Evidence of meeting #25 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jonathan Champagne  National Director, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
Claire Seaborn  President, Canadian Intern Association
Sylvain Groulx  Director General, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
Robert Annan  Vice-President, Research and Policy, Mitacs
Nobina Robinson  Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
Yolen Bollo-Kamara  President Elect, University of Toronto Students' Union

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Order.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS

Ms. Nobina—

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Just a brief question.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS

—you made a comment that I think is a significant comment, that education is outcome-based. I really think that rule has to be applied straight across the board, whether you're in community college or post-secondary university.

4:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada

Nobina Robinson

Thank you. Obviously we are in agreement.

Yet we need to understand that in our British model of education that we've inherited we've said that we send our students to university to gain knowledge. All of the students around the table here are expecting to gain jobs. There is a fundamental societal bias here.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS

Very good. I like that.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Keddy.

We're going to Mr. Cash now, please.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you all for being here.

I think this is an incredibly important discussion we're having here and I do want to thank the committee for having me as a visitor.

I want to double back to something that Mr. Keddy said, which is essentially the nub of the issue with unpaid internships. When it's an employment substitute, it's really an abuse of the internship process and the whole concept of what interns are or should be or could be.

And I'd like to get a sense first from Ms. Seaborn about what kind of implications are there for...? You can't say that they're running against the rules if there are no rules. I think what we're seeing here in the federal space is a lack of clear rules that impact young people and impact employers, too. So I want to get a sense first from you Ms. Seaborn, what the implications are of not having specific rules for when an employer can host an internship. And what implications do you see of not treating unpaid internship hours as work?

4:25 p.m.

President, Canadian Intern Association

Claire Seaborn

Thank you. I think you're absolutely right. I'm going to focus only on federal jurisdiction because there are rules that exist in the provinces.

Federally under the Canada Labour Code there is just no clarity on whether interns should be considered employees. By default in workplace law they are, but the implication is stories like Jainna Patel and Andy Ferguson,which I just spoke about, where interns are not receiving the right protections, whether that's minimum wage or workplace health and safety.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

I'm wondering, Ms. Bollo-Kamara, if you have anything to add to that on the issue of not having clear rules around internships in the federally regulated space.

4:25 p.m.

President Elect, University of Toronto Students' Union

Yolen Bollo-Kamara

Yes. We went into some of the federally regulated industries that are covered under the Canada Labour Code—banks, telecoms, TV and radio broadcasters, federal crown corporations, and air transport companies. I believe the example Ms. Seaborn had pointed out to earlier—Andrew Ferguson—fell under that category.

What that means is that interns who aren't covered under any sort of regulation don't have any sort of protection. In that case, he was working numerous hours. He fell asleep driving back from his unpaid internship. There is no regulation around that.

So I think it's important for there to be clarity both at the federal level and at the provincial level as well.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

Ms. Seaborn, you referenced the B.C. rules. It's important to note that it's one thing to have rules—and they have them in British Columbia—but the enforcement in British Columbia is not what it could be...just as we're seeing now with enforcement being ramped up in Ontario, what enforcement actually looks like when it actually happens.

Before we get to that, I first of all want to ask Mr. Annan, why don't you use unpaid interns?

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Research and Policy, Mitacs

Robert Annan

Well, the short answer is just as a matter of principle.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

Okay. I only have a short amount of time so I want to get back to the issue of enforcement.

Ms. Seaborn, what can the federal government do right now to protect students like Andy Ferguson so his tragic story is not repeated? What can the federal government do right now?

4:25 p.m.

President, Canadian Intern Association

Claire Seaborn

The Canada labour program can release interpretation guidelines that say when the word “employee” is used under that act, intern is included in that word.

All that means is all of those existing employment laws that apply federally also should apply to interns. So it's releasing those interpretation guidelines, and then adopting a proactive enforcement strategy to ensure those guidelines are enforced.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

One minute.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

I've been talking a lot to young people and to students, but I have also been talking to businesses. You know that you could be a business in Ontario and you could be complying with the rules around internships; then you could be going to another jurisdiction and potentially not be.

First of all, do you hear that issue? I'm going to send this out to Ms. Robinson or Mr. Annan. Do you hear that issue of a lack of clarity around the issue of unpaid internships?

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Research and Policy, Mitacs

Robert Annan

We don't, but that's largely because it just isn't a topic we engage with.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

And the same with you?

4:25 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada

Nobina Robinson

The same. I'm listening to this discussion, and one thing I do want to clarify is this. Internships that are part of work-integrated learning in school programs are not what you're asking about here.

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

No, we're not. And I think it's an important....

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Okay. Just wrap up, please.

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

One last quick question is, how do we crack down on these internships that are an abuse and a misuse of the internship without compromising some of the good programs?

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

We are over time here but we can have one person respond quickly on that. Maybe Ms. Seaborn? Thank you.

We'll move on to Mr. Allen, please.

March 27th, 2014 / 4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Ms. Robinson, I'd like to start with you. I want to recount some testimony we had in our natural resources committee last year. We were talking a little bit about the trades. One of the folks from the building and construction trades group was here.

I had just been talking to two young people who had come out of the basic first education part, and they were actually going into the block release. I talked to the president of the New Brunswick Community College about this, and I told her I didn't think we were preparing the students for what they were going to see after, because all of these trades jobs involve moving and going to construction sites. Sometimes they can get plumbing jobs locally, sometimes they can't, whatever it happens to be.

But what I'd like to understand is, what are the schools doing to ensure, for example, that people can go to these places and don't have to come back to their home provinces to do block release training, and then travel back and forth all the time?

He was indicating they were trying to work on that with the schools, but that seems to me to be something we could really do to help the young students.