Victoria Day

Today is Victoria Day in Canada. It is the official birthday of Elizabeth 2nd, Queen of Canada. The holiday was named in honor of Queen Victoria, but has since been the sole day remembering the current monarch's birth. It is also the unofficial start of Summer - sort of like what Memorial Day has become in the US. It is sad that most Canadians don't know much, if anything, about their monarch. Most assume that the King or Queen of Canada is whomever is King or Queen of the United Kingdom, but that isn't true. It is up to the Canadian Parliament to decide who will be their monarch - it has always been the same as the UK and I don't see that changing anytime soon, but it doesn't legally have to be. You would think that with the Queen's portrait on the Canadian dollar and in all Federal and many Provincial buildings that more people would know about the role their monarch takes, but sadly most don't care.