Our Labour Day holiday this year is on the third day of September. For some reason I’m used to our annual Labour Day holiday coming about week later. It’s a bit of a shock to me, because the Labour Day holiday weekend is a family’s signal that summer vacation is over, and school is about to start. Some are returning to the city after a vacation at their summer cabin, while others are navigating the traffic in the city streets chasing about the stores and malls for all things their kids will need to start the school year. It’s a busy weekend for everyone each year, and when it arrives so suddenly after the end of August, I guess I just miss a longer transition week into September. That allows me mentally to prepare for the resumption of another schedule that revolves around our children’s education, a kind a week when we can all take a deep breath and say, “another year has gone by. Wow.” It comes with that mixed emotion of sadness at summer’s end and excitement about the new season coming along. It’s curious how family life ties its real year-end to the school year. But still, I like it starting about a week later than it does this year.
Labour Day itself is a federal holiday set by law as the first Monday in September each year. Obviously, that means it moves to different date each year, but if there’s any politician out there who might be willing to make a change, he or she will have my support. I would rewrite the Labour Day holiday to be observed as: the first Monday in September, except when the first Monday is one of the first six days of the month, in which case the holiday will be observed on the closest weekday to the seventh day of the month. There, not too complicated. I think that should ensure that we get a week at the beginning of each September to transition from the summer vacation to school year mode of activity. And just in case you’re wondering, next year Labour Day falls on September 2nd so it will arrive with even greater abruptness than this year. By 2020, however, it’s back to a reasonable date of September 7th, just where I like to see it.
Of course, Labour Day doesn’t have to be the holiday that ends our summer vacation period. In fact, I wonder how many people can actually name the holiday. I think a lot of folks would just refer to it as the September long weekend before school starts. That might not be very good citizenship because Labour Day is an important tradition not just in Canada but around the world. It recognizes the hard-working people of all countries who for many years in another age were under-represented in their rights and under recognized for their contribution to the economic life of society. But in many countries the annual Labour Day holiday is May 1st, which is known around the world as International Workers Day. This might cause some commotion though, because May Day, as it is also known, has its historical roots as a celebration in some communist countries. It could come across as a revision of the 19th Century revolutionary slogan of the philosopher Karl Marx: “Workers of the World Unite” – updated now to “Worker’s Holiday of the World Align.” I don’t really think there’s much chance of that, and besides, Canada has its current Labour Day holiday aligned with the same holiday weekend in the United States, so that also makes it possible for family members living in the neighbouring countries to get together at the end of the summer. But I’m will bet that a lot of families in the United States would agree with me that when the holiday arrives so early in September, they would also like to delay it for a few more days. Maybe I can get an international movement going to support my cause!
In any event, I want to wish all of you, my friends, clients, and casual readers, a happy start to the real new year for families with school age children. It all changes after the Labour Day long weekend.
Thanks for reading!
Sibo Zhang, REALTOR®