Canadians spend less time on holiday than Europeans, but more than Americans or Singaporeans. Most people take two weeks of annual leave and about 10 statutory holidays. (Canadian Press)
Are we workaholics, as a recent Statistics Canada report suggests. Or will our never-ending quest for more leisure time continue, whatever the impact on the economy?
When it comes to the right to take holidays, both statutory and annual leave, Canadians rank pretty much in the lower half of countries worldwide. At one extreme is the United States, our largest trading partner. There is no mandatory annual vacation time under U.S. law although most companies give full-time workers one or two weeks of paid leave each year. At the other end of the spectrum are Finns and Austrians, who enjoy seven weeks of annual leave every year, as well as a generous sprinkling of religious and secular holidays.
Canadians get a minimum of two weeks, except in Saskatchewan, where workers get at least three weeks leave per year. There are 10 statutory holidays under federal law, and one or two others in most provinces.
But the battle for more "stats" is a fierce one that so far has only been won in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Both provinces celebrate Family Day on the third Monday in February, a long weekend to break up the dark, dreary winter months between Christmas and Easter. Manitoba is considering a similar move, but employers in Western Canada are opposed.
"It's just too costly and it comes at a time when our workplaces are already short of skilled labour," said Dan Kelly of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
But the proposal, which began as a stunt on a popular commercial radio station, has caught fire and the main political parties in the province all support a winter long weekend for Manitobans.
The push for a February holiday
As for the rest of us, New Democrat MP Peggy Nash is proposing that we take a Monday off in February to mark Flag Day. Nash says Canadian workers and family deserve a break.
"We already work so hard, our family lives suffer," Nash told CBC News Online. "It's ironic that new technology was supposed to give us more leisure time but many of us are just using it to work harder, faster, more frenetically."
Nash blames Canada's proximity to the United States for the intensity of our work habits. "If we were closer to Europe, things would be different," she said.
Nash and many working Canadians argue that extra days off make people more productive, more able to perform at the computer screen or on the factory floor. If we're rested, the thinking goes, we're happier and more efficient.
But the Canadian Federation of Independent Business argues that any increase in efficiency isn't enough to offset the lost day.
"When Alberta wanted to declare a one-off provincial holiday to mark the province's centennial [in 2005], we calculated that it would cost more than $700 million in lost production," he said.
"Any productivity gain from an extra day off is dwarfed by a monetary loss on that scale."
Holidays vary over centuries
People have been taking holidays for as long as we've organized ourselves in societies and social groups.
In ancient Rome, holidays proliferated as time went on. In the later years of the empire, about 180 days were set aside for festivals and general merriment. Mind you, there was no such thing as a weekend — so working Romans toiled straight through between holidays.
Medieval Europe marked Catholic holidays and saints' days.
These days, countries such as India have dozens of religious festivals, and employers often have to plan for workers of different religions being off the job at different times.
It's much like that as well at United Nations headquarters in New York, where dozens of national days and other cultural and religious festivals are observed by one group of employees or another.
As populations in Western countries become more multicultural, the number of holidays that people want to observe is becoming more diverse as well. For example, Hindus have Diwali and Holi, Muslims have Eid and Jews, a series of holidays that have been celebrated for thousands of years.
It's a reality that many employers are having to come to terms with.
More stats would aggravate labour shortage: expert
As well, the growth in subcontracting, self-employment and part-time work is changing the definition of time off, and raising questions about the relevance of existing patterns of work and productivity, said Jim Milway of the University of Toronto's Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity.
Proposals to observe Flag Day as a holiday in February are before the House of Commons. Two provinces already have a February holiday called Family Day and Manitoba is likely to follow suit. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)
"It's all about flexibility," he said. "No one is against holidays or leisure time but it should be something that workers and employers agree to between themselves, rather than having governments legislate time off or days away from work."
Milway said Canada is currently in the grip of an acute skills and labour shortage and many workers actually have more power to figure out their own work patterns than they may realize.
"We don't need governments to force employers to give people more time off. If they want it, they can ask for it and often get it. The legislative approach is just sand in the wheels," he said.
Different approaches in Europe
Belying that argument are the experiences of Britain and Ireland, where governments legislated longer vacation times in the late 1990s and economic growth actually increased. Both countries saw a boom in domestic tourism, as well as general productivity.
But other European countries with leisurely approaches to annual leave are going in the opposite direction.
Nikolas Sarkozy, who won the recent presidential election in France, promised in his campaign to take away leisure time from workers, and they voted for him in rather impressive numbers. Meanwhile, Germans get more than five weeks of vacation a year but their economy suffers from high unemployment and relatively stagnant growth.
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Both sides of the holiday debate in Canada cite European examples to support their arguments.
The climate factor
Another complication is Canada's climate.
Many of us live for our summer holidays, those glorious weeks by the lake or camping under the Northern Lights. Somehow it's harder to take life seriously when temperatures tempt us into the great outdoors, if only to an urban patio bar.
Most Canadians would probably prefer to take their annual leave in the summer, when employers have terrible problems maintaining schedules and productivity.
A long weekend in the dead of winter may not the answer to those challenges, but few of us would turn up our noses at a day off work in February — whether or not we use it to commemorate our flag.
