That's when it became a civic holiday. The tradition of celebrating Action de Grâce goes way further, to 1799 the first time it was officially celebrated, and originates with British loyalists who migrated to Lower Canada from the south (that's you). Originally it thanked God and the King for the peace and prosperity of the realm, and it wasn't a fixed holiday but a celebration that was proclaimed at need.

Most of the French equivalents to those reaping festivals didn't follow or died fast in New France, as we never cultivated grapes.

Why it's not considered a religious holiday here is simple: most Québécois were catholics (and still nominally are), and it's not a catholic feastday but a popular feastday borrowed from protestants and thanking their King, which later became a federal civic day.



Actually, it's a secular feastday that existed in tons of traditions which the Church, who disapproved of those popular festivals thoroughly (for obvious reasons... the village's fool elected Abbot for a day and whatnot - the Church was mocked alongside authorities in general in carnivals), transformed into a religious feastday before Ash Wednesday. The religious feastday here is fat tuesday, which only old fashioned practicing catholics still hold to. Carnivals, charivaris etc. are not held at Mardi-Gras anymore and have all returned to their non-religious roots (though without the original "inverted world" symbolism, which belonged with medieval mentalities).



Well.. culturally speaking only Christmas and Easter still have religious meanings for a sizeable percentage of the population (if not by any mean everyone). The other religious feastdays are now ignored by all but practicing catholics (and same for protestant ones I guess, I wouldn't even know what they are). Most of the Canadian civic holidays have nothing to do anymore with religion. Quite a few of them like St-Jean-Baptiste were full of pagan connotations... presenting the Baptist as an Appollo-like golden-haired child-sheepherder carrying a newborn lamb, and with pyres lit all night to celebrate the longest day. It's the old summer solstice festivals on which St-John and christian symbolism were tacked on by the Church. Now we've done away with the lamb and child, and we've even renamed the feastday to get rid of the last christian association, making it the province's National Holiday (it's still called St-Jean outside Québec).. We've kept the pyres. Not that the Church really complains, tons of modern priest around here care nothing for newborn lambs and solar child, easter water and the whole lot of christianized paraphernalia, and think that while they had a purpose once upon a time to integrate the last popular/pagan practices into Christianity, that's just accumulated clutter catholicism is much better without these days.