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Contractor Benefits
Ask the Expert › Contractor Benefits
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Leah Enright asked 2 years ago
Hello, 

We are a provincial regulated company and have contractors across Canada. Can you please advise if Contractors are entitled to benefits? If you have any helpful resources on managing contractors please let me know.  

Thanks so much.  
1 Answers
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Glenn Demby answered 2 years ago
Normally, independent contractors are not entitled to benefits; only employees are. However, employers can provide benefits to independent contractors if they choose to. In addition, note that any time you hire an independent contractor, you run the risk of having the arrangement recharacterized as an employment agreement, subject to CPP, EI, income tax and other withholdings. It's not what you call the arrangement but its substantive terms that dictates whether it's an employment or independent contractor relationship.  There's a lot of materials on the HR Insider website that talk about Employee/Independent Contractor issues. Here's one to start with. https://hrinsider.ca/you-make-the-call-employee-or-independent-contractor/ 
Leah Enright replied 2 years ago

Hi Glenn, thank you for your response. This is very helpful. What about fixed term employees? Is there any risk providing fixed term benefits? These are employees who are typically hired to cover a temporary opening such as a Mat leave.