Bonne St-Jean

National Holiday (Quebec)

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Quebec's National Holiday Fête nationale du Québec
Fête nationale parade, Montreal, June 24, 2006
Also called	La Saint-Jean, Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste
Observed by	Quebecers French Canadians French Americans
Type	Historical, cultural, national
Date	June 24
Celebrations	Parades, bonfires, fireworks, feasting, drinking, musical concerts, flag waving, patriotic speeches, contests

Quebec's National Holiday^[1] (French: La Fête nationale du Québec) is celebrated annually on June 24, St. John the Baptist Day^[2]^[3]

In Quebec, the national holiday^[2] is a paid statutory public holiday covered under the Act Respecting Labour Standards.^[4] The festivities occur on June 23 and June 24 and since 1978 are publicly financed and organized by a National Holiday Organizing Committee (Comité organisateur de la fête nationale). June 24 continues to be celebrated as a festival of French Canadian culture in other provinces and in the United States.^[5]^[6]

Origins

Main article: Nativity of St. John the Baptist

The feast day of Saint John the Baptist or Midsummer was a very popular event in the Ancien régime of France, and it is still celebrated as a religious feast day in several countries, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania.

The tradition landed in Canada with the first French colonists. According to the Jesuit Relations, the first celebrations occurred on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River on the evening of June 23, 1636, with a bonfire and five cannon shots.^[7]

[edit]Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day

The green, white and red tricolour used by theParti patriote between 1832 and 1838

In Lower Canada, the celebration of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day took a patriotic tone in 1834 on the initiative of one of the founders of the newspaper La Minerve, Ludger Duvernay, who would later become the first president of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society (SSJB). In the spring of 1834, Duvernay and other Patriotes attended the celebrations of the first St. Patrick's Day, the celebration of the Irish diaspora, in Montreal. This would have given him and others the idea of organizing something similar for all the Canadiens and their friends.^[8]

On that June 24, George-Étienne Cartier's "Ô Canada! mon pays, mes amours" was first sung during a grand patriotic banquet gathering about sixty francophones and anglophones of Montreal,^[9] in the gardens of lawyer John McDonnell, near the old Windsor Station. The Canada in the song refers to Lower Canada, today's southern Quebec. Rounds of toasts went to the Parti patriote, the United States, Ireland, and the Ninety-Two Resolutions.^[10]

Two days later, La Minerve concluded: "This holiday, whose goal is to solidify the union of the Canadiens, will not go without bearing fruit. It will be celebrated annually as a national holiday and will not miss producing the happiest results."^[11] The celebration recurred in 1835, 1836, 1837.

Following the defeat of the insurrectional movement during the Lower Canada Rebellion and the military repressions which followed, the day was not celebrated for several years.^[8]

Drapeau Carillon Sacré-Coeur: A Carillon flag waved by people on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day from its creation in 1902 until 1948. The current Flag of Quebec is based on this design, and was adopted in 1948.

In 1843, Duvernay established the charitable Association Saint-Jean Baptiste in order to have the Saint-Jean Baptiste celebrated that year. The association was chartered in 1849 with the mission of promoting social and moral progress. (See Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society.)

The celebrations were supported by the Catholic Church and were primarily religious around that time. The lighting of bonfires, a traditional custom on the Nativity of Saint John which ultimately reached back to pre-ChristianMidsummer celebrations were still lit at night.^[12] In addition, the first Saint-Jean-Baptiste parades were organized. They became an important tradition over time. The procession of allegorical floats was introduced in 1874.

On June 24, 1880, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society organized the gathering of all francophone communities across North America. The event was the first National Congress of French Canadians (Congrès national des Canadiens français). On this occasion, the citizens of Quebec City were the first ones to hear the "Ô Canada" of Calixa Lavallée, based on a poem by a Quebec Superior Court judge, Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The song was commissioned by theSaint-Jean-Baptiste Society. It was well received but did not become a widely known song for many years. English words were later written for a royal tour in 1901. In 1980, "O Canada" became the official national anthem of Canada.

In 1908, Pope Pius X designated St. John the Baptist as the patron saint of French Canadians. From 1914 to 1923 the processions were not held. In 1925, 91 years after the Ludger Duvernay's banquet in Montreal, June 24 became a legal holiday in Quebec.

[edit]The Fête nationale

Fireworks over the Parliament Building of Quebec building in Quebec City on the eve ofSaint-Jean-Baptiste Day

In Quebec, June 24 or Quebec's National Holiday, St. John the Baptist Day is officially a paid statutory public holiday covered under the Act Respecting Labour Standards.^[2]^[3]^[4] In 1977, an Order in Council by Lieutenant Governor Hugues Lapointe, on the advice of René Lévesque, declared June 24 the national holiday in Quebec.

The following year, the National Holiday Organizing Committee was created. The committee initially entrusted the organization of the events to the Société des festivals populaires du Québec. In 1984, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the SSJB, the organization of the celebrations was entrusted to the Mouvement national des Québécoises et des Québécois (MNQ).^[13]^[14]

After it became a statutory holiday, June 24 was officially a holiday for all Quebecers rather than only those of French-Canadian or Catholic origins. Celebrations were gradually secularized, primarily due to actions taken by the MNQ, and June 23 and 24 became as we now know them. While the religious significance of the civic celebration is gone, the day remains popularly called la St-Jean-Baptiste or simply la St-Jean and is still observed in churches.

In 2010, Franco-Ontarian New Democratic MP Claude Gravelle introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons to recognize St John the Baptist Day as a federal holiday in Canada.^{[citation needed]}