The construction holiday is wrapping up, back-to-school season is creeping closer, and just before all that hits, most of the country is about to get a nice little bonus: another long weekend.
Monday, August 3, 2026 is the Civic Holiday in most of Canada. Quebec, as usual, isn’t participating.
So what’s the deal?
What exactly is the Civic Holiday?
The Civic Holiday falls on the first Monday of August just about everywhere in Canada, but good luck finding one consistent name for it. Depending on where you are, it goes by British Columbia Day, New Brunswick Day, Saskatchewan Day, Terry Fox Day in Manitoba, or Heritage Day in Alberta. Ontario mostly just calls it the Civic Holiday, though individual cities have their own spin on it too: Toronto calls it Simcoe Day, Ottawa calls it Colonel By Day, and Guelph calls it John Galt Day.
Whatever it’s called locally, whether it’s a paid day off or not depends entirely on where you live.
Who actually gets the day off in 2026
British Columbia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut treat it as a full statutory holiday, meaning it’s an official, paid day off. Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Ontario treat it more like a municipal or civic day off instead. Employers there aren’t required to give staff the day off, though plenty of cities, schools, and institutions close anyway.
Then there’s the other group: Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Yukon don’t observe it at all.
Why doesn’t Quebec bother with it?
Quebec may not have embraced this long weekend since it already has its own national holiday that fills a similar role on the calendar: Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, celebrated every June 24. That date already gives Quebecers a dedicated, culturally significant day off earlier in the summer.
The province also tends to build its calendar around its own cultural and historical touchstones rather than adopting whatever the rest of the country is doing.
With that said, Quebec has fewer official statutory holidays than most of the country. According to the CNESST, Quebec’s labour standards body, the province recognizes eight statutory holidays a year. Ontario gets nine, and British Columbia tops the list with 11.
Here’s the full list of what Quebec actually observes:
- New Year’s Day (January 1)
- Good Friday or Easter Monday (employer’s choice)
- National Patriots’ Day (the Monday before May 25)
- Quebec National Holiday / Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (June 24)
- Canada Day (July 1, or July 2 if July 1 falls on a Sunday)
- Labour Day (first Monday in September)
- Thanksgiving (second Monday in October)
- Christmas Day (December 25)
And here’s what Quebec doesn’t legally require employers to give as a general public holiday, even though other provinces do:
- Family Day in February
- A civic or provincial holiday in August
- National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30)
- Remembrance Day (November 11)
- Boxing Day (December 26)
Worth noting: federally regulated employees in Quebec (banks, airlines, and Canada Post workers) follow federal holiday rules instead, so some of them do get extra days off that most other Quebecers don’t.
This story was inspired by the article “Une grande partie du Canada a un congé férié lundi, mais pas le Québec — Voici pourquoi” which was originally published on Narcity.
