Contents:

Welcome!
Upcoming Events
What's New
GrandMaster Update

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Welcome!

May 2002 - Welcome to the latest edition of The Payroll News. As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and associates who are interested in keeping up with the latest changes in the Payroll industry. Or better yet, subscribe them for free using the Tell Someone About Us link.

Upcoming Events

Listed here are recent changes in legislation on Federal and Provincial levels that may impact your payroll calculations. Please view the following list for changes that affect your region.

FEDERAL:

March 28, 2002 - Proposed changes to Employment Insurance (EI) Regulations - HRDC announced today that proposed EI changes regarding interest charges on new or existing debt (resulting only from misrepresentation) will be pre-published for a 30-day public consultation period ending on April 29, 2002. If adopted, the proposal would become effective on July 1, 2002. (Full Story - 291 Words)

April 16, 2002 - Reinstatement of the Customs Data Match program - HRDC and the CCRA today announced the reinstatement of the Customs Data Match program that was suspended in 1999. The program will be reinstated on September 1, 2002. This program matches data from the CCRA Customs Declaration forms completed by Canadians returning to Canada by air with HRDC files of Employment Insurance benefits recipients. (Full Story - 309 Words)

April 24, 2002 - Canada Rated First in e-Government - With innovative on-line programs such as the application for employment insurance and NETFILE, Canada has placed first among 23 countries for its leadership in e-Government for the second year in a row. (Full Story - 373 Words)

Alberta:

April 23, 2002 - Workers' Compensation System Made More Accountable - Legislation to make the workers' compensation system more open and accountable has been introduced in the Alberta Legislature. The changes aim in part to give injured workers faster, more consistent service. (Full Story - 339 Words)

April 18, 2002 - Employers STEP up for Albertans - More than 3700 Albertans will have a summer of opportunity, thanks to the 2002 Summer Temporary Employment Program (STEP). STEP positions must provide continuous full-time employment of 30 to 40 hours per week for a minimum of six weeks. These employees must be paid at least $5.90 per hour. The STEP funding provides $4.50 per hour towards the employee's wages plus 45 cents per hour towards employer costs for CPP, EI and vacation pay. (Full Story - 290 Words)

British Columbia:

March, 2002 - New Issue of Access now Online- View the latest issue of the Access newsletter which updates employers on new WCB services, policies, programs, and events. It is published quarterly by the WCB Communications Services Department. (Full Story - 1,400 Words)

New Brunswick:

April 5, 2002 - Province Leads Country as Unemployment Rate Drops Nearly Two Percentage Points - New Brunswick experienced the largest decrease in the country in its unemployment rate. The province's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 10.4 percent last month which was down significantly from 12.3 percent at the same time last year. The number of employed grew to 347,100 which was also up from 330,600 at the same time last year. (Full Story - 249 Words)

Newfoundland and Labrador:

April 23, 2002 - Minimum wage to increase on May 1 - Labour Minister Anna Thistle wishes to remind employers and employees, that the province’s minimum wage will increase from $5.50 to $5.75 on May 1, 2002, followed by a further 25 cent increase to $6.00 on November 1, 2002. This will be the first increase in the minimum wage since 1999, and will now bring the province’s rate in line with the rest of Atlantic Canada. (Full Story - 116 Words)

Northwest Territories:

April 16, 2002 - New Service for Employers and Job Seekers Launched Today - Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Jake Ootes says the newly launched jobsnorth.ca electronic labour exchange will give job seekers and employers in the Northwest Territories another way to match up in the NWT’s growing labour market. "This exciting new initiative is another demonstration of how NWT residents can embrace innovation to take command of their future," the Minister said. (Full Story - 236 Words)

Nova Scotia:

April 16, 2002 - WCB Review Begins Next Phase - Today's report on the review of the workers' compensation program identifies Nova Scotia as having the second-highest workers' compensation premiums in the country, while having the second-lowest benefits. The committee reported that while the basic principles of the program are sound, it recommends changes such as extending workforce coverage, creating a more comprehensive prevention strategy and improving supplementary benefits for injured workers. (Full Story - 484 Words)

Prince Edward Island:

April 22, 2002 - WCB releases Report on Estimating Earning Capacity - The Workers Compensation Board has released the report of the Advisory Committee on "Estimating Earnings Capacity" commonly known as "deeming". The report identifies six areas for improvements, including communications, medical assessment, client services, program evaluation, jobs, and resources. (Full Story - 339 Words)

Ontario:

April 8, 2002 - New WSIB Payment System - Beginning on April 8, 2002 payment requests for worker claims originating out of the Hamilton office only will be processed through the new payment system. Further implementation will occur gradually throughout the province. By July 2002 payments to all Ontario health care providers will be processed by the new system. (Full Story - 291 Words)

April 20, 2002 - Entitlement Following Work Disruptions Consultation - The WSIB has developed a policy proposal to address the circumstances when workers with work-related injuries/illnesses are entitled to additional WSIB benefits/services during work disruptions. At the request of several worker and employer representatives, they have extended the final date for written submissions from May 3, 2002 to June 3, 2002. (Full Story - 340 Words)

Saskatchewan:

March 25, 2002 - Worker's Compensation Report Released - The Saskatchewan Government is taking action to enhance the workers' compensation system. Based on today's released report of the Committee of Review into The Workers' Compensation Act, the consensus report makes 48 recommendations, more than half of which are already being addressed by the government and the Workers' Compensation Board (WCB). (Full Story - 270 Words)

Yukon:

April 10, 2002 - Minimum Wage to Apply to All Workers - Amendments to the Employment Standards Act tabled today in the Legislature will provide minimum wage protection for all Yukon workers currently covered by the Act. "Currently, the minimum wage provisions of the Act only apply to employees who are 17 years of age and older," explained Community Services Minister Pam Buckway. "We believe that all workers should be entitled to be paid at least minimum wage, regardless of their age. (Full Story - 196 Words)

April 11, 2002 - Legislation Tabled to Amend WCB Act - Legislation has been tabled that will increase the maximum wage rate, which is used to determine benefit levels and assessment rates for injured workers. The proposed changes to the Act have been tabled because workers still receiving compensation benefits are experiencing a reduction in their benefit levels, as they have had no indexing. (Full Story - 221 Words)

The latest release of GrandMaster Suite (3.50.15) incorporates a number of changes that make it even easier to use the program and perform your payroll tasks. Recent program changes since our last Payroll News issue include:

• When entering employee hours in the Enter Hours dialog box, the Type field will now have the employee's base earning rate entered automatically.
• The Enter Hours dialog box has also been modified to correctly use the employee default distribution when there is a base Earning with no base Position. The Hours field has also been expanded to display 4 decimal places.
• When you are updating employees using the Employee Template feature, you can now include the Standard Work Week and have the existing values for earnings, deductions, and accumulators used when the types are included in the template. Previously, if you applied a template to an employee who had already had some types with values set, the program would reset the values to the payroll setting (or the template settings at the time the Template was applied).
• The program has been improved to support up to 1200 positions. Previously, an error message would appear when you creating the Position Table report for a payroll that had more than 100 Positions defined.
• The Customized Report now shows YTD data for non-active employees. Previously, this report was not printing YTD information for inactive employees. When you created the report, employees whose status was not Active or Final Pay showed zero amounts for any YTD data selected as a report parameter. This also occurred if you used a Group that consisted of employees with a status other than Active or Final Pay. This has been corrected and the report will now show the correct YTD information for any employee who had YTD data during the pay year selected.
• The program no longer allows you to use an out-dated Distribution Table. Previously, when you assigned an End Date to a distribution table and did not create an additional table, the Hours Entry dialog box still allowed you to apply the distribution table even after the end date was exceeded.

Stay tuned to CanPay's Product News page to receive the latest changes and release information for all GrandMaster products!

With the Summer season just around the corner, employers are preparing for the increase in holiday requests that accompany the warmer weather. In Canada, there are a set amount of Statutory Holidays given each year of which employees are entitled to be paid (if they have the qualified hours). These holidays, along with the qualifications for their entitlement, vary from province to province and on a Federal level.

Many companies across Canada use their provincial legislated holidays as a general guideline and choose to offer further paid holidays each year (e.g. as an employee bonus). As a result, new employees often have questions regarding which holidays they are entitled to be paid.

Federal Jurisdiction

The Canada Labour Code outlines nine general holidays that apply to employees who fall under a Federal jurisdiction. These holidays include: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.

Employees can be required to work on a general holiday (the Code does not prohibit this). If this occurs, the employee shall be paid, in addition to their regular rate of wages for that day, at a rate equal to one and a half times the regular rate of wages for the time worked on that day. If the employee works in a "continuous operation" they are entitled to be paid as above or be given another day off with pay at some other time in addition to pay at their normal rate for the hours worked on the holiday. Managers and professionals must be given a holiday with pay at some other time.

If New Year's Day, Canada Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day, or Boxing Day falls on a Sunday or Saturday that is a non-working day for an employee, the employee is entitled to a holiday with pay on the working day immediately preceding or following the general holiday. If another general holiday falls on a non-working day, then a holiday with pay is to be added to the employee's annual vacation or granted at another mutually convenient time.

Part-time workers are also entitled to paid holidays provided they meet the qualifying requirements. The Code provides prorated holiday pay for employees who are unable to establish entitlement to 15 days' wages during the 30 days immediately preceding a holiday because of their terms and conditions of employment. Such employees must receive one-twentieth of the wages earned during the 30 calendar days preceding the holiday.

Provincial Guidelines

Each province has legislated certain days to be paid holidays. These days may be called general holidays, public holidays, or they may be a holiday under a specific Act (e.g., the Remembrance Day Act). Statutory holidays are those days legislated by each province as paid holidays. This section briefly discusses a few of the holidays that receive the most questions from province to province.

When a statutory holiday(s) falls during an employee’s vacation, the vacation is usually extended by the corresponding number of days to accommodate the holiday(s). Retail holidays are those days on which stores must remain closed by provincial decree. In many cases, the employer pays the employees for the retail holidays (although the Retail Act does not mention payment). Where a retail holiday and a statutory holiday fall on the same day (e.g. Christmas Day), the statutory holiday requirements apply.

Remembrance Day - Depending on the province, Remembrance Day may be considered a statutory holiday, a holiday under the Retail Act, a holiday under the Remembrance Day Act, or it may not be addressed at all. In some situations payment is required. For example, in Manitoba, Remembrance Day falls under the rules of The Remembrance Day Act. Most industries are required to observe Remembrance Day by remaining closed and ceasing business operations on November 11th. However, the cessation of work does not apply to certain workers (e.g. hospital workers, hotel and restaurant employees, police officers, firefighters, etc.).

Civic Holidays - Civic holidays are proclaimed by local municipalities. As such, employers are not obliged to observe these holidays. On holidays such as these, most offices are closed but retail stores remain open for business. Unless provided for as part of a collective agreement, Employees who are required to work on a civic holiday are not eligible for extra payment or time off in lieu.

Collective agreements may substitute another working day as the paid holiday, as long as the number of days granted equal the number of statutory holidays granted by provincial legislation. Where no collective agreement exists, an employer may substitute the statutory holiday providing the majority of employees agree. For example, if the holiday falls on a Tuesday and it is generally more agreeable to change it to the Monday (to create a long weekend).

Need More Information?

This preceding brief covers only a small portion of Division V of Part III of the Canada Labour Code. If you would like to receive more detailed information, contact your local HRDC (Labour Program) office or view the Code on-line at: http://info.load-otea.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/federal_legislation/part3/legislation/l3toc.htm.