In September, prior to the provincial election, Ontario Premier Dalton McGunity announced a new holiday in February called Family Day. Since that time, the election has been won, and the holiday has been scheduled (February 18 this year). While some experts claim that the holiday will have a long-term payoff, others have been quick to point out the problems it created, including hundreds of traffic charges tossed out in Toronto due to them being scheduled on that date (one wonders how Ottawa could have the foresight to avoid scheduling cases on that date but Toronto could not). One opponent argued against the holiday for two distinct reasons: the cost to the small businesses who have to pay their employees for the statutory holiday, and giving people a day off won't make them better parents.
My opinions on the nature of the holiday have already been stated in this space. At the initial announcement, I wrote:
...I would welcome an additional day to spend with my family, and I do not think I am in the minority. In today's economic climate, more so in Toronto than other parts of the province, many families must have both parents employed outside the home to survive. (I would say "most families" based on my personal experience, but I do not have statistical data to support that claim.) Many of those parents would rather spend more time with their children and/or spouse than at the office. This proposal seeks to acknowledge that desire and do something about it.
However, as the author of the last piece makes perfectly clear, giving people an extra day off to spend with family is not going to improve the family dynamic that already exists. While it would appear that Premier believes off-work family time is idyllic and filled with memory-making, heart-warming moments, and that the intention of scheduling this holiday is to offer families one more of these days a year, the reality is that is not the case in most households. Off-work time is not necessarily "quality" time for many parents, either because of their own doing or because of the omnipresent reach of the office. And so while the hope is that people will take a day away from their blackberry and their cell phone and spend it building a snowman or playing board games or Lego, it is unrealistic to expect that.
So we are left with the question: if people aren't going to spend Family Day with their families doing "family things", should there even be a holiday at all? To this, I say yes, because even if a small number of Ontarians do take the day off to be with their loved ones, that's enough of a reason to have the day. Not everyone celebrates Canada Day with flags and the national anthem, but we don't hear people arguing against that holiday, so why should Family Day get different treatment?
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