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Canada makes Queen’s funeral day a holiday

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says September 19 will be a holiday so that federal employees can mourn the Queen on the day of her state funeral.

Mr Trudeau also said he was working with Canada’s provinces on a possible public holiday for other workers.

The provinces have jurisdiction over that.

“Declaring an opportunity for Canadians to mourn on Monday is going to be important,” Mr Trudeau said.

“For our part, we will letting federal employees know that Monday will be a day of mourning where they will not work.”

The late Queen was the head of state for 45 per cent of Canada’s existence and visited the country 22 times as monarch.

King Charles III was officially proclaimed Canada’s monarch on Saturday in a ceremony in Ottawa attended by Mr Trudeau and Governor-General Mary Simon, who is the representative of the monarch as head of state, a mostly ceremonial and symbolic position.

Both Mr Trudeau and new opposition Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre Canada have expressed support for the King.

Overall, the anti-royal movement in Canada is minuscule, meaning that the King will almost certainly remain the country’s sovereign.

Abolishing the monarchy would mean changing the constitution – an inherently risky undertaking, given how delicately it is engineered to unite a country of 37 million that embraces English-speakers, French-speakers, Indigenous peoples and a constant flow of new immigrants.

Mr Trudeau said Canadians were preoccupied with big issues like inflation and climate change and not constitutional issues.

Topics: Canada
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