I suppose that the new Ontario holiday, Family Day, is popular since it gives people a vacation day in February; but I think it’s a terrible idea. I’m not one of those people that desperately needs a holiday between New Years and Easter, and if I did, that’s what vacation days are for. Having a new, free statutory holiday is of course welcome irrespective of when it happens, but guess what, it’s not really free!
We have a bunch of flex days every year, usually they’re assigned in the summer which extends our long weekends into longer weekends. However, there seems to be some sort of quota so that every employee across Canada has the same number of statutory holidays + flex days. If I take another statutory holiday, say in the wintery month of February, then I get to lose a flex day. In particular this year I get to lose Monday, June 30th.
So the end result is that I am forced to take a holiday in February, and another at the end of June so I don’t have an orphaned Canada Day holiday on the Tuesday. In essence, not only do I not get an appreciated holiday in February, I lose one vacation day to McGuinty’s election win.
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