Legal holidays of June 24th and July 1st
June 14, 2024
Building service employees are entitled to the following paid holidays, even if they work part time or even if the holiday does not fall on a usual working day:
- June 24 (National Holiday)
- July 1st (Canada Day)
Please note that June 24th is ruled by the National Holiday Act while the 1st of July is ruled by the Decree.
The main difference is that when the National Holiday (June 24) falls on a non-working day for the employee, the employer must allow a compensatory holiday, while on other holidays, upon certain conditions, the employer may pay the holiday indemnity without allowing a day off.
The holiday pay
The calculation of the holiday pay is not the same for the regular employee (often called permanent) and the non-regular employee. A regular employee is one that has accumulated at least 280 hours of work for the same employer, regardless of his full time or part-time status.
After reading these explanations, please refer to the employer’s guide in section statutory holidays if you need more help to calculate your employee’s holiday pay.
The employee who is not a regular employee
For each holiday, such employee is entitled to a holiday pay which equals 1/20th of the wages earned during the four complete weeks of pay preceding the week of the holiday, excluding overtime hours.
The regular employee
To calculate the holiday pay for the regular employee, the employer must first establish whether the employee usually works at least 5 days per week or not. If the employee does not work on a regular schedule, he is considered working at least 5 days per week if it has been the case at least 5 times in the 8 preceding weeks.
The regular employee who works less than 5 days per week is entitled to a holiday pay of 20% of his preceding pay (or 10% if the pay is biweekly).
The regular employee who works 5 days or more per week is entitled to a holiday pay according to his regular schedule.
To calculate the holiday pay for the regular employee who works at least 5 days per week, the employer must establish if Monday (for June 24th and July 1st) is a normal working day for the employee or not.
Even if the employee does not always work on Monday, it is a normal working day for him if he has been working at least 5 Mondays in the 8 preceding weeks.
When the holiday falls on a working day for this employee (i.e., the employee usually works on that day), the employer must pay the holiday according to the usual number of hours worked on that day. If the employee doesn’t always work the same number of hours on that day, then the employer must calculate an average of the last 5 worked Mondays.
If the holiday falls on a day where the employee doesn’t usually work, the employer may:
For July 1st :
- Allow the employee a paid holiday on the preceding or following working day. He must then pay the holiday as explained above;
OR - Pay the holiday by calculating 20% of the preceding pay period (or 10% if the pay period is two weeks), without allowing any other day off.
For the National Holiday, the employer must allow a compensatory holiday. In this case, if Monday is not a regular working day for the employee, the compensatory holiday must be taken on the working day preceding or following the 24th. This rule also applies to non-permanent employees. The indemnity is then calculated as explained above.
To know more about legal holidays, consult section Paid holidays of the Employer’s Guide or of the Employee’s Guide, or consult article 7 of the Decree.
To know more about National Holiday, consult the National Holiday Act.
If you have some questions about worked holidays, please click here.