Victoria Day

Victoria Day is a Canadian public holiday celebrated on the first Monday preceding May 25th of every year in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday. It's paid public holiday under the Employment Standards Act.

An employee is entitled to take Victoria Day off with regular pay if the holiday falls on his or her regularly-scheduled workday and if he or she has:

1. Been employed for three months or more; and
2. Earned wages on at least 12 days in the four work weeks before Victoria Day; and
3. Worked his or her regularly-scheduled day of work before and after Victoria Day; and
4. Provided reasonable cause if he or she cannot perform a full day's work on Victoria Day as previously agreed; and,
5. Not been employed under an arrangement where he or she may elect to work or not when requested to do so.

If Victoria Day falls on a regularly-scheduled workday and an employee who meets the five conditions stated above for a paid public holiday agrees to work that day:

• The employee must be paid their regular wages for working on Victoria Day plus the employee must be given a substitute day off with regular pay before his or her next annual vacation.

If Victoria Day falls on a day an employee does not normally work and the employee meets the five conditions stated above for a paid public holiday:

• The employee gets Victoria Day off plus he or she gets a substitute day off with regular pay (which must be given no later than the employee's next annual vacation); or
• The employee gets Victoria Day off plus a regular day's pay if the employee (or the employee's union) agrees not to take a substitute day off.

It is the employer's decision which option to choose.

If an employee who meets the five conditions stated above for a paid public holiday, agrees to work on Victoria Day even though it's a not a regularly-scheduled workday, he or she must be paid their regular wages for that day plus the employee must be given a substitute day off with regular pay before his or her next annual vacation.

Workers who are not eligible for paid public holidays include professionals (such as lawyers, doctors and teachers), taxi drivers, apartment building superintendents or caretakers who live in the building, students who instruct or supervise children or work at a camp or recreation program for a charitable organization, domestic workers who work less than 24 hours a week, babysitters and companions, commercial fishers and some farm workers, commissioned salespeople who normally work away from their employer's place of business (except route salespeople who do qualify for public holidays) and workers in landscape gardening or who grow flowers, trees or shrubs for sale.

The Twenty-Fourth of May
Is the Queen's birthday
If you don't give us a holiday
We'll all run away!

The preceding is a bit of doggerel honouring* the event.