The bill on the “supervision” of child labor, currently before the National Assembly, is aptly named: the government intends to mark out – not to say trivialize – a phenomenon which, elsewhere, would spark debate.
The law aims first to set a minimum age of eligibility for employment. Under current Quebec law, a 5-year-old boy could work full-time (since the obligation to attend school does not begin until age 6). It would be enough that one of his parents agrees. This legal absurdity will therefore be corrected, the minimum age now being set at 14 years.
Who compares himself consoles himself? In most European countries, people start working at 16; in some Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, including Mexico and Turkey, to 15 years. Fourteen is the minimum age in some US states like New York – during school time.
The Quebec bill limits the number of hours worked per week to 17 hours. Again, the resemblance is striking with the state of New York, where the weekly limit is 6 p.m. But, unlike young New Yorkers, Quebecers aged 14 or 15 will not be entitled to a mandatory weekly day off.1. This is not provided for, in any case, in the text of Bill 19.
This number of 17 hours, taken from a recent report by the Labor Labor Advisory Committee, is puzzling. Because 17 hours of work and 25 hours of lessons (which most high school students do) make 42. Which means that the children’s week will be longer than that of their parents, the CNESST estimating that the normal week work is 40 hours. Should we conclude that an hour of math or French requires less effort than an hour at Tim Hortons?
The bill does not mention the Civil Code either. Since the 1990s, the latter has transformed 14-year-old children into adults when it comes to work. Since a minor is “considered of age” for all employment matters, a 14-year-old girl does not need her parents’ consent.
In many schools, she must obtain permission from her parents to participate in a field trip. You never know what can happen to her at the museum… But she doesn’t need to ask their opinion to dip fries in oil at 180 degrees in a restaurant kitchen.
It never moved anyone. And the bill won’t change that much.
Some restaurateurs believe the government does not have to set a minimum age, which was 16 until the 1980s. Labor shortages would force them to recruit ever younger workers, they say to be worth. They fail to say that these little workers cost them less than the big ones. Teenagers are certainly paid the same as their adult colleagues, but the contributions are lower (since employers are required to make payments to the Quebec Pension Plan from the age of 18 only).
To justify its intervention, the government invokes, on the one hand, the increased risk of dropping out of school and, on the other hand, the health and safety of children. From 2017 to 2021, 447 workers aged 16 and under were victims of accidents or occupational diseases recognized by the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST), a figure that inevitably underestimates the magnitude of the problem.
In this regard, the risks of harassment and sexual assault are never mentioned. However, a 14-year-old child enters the labor market two years before reaching the age allowing him to give his consent to a sexual relationship with an adult person. Relations with an employer are already sanctioned, of course, but very young workers are surrounded by colleagues of all ages. You said dick peak unsolicited? There is worse.
The CNESST opened 173 files for sexual harassment from 2018 to 2021. During this period, it recognized 118 cases of acute stress caused by sexual assault in people of all ages. Although the available statistics are not broken down by age group, an access to information request allows me to confirm that at least one person under the age of 16 has filed a claim with the CNESST for harassment or sexual assault since 2013.
All these subjects could have given rise to a debate. Pragmatists would have argued that children must learn the value of work early on; human rights defenders would have pointed out that child labor jeopardizes their rights to education and health, occupational accidents – inevitable – preventing them from going to school. As long as they were there, they could have squabbled over the purpose of child labor: in underprivileged areas, how many teenagers help their parents financially? The answer may not be what we hope for. This would have been an opportunity to talk about social classes and general interest. But the debate will not take place. In Quebec, we don’t like chicanery.