McGill TribuneOttawa MPP Lisa MacLeod wants Remembrance Day to be a statutory holiday in Ontario. She may be on to something. Federal employees already get the day off, as do workers in five provinces and all three territories. Remembrance Day is an important day for the rest of the country to have off, too.
Notwithstanding some recent objections to a perceived glorification of war accompanying the day, most Canadians appear to value Remembrance Day as a non-political occasion on which to pay tribute to fallen soldiers. Schools across the country conduct ceremonies, public transit—and many other services—stop for a moment of silence at 11 a.m., and the red poppy in the lapel becomes ubiquitous as soon as Halloween ends.
Given all that, it’s a little baffling that Remembrance Day is not already a statutory holiday across the country. Consider the other public days provinces celebrate. Easter and Christmas are religious holidays in a supposedly secular society. Victoria Day celebrates a British monarch who reigned outside anybody’s living memory. The Civic Holiday was created just because people needed a break between Canada Day and Labour Day. Family Day was too, but at least its institutors made up some kind of meaning for that one. There are plenty of holidays with little meaning for plenty of Canadians. It might be a good idea to give time off for a really meaningful day.
Letting people out of work and school on November 11 would give them more than a holiday; it would allow them to participate in the range of commemorative activities that occur. From the tomb of the unknown soldier on Parliament Hill to municipal centres around the country, a myriad of ceremonies are currently conducted that tend to be limited to politicians and retirees. If people want to attend these ceremonies, they should be empowered to do so.
Tributes to fallen soldiers may also be taking on an increasingly important role. For better or for worse, war and the soldiers who fight them are seen with increasing cynicism. Members of the generation coming of age may have had grandparents in the Second World War, but that’s probably their closest link to the casualties of that conflict. Remembrance Day is an important means of remembering stories that no longer tell themselves. There’s something more important than a day of work in that.
Naturally, not everybody will use Remembrance Day to attend public ceremonies and reflect deeply on the sacrifices of soldiers. They might instead claim the right to have some time for themselves with nobody getting in the way. And taking Remembrance Day as a holiday would be totally legitimate. Almost every month but November right now has a day off from work, making it a drab 30 days during which with the most momentous occasion is the sudden switch to 5:30 sunsets.
Remembrance Day is important for a lot of Canadians, and it’s about time the government started letting them observe it. Let’s make it a statutory holiday—lest we forget.
