Queen’s death comes with no holiday in Saskatchewan 

The only good thing to come out of this is something we aren’t getting 

If you have been on the internet at all, you would have come across the biggest headline smacked across every newspaper, television superlative, and magazine cover: “Queen Elizabeth II has died.” Queen Elizabeth passed away on Thursday, September 8 from natural causes at the great age of 96. She died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where family rushed to be at her side.   

  Queen Elizabeth served great importance to Canada and many other countries. Queen Elizabeth was in her hierarchy position for a great amount of time. She was in the longest-reigning monarchy in history. Now, the Book of Condolence states that this means while Queen Elizabeth was in her position, she spent her time being Head of State, which means she had the power and the position to pass and make certain decisions when it came to legislation and election of Parliament. It has become widely known that those of us that are involved with her monarchy should as well pay time and respect to mourn her passing. There seems to have appeared a great wild amount of discission of how us as citizens should mourn Queen Elizabeth’s passing.  

In Canada, there has been a great deal of discussion of how Queen Elizabeth should be mourned. As stated by Susana da Silva on CBC News: “There was a national holiday everywhere for when the Queen’s father died 70 years ago.” Now, the question is whether Canada will get a national holiday to mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth. 

There has been talk as to whether this holiday will be a re-occurring event every year. Will this event be a stat holiday? Will everyone get the day off? Who should be able to make said decision based on this holiday? What does a day off mean for those of us that are mourning Queen Elizabeth, and those who aren’t?  

After a great deal of discussion and debate, CBC News reported that Justin Trudeau stated the Government of Canada announced that September 19, 2022 will be a national day to mourn Queen Elizabeth. Now, what this means is that this holiday will be a federal government holiday and will be a one-time holiday for employees. Because the holiday is so sudden, some do not agree with the fact that September 19 should be a holiday. 

CBC spoke with Francois Legault, Premier of Quebec: “I think it’s not a good idea to close schools or put parents in a position where they wouldn’t be able to work.” After that was said, two provinces followed Legault’s path, Saskatchewan and Ontario. This may have been why some of you have noticed that our schools and businesses still ran as normal on September 19.  

Saskatchewan did not recognize September 19 as a statutory holiday, but will have a memorial service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Regina.