Philip Jong

Last month, the province of Ontario (where I live in Canada) held the first ever Family Day, a statutory holiday created by the Liberals back in October 2007 as part of the government’s election promises from the last provincial election. The goal of Family Day (the third Monday in February each year) was to give Canadians more quality time to spend with their families. Sadly, like many other social agenda put forth by the government, the inaugural Family Day was a near failure in practice. Many employers were unaware of (or chose to ignore) this new holiday, leaving many in the workforce still on the job for this weekday. Worse yet, many civic agencies, including the police, had no opportunity to establish a holiday schedule for the day for its workers. In the end, the hastily planned holiday created more of a nuisance than a blessing for Canadians living in Ontario, many of whom were unable to enjoy the holiday with their families who ended up working on that day. Poor planning of the holiday’s arrival had largely ruined this opportune celebration.

I was among the fortunate few who got to enjoy Family Day. Many Ontarians, however, were not.

Then again, there is always next year…