Working a Public Holiday in Canada: Holiday Pay PLUS Premium Pay (1.5×)

Think of a statutory holiday you work as producing two distinct entitlements:

1. Holiday pay — the indemnity you receive because the day is a paid statutory holiday, calculated from your recent earnings.
2. A premium for working the day — an additional amount, at a higher rate, for the hours you actually worked on the holiday.

Getting only your plain hourly rate for the hours worked usually means the premium — and sometimes the holiday pay itself — was left out. Below is how each regime builds these two amounts.

Under the Canada Labour Code, holiday pay for each general holiday is "equal to at least one twentieth of the wages, excluding overtime pay, that the employee earned with the employer in the four-week period immediately preceding the week in which the general holiday occurs" (s. 196(1)). For employees paid mainly by commission, a different formula applies: one sixtieth of the wages earned in the twelve weeks before the week of the holiday (s. 196(2)).

That is the amount you get for the holiday whether or not you work it. Now the second layer: if you are required to work on a general holiday, you are paid "in addition to the holiday pay for that day, wages at a rate equal to at least one and one-half times their regular rate of wages for the time that they work on that day" (s. 197(1)).

Read that carefully — "in addition to the holiday pay." The 1.5× premium for the hours worked does not replace your holiday pay; it stacks on top of it. So a federally regulated employee who works a general holiday should see, on the pay run: the 1/20 holiday pay plus 1.5× their regular rate for every hour worked on the day.

The Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 uses a very similar structure. Public holiday pay is "equal to... the total amount of regular wages earned and vacation pay payable to the employee in the four work weeks before the work week in which the public holiday occurred, divided by 20" (s. 24(1)).

If you work the public holiday, the Act's regime (sections 25 to 30) typically gives you a choice-based outcome: public holiday pay plus premium pay for the hours worked, or your regular rate for the hours plus a substitute day off with public holiday pay. Which branch applies depends on the arrangement and the rules in sections 25–30, so confirm your specific situation.

Premium pay itself is defined at 1.5×: "An employer who is required under this Part to pay premium pay to an employee shall pay the employee at least one and one half times his or her regular rate" (s. 24(2)).

This is where people — and payroll systems — trip up. In Ontario, premium pay for working a public holiday (s. 24(2)) is a different entitlement from overtime pay (s. 22). Overtime is triggered by your weekly hours crossing the 44-hour threshold. Premium pay is triggered by working on the holiday itself. One does not absorb the other.

The practical consequence: if you worked a public holiday and your total hours that week pushed you over the overtime threshold, you may be owed both the holiday premium and overtime on the qualifying hours. They are computed separately and added together. Assuming that "I already got holiday pay, so there's no overtime" is a costly misreading — the two live in different parts of the statute.

Québec's Loi sur les normes du travail provides a statutory indemnity for a jour férié, chômé et payé and, where the holiday is worked, a compensatory day in addition to the indemnity, under its holiday provisions. The indemnity is a defined statutory entitlement.

Beyond that base indemnity, valuing a worked Québec holiday at a higher rate is not something the LNT fixes as a general 1.5× premium the way the federal Code and Ontario's ESA do. So in Québec, the base indemnity (and, where applicable, the compensatory day) is the statutory floor; any premium above that is only calculated on a verified basis — for example, where a collective agreement, decree or your contract sets one.

• Identify the two amounts. Was there holiday pay (1/20 federally and in Ontario) and a premium for the hours actually worked? Missing either is a red flag.
• Check the base period. Both the federal and Ontario formulas look at the four weeks before the week of the holiday. If your recent hours were high, your holiday pay should reflect that.
• Separate holiday premium from overtime. They are different sections of the law. In a week where you worked a holiday and exceeded the weekly overtime threshold, look for both.
• In Québec, start from the statutory indemnity and treat anything above it as needing a verified basis (collective agreement, decree or contract).

• Unpaid Overtime in Canada: The Complete Guide
• The Overtime Pay Rate in Canada: What "Time and a Half" Really Means
• Night Shift and Weekend Premiums in Canada: What the Law Actually Guarantees