Bill C-620 (Historical)

Intern Protection Act

An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (training without remuneration)

This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of June 16, 2014
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment amends the definition “employee” in the Canada Labour Code to include persons receiving training with or without remuneration and specifies the conditions under which training without remuneration is permitted.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-620s:

C-620 (2011) Fairness for Victims of Violent Offenders Act

Intern Protection ActRoutine Proceedings

June 16th, 2014 / 3:25 p.m.

NDP

Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-620, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (training without remuneration).

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to introduce a bill that would offer the same workplace protections to unpaid interns under the Canada Labour Code that are already provided to paid employees.

I would like to note my colleague from Davenport's exceptional work on this issue and I thank him for seconding this bill.

Youth unemployment is currently double the national average, and many companies are replacing entry-level positions with unpaid internships. In the absence of federal laws to protect them, unpaid interns are often at risk of being exploited.

In 2011, 22-year-old Edmontonian Andy Ferguson died in a head-on collision when he fell asleep at the wheel after working excessive hours, some of which were as an unpaid intern. Unfortunately, protections such as the ones in this bill were not in place when this accident occurred.

This bill will establish clear rules, particularly in relation to reasonable hours of work and protection against sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. It will also prevent companies from turning paid jobs into unpaid internships.

I urge all of the members of the House to support my bill. It is time we put an end to the exploitation of interns and started protecting young workers.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)