Every province has legislation that establishes a minimum wage and that regulates the hours an employee can be required to work.

For example, the Ontario Employment Standards Act states that no employer shall require or permit an employee governed by the Act to work more than 8 hours a day (or, if the employer establishes a regular work day of more than eight hours for the employee, the number of hours in his or her regular work day) or 48 hours in a week. The daily maximum can be exceeded only if the employee has made a written agreement with the employer that he or she will work up to a specified number of hours in a day in excess of the limit. The weekly maximum can only be exceeded by written agreement between the employer and the employee and with the approval of the Director of Employment Standards. An employee is entitled to revoke their agreement at any time provided that they give two weeks’ notice of the revocation in writing to the employer.

In all cases, an employer should refer to the employment standards legislation applicable to the province in which the work is being performed; there are considerable variations in the various provincial and federal regimes. Similarly, within a province, there may be different employment standards applicable to different types of work. For example, public accountants are not subject to the hours of work provisions of the Employment Standards Act while portions of the hours of work provisions do not apply to landscape gardeners and persons employed to install and maintain swimming pools.