Canada Day has taken on a somber hue of late. Celebrating everything “Canadian” sounds a bit off to me these days. There were the 2021 discoveries of hundreds of graves of Indigenous children buried on the grounds of some Indian Residential Schools in western Canada. The RCMP is up to their necks horrors and neglect. There was Portapique massacre which many believe the RCMP grossly mishandled or worse. There are the dozens of Black and racialized people killed by various Canadian police forces — whose motto ought to be “shoot first; ask questions later.” The “knee-on-neck” practice by police in our own country is described here. There are the scores of people arrested for protesting the building of Coastal Gas Pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en land. And there are the mining atrocities — Canadian companies that exploit people all over the world, throw peasants off their lands and kill to silence their protests. The case of Trudeau backing mining in Mexico, by Yves Engler, is worth reading. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the US. This 20 year old agreement allows Canadian border police to return to the US refugees (from a third country) who have tried to cross into Canada. This punitive law forces asylum seekers to claim refugee status in the first country in which they arrive — often the US — rather than being allowed to seek asylum here.

This is just a taste of Canada today.

Still– 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, services and most other businesses must close on July 1, Canada Day. Canada Day is designated ‘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.

However if you work in the nearly 70% 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 July 1

Holiday pay is a regular day’s work. 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 $15 an hour, multiply it by 8 and you should receive $120 pay AND the day off.

If you work at a restaurant, a bar, a gas station or a tourist operation which is open on July 1, 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 July 1.   In the example above, you are owed holiday pay of $120 (see paragraph above) and if you work 6 hours on July 1, PLUS 6 x 1.5 x $15 = $135. Your employer owes you $120+$135 = $255 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 —  you don’t get the holiday with pay.

Featured image above: detail from the painting Disappearing Acts by Leidy Churchman (2019). Purchased by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. More paintings by Churchman here.