When is Victoria Day celebrated?

Discover Canada records this in its public-holidays table. The guide writes: Victoria Day — Monday preceding May 25 (Sovereign's birthday). The date the test wants is therefore the Monday before May 25.

Victoria Day is the Sovereign's official Canadian birthday. Discover Canada's table description names the holiday as "the Sovereign's birthday" — meaning Canada celebrates the reigning monarch's birthday on a fixed Monday in late May, regardless of when the actual royal birthday falls. The Monday-preceding-May-25 rule produces a long weekend that has become an unofficial start to summer in Canada.

The original date traces back to Queen Victoria. Victoria Day is named after Queen Victoria, who reigned during much of the 19th century and during whose reign Canada became a self-governing Dominion in 1867. Discover Canada notes elsewhere that Confederation in 1867 happened "during Queen Victoria's" reign — making the Sovereign whose name the holiday carries especially significant in Canadian constitutional history.

The holiday fits a wider pattern of Canadian observances tied to the Sovereign. Discover Canada notes that "the Crown has been a symbol of the state in Canada for 400 years" and that "Canada has been a constitutional monarchy in its own right since Confederation in 1867 during Queen Victoria's reign." Queen Elizabeth II is named in the guide as "Queen of Canada since 1952." So Victoria Day's Monday-before-May-25 timing is not just a date — it is part of a long Canadian tradition of celebrating the Sovereign's role in the country's constitutional life. Other holidays on the calendar — Canada Day (July 1), Labour Day (first Monday of September), Thanksgiving Day (second Monday of October), Remembrance Day (November 11), Vimy Day (April 9) — fall on different fixed or movable dates.

The question is testing whether new citizens know when Victoria Day is celebrated. Discover Canada commits to one rule: the Monday preceding May 25. The right test answer matches that.

The wrong answer choices each match a different Canadian holiday in Discover Canada's table. The second Monday of October is Thanksgiving Day. The first Monday of September is Labour Day. The first Monday of July is not a Canadian holiday in the guide. Only the Monday before May 25 — the Sovereign's birthday — is Victoria Day.