What are public holidays and how do employers deal with them?

Firstly who gets paid public holiday pay?
Qualified employees can be full time or part time employees, permanent employees or contract employees. They can also be students. It does not matter how recently they were hired, or how many days they worked before the public holiday.

What are the public holidays in Ontario?
We have nine statutory holidays in Ontario:
•    New Year’s Day;
•    Good Friday;
•    Victoria Day;
•    Canada Day;
•    Labour Day;
•    Thanksgiving Day;
•    Christmas Day; and
•    Boxing Day.

You are not required to give your employees a holiday on Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, the first Monday in August, or Remembrance Day.  While some employers do, it is not required under the Employment Standards Act, 2000.

If a public holiday falls on a day that would ordinarily be a work day the employee is entitled to a day off with public holiday pay. See an employment lawyer to discuss how this is calculated.

If Christmas falls on a Monday, you are still entitled to pay your employee for Christmas day. Alternatively, you can agree in writing with your employee that he or she work on the holiday and he or she will be paid public holiday pay plus premium pay for the hours worked.  Premium pay is time and a half. If your employee receives premium pay for working on a public holiday, the hours are not taken into consideration in calculating any overtime pay.  The alternative is to pay the employee their regular rate for hours worked on the holiday, plus they will receive another day off with public holiday pay. Regular wages does not include any overtime or premium pay payable to an employee.

If the public holiday falls on a day that would not ordinarily be a working day, then you need to substitute another day that would ordinarily be a working day your employee to take off work and receive public holiday pay. If Christmas falls on a Saturday, then you would give your employee the monday off.

Generally, employees qualify for the public holiday entitlement unless they fail without reasonable cause to work all of their last regularly scheduled day of work before the public holiday or all of their first regularly scheduled day of work after the public holiday (this is called the “Last and First Rule”.) The “last regularly scheduled day of work before the public holiday” and the “first regularly scheduled day of work after the public holiday” do not have to be the days right before and right after the holiday. For example, an employee might not be scheduled to work the day right before or after the holiday. As long as the employee works all of his or her last regularly scheduled shift before the holiday and all of the first one after it, or provides reasonable cause for not working either of those days, he or she meets this qualifying criterion.

Public holiday pay will also fail if yrou employees, without reasonable cause to work their entire shift on the public holiday if they agreed to or were required to work that day.

What happens if you don’t pay the publich holiday pay?
If you don’t pay your public holiday pay, or pay it incorrectly, your employee has the right to file a claim that their minimum standards have been violated.  An employment standards office will investigate and you may be ordered to pay a minimum amount to the Ministry of Labour (up to $10,000) until the issues is cleared up either by the employment standards office not finding a contravention, or your appealing to the Labour Relations Board to have a Vice Chair hear the case.

If you have been served with complaint for  violation of the Ontario Employment Standards Act,  please do not hesitate to contact Matt Lalande at matt@employment-law.ca. This is not legal advice.