Give us a break.

DONNER, Arthur; ARON, Cindy; WILKERSON, Bill

The article discusses vacation policy in Canada where the average employee is guaranteed three weeks, all of them paid for by the employer. If you work in Ontario or Prince Edward Island, the legislated minimum holiday is a mere 10 days, no matter how many decades you toil for the Man. Toronto-based economist and consultant Arthur Donner has been advocating more vacation for the better part of 20 years, not as an end in itself but as part of a systemic change in the way Canada works. Ten years ago, he chaired the Federal Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work. A decade earlier, he headed a similar task force for the province of Ontario. Both studies examined the impact of reducing the average amount of working time on the economy; both delivered the same results. "We found in our simulations that it was a win-win situation," Donner says. "The underemployed and unemployed would work more hours, and they would receive better wages. You'd have some people working fewer hours and getting more leisure. Government budgets would improve because there would be fewer unemployed and more people paying taxes." But the most surprising result was the impact on employers. "When working time is reduced," notes Donner, "productivity goes up." So why haven't these seemingly sensible proposals been embraced? For starters, we can blame the Americans, the boss, and the unions. In her book Working at Play, Cindy Aron, a history professor at the University of Virginia, argues that Americans maintain a love-hate relationship with vacations stemming from a middle-class fear of idleness. According to Bill Wilkerson, former CEO of Liberty Health, and co-founder and CEO of the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, time off, whether two weeks or five weeks, is less important than taking a mental break while you are physically away from the office.