Family day

Family Day is a public holiday in South Africa, and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, in the American states of Arizona and Nevada, in Vanuatu, in Vietnam, (as "Family & Community Day") in the Australian Capital Territory, and as the second day of Songkran in Thailand.

Family and Community was celebrated on the first Tuesday of November from 2007-2009, coinciding with the Melbourne Cup. This public holiday was declared in 2007. Andrew Barr, ACT Minister for Industrial Relations stated the purpose of the new public holiday was:

"...to enable workers to take a break from their hectic work and to spend some quality time with their family and friends. ... Australians do work the longest hours of any country in the western world. We do deserve a break."

From 2010 onwards the date was moved to the first Monday of the September/October school holidays (27 September 2010). Where the first Monday of the school holidays falls on the ACT Labour Day public holiday (first Monday in October), the holiday is moved to the second Monday of the ACT school holidays.

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians reside in a province that observes a statutory holiday on the third Monday of February - the second Monday, in British Columbia. The holiday is called Family Day in four provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario), Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, and Islander Day in Prince Edward Island. There is no federally established Family Day.

This holiday was first observed in Alberta in 1990, followed by Saskatchewan in 2007 and Ontario in 2008. On May 28, 2012, the BC government announced that Family Day would be observed on the second Monday in February each year, starting February 11, 2013.

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