Justin has a pretty special relationship with the Queen as he first met her as a little boy when his dad was PM and he deepened the relationship with her during his own years as PM. That, coupled with the fact that granting holidays is a vote getter, would incline me to believe he will not try to buck the Commonwealth tradition of having a holiday on the day of a monarch’s funeral.
Will the funeral be possibly on September 18 though, which is a Sunday?
Correct. Elizabeth would have been monarch even if her uncle hadn’t abdicated, since he never had children and is assumed to have been infertile. She just would have had a much shorter reign as her uncle didn’t die until sometime in the 70s, but she actually became queen in 1952. So it would have shaved off about 20 years from her reign, leaving her great-grandmother, Victoria, as the longest-reigning monarch.
Also, people say that the stress of being king led her father to an early grave so in this alternate history scenario it’s conceivable that her father would have outlived her uncle, further shortening her reign. But she would certainly have been queen regardless.
It was assumed when she was a young girl that her uncle would eventually produce an heir and she would not become monarch, but since he never did…
Some of the documents I saw on the “London Bridge” plans seem to indicate that, while the timing of the funeral is ultimately Buckingham Palace’s call, there’s likely a bias against having the funeral on Sunday.
The planning documents assumed that the funeral would happen on “D+10”, or Sunday the 18th, but leave open the possibility for “D+9” (Saturday) or later.
I think there’s a non-trivial chance that it’ll be on Monday the 19th, and that it could very well be a statutory holiday in at least at least a few Canadian provinces.
Given its name (British Columbia) I could see my province declaring a holiday notwithstanding the federal approach.
I arrive in London on September 18 so hope the funeral is on the 19th. Will be a zoo but would try to get a spot on the procession route if only to be able to say I was there on this historical occasion.
Some tradition, hasn’t happened in my lifetime
As expected.
Not a statutory holiday in Ontario or Québec, however.
(For Americans: This is an oversimplification, certain industries are obliged to observe federal holidays, while most others are obliged to observe provincial statutory holidays. This is in contrast to private employers in the US who are free to pick and choose which holidays (if any) to observe.)
Looks like it’ll be a statutory holiday only in PEI, although Alberta and the Northwest Territories hadn’t announced their decision as of when I packed up to check out of my hotel this morning.
I don’t think politicians and civil servants realize the chaos that is caused by instituting a public holiday on short notice.
While it is not a full blown public holiday here in BC on September 19 the schools are being closed with the complications that causes. I would have thought it would have been as effective to record and then show the funeral at a one hour school assembly or just let kids watch it after school at home. The service starts at 3 am Vancouver time so I don’t expect many folks will watch it live.
Yeah, that seems reasonable.
To totally hijack my own thread, this is one of the best 9/11 stories. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s worth 12 minutes of your time.
lol, I was about to move those same posts, and the system told me I couldn’t because the first post “must be a regular post”. In trying to figure out what that meant, I learned that the posts I wanted to move had already been moved, and that’s why my first post wasn’t “regular”.
We sort-of did. I think about 300 of us at a time, in a company of 1,200, could log in remotely. It was enough to accommodate business travelers and the higher ups, but not the whole company by any means. Office remained open all week.
Thanks for splitting… looks like there’s a few more that need moving.
