Do i get paid for training and travel time?
Short answer
In Quebec, an employee is deemed to be at work — and therefore paid — during time spent on travel required by the employer, during any trial period or training required by the employer, during breaks granted by the employer, and while waiting for work on the premises at the employer's disposal (s. 57 of the Act respecting labour standards).
In detail
What is decisive is that it is mandatory. Availability offered spontaneously does not trigger section 57: the employer must require it as part of carrying out the work. Training presented as optional but necessary in order to keep the job is frequently contested on that basis.
The travel that is covered is travel requested by the employer during work — going to a client's, moving to another branch in the middle of a shift, picking up material. The normal trip between home and the workplace is not covered.
Section 57 creates a presumption: the time is presumed to be working time, and it is up to the employer to show otherwise. These hours are added to the weekly total and can therefore push you past the 40-hour threshold.
What to document
The training notices, the schedules, the attendance sheets, the kilometres and travel hours, the arrival and departure time at each site, and the pay stub for the week concerned. Note the word “mandatory” when it appears in a message: that is the element that counts.
Put your facts in writing, free. Writing your version down early, keeping your documents dated and preparing your questions for a lawyer: the tool is there to document, never to advise.
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Official sources
- Act respecting labour standards (CQLR, c. N-1.1) — Légis Québec
- CNESST — Interpretation guide, section 57
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What this page is not
This is general legal information about the law of Quebec and Canada, dated and sourced. It is not legal advice, not a strategy, and not a prediction about the outcome of a case. In Quebec, only lawyers and notaries may give legal advice (Act respecting the Barreau du Québec, ss. 128 and 133). Laws and amounts change: the official source always prevails over us.