Most employees are entitled to take up to two days of unpaid, job-protected leave each calendar year due to the death of certain family members, a provision known as bereavement leave. Specific occupations may be subject to special rules.

Employees qualify for up to two days of bereavement leave per year after working for an employer for at least two consecutive weeks. If an employee takes part of a day for bereavement leave, they earn wages for the time they worked on that day.

Reasons for Taking Bereavement Leave

Employees entitled to bereavement leave can take up to two unpaid days of leave each calendar year due to the death of the following family members:

• Spouse (includes both married and unmarried couples, of the same or opposite genders)
• Parent, step-parent, foster parent, child, step-child, foster child, grandparent, step-grandparent, grandchild, or step-grandchild of the employee or the employee’s spouse
• Spouse of the employee’s child
• Sibling of the employee
• Relative of the employee who is dependent on the employee for care or assistance

You can take bereavement leave at the time of the death or later for a funeral or memorial service. You can also use it to handle estate matters.

Contracts Providing Paid or Unpaid Bereavement Leave

If an employment contract, including a collective agreement, offers a greater right or benefit than the standard under the Employment Standards Act (ESA), the terms of the contract will apply instead of the ESA standard.

If the contract does not offer a greater right or benefit, the ESA standard applies to the employee.

Example

A contract provides one paid bereavement day per year. This contract does not offer a greater right or benefit than the ESA’s bereavement leave provisions. Therefore, the ESA entitles the employee to two days of job-protected leave per calendar year.

If the employee takes one paid bereavement day off under the employment contract to attend the memorial service of a specified relative, this day counts as one leave day under the ESA. This leaves the employee with one ESA leave day and no more paid bereavement days under the contract. Count the paid bereavement day against both the employment contract entitlements and the ESA’s leave entitlement, whether the leave under the employment contract is paid or unpaid.

Interaction with Other Leaves

Bereavement leave, family responsibility leave, sick leave, family caregiver leave, family medical leave, domestic or sexual violence leave, critical illness leave, child death leave, and crime-related child disappearance leave are distinct types of leaves. Each leave has different purposes, durations, and eligibility criteria. For more details on each type of leave, refer to the respective chapters in this guide.

An employee may qualify for multiple leaves due to the same event. Each leave is separate, and the entitlement to one leave does not affect the entitlement to others. This means that you can count a single absence against only one type of ESA leave, even if the event qualifies for more than one leave.

Length of Bereavement Leave

Employees are entitled to up to two full days of job-protected, unpaid bereavement leave each calendar year. This applies regardless of whether they work full-time or part-time.

There is no pro-rating of this entitlement. An employee starting mid-year is still entitled to two days of bereavement leave for the rest of that year.

One cannot carry over unused leave days to the next calendar year. You do not have to take the two days consecutively. You can use them in part days, full days, or multiple days. If an employee takes only part of a day as bereavement leave, the employer may count it as a full day of leave.

Example: Part-Day Bereavement Leave

Aisha’s mother has passed away, and Aisha informs her employer that she needs to meet with a lawyer to handle the distribution of the estate.

Aisha can take leave for the half-day needed to travel to and from, and attend, the appointment with the lawyer. Thus, her employer can count this absence as a full day of leave, but they are not required to. Therefore, Aisha cannot take the entire day off, even if the employer counts it as such, since she only needs half the day for leave.

When determining if Aisha’s two-day entitlement has been exhausted, the employer is allowed to count the half-day absence as a full day of leave. However, the employer must still pay Aisha for the half day she worked. Additionally, they must include those hours in the calculation of her daily or weekly working hours, including any potential overtime.