An employee is entitled to a holiday with pay for each of the specified holidays listed, regardless of whether it falls on a day of work or not.

The specified holidays are:

• New Year's Day

• Good Friday

• Victoria Day

• National Indigenous Peoples Day

• Canada Day

• The first Monday in August

• Labour Day

• National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (observed on September 30)

• Thanksgiving Day

• Remembrance Day

• Christmas Day

The Employment Standards Act allows for substitution of another holiday for a statutory holiday under certain circumstances like:

• a collective agreement may specify a different day to be substituted, and

• the parties involved must notify the Employment Standards Officer in writing of the day to be substituted.

If employees are not represented by a trade union or if their collective agreement does not provide for statutory holidays, an employer may apply to the Employment Standards Officer to substitute another holiday with the consent of a majority of the employees.

Holiday pay is to be calculated by the equivalent to or greater than the wages the employee would have earned at their regular rate of wages or their daily wages, depending on how their wages are calculated.

If an employee is required to work on a statutory holiday, the employer must pay them overtime pay for the time worked or give them a substitute holiday at a later date.

NWT ESA s.22