Unpaid interns agree to work free in exchange for training and job prospects, but a growing number of them say employers aren’t living up to their side of the bargain.

In recent months, former interns in the U.S. have won several high-profile lawsuits for back wages, spurring a growing backlash here in Canada.

Jainna Patel, 24, a math and statistics graduate from McMaster University, filed a federal labour complaint against Bell Mobility after spending five weeks in its Professional Management Program (PMP) in Mississauga.

In response, Human Resources Development Canada sent a letter to Bell, requesting it either pay Patel’s back wages or contest the complaint she filed. The company had until July 9th to file its response.

A Bell spokesperson told the Toronto Star that their program is not only legal, but one of the best internships in the country.

In the year since Patel first filed her complaint she hasn’t heard from Bell, but remains hopeful because interns across North America have been winning cases like hers.

Last month, two unpaid interns working on the Oscar-winning film Black Swan successfully sued Fox Searchlight pictures. A New York district judge ordered the film production company to pay back wages because the interns did the same work as regular employees, provided value to the company and performed low-level tasks that didn’t require any specialized training. Fox is appealing the ruling.

Shortly after the decision, interns at Gawker, an American celebrity website, also filed a suit for unpaid wages.

Here in Canada, interns are also starting to file complaints — and win. In 2012, Kyle Iannuzzi was awarded almost $1,000 in back wages from Platinum Events Group in what he believes was the first successful complaint against a company for an unpaid internship in Ontario.

Unpaid internships have long been standard in journalism, entertainment and publishing. CBC, which has reported on Patel’s complaint, runs a six-week unpaid internship program, but only takes students currently enrolled in a journalism program. Rogers Media runs paid and unpaid internship programs and accepts people who aren’t enrolled in post-secondary education.

While there are no reliable statistics, internships appear to have spread to virtually every sector of the economy.

Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau joined the growing chorus of criticism last month, decrying a situation where “you can’t get a job without getting experience; you can’t get experience without getting a job.”

“These unpaid internship . . . unfortunately are not helping individuals or our economy,” he said. “I think we need to look at stronger oversight and enforcing the regulations that exist.”

Labour laws here differ from those in the U.S., but determining the legality of unpaid internships is especially difficult north of the border because both Canada’s and Ontario’s employment laws don’t directly address the issue.

“The bottom line is, if what is being done for the ‘employer’ looks like work, then it should be compensated as work,” said Sean Bawden, an Ottawa-based labour lawyer who writes a blog on employment issues.

Bell Mobility says its Professional Management Program employs 300 unpaid interns at a dedicated campus in Mississauga in a variety of tasks including marketing and data analytics. While it accepts current post-secondary students, the program requires “associates” to work full time.

Bell spokesperson Albert Lee would not comment directly on Patel’s case, but said the PMP program provides an opportunity for those with little experience to learn the tools of the trade.

“It’s important to note that this is a learning program — participants do not replace any Bell employees, and their work doesn’t support or benefit any of Bell’s business operations,” he wrote in an email. “Many companies have intern training programs (the estimate is about 300,000 interns a year in Canada) . . . We think the learning environment and calibre of the volunteer management that support the program make it one of the best.”

Patel’s labour complaint tells a different story. She writes that she was lured in with promises of gaining valuable training for which she was willing to forgo pay. Once there, she spent long hours transcribing video, conducting telephone surveys and filling in spreadsheets, she alleges in the complaint, and was regularly asked to stay as late as midnight.

After raising concerns that she was doing menial tasks and receiving little training, Patel quit the internship and filed a labour complaint with the federal government.

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“I looked up the laws and felt as if the work we were doing was that of a paid employee,” Patel wrote.

Patel has asked for just under $2,500 in wages, overtime and vacation pay. HRDC wouldn’t comment on her case, citing confidentiality concerns.

The Canada Labour Code does not explicitly treat internships, but most employers say they are a form of training that is exempted from payment. The law on whether training must be compensated is far from clear.

A note interpreting whether training hours must be paid posted to HRDC’s website states that, “training initiated on the volition of the employee or developmental voluntary training which prepares the employee for another job does not constitute hours of work.”

The document goes on to draw a line between short-term and long-term training, “where the candidate is learning and performing certain aspects of the job.”

“In this latter situation, where a de facto employment relationship has been established, the time constitutes hours of work,” where “the employee is entitled to be paid at the regular rate of wages,” says the note, written by Renée Godmer, executive co-ordinator of HRDC’s Labour Program.

This note is dated and doesn’t carry the same legal weight of a statute or a regulation, said labour lawyer Bawden.

Despite the ongoing grievance, Patel is determined to stay positive. She’s found paid work and even works a second job on Saturdays.

Patel still lists the PMP on her resume and even received a job interview from Bell after having left the program.

She doesn’t object to unpaid internships per se and hopes her complaint will make the PMP a better experience for future associates.

Since filing her complaint, Patel says people have congratulated her for being go gutsy — an attitude that worries her.

“We are protected by laws, and it is important to educate ourselves with these laws,” she said. “I do not believe I did anything extraordinary, I simply questioned the work I was doing and filed a claim to have it be reviewed.”