align with local schools, partners who's employers don't observe civic holidays, and in general a lack of fairness for time off with "bankers holidays" being plentiful while people trading sweat-labour for pay stand out in the sun.
Canada has equalization payments to ensure equality across the country; equality of time off shouldn't be something we have to debate.
If the government pay for long weekends -no problem at all!!!! or long weekends will be no pay days,
bat can you imagine the stress of the owners of small companies ?
2 weeks vacation plus 11 days long weekends -a month paid but not productivity !
Maybe is time for government to step up and pay for at lest long weekends ?
I like an idea for 1st Monday of the month to be a bank Holiday, however I would like to see a long Holiday from Xmas day to new year day since it feel right to do so, not for religious reason.
Making the first Monday of the month "the holiday" for that month is a ridiculous idea and takes all of the point out of the holidays. I truly can't believe that anyone of right mind actually proposed that idea. It might have been mentioned in jest by someone at some point, but surely that's about it. If anyone actually seriously proposed that idea, that person is a fool! The point of a holiday is to celebrate the event of THAT day, not to just "have a day off". It's kind of fun anyway to have different places celebrate at different times and different holidays. Would you celebrate all of the birthdays in your family at one time, say the first Monday of May, just to "get them out of the way" and "keep it simple"? No, it's a ridiculous idea. Besides. I am 48 years old now, and in my entire life I have never heard even one person complain that the holidays in Canada are "confusing". Maybe for a lame brain who can't think, but not for anyone with even half a brain.
There is a great confusion on this page for persons with whom English is a second language. The author of this page uses the spelling "of" in most places where the correct spelling "off" should be used.
A "day off" means a holiday or an non working day. A "day of" should be discussing the meaning of that "day off."
Religious holidays should be abolished as they create a lot of division. Let's stick to holidays that people across the entire country can agree on and stand behind...or let's add every religious holiday not just Christian holidays but I suspect that won't pass in a predominately Christian country
I strongly agree with making the first Monday a holiday across the country