In contrast to September 19th, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is handled differently because it was declared a federal holiday applying to all federally regulated employers and adopted by the NDTR Act.
This holiday is treated the same as it was last year.
The following is a reminder of how this holiday is handled under our collective agreements:
Last year on August 3, 2021, Bill C-5, An Act to Amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act, and the Canada Labour Code (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) (the “NDTR Act”), came into force. The NDTR Act established a new federal holiday called the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation which is observed on September 30th.
At the time of the adoption of the NDTR Act, it applied to federally regulated employers that are subject to Part III of the Canada Labour Code. Since most Alberta construction companies are provincially regulated, as a general rule, employers are not legally obligated to recognize September 30th as a general holiday unless:
Last year, we analyzed the language in our collective agreements and received a legal opinion from McLennan Ross to ascertain whether there is an obligation under our collective agreements to recognize this new holiday.
Based on this analysis, we have found that in some instances, the language clearly obligates us to recognize the holiday, while in other instances, there is no obligation to do so. The obligation to recognize the holiday depends on whether there is a provision in collective agreement that adds a holiday if the Federal and/or Provincial level(s) of government(s) proclaims another holiday other than those already listed. Addressing whether such language exists and interpreting those provisions was the thrust of the legal review.
Since this review was done and the passage of a year, the province has still not adopted NDTR and there has been no change to the status contained in new or existing CLRA collective agreements. Therefore, the following conclusion still applies.
The following Trade Division collective agreements have an obligation to recognize NDTR as a general holiday:
As a matter of information, it is our understanding that the GMPC/NMC agreements obligate recognizing NDTR for all trades when it comes to maintenance work.
