U of T students’ group calls for ban on illegal use of unpaid interns in Canada

An Ontario student organization is calling out the provincial government, claiming it's not enforcing legislation barring unpaid internships.

The University of Toronto Students' Union, which represents more than 46,000 students, called on Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi "to put an end to the practice of unpaid internships in Ontario."

In a letter to Naqvi, students' union president Shaun Shepherd said "we are very concerned with an ongoing trend of employers exploiting student and youth labour."

Shepherd claimed more than 300,000 students and young workers across Canada are misclassified as interns, trainees and non-employees by employers skirting provincial laws that define those labels narrowly.

"Many internships and unpaid training programs are forms of unpaid labour that create pools of cheap or free labour from which employers directly benefit and profit from," Shepherd wrote.

"Furthermore, many of these internship programs fail to acknowledge that these positions are meant to be educational and experiential rather than a means of reducing the labour costs of employers."

Shepherd called on the government "to create a proactive enforcement strategy that targets employers who exploit the unpaid labour of students, interns, trainees and young workers," via inspections of job sites that may not comply with Ontario's Employment Standards Act.

[ Related: HootSuite under fire for using unpaid interns after barrage of online criticism ]

While not as high-profile as the debate over the federal temporary foreign workers program, the use — or misuse — of unpaid interns has been a continuing concern, especially among university students.

The Vancouver-based social-media development firm Hootsuite was forced to revisit its intern-hiring practices recently after complaints by the Canadian Intern Association that it was abusing the guidelines around their use.

The Vancouver Sun reported Wednesday that Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes said in a statement the company had completed a review and "determined that some intern roles may not have been in compliance with Employment Standards Act of B.C.

“To completely remove outstanding doubt around this matter, we will immediately rectify the issue by offering full payment, including interest incurred, to unpaid interns who had roles within our company within the last six months that were not in accordance with the ESA BC.”

B.C., Ontario and most other provinces bar the use of unpaid interns and trainees except under specific exemptions. Otherwise, interns and trainees must be paid at least minimum wage and are subject to the other regulations governing employees.

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But Shepherd contended employers were finding loopholes to exploit a pool of cheap labour in the guise of job experience.

In an email to Huffington Post Canada, Naqvi defended the province's, saying it provides "strong protection around internships."

“If you perform work for someone – unless you are self-employed, in a co-op placement, or a trainee – you are an employee covered under the Employment Standards Act and should be paid – it doesn’t matter if you are called an ‘intern’ or not,” Naqvi wrote, according to the Post.

The Canadian Intern Association called on student organizations in other parts of Canada to write their labour ministers, too, demanding a crackdown on unpaid internships.

The association also commended Hootsuite for "its prompt response to the issue from the outset and concerted effort to compensate their interns for hours worked," saying the company serves as an example to other employers.