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Do Canadians need a paid day off to honour the sacrifices of veterans?

It’s a question that splits the country down the middle, with six provinces and all three territories deeming Remembrance Day a statutory holiday and four provinces — Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Manitoba — holding out.

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The federal government can’t force a holiday on the provinces, but a recent private member’s bill will tweak Canada’s holiday legislation and — its sponsor hopes — coax the remaining provinces into making Nov. 11 a day off for everyone.

The bill fixes an odd discrepancy in the country’s Holidays Act, which says that Canada Day and Victoria Day are “legal holidays” and Remembrance Day is simply a “holiday.”

Why the law was drafted that way is a question lost to history.

“We had no way of knowing when looking at this bill if this was … an oversight or if it was the intention of the framers to give Remembrance Day a lesser recognition,” said Sen. Joseph Day, the leader of the Senate Liberals, during debate on the law.