Thank you very much.
Division 9 of part 5 is focused on provisions in part III of the Canada Labour Code related to interns, and responds very directly to the government's commitment in budget 2017 to limit unpaid internships in the federally regulated private sector. It also complements other Government of Canada initiatives to help Canadians, especially youth, to gain work experience in today's reality.
As you may know, part III of the Canada Labour Code establishes minimum working conditions for about 900,000 employees in the federal private sector, which includes industries such as banking, telecommunications, and international and interprovincial transportation, as well as most federal crown corporations. Part III sets out the rules for things like maximum hours of work, minimum wages, hours of work, scheduling, termination of employment, and also outlines and provides for a number of leaves.
Let's focus now on the interns part of this issue. An intern is someone who's in the workplace for a short period of time, and is there to learn and develop the skills and experiences they need to enter the workforce. An intern is typically a student who is doing a co-op or some other kind of work placement as part of their college or university program or secondary school training. Interns are also sometimes newcomers to Canada who want to be in the workplace to learn about Canadian work practices.
It's also important to recognize that interns can be paid and unpaid. When they're unpaid, this raises a number of concerns about whether they're being treated fairly, or even being exploited when they're in the workplace. Often, while an employer may call someone an intern, the individual is actually really doing work for which they should be paid. In 2015, the Statistics Canada federal jurisdiction workplace survey found there were about 13,000 interns in the federal private sector. The vast majority of these individuals were paid. Just over 2,300 were not paid.
The amendments proposed to the code in division 9 would repeal provisions related to unpaid interns that were enacted in 2015, through the economic action plan, and are not yet in force. The 2015 changes to the code established two very limited situations when an intern can be unpaid. The first is if their internship is part of the requirement for a program offered by a secondary or post-secondary educational institution or a vocational school in Canada or abroad. The second is if the individual's internship meets six specific criteria, such as its being four months or less in duration, the benefits of the internship accrue primarily to the intern, the intern does not replace an employee, and the internship is not a requirement for a position with the employer. In addition, a provision was introduced to specify that when an intern is unpaid, they are entitled to a modified set of labour standard protections, to be identified through regulations. This would include things with respect to maximum number of hours of work, for instance.
The amendments being proposed in the current bill would remove the second situation of when an intern can be unpaid, and the related regulation-making authorities that go with that second circumstance. The result would be that an intern would only be allowed to be unpaid if their internship is part of the requirement for their academic program. Any intern who is in this situation and is unpaid would continue to receive that modified set of labour standards, such as maximum hours of work, weekly days of rest, and general holidays that would be established through regulations.
I'll leave it at that and welcome any questions.