In Nova Scotia, Heritage Day is supposed to be a paid public holiday.
And it will be– at least for some of you.

This year, Heritage Day is celebrated on Monday, 17 Feb. Nova Scotia’s 2025 honouree is Nora Bernard.   Nora Bernard, from Millbrook First Nation in Truro, N.S., survived her childhood at Shubenacadie Indian Residential School.  For 15 years she fought a court battle to win reparations for Indigenous children forced to attend those schools.  Shockingly, in 2007 at age 72, she was killed by her grandson who, in a drug-addled state, killed her when she gave him only $20 and he wanted more to buy drugs. In 2023 residents of Halifax voted to rename Cornwallis St Nora Bernard Street.

How to Get the Day Off with Pay

Heritage Day is one of the paltry six paid holidays in NS each year.  Our province has one of the lowest number of paid holidays, or what some call “statutory holidays” in Canada. For example, New Brunswick has eight, and PEI has seven paid holidays. Quebec has eight, and Ontario and Saskatchewan each boast ten.  In Nova Scotia, Heritage Day is a retail closing day; that means most stores, services and offices must be closed.

If you belong to a union, you’ll likely get the day off with pay. 

If you have no union, there are two rules you must follow in order to get paid for the holiday.

To receive pay for the day off, you have to have earned wages at your job for at least 15 of the last 30 days. You also must have worked your shift right before the holiday, and your shift immediately after the holiday. Then you should get the day off with pay.

If you qualify for the holiday, and your boss asks you to work on Heritage Day you are entitled to get your regular pay for the day’s work PLUS one and a half times your pay for the hours you do work. 

What’s Open, What’s Closed this Monday

By law, coffee shops, convenience stores, gas stations, tourist attractions, hotels, and small drug stores and small groceries are allowed to remain open. If you have a coffee at Tim’s or Starbucks on Monday, you should know that the employee who serves you will probably have worked fewer than 15 of the last 30 days. So the employer is not obliged to give them the day off with pay. In fact, most employees at coffee shops, restaurants, bars and health clubs will likely receive their regular pay ONLY (no bonus at all) for working on the holiday. No extra pay and no holiday.

If you want to get a paid holiday on Heritage Day, consider helping to organize a union at your workplace. Then the union can negotiate Heritage Day as a paid holiday for you. More than 25% of working people in Nova Scotia have a union that represents them! Ask me (jhaiven@gmail.com) how to do it!

Image at the top: 1934 photo of Mi’kmaq girls at Shubenacadie Indian Residential School (St Anne’s Convent). The school was 39 km south of Truro, NS. It was the only Indian Residential School in the Maritimes, and was operated by the Catholic church (on behalf of the Canadian government) from 1923-1967.