The third obligation of the pay equity process is the filing of your annual statement with the Pay Equity Commissioner.
Once employers subject to the Pay Equity Act have posted a pay equity plan, they must file an annual statement with the Office of the Pay Equity Commissioner. This includes all federally regulated private and public sector employers with an average of 10 employees.
Employers, including groups of employers, have an obligation to submit an annual statement to the Pay Equity Commissioner.
This statement must contain basic information about the employer and its pay equity plan. The collection of this information will help the Office of the Pay Equity Commissioner to better measure the impact of the Act and its Regulations.
Employers must submit an annual statement by June 30 each year, even if their pay equity plan hasn’t changed. The information in the annual statement is based on the pay equity plan. It stays the same until the employer updates their pay equity plan.
To learn more about preparing your annual statement, check out the YouTube video of our Pay Equity Workshop on Annual Statements.
The information you provide in your annual statement will depend on whether you are submitting for an employer or a group of employers.
If you have more than one pay equity plan, information about each separate plan must be included in a single annual statement.
Most of the information required in the annual statement will have been collected at other times during the pay equity process.
Single employers must submit an annual statement that includes:
A group of employers must submit an annual statement that includes:
Single employers and groups of employers must include:
An authorized individual can complete and submit an annual statement online through the Annual Statement Portal.
An authorized individual is someone who has the permission to submit an annual statement on behalf of the employer/group of employers. This may be an official responsible for pay equity in the workplace. This individual will be the one who manages the access to an employer’s annual statement information.
Employers are not required to share their annual statement with other workplace parties. Sharing the statement with other workplace parties is, however, good practice. It may be appropriate to discuss the sharing of the information contained in this statement with the pay equity committee.
The Annual Statement Portal enables users to download a copy of the statement and share it.
The Pay Equity Act outlines deadlines for submitting your annual statement. The table below provides an overview of the deadlines for submitting your annual statement.
| Type of employer | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Employer who became subject to the act on August 31, 2021 | By June 30, 2025 |
| Group of employers | By June 30 of the calendar year following the third anniversary of the date the group became subject to the Act as a group |
| Employer who became subject to the Act after the coming into force date | By June 30 of the calendar year following the year in which you posted their final pay equity plan |
| New federally regulated employers that were previously provincially regulated | By June 30 of the calendar year following 18 months after the date you became subject to the Act |
| Employer who received the authorization to extend the deadline for posting their final pay equity plan | By June 30 of the calendar year following the year in which you posted your final pay equity plan. |
Some employers who made an authorization request to the Pay Equity Commissioner may have been granted more time to create and post their final pay equity plan. In these circumstances, they must file their first annual statement by June 30 of the calendar year following the year in which they posted their final pay equity plan.
For example, an employer who has been granted a 6-month extension to post their final plan (or until March 3, 2025) must file their first annual statement by June 30, 2026. They must then submit a statement annually every June 30.
After submitting their first annual statement, employers must submit a new annual statement every year by June 30. They can submit their annual statement once the new reporting period starts on January 1 for private employers and April 1 for public employers.
The information provided for the annual statement is from the most recently posted final plan. If a pay equity plan has been updated, the next annual statement must include the information from the updated plan. The two things that an employer must always update in every annual statement are the employee count and their employer profile.
The information you provide to the Canadian Human Rights Commission is collected under the authority of section 89 of the Pay Equity Act and 53 of the Pay Equity Regulations to administer the pay equity program under this legislation. This information includes aggregate pay equity data.
Annual statements are submitted to the Office of the Pay Equity Commissioner only and are not accessible to the public.
It is important that the information submitted through the annual statement process is accurate. It is a very serious offence which could lead to an administrative monetary penalty to knowingly make any false or misleading statement verbally or in writing. It is also a very serious offence which could lead to an administrative monetary penalty to knowingly make or participate in, assent to or acquiesce in the making of a false or misleading statement in any record, report, electronic document that a person is required to prepare, retain or provide under the Act.