VANCOUVER—The practice of new immigrants working for free in order to gain Canadian work experience — either in a volunteer capacity or in an unpaid “work placement”— is common but may have implications for their status in Canada, immigration lawyers say.

In Vancouver, newcomers participating in a government-funded program have been placed in not-for-profits as volunteers but also in for-profit companies like Subway for unpaid work positions, StarMetro reported this week. The aim is to get Canadian experience on their resumé and potentially a domestic job reference.

Immigration lawyers say the practice extends well beyond one Vancouver-based pre-employment program and may not slow down unless employers become better educated about the need to pay minimum wage to those who “volunteer.”

In B.C., companies are legally required to pay minimum wage to people who do work that benefits the company, whether or not the individual has volunteered to do that work for free. Not-for-profits may sometimes take on volunteers, but labour lawyers say even that relationship can be legally murky.

Whether or not the arrangements are legal, immigration lawyers say it’s common for newcomers and visitors to Canada to seek unpaid work opportunities as a way to gain a foothold in the job market — but they may be putting their status in Canada at risk by doing so.

“Lots of people are well intended and well meaning when they offer the opportunity to come in and observe and job shadow,” said Barbara Jo Caruso, an Immigration and Citizenship law specialist who is also the Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Immigration committee. “But they’re not appreciating there are employment and immigration law implications.”

Caruso said she’s seen instances in her own career where fellow lawyers, with good intentions, offer international students or visitors to Canada the opportunity to volunteer for them to learn about the legal profession.

But there are limits to the work that can be legally done under student, visitor and temporary visas, Caruso explained, and violating those terms can negatively impact a person’s ability to remain in Canada for longer periods.

“I think the focus needs to be on businesses that are abusing and taking advantage of people who are more vulnerable,” she said. “Which can be foreign students that have a huge amount of pressure on them because of high fees, high expectations from their families that have sent them to Canada.”

Permanent residents don’t have those restrictions on where and how much they can work. But they do face many of the same pressures when it comes to finding work without any Canadian experience.

In some cases, said Vancouver immigration lawyer Will Tao, immigrants even attend workshops on how to strategically write resumes to emphasize limited domestic experience or downplay the lack of it.

“These stories of people doing unpaid internships and working in precarious and underpaid positions are very common,” he said.

The problem has played a part in his own life. “My own spouse started from a non-profit volunteer organization and did human resources work, then leveraged that into paid work,” Tao said. His late father, who was a doctor in China, has to redo his qualifications to work here. Something he noted not all immigrants have the time and funds to do.

The legality of unpaid work for not-for-profits is not always clear-cut. Vancouver labour lawyer Erin Brandt said there’s no definition of a volunteer in the province’s Employment Standards Act, but that it seems someone could legally be considered a volunteer if the relationship is mutually beneficial.

“But I do think there is risk for non-profits even,” she said. “If a relationship goes sour and they’ve been doing labour — they could seek protection under the act,” Brandt said.

In the case of many immigrants, the choice is between working for free in the hopes of getting a job they want down the road, or taking “survival jobs” they are overqualified for.

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Tao said he “feels for” the settlement organizations tasked with finding opportunities for immigrants. They’re restricted by government funding, and facing an uphill battle since employers strongly prefer domestic experience.

“I think that that doesn’t necessarily always put the newcomer at the front of the table and ask them what they would want to see,” which may be social support, to mentorship. “I think we need to listen to the newcomers a little more,” he said.

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