It has been awhile since I've written about my marquee issue, unpaid internships, and there have been some major developments within Canada. I thought that I would take this opportunity to write about these developments as I'm sure many of my readers, both domestically and internationally, will be quite interesting in what has transpired. This blog post will examine what has been happening in Ontario, in Alberta, and at the Federal level and highlight the growing influence of the Canada's intern rights movement (check out this New York Times article).
Developments in Ontario
Ontario has been the scene of the most action within the intern rights movement. Last week there was a rally calling for action on addressing the rise of unpaid internships prior to a pre-budget consultation session held by Charles Sousa, Ontario's Minister of Finance. The rally was spearheaded by Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams and it featured speakers from the University of Toronto Students' Union and Ryerson University's Faculty of Communication & Design Internship Committee.
As part of the Ontario Government's pre-budget consultation process, a number of groups have put forward submissions to the Ministry of Finance aimed at securing enhanced enforcement and regulation over the deployment of unpaid internships within Ontario's labour market. Most of the proposals call for proactive enforcement of employment standards laws, greater education of employers and interns, data collection, and a review of the laws surrounding unpaid internships. Here are links to some of the submissions, see: Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams; the Canadian Intern Association; the Ontario Federation of Labour; and, my own personal submission.
An even bigger development is the new proposed legislation from Davenport MPP Jonah Schein aimed at securing greater protections for unpaid interns. His legislation proposes to do the following: increasing the protections and rights for interns under employment standards laws; requiring employers to provide interns with written notice of their employment status; developing data collection techniques for tracking the number of unpaid internships in Ontario's labour market; creating a formal mechanism for the Ministry of Labour to receive anonymous and third-party complaints; and, requiring employers to post a poster outlining the rights that interns possess under employment standards laws. This legislation is a great first step in addressing the proliferation of unpaid internships in Ontario and it's great to see a young MPP taking leadership in responding to the needs of young workers. It should be noted that this legislation would be the first in North America to take concrete steps to extend employment standards protections to unpaid interns. Watch Schein discuss the legislation below and check out some of the coverage on the proposed legislation: here; here; here; and, here.
Thomas Lukaszuk, Alberta's Minister of Jobs, Skills, Training, and Labour, recently announced a comprehensive review of Alberta's employment standards laws. In announcing the review, Lukaszuk specifically questioned whether employers in Alberta are relying on unpaid interns and stated "I want to find out. I'm putting the question out there - I'm hoping I will hear if that is happening." This review comes on the heels of an announcement in the fall from Lukaszuk, in his previous role as Minister of Advanced Education, that the Alberta Government would be conducting a review of all work-integrated learning and experiential education within the post-secondary education system. This review was prompted by coverage of the death of Andy Ferguson, who died in a head-on collision after working sixteen hours at an internship.
Developments at the Federal Level
There have been some developments at the Federal realm as well. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives presented a range of recommendations aimed at addressing the proliferation of unpaid internships as part of their Alternative Federal Budget. Andrew Cash, the MP for Davenport, made a statement last week in the House of Commons calling attention to the sustained inaction on the part of the Conservative government towards the issue of unpaid internships. Cash has been quite active on the issue of unpaid internships and put forward some ideas to address them in his National Urban Workers Strategy. Finally, earlier this week, Matthew Dube, the MP for Chambly-Borduas, questioned Jason Kenney, the Minister for Employment and Social Development, about what the Conservative government is doing to tackle unpaid internships. You can watch Dube's question below and watch how Kenney's fails to answer the question in any meaningful way.
I don't understand what the ambiguity is in Alberta. I just went through a regulatory process for the ESL sector there and after a lot of talks with an alphabet soup of departments and ministries the conclusion we came to was that unpaid internships are only legal for post secondary programs approved by, I think, the Ministry of Advanced Education. Based on that we advised a bunch of schools there to close their programs. I'm amazed that any business in Alberta could look at the ESA and think they can operate an in-house unpaid internship program.
ReplyDeleteAs for the standards you're talking about in Ontario, are they a first though? Quebec already extends some protections of the labour standards act to interns, and has done for some time.
If Ontario is opening up its rules on unpaid internships, the first two things they should really do are: (1) restrict unpaid internships to students in an accredited program [as will effectively be the case in BC after June 1st, thanks in part to changes to the federal International Student Program] , and (2) change the rules so that unpaid interns can receive stipends. As it stands now (and according to feedback I've got from the employment standards people in Ontario), under the 6-point test, if the company offers a prospective intern a stipend they're breaking the law.
All this is playing around the margins - if we were serious in this country about a comprehensive solution, we'd be looking at something like France's Cherpion Rules. That allows for real, valuable unpaid placements for students, as well as putting limits on it, requiring stipends after a certain period of time, and enshrining a tonne of worker and student rights and protections.