After a four-month internship, Elizabeth Gray couldn’t help but feel a little used. She got what she wanted out of it — experience putting together an event, the launch of a new Calgary beauty franchise — but the part-time gig wasn’t paid. She worked more hours than she was told to expect, and she wasn’t offered a job at the end.

Gray, a student at Mount Royal University who holds an event-planning certificate, felt pressured into taking the unpaid position. She couldn’t find an employer willing to pay her unless she had more experience. She felt stuck. Could she land a job with an event-planning company if she didn’t get started working for free?

“I didn’t benefit in any way, other than the benefits I created for myself, which was adding to my resume. I almost feel a little bit used and a little bit cheated,” said Gray, who received no academic credit for the job.

“I would never do an unpaid internship again,” she said. “I don’t think they’re necessary. They are just an excuse, really, to get people to do things for you for free when there is obviously money to do that.”

New research suggests that illegal internships — work placements that don’t offer university credit in return for unpaid work — are on the rise in Calgary as job seekers hope to be compensated with priceless experience in their field, rather than a paycheque.

As the provincial government moves to clarify labour rules that demand employers pay their workers with few exceptions, lawyer Andrew Langille estimates there are 2,500 to 5,000, maybe more, illegal internship positions offered in Calgary every year.

“You’re starting to see the development of an intern culture in Calgary and Edmonton,” said Langille, general counsel for the Canadian Intern Association, who called for tighter rules and more aggressive enforcement in a submission to the Alberta government.

“It’s time that governments start asking the difficult questions about how these programs are being rolled out.”

Online job boards, including Craigslist and Indeed, regularly feature postings for intern positions in Calgary that offer zero pay. They are often for publishing and marketing spots, but Langille has also found evidence of internships that appear to violate Alberta’s labour rules in tourism, interior design, Internet technology and graphic design, among other industries.

The province’s employment standards require that companies must pay their workers minimum wage, with exemptions for salespeople, real estate brokers and students on educational internships.

But William Armstrong, a Calgary labour lawyer, said interns do not necessarily qualify as employees under the law and, as a result, are not entitled to wages and other benefits. It’s because they don’t fit the legal definition of an employee: someone who is paid for work.

Armstrong said he realizes this is a “circular argument,” but that it highlights a grey area in the law on whether interns must be paid. He said there is also a lack of legal clarity surrounding when an intern ceases to be a student and becomes an employee.

He said it’s up to legislators to decide whether to more clearly draw these lines and better define the employer-employee relationship.