For the record, when the killjoys at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggest that Islander Day shouldn’t be a paid holiday they are not speaking for my independent business. One has a sense that this group would advocate for cancelling lunch, coffee breaks, and birthday parties if they thought they could get away with it.
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, printer and developer.
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Comments
Maybe they are secretly advocating on behalf of the non-Islander residents of PEI who are so publicly shunned on this day.
Maybe they attack every single minor increment in trying to attain standards that workers in most every province now enjoy -facet PEI with this addition still has the 2nd lowest number of stat holidays of any jurisdiction in Canada (and the lowest wages, lowest employment standards in many areas -and which this group has been actively opposing even implementing the modest reforms suggested well over two years ago and which have yet to be implemented)
One a different note, could they have not found a worthy islander to name the day for such as ‘Milton Acorn Day’ or ‘Samuel Holland Day’.
Islander day is just so bland, like Ontarion Day or Saskatchewaner Day. Boring and generic name.
I think Islander Day is a good name — while Islanders think that everyone in the word calls Islanders Islanders, it’s mostly, in my experience, an internal short-form and deserves to be celebrated.
Re Ken’s comment: At least Manitoba named their day after an interesting (and controversial) personna, Louis Riel!
It would be cool if all islands in the world had a holiday on the same day — from Trinidad to Bermuda. That would really be ‘Islander Day’.
If it’s named after nobody and they don’t want people celebrating together then maybe it’s Donne’s point about no man being an islander.
But Islanders use it in the form “you’re not a (real) Islanders,” too, so there are negative connotations based on the tensions of the traditional lack of hospitality that goes along with traditional PEI hospitality. Better, then, I would suggest would be a non-smarmy non-LLM-esque artist could be celebrated like Milton Acorn or, even better, the wonderful Larry Gorman who was run out of the province. Larry Gorman Day would be perfect. Like Scotlands Robbie Burns Day, the celebration of someone who spoke cranky truths.
I’ve started a Facebook Group to rename Islander Day, to Larry Gorman Day.
XOXO!!