I almost forgot we are heading into a long weekend. Monday, February 19 is Family Day in Saskatchewan, also in Alberta, BC, Ontario and New Brunswick. Other provinces have holidays on Monday but they aren’t called Family Day. Manitoba has Louis Riel Day, in Nova Scotia it’s called Heritage Day and PEI celebrates Islander Day. Monday isn’t a holiday in Newfoundland & Labrador or in Quebec or the three Territories. It’s just a regular working day. The first Family Day was observed in Alberta in 1990. Saskatchewan’s first was in 2007, Ontario in 2008, BC’s started in 2013 and New Brunswick started in 2018. Louis Riel Day became a provincial holiday in Manitoba in 2007. It’s a long haul in the dead of winter from New Year’s Day to Good Friday and dating back to the 1990’s our company has been giving our staff extra days off at Christmas time for just this reason. Now we have a long weekend the third Monday in February called Family Day to celebrate the importance of families and family life. Hey, we need a reason to have a holiday, right? Interestingly, in Newfoundland & Labrador politicians say there isn’t a holiday in February because the public didn’t ask for one, but the real reason seems to be that another day off would hurt the government’s strained bottom line. So, there you go. Quebec doesn’t have Monday as a statutory holiday because it has an extra one already in May plus one in June.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.