Happy Family Day, everyone (or happy Louis Riel Day and happy Presidents Day for my Manitoba and U.S. readers respectively). I hope you all enjoyed the extra time to spend with your loved ones and bask in their unconditional love.

Wait, what’s that? You didn’t get Family Day off? Me neither. I guess we’re part of the 40% of people in this province who didn’t benefit from Mr. McGuinty’s great election idea.

When the idea of a February stat holiday first came up, I was all for it. It can be a long stretch from Christmas to Easter, so a three-day weekend sounded like a good idea. If they want to call it Family Day and spin it as a gift to hard-working families, fine. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I began to hear rumours that maybe I wouldn’t get the day off after all because I am a federal employee.

Let me state unequivocally that I bear no ill will against my employer for this. I am incredibly fortunate to work for such a generous crown corporation, and I would never say anything negative about the terms of my employment in such a public manner and risk jeopardizing my salary and lucrative pension plan.

No, I think it’s clear that the provincial government just didn’t think this whole thing through very well. It’s one of those things that probably sounded like a good idea at the back of the campaign bus, but by the time the bureaucrats with the sharp pencils got around to drafting the actual legislation, it was too late to admit that maybe they shouldn’t have mentioned it, sorry for the inconvenience, carry on, as you were…

I ended up taking the day off anyway in lieu of another stat holiday.  I get St. Jean Baptiste Day off, and while it’s fun to frolic in the Gatineaus every June 24th, it didn’t seem fair to leave B at home outnumbered. That’s not a holiday – that’s a sentence.

Having experienced the first Family Day, I have a suggestion for the Premier. Parents Day. Don’t get me wrong, families are great, and I’m not saying that we should be spending less time with our children. I just think that most parents, if given the option, would love to have a day when the children are at school or daycare and Moms and Dads could have the house to themselves for eight hours. Now that would be a holiday.