Navigating Breaks in Canada

Introduction

A “Break”, as defined by the Canada Labour Code, is “a short period of time during the work period when an employee is released from his obligations to the employer”. Providing a coffee break or meal time during a work shift allows employees to rest and recharge, eat, and attend to personal matters. However, these rest periods are more than just a benefit or perk given to employees, they are also widely regulated and a huge responsibility for schedulers, payroll administrators, and employee relations personnel, all of whom require a good understanding of what break time legislation applies in order to protect your company from potential investigations and lawsuits.

With WorkSight Flow’s shift creation feature, you can add breaks right in to an employee’s schedule. Although scheduling breaks is not required by law, it helps to eliminate any confusion about break times and duration as well as encourages corporate complicity when it comes to break time regulations. Adding breaks into the shifts on the schedule will also automatically generate them on the employee’s timecard, since the timecards are generated based off of the schedule. The time and duration of each break can easily be adjusted to match real time scenarios, as needed. Furthermore, you can use WorkSight’s robust timecard rule engine to automatically compensate employees for their breaks accordingly, based on your organizational policies.

As with most labour regulations topics, certain exceptions for rest breaks may apply in order to accommodate different employee situations and shift types. The basic federal standards for Canada are outlined below.

The information that we've provided in this article is intended to be used as a guideline only. We strongly encourage you to pursue more information about the rules and rates that apply in your region. If any discrepancies exist between what we've shared and the information distributed by your official government sources, then the latter takes precedence.

Canada

In Canada we have the Canada Labour Code which identifies the minimum labour standards across the country that each employer must abide by. Each province may choose to implement federal level standards or write their own improved standards, providing no less than the federally regulated minimums.

The federal standards mandate that a company must provide an unpaid break of at least 30 minutes to an employee for every five hours of consecutive work performed. If the employee is required to remain available during their break, they must be paid for their break period.

Similar to Overtime and Minimum Wage, some provinces have opted to set and apply their own minimums for breaks and rest. Individual Companies or Worker’s Unions may also choose to implement their own standards for meals, breaks, or rest periods, but they have to adhere to at least the minimum of the federal standards.

Alberta

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

British Columbia

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Manitoba

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

New Brunswick

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Newfoundland and Labrador

1-hour unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Northwest Territories

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Nova Scotia

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Nunavut

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Ontario

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Prince Edward Island

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Quebec

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Saskatchewan

30-minute unpaid break within the first 5 hours for every 6 consecutive work hours

Yukon

30-minute unpaid break for every 5 consecutive work hours

Again, the information that we've provided is intended to be used as a guideline. If there are any discrepancies between what we've shared and the information distributed by official government sources, then the latter takes precedence.