New Statutory Federal Holiday: What Employers Need to Know

With many of us coming back from vacation, we thought we’d remind employers under federal jurisdiction that a new statutory holiday has been added. The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, created to honour First Nations, Inuit and Métis survivors, their families and their communities, and to ensure that their history and the legacy of residential schools remain as an essential part of the reconciliation process, will be observed on September 30, 2021.

On June 3, 2021, Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code (National Day of Truth and Reconciliation) received Royal Assent. Its provisions came into force on August 3. Consequently, the Canada Labour Code (the “Code”) definition of “general holiday” now includes ten general holidays instead of nine.

However, all other provisions of the Code and the regulations governing statutory holidays are applicable to the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Therefore, unless a collective agreement provides otherwise, the calculation method for wages, as set out in section 17 of the Canada Labour Standards Regulations, shall be used. Furthermore, the provisions of the Code pertaining to the potential exclusive application of a collective agreement are also applicable. Recently, case law has again pointed out that the Code gives the parties to a collective agreement some flexibility in the application of statutory holidays (see Air Canada Pilots Association v Air Canada).

For this reason, employers under federal jurisdiction should immediately assess the impact of this addition to the Code on their workplaces, if they haven’t already done so. In unionized workplaces, such interferences with the collective agreements must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

To learn more, contact our employment and labour law team.