Changes in payroll laws and regulations from across Canada
New CLC holiday pay rules coming in March
Next month, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) will implement new Canada Labour Code rules governing the way federally regulated employers compensate employees for statutory holidays.
Effective March 16, employees will no longer be required to work at least 15 of the 30 days before a holiday to qualify for statutory holiday pay.
Instead, the new rules will require employees to be employed by their employer for more than 30 days before they are eligible for statutory holiday pay. In a statement in the Canada Gazette Part II (2014-12-31), ESDC says the change will allow more part-time workers to qualify for paid holidays.
ESDC says the new rules will also simplify statutory holiday pay calculations by replacing the current method of using different formulas depending on an employee’s pay cycle with a single formula that will apply to almost all federally regulated workers.
The simplified process will no longer use various formulas for monthly, weekly, daily or hourly pay cycles. The new pay cycle system will not only be more efficient in its execution, but will also create a more standardized process easily understood by the employers as well as the employees.
For each holiday, employers will have to pay employees at least 1/20th of the wages they earned, excluding overtime, in the four weeks immediately before the week in which the holiday falls.
For commission-based employees who have worked for their employer for at least 12 weeks, statutory holiday pay will be 1/60th of the wages earned, excluding overtime, in the 12 weeks right before the holiday.
ESDC says full-time workers will still receive the same amount of holiday pay (the equivalent of a full day’s earnings) as they do now, but part-time employees who meet the current minimum requirements for statutory holidays will receive less holiday pay since the new pay formula will allocate holiday pay in proportion to the number of hours worked.
The changes were part of Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, which received royal assent just over two years ago. ESDC says it delayed implementing the new requirements until March to give employers time to update their payroll systems to incorporate them.
Northwest Territories
Minimum wage going up in June
The territorial minimum wage rate will rise from $10.00 an hour to $12.50 on June 1, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Jackson Lafferty recently announced.
Lafferty said he made the minimum wage change decision based on three options that a government-appointed minimum wage committee presented last spring.
They included an increase to the average hourly wage, an indexed wage rate and an increase to a living wage of $18.75 an hour.
"We looked carefully at each and determined that the $12.50 option would not only serve to help those people working under minimum wage, but would be manageable for employers," Lafferty said.
Prince Edward Island
Minimum wage going up in July
The province’s minimum wage rate will rise from $10.35 per hour to $10.50 on July, 1, Minister of Environment, Labour and Justice Janice Sherry recently announced.
Quebec
Minimum wage going up in May
Quebec’s general minimum wage rate will rise from $10.35 an hour to $10.55 on May 1, Labour Minister Sam Hamad recently announced. Other minimum wage rates in the province will also go up.
For employees who receive tips, the minimum wage rate will rise from $8.90 an hour to $9.05. The minimum wage rate for employees in certain sectors of the clothing industry will increase from $10.35 an hour to $10.55.
The rates for employees who pick certain fruits will also increase on May 1.
For raspberry pickers, the minimum rate will rise from $3.04 per kilogram to $3.12. For strawberry pickers, it will go up from $0.81 per kilogram to $0.83.
Yukon
WCHSB no longer uses ‘value of service’ for directors
The Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board (WCHSB) no longer uses a "value of service" method to calculate workers’ compensation coverage for directors who do not draw wages from a company.
As of Jan. 1, the board revised its policies affecting employer assessments for directors of incorporated companies.
The "value of service" method enabled directors to estimate the value of their service to a company and buy WCHSB coverage based on that value.
If the director was injured while working, the amount of compensation they would receive was based on that value.
The WCHSB said it no longer uses the method because it has determined that it is not compatible with the territory’s Workers’ Compensation Act.
A new policy on coverage for directors states that the board considers all directors of incorporated companies to be workers and that employers must pay assessments on the directors’ actual earnings unless exempted.
Assessments for directors who perform services will be based on wages, bonuses, commissions, director’s fees and other earnings paid to them.
The board does not consider dividends to be earnings. Directors must keep accurate records of their earnings to ensure that they are eligible for coverage in case they suffer a work-related injury.
If the director has no earnings on which to base assessments, the company must still pay the board a minimum assessment. If the director suffers a work-related injury, the WCHSB will generally not pay the director any compensation for loss of earnings as a director; however, the director may be eligible for compensation based on other earnings.
If the individual is a director for a number of affiliated companies, the board will base the assessments for the director on the industry and rate group to which the companies are assigned. If the affiliated companies are in different industries and rate groups, the board will assess employers based on the percentage of time the director works for each affiliated company.
Non-working directors may apply to the board for an exemption. Directors who are exempted will not be protected as workers under the system.
To obtain an exemption, they must be able to show that they are not performing services for an incorporated company, not receiving earnings from the company and not receiving a T4 or T4A from the company.
Directors must apply every year, in writing, for the exemption.
For more information on the new policies, see the board’s website at www.wcb.yk.ca/Document-Library/Policies/PG-0010.aspx. The policies are titled Payment of Assessments (EA-01, January 1, 2015), Determining the Status of a Person: Employer, Worker, Sole Proprietor or Non-working Director (EA-02, January 1, 2015) and Coverage for Directors (EA-06, January 1, 2015).
