Know Your Rights
Contractor or employee, minimum wage, vacation pay, termination and CPP/EI, in plain English.
Whether you work for someone or run your own crew, employment law sets the floor, and in Canada most of it is provincial. Each province and territory has its own Employment Standards Act covering minimum wage, hours, vacation, public holidays and termination, while federally regulated work runs under the Canada Labour Code. On top sit the national programs: CPP and EI through the CRA, and workers' compensation through your provincial board. The one question that decides which rules apply to you is whether you are an employee or an independent contractor. This hub explains what these laws give you, and how to tell which side of that line you are on.
Contractor or employee: the question that decides everything
Calling yourself a subcontractor does not make you one; the reality of the relationship decides it. If the other party controls your hours, tells you how to do the work, supplies the tools and the materials, and you work mainly for them, you are likely an employee in law even if you invoice them. The CRA and the courts weigh control, who owns the tools, the chance of profit and the risk of loss, and how integrated you are into the business. It matters in both directions: an employee gets minimum wage, vacation pay, termination notice, and CPP/EI with the employer paying its share; a genuine independent contractor carries their own risk, works for several clients, and sorts out their own taxes and coverage. If you hire a subcontractor who is really an employee, you pick up employer obligations (source deductions, vacation pay, workers' compensation); and if you were treated as a contractor but worked like an employee, you may still be able to claim employee entitlements. There is also a middle category, the dependent contractor, who is economically tied to one payer and gets reasonable notice on termination.
Minimum wage and getting paid right
Every province and territory sets its own minimum wage, and it is the floor under all work; you cannot contract out of it or average it across a busy and a quiet week. The rates change, often each year, so check the current figure for where you work. Apprentices are generally paid at least the minimum wage too (a few jurisdictions have narrow exceptions), and most provinces require overtime pay at 1.5 times the rate after a set number of hours in a week. If you employ anyone, the minimum wage and overtime rules are the baseline beneath everything else in their contract.
Vacation, public holidays and termination notice
Employment standards give every employee a core set of entitlements, though the exact numbers vary by province. The common floor is vacation: at least two weeks a year with vacation pay of at least 4 percent of wages, rising with years of service in most provinces. There are paid public (statutory) holidays, with rules on who qualifies and how holiday pay is worked out. On termination without cause, the employer must give written notice or pay in lieu on a sliding scale that grows with length of service, and larger layoffs trigger extra group-termination rules. Remember these are statutory minimums; an employee dismissed without cause may be owed much more reasonable notice at common law (outside Quebec, which runs on its Civil Code). Check your province's Employment Standards Act for the exact ladders.
CPP, EI and workers' compensation
Three programs sit alongside provincial standards. The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Employment Insurance (EI) are federal: if you employ people you withhold their CPP and EI from each pay, add the employer's share, and remit it to the CRA with their income tax. The self-employed pay both halves of CPP themselves and can opt into EI special benefits voluntarily (Quebec runs its own QPP and parental plan). Workers' compensation is provincial: registering with your board (WSIB in Ontario, CNESST in Quebec, the WCB elsewhere) and paying your premiums covers a worker hurt on the job on a no-fault basis, and in most provinces construction coverage is mandatory the moment you have workers. See the CPP and EI cards for the current rates and ceilings.
When it goes wrong
If there is a dispute over wages, hours, vacation or termination, the first route is usually a complaint to your provincial employment standards branch, which can investigate and order an employer to pay what is owed, and it is free to file. Unionised work goes through the grievance process instead. A dismissal without cause that an employee thinks is short on notice can also be pursued as a wrongful-dismissal claim in court for common-law notice, which is often well above the statutory minimum. There are filing deadlines on both routes, so do not sit on it. Whether you are the worker who was let go or the employer defending a decision, the records usually decide it: keep contracts, pay records, and anything in writing about the reasons.