Canadian Payroll Reporter

3 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 How well do you know your statutory holiday pay responsibilities? Test your knowledge by answering these true and false statements BY SHEILA BRAWN PROPERLY COMPENSATING employees for statutory holidays can be tricky, even for seasoned payroll professionals. Knowing whether and how much to pay an employee when a holiday rolls around depends on a number of factors. Does the employee meet stat- utory eligibility requirements for pay on the holiday? Does the holiday fall on a day that would normally be a workday? Is the employee working on the holi- day? Does the employee work in a continuous operation? Is the employee covered by a collective agreement? Which earnings are included when calculating statu- tory holiday pay? These are just some of the questions that payroll profes- sionals must ask and correctly answer to comply with labour standards rules for paying em- ployees for holidays. To help you find out how well you know statutory holiday pay rules, test yourself with the fol- lowing true or false statements. Note: Statutory holiday rules are complicated and can vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Space restrictions limit the answers below to general requirements, with some excep- tions or special rules noted. How- ever, not all aspects are covered. Please also note that different rules may apply in workplaces that have collective agreements. Only full-time employees are entitled to be paid for statutory holidays. True or False? False. Part-time workers, casual employees, students and others types of workers are also entitled to paid holidays, as long as they are covered under the statutory holiday provisions of the labour standards law and meet any eligi- bility conditions that may apply. Victoria Day is a statutory holiday in all Canadian jurisdictions. True or False? False. Victoria Day is not includ- ed in labour standards legisla- tion in the four Atlantic prov- inces. In Quebec, the holiday is held the Monday before May 25. Employees who do not work the day before and after a holiday are disqualified from being paid for the holiday in all jurisdictions. True or False? False. Not all jurisdictions re- quire employees to work the day before and/or after the holiday to qualify for holiday pay. In the ones that do, the requirement is that employees work on their regularly scheduled working day/shift right before and after the holiday. The working day/ shift may not be the calendar day right before or after the holiday. The amount of statutory holiday pay owing to an employee entitled to the holiday who takes the day off work (normal working day) is equal to the employee's regular daily wages/ salary. True or False? True and false, depending on the jurisdiction in which the em- ployee works. In Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, N.W.T., Nova Scotia, Nunavut, P.E.I. and Yukon, statutory holi- day pay is the employee's regular wages for a normal workday. In Alberta and British Colum- bia, it is the employee's average daily wage. For Alberta, use an average calculated over the nine work weeks (or number of days the employee has worked if less than nine work weeks) immedi- ately before the holiday. In B.C., divide the employee's total wages in the 30 calendar days before the holiday by the number of days worked to deter- mine the average. Total wages in- clude wages, commissions, stat- utory holiday pay, and vacation pay, but do not include overtime pay. Vacation taken in the 30-day period counts as days worked. In Quebec and under the Canada Labour Code, statutory holiday pay is equal to 1/20 of the wages (excluding overtime pay) the employee earned in the four weeks before the holiday. For commission-based em- ployees, use 1/60 of the wages earned in the 12 weeks prior to the holiday. In Saskatchewan, statutory holiday pay is five per cent of the wages the employee earned in the four weeks before the holiday. In Ontario, statutory holiday pay is the regular wages that the employee earned and vacation pay payable in the four work- weeks before the holiday, divid- ed by 20. If employees entitled to statutory holiday pay work on a holiday, their employer must pay them 1.5 times their regular rate for each hour they work, in addition to paying statutory holiday pay for the day. True or False? True in most jurisdictions, al- though some allow employers to instead pay employees their reg- ular wage rate for hours worked on the holiday if they provide an- other day off with pay. In British Columbia, the 1.5 rate applies for the first 12 hours worked. If employees work more News CPR | April 2017 see HOLIDAY page 8 Credit: Elena Elisseeva/Shutterstock

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