By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, February 6, 2009
The CFIB is on TV all the time now as official apologist for cheap business interests and the narrow minded, small business lobby. It’s not impressive. Now they’re complaining about an extra day off on Family Day. The norm in Canada is 5 provincial days and PEI will only have 3 with Family Day. National companies with head offices in Ontario or Quebec usually provide the 5 days across the country. So with the Federal employees, big companies it only leaves the small employers being cheap. When we ran Island Computer, we gave 11 days back in the 80’s, and starting off with 3 weeks vacation with benefits like LTD, tuition for courses and bursaries for your family. It wasn’t bad for business. It was good for business.
We worked hard and were profitable. Customers liked the staff because they were generally happy, positive people. It actually makes money for the company to treat employees fairly and 3 provincial holidays is not fair. To make it worse, the companies are whining about it on TV. That’s how you keep loyal employees. Tell them they are costing your money.
PEI is starting to inch up in normal holidays with 3. Four provinces give 5 or more provincial holidays: Alberta (7), Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. Two give 4 days: British Columbia. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have 2 and Newfoundland gives one. Why so few holidays in the Maritimes? The reasons include a high percentage of non-union employees and the heritage of family compact business who used their employees to create family wealth.
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