The statutory minimum is the floor, not the ceiling

This is the single most valuable thing to understand about losing a job in Canada: there are two separate entitlements, and most people only know about one.

Statutory notice

Employment standards legislation sets minimum notice periods, ranging from about one week to eight weeks depending on the province and your length of service.

Your employer can provide working notice or pay in lieu — ending the job immediately and paying a lump sum covering the period.

Common-law reasonable notice

Here is the part that matters. Statutory notice is a minimum requirement — the floor, not the ceiling.

Where an employment contract does not properly limit termination entitlements, common-law reasonable notice applies instead, and it is almost always higher.

Courts assess reasonable notice on factors including your age, length of service, the character of the position and the availability of similar employment.

The contract clause that decides it

Employers with properly drafted employment contracts can limit termination pay to the statutory minimums.

Without such a clause — or where the clause is defective and fails to meet statutory standards — common-law notice applies.

This is why the termination clause in your contract is worth reading before you sign, and worth having reviewed if you are terminated.

Ontario is the exception on severance

Ontario has a separate ESA severance pay entitlement in addition to termination notice, for eligible long-service employees at larger organisations — where the employer's Ontario payroll exceeds $2.5 million or where 50 or more employees are terminated.

The maximum ESA severance entitlement is 26 weeks.

No other province has a statutory severance requirement. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces require only termination notice or pay in lieu.

Group terminations

Larger-scale terminations trigger additional notice requirements, often to the government as well as to employees. In British Columbia, a group termination of 50 or more employees requires 8 weeks' notice to government.

Recent change

Effective 30 June 2026, Prince Edward Island changed its individual termination-notice threshold from six months to 90 days, with a first tier of one week.

Do not treat the table as the maximum

A contract, common-law notice, Quebec civil-law notice, a collective agreement or another remedy may provide more than the employment standards minimum.