Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Claire Seaborn, and I'm the president of the Canadian Intern Association and an articling student at a law firm in Toronto.
Today we'd like to make three recommendations.
First, Parliament should amend the Canada Labour Code to extend workplace protection for interns working for federally regulated companies. Second, the Canada labour program and programs in other federal agencies should also adopt an enforcement strategy regarding employee mis-classification and internships. Third, Statistics Canada should begin tracking internships as part of the labour force survey.
I'm going to take the next few minutes to provide some context on intern-related issues and expand on these recommendations.
Internship generally refers to temporary work performed by individuals looking to gain experience or make connections in a new field. Interns aren't just young people and recent graduates. They're also injured workers re-entering the workforce or a mother after a leave or a recent immigrant seeking work in Canada. Internships can be paid or unpaid, and they can be independently organized or part of a school program, such as a co-op or work placement.
Although some internships are beneficial and legal, many internships contribute to unemployment; facilitate socio-economic, gender, and intergenerational inequality; and violate workplace laws. Under Canadian workplace law the default is that an intern is considered an employee, unless a statutory exemption applies. The Canada Labour Code does not refer to interns, trainees, or students. As a result, there's some legal ambiguity when determining whether an intern should be considered an employee. In 1989, the labour program released a guideline explaining that all training periods must be paid, unless the person is undergoing some pre-employment testing that's of short duration.
Next week a labour program adjudicator will begin hearing the case of former Bell Media intern Jainna Patel. He will decide whether Bell was required to pay her wages during her internship and hopefully clarify the interpretation of interns under federal law.
Unpaid wages are not the only problem with this legal ambiguity. Under the Canada Labour Code it's unclear whether interns and students are entitled to workplace health and safety protections as well. You may have heard of the deaths of Adam Keunen, Aaron Murray, Wayne Affleck, and Andy Ferguson. Each of these young men died while in a school internship or co-op placement. Although not all these positions were federally regulated, these tragic events emphasize the importance of health and safety laws and that young workers are greatly in need of workplace protection.
Our second recommendation is that federal agencies must adopt enforcement strategies regarding the mis-classification of interns. The Canada labour program, CRA, and Citizenship and Immigration Canada all have roles to play to prevent exploitation by employers.
Our third and final recommendation is that Statistics Canada begin tracking internships. I appeared as a witness before this committee, you'll remember, on March 27 as part of your youth employment study. We are glad to see that this committee's report cited our submission and adopted our recommendation for the federal government to begin collecting data. However, to date no provincial or federal government has collected any information regarding the prevalence or characteristics of internships. The committee's report also stated that the federal government should work with the provinces to ensure appropriate protections under relevant labour codes.
Many of the provincial governments have already taken action on internship-related issues. B.C. and Quebec have employment laws that require all internships to be paid, unless they're part of a school program. In May, Saskatchewan included the definition of “intern” and “student learner” in their workplace laws and determined that interns are entitled to many workplace protections. Alberta's ministries of labour and education recently announced a comprehensive review of Alberta's employment standards laws for the treatment of interns and all work integrated learning programs. In Ontario, the Ministry of Labour is also taking action.