Finance committee  At this point we haven't received a direct response from Statistics Canada despite numerous efforts to contact them. So that's another important reason why we're here today.

Finance committee  I want to thank Minister Naqvi and Minister Flynn for their work on Bill 18, which would bring interns and students under the protection of workplace health and safety laws. They've also done some recent crackdowns and inspection blitzes on employers who are hiring interns illega

Finance committee  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 workp

Finance committee  Yes, it would be very positive to have money focused towards youth and jobs. Essentially that would encourage more paid positions as opposed to unpaid, so we would support it.

Finance committee  I think it certainly makes it more challenging for young people to find a paid entry-level position.

Finance committee  I think those interpretation guidelines will help. I think this meeting is also a very good start. It's been really positive to have a lot of members of Parliament take an interest in the issue. I think our public debate on when internships are and aren't permissible, when they c

Finance committee  Internship is a really broad term, and I in no way would recommend getting rid of it altogether. But I would recommend having no more illegal, unpaid internships and improving the law, which means internships can only be unpaid as part of an academic program. It's amending the Ca

Finance committee  Volunteers are not regulated under employment standards in any jurisdiction.

Finance committee  It's really up to the labour boards to determine. If there's a question as to whether the person was an employee or a volunteer, that will go to a labour board. They can make the conclusion as to whether that person was a true volunteer, they were doing it for altruistic purposes

Finance committee  Absolutely. I think Statistics Canada should be tracking whether the internship is paid or unpaid; what industry it's in; obviously, the gender of the intern; and also whether a job was offered at the end of the internship.

Finance committee  Yes, I think so, absolutely.

Finance committee  We've had internships in Canada for at least 100 years, in the medical field for example, but I think the time when we started to see the prevalence of unpaid internships was around the 2008 financial crisis. This is something that built in the United States and now has been grow

Finance committee  If my memory serves me well, that guideline was adopted in 1992, so well before the internship issue came up, and now we're applying it to this internship issue, which is great because it does give a presumption that interns should be paid but it in no way covers all of the bread

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely, but I think there's a lack of investigative officers dealing with this issue and also those officers don't have knowledge of things like that guideline or ways that the word “employee” can be interpreted. The perfect example of that is Jainna Patel's case, and I