And it smells groovy….

Fireworks, road trips, bubbles, smiles and fun. The long weekend is almost upon us with Canada Day celebrations at every corner.

So before you lock up the office to celebrate Canada’s big 150th this long weekend let’s figure out if you are eligible for statutory holiday pay.

In B.C., an employee is eligible if they’ve been employed for 30 calendar days before the stat holiday and have worked or earned wages on 15 of those 30 days. So if your employee, Susie, began work on June 1st and has worked 15 days since June 1st, she gets paid for Canada Day, whether she works on Canada Day or not.

Eligibility is determined by days worked, rather than hours, meaning it applies to both full-time and part-time employees, although the 15-day stipulation rules out most part-time employees.

At Homeroom, if we’re taking care of your payroll, it’s up to you to tell us which employees are eligible or not. This policy might vary from bookkeeper to bookkeeper, so make sure you know!

If you’re taking care of it yourself, here’s how you’d figure out Susie’s stat pay for Canada Day. Take the total hours she worked in the 30 days before the stat holiday and divide it by the number of days worked, then multiply by her rate of pay. Let’s say Susie worked 60 hours in 16 days and earns $25 per hour, she would be paid $93.75 on Canada Day (60/16 x 25 = 93.75).

Now let’s say that Susie is a keener and she agrees to work on Canada Day. Eligible employees are paid time-and-a-half for the first 12 hours on a stat holiday. This is in addition to the stat pay that we calculated in the previous paragraph.

However, all this changes if your employee worked less than 15 days since June 1st. In that case, they’re not eligible for stat holiday pay and if they work a stat holiday, they’re paid as if it were a regular work day.

In B.C., there are 10 stat holidays: New Years Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, B.C. Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, and Christmas Day. As an employer, you can choose to give more, such as, Easter Monday or Boxing Day, and can work out a custom agreement with your employees for these days.