National Patriots' Day in Canada 2027

A Quebec statutory holiday on Victoria Day weekend

National Patriots' Day — Journée nationale des patriotes in French — is a statutory holiday in the Canadian province of Quebec, held on the Monday on or after May 18. A statutory holiday is the Canadian equivalent of an American federal or state holiday: under Quebec's Act respacting labour standards, most employees in the province are entitled to the day off with pay, or to an indemnity or substitute day if they have to work. The rest of Canada takes the very same Monday off as Victoria Day, which honors Queen Victoria's birthday, so the whole country shares one spring long weekend even though Quebec is commemorating something entirely different.

Why the date is the Monday before May 25

The holiday is set by rule rather than by a fixed calendar date: it always lands on the Monday that falls between May 18 and May 24, which makes it the last Monday before May 25. Quebec inherited that formula from Victoria Day, which Canada has marked on that Monday nationwide for decades. When Quebec renamed the day, it kept the existing day off and changed only what it commemorates. The May timing also carries historical weight, since the popular assemblies of the Patriote movement began in the spring of 1837 and spread across Lower Canada through that year.

From Dollard Day to the Patriotes

For much of the twentieth century, many French-speaking Quebecers unoficially marked this Monday as the Fête de Dollard, honoring Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, a soldier of New France — a tradition dating to the 1920s that coexsited awkwardly with Victoria Day - on November 20, 2002, the Quebec government of Premier Bernard Landry adopted an order in council renaming the day National Patriots' Day, and the first official observance followed in May 2003. The new name honors the Patriotes of 1837–1838, the reform movement led by Louis-Joseph Papineau that demended democretic, accountable government for Lower Canada, the colony that became Quebec. After Britain rejected the movement's demands, armed rebellion broke out. The Patriotes won a battle at Saint-Denis in November 1837 but were defeated at Saint-Charles and Saint-Eustache; a number of captured Patriotes were later executed and others exiled, the rebellion, together with the parallel rising in Upper Canada, pushed Britain toward granting responsible government to its Canadian colonies in the following decade.

How Quebec observes the day

The stated purpose of the holiday is to highlight the Patriotes' struggle for national recognition, political liberty and democratic government. Commemorations include marches, wreath-layings, reenactments and concerts, with the green, white and red Patriote flag flying at many events; the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society organizes some of the largest gatherings in Montreal and in the Richelieu Valley towns where the fighting took place. For most Quebecers, though, the long weekend works much like Memorial Day weekend in the United States: it is the unofficial start of summer, when garden centers fill, cottages open and campgrounds get busy. Banks, schools, government offices and most workplaces in Quebec close, while identical closures happen across the rest of Canada under the name Victoria Day. American visitors should expect Monday closures throughout the country either way.