(Ottawa) La journée des funérailles de la reine Élisabeth II sera fériée pour les employés fédéraux, a décrété mardi Justin Trudeau. À Québec, où la campagne électorale bat son plein, François Legault a promptement fermé la porte à une journée de congé.
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Le Canada emboîte le pas à des partenaires du Commonwealth comme l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande en décrétant ce congé férié. Pour l’heure, les fonctionnaires fédéraux pourront en profiter, a indiqué le premier ministre en conférence de presse, mardi.
« Nous allons déclarer un jour férié fédéral. On est en train de travailler avec les provinces et les territoires. […] Each province will make their decision. Federal employees will have a day to mourn Her Majesty The Queen,” he explained.
We will have to see if the provinces want to offer the same thing on their side, chained Justin Trudeau.
“Each province will make its own decisions, but we are announcing that federal government employees will have a day off to be able to hold a day of mourning for Her Majesty The Queen,” he explained.
As soon as it was promulgated at the federal level, the statutory holiday was immediately rejected on the Quebec side – at the very least, by CAQ leader François Legault. There will certainly be “commemoration”, but “no public holiday”, he decided when the question was put to him.
The federal public service has approximately 320,000 employees.
A debate on the monarchy?
The Prime Minister of Canada did not want to move forward on the debate that the death of Queen Elizabeth could cause with regard to the future of the monarchy. He argued that people have more pressing and concrete concerns right now.
In Australia, the Prime Minister of Republican allegiance, Anthony Albanese, also pleaded that the time to debate it was badly chosen. Australians refused to cut ties with the British monarchy in a close referendum in 1999.
On the side of New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern abounded in the same direction: everything in its time. She still predicted on Tuesday that the Pacific nation would probably one day free itself from the monarchy, but not in the short term.
Barbados, a small island state in the West Indies, said goodbye to the British monarchy in 2021.
Queen’s funeral in London
Prime Minister Trudeau will travel to London next Monday to attend the funeral of the monarch who died last Thursday. While he will certainly be accompanied by the Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon, the exact composition of the Canadian delegation remains to be determined.
“These details are being worked out, but I can assure you that we are in conversation with all the leaders of the opposition parties to see what role everyone can have in demonstrating the solemnity and importance of the moment. for the country,” he said.
World leaders are expected at the funeral.