Written employment agreement for an indefinite-term employee, built around an ESA-compliant termination clause. A written contract is not legally required in any province, but without one — or with an invalid termination clause — a dismissal defaults to common law "reasonable notice" (potentially months of pay under the Bardal factors, instead of ESA statutory minimums).
⚠️ This is a blank template, not legal advice: check the wording with a lawyer and adapt it to your jurisdiction and your case.
This template has no optional clauses: the text is the same for everyone.
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EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT (INDEFINITE TERM)
This Agreement is made on between (), the "Employer", and , the "Employee", for employment in the province of .
1. POSITION AND START DATE 1.1. The Employee is hired for the position of "", starting , on an indefinite-term basis.
2. COMPENSATION 2.1. The Employee will be paid , paid , which must be no less than the minimum wage in force in at the time of payment.
3. HOURS OF WORK 3.1.
4. VACATION 4.1. 4.2. This entitlement is never less than the statutory minimum vacation time and vacation pay set by the employment standards legislation of .
5. PROBATIONARY PERIOD 5.1. A probationary period of months applies from the start date, during which the Employer may end the employment without notice, to the extent permitted by the employment standards legislation of .
6. TERMINATION 6.1. 6.2. In no event will the Employee's entitlements on termination be less than the applicable employment standards legislation of requires. If any part of this termination clause is found unenforceable, the remainder of this Agreement continues in effect, but the Employer acknowledges that a severability clause alone does NOT reliably rescue an otherwise invalid termination clause. 6.3. ⚠️ DRAFTING WARNING (Ontario case law, persuasive across Canada): a clause allowing termination "at any time" or at the Employer's "sole discretion" without an ESA-minimums floor has been struck down (Dufault v. Ignace 2024; Chan v. NYX 2025 ONSC 4561); a for-cause termination clause using an ordinary "just cause" standard, rather than the ESA's narrower "wilful misconduct" standard, can void the ENTIRE termination clause — including the without-cause portion — even where the employee is in fact dismissed without cause (Waksdale v. Swegon 2020 ONCA). Where a termination clause is invalidated, the Employee's notice defaults to common law "reasonable notice" under the Bardal factors, which can run to many months of pay instead of ESA statutory minimums.
7. CONFIDENTIALITY 7.1.
8. GOVERNING LAW 8.1. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the province of and applicable federal law. ⚠️ Quebec: a Quebec employment contract is a contract of adhesion under the Charte de la langue française (Bill 96) and must be drawn up in French before it is presented to the employee for signature; an English version may only be provided at the employee's express request, after the French version has been provided.
SIGNATURES Employer ______________ / on behalf of / Employee ______________ / /
This is a boilerplate template, not legal advice. Employment, consumer-protection, privacy, and food-safety law in Canada is largely PROVINCIAL — this template uses Ontario (Employment Standards Act, 2000 / Occupational Health and Safety Act) as its default reference jurisdiction and flags with ⚠️ the specific British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec divergences named in the underlying research, but it does not resolve every provincial variation for you. Quebec employers additionally have French-language obligations under the Charte de la langue française (Bill 96) that are handled as a separate French-language document, not by this English template. Have this document reviewed and adapted by a lawyer licensed in the relevant province before use, and confirm the current minimums/thresholds in force on the date of use — termination-clause case law in particular (Waksdale, Dufault, Chan and successors) changes year to year.
5 of 14 fields are taken from the company, employee or counterparty record, the questionnaire can be dictated to the AI, and the finished document comes with a number, a PDF and an acknowledgement record.