Canada public holidays

What this value means

Canada has NO single nationwide statutory holiday list — this is the federal Canada Labour Code set of ten general holidays, which is the closest thing to a national standard and binds federally regulated employers in every province and territory. Every date was independently confirmed against the CRA's published 2026 public-holidays list. Fixed-date holidays in 2026: New Year's Day Thu 1 Jan; Canada Day Wed 1 Jul; National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Wed 30 Sep; Remembrance Day Wed 11 Nov; Christmas Day Fri 25 Dec; Boxing Day Sat 26 Dec. Moveable/computed: Good Friday Fri 3 Apr (Easter Sunday 2026 = 5 April); Labour Day Mon 7 Sep (first Monday in September); Thanksgiving Mon 12 Oct (second Monday in October). VICTORIA DAY EDGE CASE, applied deliberately: s. 166 defines it as 'the Monday preceding May 25'. In 2026, 25 May IS itself a Monday, so the Monday PRECEDING it is 18 May 2026 — not 25 May. This is the trap year for that rule and the date is confirmed by the CRA list. SUBSTITUTION: Boxing Day, 26 December 2026, falls on a Saturday. Canada's federal rule is employee-specific rather than a blanket national mondayisation — under CLC s. 196(2), where a general holiday falls on a day that is a NON-WORKING DAY for a particular employee, that employee is entitled to a holiday with pay on the working day immediately preceding or following the general holiday; s. 195 separately lets an employer substitute another day by agreement or by written notice. For most Monday-to-Friday employees this shifts Boxing Day observance to Monday 28 December 2026, but because entitlement depends on the individual's work schedule the statutory date 2026-12-26 is served unshifted rather than a substituted date that would be wrong for shift and continuous-operation workers. DELIBERATE EXCLUSIONS: Easter Monday (Mon 6 Apr 2026) and the August Civic Holiday (Mon 3 Aug 2026) are recognised by the CRA for filing-deadline purposes and are paid days for federal public servants, but are NOT general holidays under CLC s. 166 and are not statutory in most provinces — excluded. Saint-Jean-Baptiste / Fete nationale (Wed 24 Jun 2026) is excluded as Quebec-only. Also excluded as province-specific: Family Day / Louis Riel Day / Islander Day / Heritage Day (third Monday in February, 16 Feb 2026, in ON, AB, SK, BC, NB, MB, PE, NS), Quebec's 2 January, Newfoundland and Labrador's St. Patrick's Day, St. George's Day, Discovery Day and Orangemen's Day, Yukon's Discovery Day, and Nunavut Day. Provincial recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (30 Sep) is uneven: it is a paid statutory holiday federally and in BC, PE, MB, NS, YT, NT and NU, but is NOT a general statutory holiday for provincially regulated employees in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or Newfoundland and Labrador. Access quirk: canada.ca returns HTTP 403 to scripted fetchers (re-confirmed 2026-07-20); both source pages were read through a real browser session. 2027 EXTENSION (2026-07-30): the 10 general holidays of the Canada Labour Code s.166 (federally regulated workplaces), actual dates. Christmas Day (Sat) and Boxing Day (Sun) are not date-shifted in statute; under ss.193/195 employees receive a substituted working day off (the federal public service will observe Mon 27 / Tue 28 Dec). Easter Monday is a federal PUBLIC-SERVICE holiday but not a Labour Code general holiday, and is not listed. Provincial holiday sets differ substantially and are not modelled. canada.ca reference pages blocked automated reads - derived from the Labour Code and Holidays Act texts (laws-lois.justice.gc.ca, read directly). SUBDIVISIONS (2026-07-30): the national list is the FEDERAL jurisdiction - the 10 Canada Labour Code s.166 general holidays binding federally regulated workplaces in every province. Most employees are provincially regulated, and provincial sets differ in BOTH directions: each province/territory is a subdivision carrying its additions (Family Day and its provincial names, BC/SK/NB Day, St-Jean, Discovery Day, Nunavut Day...) and exclusions (Boxing Day is statutory only in Ontario; NDTR only in BC/MB/PE/YT/NT/NU; NS and NL have just 6 paid holidays). All values verified against official employment-standards pages or statute texts on 2026-07-30; QC, NB and YT read live in-browser after their sites blocked automated access. In-lieu/substitution treatment for weekend holidays varies by province and is described per subdivision where the rule is distinctive.

Get it programmatically

curl https://usaref.dev/v1/ca/public-holidays
# Free.
# History:    curl https://usaref.dev/v1/ca/public-holidays/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://usaref.dev/provenance/ca/public-holidays

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