Quebec Statutory Holiday Pay Calculator

One in twenty, or one in sixty

Section 62 of the Act respecting labour standards sets the indemnity at 1/20 of the wages earned during the four complete weeks of pay before the week of the holiday, excluding overtime.

Quebec measures in complete weeks of pay, where Ontario measures in work weeks. Both exclude the week the holiday falls in.

Quebec counts your tips. Nowhere else does.

Section 50 protects gratuities: a tip belongs to the employee and must not be mingled with wages. But its fourth paragraph carves out indemnity calculations.

It requires the indemnities in ss. 58, 62, 74, 76 and several others to be computed on the basis of the wages increased by the tips attributed or reported. Section 62 is the statutory holiday indemnity, and it is on that list.

Ontario does the exact opposite — s. 1(1)(d) removes tips from the definition of wages entirely. A server in Gatineau and a server in Ottawa, same tips, get materially different holiday pay.

There is no time and a half in Quebec

This surprises people who have worked elsewhere in Canada. Quebec has no premium rate for working a statutory holiday.

Section 63 requires the employer, in addition to paying your wages for the work done, to either pay the s. 62 indemnity or grant a compensatory day off — taken within three weeks before or after. The choice reads as the employer’s.

Section 64 applies the same rule where the holiday falls during your annual leave or outside your regular schedule, except that the date of the compensatory day must be agreed.

A softer test than most provinces

Section 65 is drafted negatively: you qualify unless you were absent without the employer’s authorisation or without valid cause on the working day before or after the holiday.

“Valid cause” is read as a situation beyond your control — illness or a death in the family. That is materially softer than Ontario’s forfeiture rule, which turns on working the full scheduled shift.

24 June comes from a different statute

Quebec has eight statutory holidays: seven listed in s. 60 of the labour standards Act, plus the Fête nationale on 24 June, which is governed by its own National Holiday Act.

It is not a cosmetic distinction. Four things work differently:

• No attendance condition at all — the s. 65 test does not apply to 24 June.
• The tip gross-up is written directly into the National Holiday Act rather than routed through s. 50.
• A compensatory day must be taken on the working day immediately before or after — not the three-week window that applies to other holidays.
• Where 24 June falls on a Sunday that is not a regular working day for you, 25 June becomes the holiday.

Section 60(2) is another Quebec peculiarity: the spring holiday is Good Friday or Easter Monday, at the employer’s option — one day, not two. Quebec has no Boxing Day and no Remembrance Day, and 30 September is not a Quebec holiday.