Canada is best characterized as a liberal market economy which lightly regulates employment relations and, in particular, the duration of employment contracts.1 As such, many of the kinds of protections that might be found in other countries included in this dossier are not present in Canada. There are, however, a few older statutory provisions that limit the length of fixed-term contracts and impose formalities for their creation because of a concern about the creation of disguised forms of unfree labour. There is also a small body of common law that reflects a preference for contracts of indefinite hiring over fixed term contracts and that provides for damages when fixed-term contracts are prematurely terminated without just cause. These are discussed in more detail below.