The bill, which aims to ensure better protection for trainees in the workplace, has passed the stage of adoption in principle and there seems to be a consensus among the main parties concerned.
The bill, tabled by the Minister of Labor and Employment, Jean Boulet, aims to provide various legal protections to some 195,000 interns.
It grants rights to interns in terms of short-term leave, such as the right to be absent from their internship on public holidays, for reasons of illness, family or parental obligations. It also specifies the right to benefit from an internship free from psychological harassment.
It also provides protection against reprisals by an employer, an educational institution or a professional order.
It also includes recourse to the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) and to the Administrative Labor Tribunal if an intern considers that one of his rights provided for in the law does not was not respected.
It covers internships required to obtain a permit to practice issued by a professional order or as part of a secondary, professional, college or university level training program offered by an educational institution.
During the adoption of the principle, at the end of the afternoon on Tuesday, Minister Boulet described it as “one more step towards a historic advance in the rights and protections” of interns in the workplace.
The Quebec Students’ Union and the Quebec Collegiate Student Federation welcomed the bill, but they pleaded for long-term leaves to be added to it, such as maternity leaves.
The bill also imposes obligations on employers, educational institutions and professional orders. They will have to “take the reasonable means at their disposal” to ensure that the success of the trainee’s studies or training or the obtaining of a permit to practice a profession is not compromised because a trainee has assert their rights.
The president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat du Québec, Karl Blackburn, suggested that an employer had little room for maneuver in the matter. “The employer has few levers that allow him to adjust the reality of daily activities regarding the presence or absence of the intern. »
The Conseil du patronat nevertheless believes that the bill “fills a gap in terms of the legal protection of trainees”.