Victoria Day
Canadian public holiday
Victoria Day (French: Fête de la Reine, lit. 'Celebration of the Queen') is a federal Canadian public holiday observed on the last Monday preceding May 25 to honour Queen Victoria, who is known as the "Mother of Confederation". The holiday has existed in Canada since at least 1845, originally on Victoria's natural birthday, May 24. It falls on the Monday between the 18th and the 24th (inclusive) and, so, is always the penultimate Monday of May (May 18 in 2026 and May 24 in 2027). Victoria Day is a federal statutory holiday, as well as a holiday in six of Canada's ten provinces and all three of its territories. The holiday has always been a distinctly Canadian observance and continues to be celebrated across the country. It is informally considered the start of the summer season in Canada.
The same date is also, since 1952, recognized as the currently reigning Canadian monarch's official birthday (though, previously, that event had been marked in Canada typically on each monarch's actual birthday). In Quebec, before 2003, the Monday preceding May 25 of each year was unofficially the Fête de Dollard, a commemoration of Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, initiated in the 1920s to coincide with Victoria Day. In 2003, provincial legislation officially created National Patriots' Day (French: Journée nationale des Patriotes) on the same date.
History
Royal birthdays for members of French and British royal families were commemorated in various parts of Canada since the 17th century.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Victoria Day” is canadian public holiday. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Victoria, Canadian and public, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2916311. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1845, 2026, 2027 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “Victoria Day” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.