Weekend Assignment #28

weekend assignment #28: Build Your Own Holiday

Our patron saint of AOL J-land, John Scalzi, asks us this weekend to create a new holiday. He says:

The United States Congress (or appropriate legislative body in the country in which you live) has vested in you the power create exactly one National Holiday, celebrating anyone or anything you want, no questions asked. What is the name of your holiday, what does it celebrate, and how should we celebrate it?

Well, as a Canadian, and more specifically an Ontarian, I would like to hijack the advertising campaign of a certain Canadian beer company, who have been, for the last several years, lobbying for a new summer holiday. Here in Ontario, and many other places in Canada, we have summer long weekends in May, July, August, and September but not one in June. Many people have been lamenting that fact for years.

Although May is not really summer, the May 24th long weekend is traditionally when cottages are opened for the season. Docks are put in the water, windows are opened to air out musty rooms, and beer is drunk in copious quantities. May 24th was celebrated for years as the birthday of Queen Victoria, and appropriately called Victoria Day. In 1952 an act of parliament made Victoria Day fall on the Monday immediately preceding May 25th, whatever the actual date. Queen Victoria did not object, being dead. When I was a young lad growing up, Victoria Day was the day we, in Canada, lit off fireworks. We called it "firecracker day" when we were kids. Queen Victoria having been dead these many (113) years, we have pretty much stopped celebrating her birthday, and the holiday has been co-opted by the beer companies. Most now simply refer to Victoria Day as the May two-four weekend.

July 1 is Canada Day, at least it has been since 1982. It is the celebration of Canada's birthday, July 1, 1867. It has been a statutory holiday since 1879, originally called Dominion Day. Today, virtually nobody remembers that Canada is a Dominion, and if you told them, they'd look at you funny and ask, "is it mainly because of the meat?" In recent years, fireworks displays have been slowly migrating from Victoria Day to Canada Day. For several years, most venues held them both days, but in the last two years almost all of the May two-four fireworks displays have beendiscontinued. The official ones, at least. Bubba and the boys still almost burn down the cottage every year trying to light the first fire in the fireplace since October. Canada Day is always celebrated on July first, no matter on which day of the week it falls. Being a statutory holiday, however, if it falls on a Sunday, you still get the Monday off work.

The August holiday varies in nature from place to place in Canada, but it is celebrated in most provinces. It originated in Toronto in 1869, and was intended to be another holiday halfway between Dominion Day and Labour Day. It was called, simply the Civic Holiday. It is actually a municipal holiday, not a federal statutory holiday, but is observed almost universally across the country. Here in Ontario, we call it Simcoe Day, in honour of Lord John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, which later became Ontario. Simcoe is credited with the abolition of slavery in Canada, the creation of Yonge St, the longest street in the world, and the naming of Scarborough; that last being the earliest Canadian example of "a dubious honour." When they declared this holiday, they did it right. From the beginning, the Civic Holiday has always fallen on the first Monday in August, so it is always a long weekend.

Labour Day, of course, is a Holiday of unique Canadian origin. Although its establishment as a regular day off on the first Monday of every September began in New York in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, one of the founders of the American Federation of Labour got the idea from the Toronto Trades and Labour Council, who had organised a similar annual day off which was first celebrated in July of the same year. McGuire had been invited to be a guest speaker at the Toronto event, and took the idea back home with him. Canada subsequently adopted the American date for the holiday.

That leaves us with June. June, of all the summer months does not have a holiday in it. As I mentioned at the beginning of this unplanned history lesson, a major Canadian Brewery has taken it upon themselves to promote the idea of establishing a new Canadian holiday during this month. Quite frankly, all they want is to create another day when people can drink beer with impunity because they don't have to go anywhere. I must say that I think they're on to something. But we need an excuse. We need a reason to have a holiday. Think, think, think, as Pooh would say. Ah! John Abbott. John Joseph Caldwell Abbott was the first Prime Minister of Canada to have been born in Canada, and he took office on June 16, 1891, after a shotgun election precipitated by the sudden death of Sir John A. MacDonald. So there we have it, I propose that the Monday immediately preceding June 17th, unless June 16th falls on a Sunday, in which case it would be the following Monday, be declared John Abbott Day in Canada, in celebration of our uniquely Canadian Heritage. Pass me another cold one.