​The Canadian Government Isn’t Paying Some of Their Interns and That Sucks

Being young and jobless isn't easy. And in an economy that's not exactly handing out jobs, students and recent graduates are automatically placed at the back of the walk-running race for employment, or at least for employment in your field. As it's been for years, young people have relied on internships for access into potential careers.

In the last few years, unpaid Internships have been under fire because people finally started to figure out this whole human rights thing. As it stands right now, every province has their own law against unpaid internships with varying exceptions, but there's still no national mandate. This year, the federal Liberal government actually proposed a regulation to permit them.

Until that happens, government agencies are supposed to be places where young people are guaranteed to be paid for on-the-job learning. However, a new, frustrating discovery in the world of internships reveals that some of the biggest federal agencies in Canada are not paying their interns.

If you've read the lovely title in my byline, I am in fact the current (paid, cough, cough) editorial intern at VICE Canada. And as an intern/student/young person who wants to be successful but not poor, this is exactly the struggle that I know many of my peers are fervently trying to avoid. And to be frank, it's bullshit.

The results of a review by Canada's Treasury Board released this week reveal that 12 federal agencies do not pay some of their interns.

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The Treasury Board, which monitors how the government spends its money, has a policy that requires the government to pay all of their interns. The only exceptions are academic placements that forbid payment (side note: wtf is up with those schools?).

Some of the agencies that have unpaid internships include Global Affairs Canada, Public Safety Canada, Canadian Human Rights Commission, and National Defence.

Hello! These are not some novice startup companies or basement barbershops, they are real, profesh workplaces, which, I can probably guess, involve of lot of important shit. (It's also the government, which has piles and piles of our cash.)

To put this in perspective, most interns, like myself, are in university or college and are probably living on their own. So obviously they have to pay their own bills and rent and groceries and loans and oh my god, my palms are starting to sweat—basically interns usually have a lot on their plates and not being paid is ridiculous, especially when it's the government.

Read More: We Asked Our Interns About the Video Games Made in the Year They Were Born

While I am paid here at VICE—not only in experience but also in Canadian dollars—the reality is that this part time job is still not enough for me to live. On my nights and weekends off, I have to slave away at a service job in order to really front my bills and living essentials.

Until the government figures out a way to make tuition more affordable (dare we say free?), and rent returns to a reasonable rate in Canada's largest cities, maybe they can just pony up for the young people fact-checking their internal reports.

Follow Ebony-Renee Baker on Twitter.