Bill 65 amends the Remembrance Day and Veterans’ Week Act, 2024 to require every school in Ontario to hold a dedicated Remembrance Day service for students and to direct the Ministry of Education to develop both elementary and secondary Remembrance Day curricula. The services must occur on November 11 or, if that date falls on a weekend, on the preceding Friday, and may include activities such as cenotaph visits, wreath-laying, assemblies, and musical tributes; the bill bars services that consist solely of prerecorded material.
The bill also prohibits workplaces from operating between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Remembrance Day, subject to exceptions the Lieutenant Governor in Council may prescribe by regulation, and sets a June 1, 2026 commencement date. If enacted, the measure creates new operational duties for school boards, a new curriculum-writing task for the Ministry, and a time-bound closure requirement for employers that will likely interact with existing labour and public-safety rules.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires every Ontario school to hold an in-person Remembrance Day service on Nov. 11 (or the preceding Friday if Nov. 11 is a weekend), specifies permissible forms of observance, and forbids services made up only of prerecorded material. Directs the Ministry to create elementary and secondary curricula about Remembrance Day and bars workplaces from operating from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Remembrance Day, with exceptions allowed by regulation.
Who It Affects
Public and private primary and secondary schools, school boards and teachers who must schedule and stage services and implement new curricula; the Ministry of Education which must develop curriculum and consult educators and their unions; and employers across Ontario that may have to suspend operations for a four-hour window unless exempted by regulation.
Why It Matters
The bill converts Remembrance observance into a mandatory, school-delivered civic exercise and introduces a province-wide, time-specific workplace closure that could intersect with labour law, essential services, and collective-bargaining arrangements. It shifts some policy choices from local boards and workplaces to provincial regulation and ministry action.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill adds specific duties to the Remembrance Day and Veterans’ Week Act: first, every school must provide a dedicated service for students to observe Remembrance Day. The service must take place on November 11, except when that date falls on a Saturday or Sunday — then the observance moves to the preceding Friday.
The statute lists several permissible forms (for example, visiting a cenotaph, laying a wreath, holding an assembly with guest speakers, or performing musical tributes) and disallows services that rely solely on prerecorded material, which obliges in-person or live programming.
Second, the Ministry of Education must prepare separate elementary and secondary curricula that explain the purpose and importance of Remembrance Day. The curricula must address both historical conflicts and contemporary military engagements.
The Ministry is required to consult with educators and the unions that represent them while developing these materials; the bill does not prescribe timelines or resourcing, so curriculum development is procedural but open-ended in scope.Third, the bill imposes a four-hour prohibition on workplaces operating from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Remembrance Day. That prohibition is subject to regulations the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make to create exceptions.
The statute does not itself list exemptions or enforcement mechanisms, instead delegating carve-outs and implementation details to provincial regulation. The Act is set to come into force on June 1, 2026, giving institutions a finite lead time to prepare for the new obligations.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Every school must hold a dedicated Remembrance Day service for students on November 11, or on the preceding Friday if November 11 falls on a Saturday or Sunday.
A permitted service may include cenotaph visits, wreath-laying, assemblies with guest speakers, musical tributes, or other commemorative acts, but it cannot consist solely of prerecorded material.
The Ministry of Education must develop both elementary and secondary curricula about the purpose and importance of Remembrance Day and must consult with educators and their unions in doing so.
The bill prohibits workplaces from operating between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Remembrance Day, but the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations creating exceptions to that prohibition.
The Act’s provisions would come into force on June 1, 2026, providing a fixed implementation window for schools, the Ministry, and employers.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Mandatory school services and format limits
This provision requires every school to run a dedicated Remembrance Day service and sets the scheduling rule that if November 11 lands on a weekend the service occurs on the preceding Friday. The statute lists acceptable formats—cenotaph visits, wreath-laying, assemblies, musical tributes—and adds a functional prohibition: the observance may not be solely prerecorded. Practically, school administrators must plan in-person or live events, secure permissions and transportation for off-site visits, accommodate students who are absent, and schedule classes around the observance.
Ministry-directed curricula with required consultations
The Ministry must design distinct elementary and secondary curricula on Remembrance Day that cover both historical and modern military conflicts. The provision requires consultation with educators and unions, embedding stakeholder input into content development but leaves timelines, assessment methods, and funding to administrative discretion. That creates administrative work for curriculum teams and for school boards that will need to integrate the new materials into local programming and professional development.
Four-hour workplace closure rule with regulatory exceptions
The statute bars any workplace from operating between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Remembrance Day, creating a clear, time-bound restriction on employer operations. However, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations authorizing exceptions; the bill does not define enforcement, penalties, or the standard for exemptions. Employers, labour counsel and regulators will need to interpret 'operate' (e.g., continuous operations, remote work, essential services) and watch for forthcoming regulations that will flesh out carve-outs for health care, emergency services, transit, and other critical sectors.
Commencement date
The Act comes into force June 1, 2026. That fixed commencement gives ministries, school boards and employers an implementation window to adjust calendars, draft curricula and prepare for the workplace closure. The date also sets the clock for any regulatory processes the Lieutenant Governor in Council must undertake before the first November 11 under the law.
Short title
The Act will be cited as the Remembrance Day Observance Act, 2025. The short title signals the statute’s primary focus on formalizing observance practices rather than broader veterans’ benefits or services.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Students (elementary and secondary) — gain a mandated, curriculum-backed opportunity to learn about and participate in Remembrance Day observances, which standardizes exposure across the province.
- Veterans, military families and commemorative organizations — receive more consistent public recognition and school participation in remembrance activities, likely increasing attendance at local commemorations.
- History and civics educators and curriculum developers — obtain a clear provincial brief and funding opportunity (implicit) to build teaching materials and programming related to Remembrance Day.
Who Bears the Cost
- School boards and schools — must schedule events, manage logistics for off-site visits or assemblies, and accommodate any students who opt out, creating planning and possible transportation costs.
- Employers across sectors — face a statutory restriction on operating for four hours on November 11 unless an exemption is later provided by regulation, which could disrupt production, service delivery or revenue for businesses that rely on morning hours.
- Ministry of Education — must allocate staff time and possibly budget to develop two curricula and run consultations with educators and unions, with downstream costs to boards for implementation and teacher training.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances a public goal—ensuring province-wide, in-person civic commemoration and standardized education about Remembrance Day—against operational and institutional costs: mandated closures and live events impose economic disruption for employers and logistical burdens on schools, while leaving substantive curricular choices and exemption rules to later administrative action.
The bill delegates important implementation decisions to administrative action and to Lieutenant Governor in Council regulations without spelling out enforcement or funding. The workplace prohibition is clear on its face but silent on penalties, the test for exemptions, and whether remote work or employees working from home count as "operating." That raises immediate questions about coverage for essential services (health care, emergency responders, transit), who will qualify for regulatory carve-outs, and how labour agreements will interact with a four-hour statutory blackout.
On the education side, the statutory requirement to consult educators and unions establishes a participatory development process but does not provide timelines, resources, assessment expectations, or curricular standards beyond including historical and modern conflicts. That creates risk: variation in interpretation across boards, uneven implementation, and potential disputes over content selection—particularly around framing of modern conflicts, inclusion of Indigenous or anti-war perspectives, or the relationship between commemoration and civic education.
The ban on prerecorded-only services pushes schools toward live, supervised events, which has practical benefits for engagement but increases logistical burdens and liability considerations (field trips, guest speakers, assemblies).
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