The decision to abolish the Queen's Birthday public holiday in June and to instead establish a National Heroes Day in October has sparked a fair amount of debate, not to mention a petition.

First, it must be said that no one should object to the idea of Bermuda honouring those people who have made major contributions to the Island.

It is critical that Bermudians of all ages and backgrounds should learn about their heritage and the people of the past who have played leading roles in the development of the Island.

The issues instead are whether there should be a public holiday to celebrate them and if so, when it should be, and just how the heroes should be selected.

This newspaper has long maintained that the most sensible approach would be to make the national hero of the year a centrepiece of the Bermuda Day celebrations on May 24.

That idea apparently has been rejected, in favour of a separate national holiday. Given that, the question is when?

It is likely that Government floated the idea of having an additional public holiday, but this was rejected, in part, one would assume, because of concerns in the business community about losing a trading day at the same time that employers would still face the cost of paying staff for another day off, or for additional overtime.

On that basis, the most obvious holiday to change would be the Queen's Birthday Holiday. Within Bermuda's holiday calendar, this is among the least popular; so it is understandable that it should go. Further, it has been noted that Britain does not celebrate it, begging the question of why Bermuda should.

What is curious is why Government has decided to celebrate the National Heroes Day in October instead of keeping it in June.

It could be argued that the holiday calendar is already crowded in the summer, with the May 24 Bermuda Day holiday starting the season, the current Queen's Birthday Holiday following just three weeks later and Cup Match occurring about five weeks after that.

On that basis, a move makes sense, but the shift to October creates just as crowded a calendar then, with Labour Day at the beginning of September, National Heroes Day occurring on October 13 and Remembrance Day coming just a month later. So the calendar is not eased very much, while people lose a day off in the summer when there is more to do than in the albeit still warm autumn days of October.

It has not gone unnoticed that October 13 also marks the first day of the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, presumably guaranteeing a good turnout of fans for the event.

Perhaps it is too cynical to assume that this is no coincidence. And apparently, when stakeholders were canvassed, the June date was not suggested, but a day in October or February were suggested, and October was selected.

Finally, Cultural Affairs Minister Dale Butler has stated that criteria are being developed for the selection of future national heroes and that is to be welcomed. It is unfortunate they were not already in place when the decision was made to honour the late Dame Lois Browne Evans.

It has already been suggested that as admirable as Dame Lois was, others like Dr. E.F. Gordon, Pauulu Kamarakefego (Roosevelt Brown), W.L. Tucker or Sir Henry Tucker were equally or more deserving of being the first selected. No doubt they will get their turn in due course.