Because I counted Thankgiving, and holidays for federal employees rather than just statutory ones. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 28/05/2012 02:05:24 AM
Québec has one left: Christmas. We have a day off following Easter, but it's not a religious feastday. It can also be shifted to Good Friday by employers, which has resulted in many deciding to give both days off since doing business is too difficult and slow on both days.
Our thanksgiving isn't a religious celebration either, it's been imported by American immigrants of british descent to Lower Canada (now Québec) and has moved around the calendar a lot. It has been celebrated for all sort of things, the first time for a failure of the French revolutionaries to induce an insurrection in Lower Canada (in 1799, irrc), and even for victories against the US in the war in 1814. It eventually returned to its roots as a reaping festival, and nowadays if you ask, people will tell you it's the festival celebrating the death of a lot of turkeys (more seriously, it doesn't have nearly the importance of the US equivalent as a day for family reunions).
St-Jean-Baptiste isn't a religious holiday either, despite the old name (in Québec it's officially National Day now).
What were your others?
Our thanksgiving isn't a religious celebration either, it's been imported by American immigrants of british descent to Lower Canada (now Québec) and has moved around the calendar a lot. It has been celebrated for all sort of things, the first time for a failure of the French revolutionaries to induce an insurrection in Lower Canada (in 1799, irrc), and even for victories against the US in the war in 1814. It eventually returned to its roots as a reaping festival, and nowadays if you ask, people will tell you it's the festival celebrating the death of a lot of turkeys (more seriously, it doesn't have nearly the importance of the US equivalent as a day for family reunions).
St-Jean-Baptiste isn't a religious holiday either, despite the old name (in Québec it's officially National Day now).
What were your others?
Wikipedia claims the origins of your Thanksgiving lie even farther back than ours, by the way, and quotes your Parliament establishing it officially in 1957 as "A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed – to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October." People keep insisting a holiday explicitly created for giving thanks to God is not religious, and I keep struggling to understand why, or even how. It may be only nominally religious, but millions would say (and several here have said) the same about Christmas, or any other religious holiday. Its basis and meaning remain religious just as Mardi Gras/Carneval does, even if many people with little or no religious fervor have since added unrelated aspects. If we say any holiday people used for partying or just general rest and relaxation is disqualified as religious, then NO holiday is qualified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)
The others, however, were Good Friday (which Wikipedia claims is a holiday by federal law) and Easter Monday (which it claims is a holiday for federal employees.) Wikipedia further claims Quebec employers are allowed to substitute one of these for the other, but that most grant both.