OTTAWA –
After a flood of offended feedback, Veterans Affairs Canada workers discovered themselves working over the Easter weekend this yr, scrambling to clarify why one of many division’s social media posts did not really point out the vacation.
The submit on March 29 — Good Friday — wished folks a “completely happy March vacation season,” prompting tons of of questions on-line about what precisely constitutes the March holidays.
A second submit that particularly wished followers a cheerful Easter went dwell two days later, on Easter Sunday.
Apart from Good Friday and Easter Sunday, which fall on totally different days annually and typically in April, there are not any federally acknowledged statutory holidays in March.
Inside paperwork launched by an access-to-information request, present that each posts had been scheduled upfront.
However by the point the Easter needs landed, folks had flooded the Friday submit on X with offended feedback concerning the obvious exclusion of Easter.
As of Thursday, the submit had been seen 2.9 million occasions and there have been greater than 4,800 feedback.
“Horrible wording right here Vets Canada! Perhaps say Blissful Easter!” wrote one X person.
“Huh? Are we not allowed to say Easter in Canada?” wrote one other.
Pollster Angus Reid additionally weighed in, commenting: “This retreat to banal secularism shows a scarcity of respect for the various faiths that outline a lot of the variety and supply of identification in Canada. One more federal miscalculation in communications.”
Different commenters known as the submit outrageous, shameful and insulting.
The division’s inside communications present that workers had been being attentive to the “dumpster fireplace.”
In textual content messages on March 30, members of the communications workforce mentioned the web considerations, with one staffer saying, “I feel in attempting to be apolitical we grew to become political.”
The response: “That has been the (authorities of Canada) strategy and we’re seeing it within the feedback.”
At the very least one media outlet despatched a request for clarification, asking what the March vacation season was and why Easter was not talked about on Good Friday.
 An early draft of the submit lists hashtags recognizing Easter, Ramadan, Purim, St. Patrick’s Day and the Spring equinox.
St. Patrick’s Day is a statutory vacation in Newfoundland and Labrador however not in the remainder of the nation. Ramadan started this yr on March 10 and ended April 9; the equinox was March 19; and Purim was March 23-24.
The division in the end shared a submit on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, concerning the Irish Regiment of Canada. It didn’t mark any of the opposite holidays.
The record of holidays was faraway from the ultimate model and a photograph was added of two Armed Forces members making ready Easter dinner.
Communications workers determined to not embody the record of their response to reporters’ questions.
When workers within the deputy minister’s workplace emailed to recommend it is likely to be useful to clarify which different holidays the division had in thoughts, the communications workforce lead responded to say, “I might recommend much less is extra on this one particularly.”
One other member of the communications workforce agreed, saying, “We would not wish to then be fielding questions on why no particular posts on the opposite holidays.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Could 2, 2024.
