Every spring, Canadian employers repeat the same ritual: they hire “summer students” and seasonal staff, comforted by the belief that these relationships are, by definition, temporary — tidy engagements that begin in May and end, without consequence, in August.
Employment law has little patience for labels. Calling a role a “summer job” or a “seasonal position” does not determine an employee’s rights.
Courts are concerned with substance, not form. And the substance of these arrangements, particularly when repeated over time, can look very different from the neat, temporary construct that employers imagine.
Across industries — from tourism to construction to agriculture — employers routinely bring back the same individuals year after year. A university student works every summer. A seasonal labourer returns each spring, part of a predictable cycle.
To the employer, each engagement feels discrete: a fresh hire, a clean slate, a defined end date. To a court, it looks like continuity, an implicit understanding or agreement.
Where there is a pattern of recurring employment, especially one marked by expectation and reliance, courts are inclined to assess the relationship as a whole.
What emerges is not a series of isolated contracts but something closer to ongoing employment — punctuated, perhaps, by seasonal pauses, but not truly terminated.
That distinction is not academic. It is, however, expensive.
Employees in indefinite employment relationships are entitled to reasonable...
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