Will you get a paid holiday on Canada Day?
Our national holiday is celebrated this Tues. 1 July. For many it won’t be a long weekend as Monday is a workday, but Canada Day is one of the six precious public holidays in Nova Scotia, a day off work for most people. But who is entitled to be paid for that holiday?
Here’s what you need to know:
All large retail stores, supermarkets, malls, some stores, services and most other businesses must close on July 1, Canada Day. In NS, Canada Day is designated a ‘retail closing day.’
For many Nova Scotian workers, Canada Day is a general and paid holiday, called a statutory holiday in other provinces. If you are a union member, working under a collective agreement, you get paid for the holiday.
Only 25% of workers in NS are in unions…
However if you work in the nearly 75% of businesses and offices in Nova Scotia which are not unionized, here are the rules. You should get paid for the holiday if you worked 15 of the last 30 calendar days. You also must have worked your last scheduled shift just before the holiday, and your first scheduled shift right after the holiday. If you did not work the day before, or after because you had a sick day or a vacation day, you should still get paid for the Canada Day holiday.
How to Calculate Holiday Pay for Canada Day
Holiday pay is a regular day’s pay. If your hours differ day to day, the employer must take your total hours worked over the last 30 days. Let’s say you worked 20 days and 160 hours in total over the last month. You worked on average 160/20 = 8 hours per day. If you earn $20 an hour, multiply it by 8 and you should receive $160 pay AND the day off work.
If you work at a restaurant, a bar, a gas station or a tourist operation which is open on 1 July, and you must work that day, you are entitled to your holiday pay for the day (see above), plus time and one half for every hour you do work on 1 July. In the example above, you are owed holiday pay of $160 (see paragraph above) and if you work 6 hours on Canada Day, PLUS 6 x 1.5 x $20 = $180. Your employer owes you $160+$180 = $340 for working on Canada Day.
However if you work on a farm, in real estate, if you sell cars or work on commission, if you work on a fishing boat — your employer is exempt for giving you the holiday with pay.
Image at the top: Niagara Falls from Prospect Point, by Platt D. Babbitt (Daguerreotype c.1855). You can See it at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
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Judy Haiven is a writer and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Formerly, she was a professor in the Management Department of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University and is a specialist in Industrial Relations. Judy Haiven is a founder of Equity Watch, a human rights organization dedicated to fighting bullying and discrimination in the workplace.
Contact: jhaiven [at] gmail.com
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