Independence Day

King George III signed order-in-council in 1769 for separate government for St. John’s Island

Next year will mark the 250th anniversary of the creation of Prince Edward Island as a separate political unit and the beginning of the province’s independence. It was on June 28, 1769, that King George III, after extensive lobbying from 32 of the Island’s new proprietors, signed an order-in-council authorizing the establishment of a separate government for St. John’s Island (as the Island was then called). Then on Aug. 4, the King signed the commission of the Island’s first governor and on the same day the new governor, Walter Patterson, took his oath of office. In the words of Frank MacKinnon in his 1951 book ‘The Government of Prince Edward Island’, “on August 4, 1769 the British form of constitutional government was inaugurated on St. John’s Island.” Were it not for these somewhat low-key events at Westminster, Prince Edward Island would still be governed from Halifax as an appendage of Nova Scotia. Since that day the Island has been an independent jurisdiction with its own government, in the first 104 years as a colony of Great Britain and in the last 145 as a province of Canada. Given the significance of these events for the Island and Islanders, I believe that they deserve a special commemoration. And what is more appropriate than to mark the event by instituting a new public holiday? We have a choice of two days: June 28 or Aug. 4. June 28, though marking the initial legal separation, is too close to an already existing holiday celebrating the creation of the Canadian federation. Thus, Aug. 4 appears more suitable - though the actual holiday need not fall on Aug. 4 itself but rather on the first Monday in August. Such a choice has an advantage of sorts in that there is already a statutory holiday on the first Monday in August, the so called ‘civic’ holiday, which some provincial civil servants are allowed to take off. Thus, there need be no, or little, additional financial cost to the province in choosing that day: it would simply be the appropriation of an already existing holiday and it would cost only the time required for the Legislative Assembly to legislate for it. Such a holiday would be a far more appropriate marker of ‘Islandness’ than is the current ‘Islander day’ in the middle of February, which for many is often indistinguishable from a February ‘storm day.’ Even so, there is no reason why the February holiday should not continue as it is. I thus propose that those legislators who are historically-minded consider the designation of Aug. 4 as a holiday, to be known henceforward as ‘Prince Edward Island Day’ (or words similar), with the actual day-off-work falling on the first Monday in August.

Doug Sobey of Bedeque is an ecologist and historian, who is co-author of Samuel Holland His Work and Legacy on Prince Edward Island.