UNPAID INTERNSHIPS

What a country. Minimum wage laws be damned. Working conditions, seniority, benefits and simple human respect aren't necessary. As far as the recent article in the Waterloo Region Record that stated that the federal Labour Department would protect interns; that doesn't even rate as drivel or bullshit. The vast majority of our workplaces are under provincial labour legislation which even if it applies; enforcement is nearly non-existent. This is Canada afterall; the home of more ignored and unenforced legislation than anywhere in the world.

The Record's article dated March 3/14 is titled "Backlash against unpaid internships growing in Canada". Our governments at all levels must love the idea of internships. They provide locations for the unemployed to go. Their "training" costs for the broke and in-debt unemployed are zero. They help reduce unemployment statistics which are a lie anyways. They are a costless partial solution to an increasingly broken economy. Some of the country's biggest and wealthiest corporations have no shame in abusing vulnerable young people. They justify their ongoing theft of labour with right wing Ezra Levant style drivel about "unskilled" Canadians gaining valuable experience. This is what our education and political system have turned this country into. And we look around the world and wonder why human beings are revolting against systems set up to benefit the few at the expense of the many. Canada your turn is coming.