M cenaly.ru
🇨🇦 Canada · HR & staff

Employment Agreement (Indefinite Term)

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).

All templates
Country
🇨🇦 Canada
Category
HR & staff
Language of the text
EN
Version
1

⚠️ 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. Field placeholders are shown as labels — on the site the template is read-only, values are entered inside the system.

Document

EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT (INDEFINITE TERM)

This Agreement is made on Agreement date (signing date) between Employer legal name (Employer address), the "Employer", and Employee name, the "Employee", for employment in the province of Province of employment.

1. POSITION AND START DATE 1.1. The Employee is hired for the position of "Position / job title", starting Start date, on an indefinite-term basis.

2. COMPENSATION 2.1. The Employee will be paid Pay rate, paid Pay frequency, which must be no less than the minimum wage in force in Province of employment at the time of payment.

3. HOURS OF WORK 3.1. Hours and work schedule

4. VACATION 4.1. Vacation entitlement 4.2. This entitlement is never less than the statutory minimum vacation time and vacation pay set by the employment standards legislation of Province of employment.

5. PROBATIONARY PERIOD 5.1. A probationary period of Probationary period (months) 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 Province of employment.

6. TERMINATION 6.1. Termination clause (core of this agreement) 6.2. In no event will the Employee's entitlements on termination be less than the applicable employment standards legislation of Province of employment 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. Confidentiality clause

8. GOVERNING LAW 8.1. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the province of Province of employment 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 Employer legal name / Employee ______________ / Employee name /

— — — ⚠️ 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.

Fields of the document

Fields that belong to a switched-off clause are dimmed — they are not asked for.

  • Employer legal nametextrequiredautomatic
  • Employer addresslong textoptionalautomatic
  • Employee nametextrequiredautomatic
  • Position / job titletextrequiredautomatic
  • Province of employmentchoicerequired

    Employment standards minimums (notice, vacation, hours) are set provincially and differ by province — this template is written against Ontario ESA 2000 defaults

  • Start datedaterequired
  • Pay rateamountrequiredautomatic
  • Pay frequencychoicerequired
  • Hours and work schedulelong textrequired
  • Vacation entitlementlong textrequired

    Ontario ESA minimum: 2 weeks / 4% vacation pay under 5 years of service, 3 weeks / 6% at 5+ years — confirm the minimum for the selected province

  • Probationary period (months)numberoptional

    Ontario ESA allows termination without notice within the first 3 months of employment

  • Termination clause (core of this agreement)long textrequired

    Must not say "at any time"/"sole discretion", must not use an ESA-incompatible for-cause standard, and must state entitlements are never less than ESA minimums — see the drafting warning in the body text

  • Confidentiality clauselong textoptional
  • Agreement date (signing date)daterequired

    Should be on or before the first working day — signing after the employee has already started can void the contract for lack of consideration

In Cenaly this template fills itself in

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.