Changes to the B.C. Employment Standards Act, which could go into effect this fall, will allow employers to hire children between the ages of 12 and 15 with parental consent alone, dropping the requirement for permission from a school counsellor and the director of the Employment Standards Branch. The government says that it's simply cutting through red tape and argues that no one followed the old rules anyway, and that increased fines for not getting parental consent will keep employers in line.

But critics counter that the B.C. government is leaving children open to abuse and instead of easing the rules, should have strengthened them. Indeed, in B.C., there are no restrictions on the types of jobs a child can do, how many hours the child can work nor any limitations on when the child can work — except that, under the School Act, no child can miss school for work and under the Occupational Safety Act, a child can't work with toxic pesticides.

The proposed change “positions B.C. as an embarrassment, in terms of protecting our children's rights in the workplace,” says Helesia Luke, who is leading the charge against the bill, along with FirstCall: B.C. Child & Youth Advocacy Coalition and the B.C. Teachers' Federation.

Calling B.C.'s child labour laws among the weakest in Canada, she adds: “If anything, I think they should have been strengthening regulations around child labour, particularly in advance of Vancouver getting the Olympics.”

“. . . The notion that kids just need their parents' consent is very naive. It assumes that parents have an equal footing with employers and can advocate for their child in those positions and be confident and effective. Certainly that wouldn't be the case in many situations.”

“It's the most regressive legislation in Canada," adds BCTF president Neil Worboys. "B.C. law says that children under 16 must attend school, but Bill 37 contains no requirements for employers to respect school hours or even for them not to assign young workers to night shifts.”

The potential impact on a child's education can't be overlooked, added Mr. Worboys. More work means fewer hours of sleep, which can increase tardiness and absences, as well as reduce a child's alertness in class. Children working after school also have fewer opportunities to participate in after-school activities such as sports.

BCTF first vice-president Jinny Sims remembers teaching a class where a student ended up falling asleep. He was working full-time at night to try to support the family. “Now I have some fears with the age dropping to 12. How many children are going to be out working?” she says. “When they are at school, we want them learning. We want them alert — we want them awake.”

A Statistics Canada study released in May shows that students who work up to 20 hours a week benefit from the skills they gain while on the job and become more disciplined students. But those who worked more than 30 hours a week were 2.4 times more likely to drop out than those who worked moderate hours. Those who didn't work were 1.5 times more likely to drop out of school.

Mr. Worboys says beyond the potential impact on school, children should have a chance to just be children. “Childhood is a time for learning and play, not jobs. Running lemonade stands, mowing lawns and babysitting are appropriate jobs for young teenagers”, Ms. Sims adds, “but that's very different than them working under the ESA.”

The coalition and federation want the government to strengthen regulations surrounding child labour that would spell out conditions that children at certain age groups should work under.

Currently, the Employment Standards Branch can set conditions of work and compel the employer to respect those conditions, says Mr. Worboys. With the proposed changes in place, the ESB would no longer have the ability to monitor workplaces.

The Society for Children and Youth of B.C. says the ministry now receives 300 permit requests annually — primarily for young people working on family-run enterprises or in film and television — and it fears the changes will result in young people under 15 seeking employment in sectors such as tourism and hospitality.

Young workers in B.C. are also subject to the “first-job” wage rate, which went into effect in November, 2001. The $6 rate —$2 less than minimum wage — applies to the first 500 hours of employment, after which employees will be paid the general minimum rate.

The initiative, put forward as part of the Liberal government's New Era platform, was designed to address youth unemployment.

Tiffany Fong, 14, is spending her days this summer working at Playland, a Vancouver amusement park. For $8.42 an hour, she tries to entice park guests to try their luck and skill at one of several traditional midway games.

While she believes children her age should be allowed to work “if they're mature and understand when you have a job what responsibilities come with it,” she was shocked to learn there are no rules in place to protect kids who are venturing out into the work force. “They should have a set amount of time they can work and certain hours a day,” she says, adding that her own supervisor won't let her work late at night.

Tiffany, who starts Grade 10 in the fall, wanted to work to earn money for postsecondary education. But she admits she may use some of the money for shopping and other fun activities. She is already thinking about working during the school year, but said she would accept only a few afternoon and weekend shifts.

Judy Fudge, a labour and employment law expert in Toronto who has worked on ESA reform, says she has no problem with 12- to 15-year-old children doing some work, “but it should be in situations where there are checks and balances because there is a question around vulnerability. They may not have the kind of exposure and information they need to have.”

Prof. Fudge, who teaches at York University, points out that there's a high correlation between youth workers and injury rates. A study put out by the Workers' Compensation Board of B.C. on young workers and injury rates shows that workers between the ages of 15 and 24 made up 16 per cent of all disability claims in 1996, even though they comprised only 14.5 per cent of the work force. Young men had the highest rates of work-related injuries.

The report, called Protecting Young Workers, points out that young workers "are likely to be inexperienced and unfamiliar with many of the tasks required of them, unable to recognize workplace hazards, and unaware of their rights as workers."

“So I'd want to know about training for youth workers,” Prof. Fudge says.

Calling the present process “very bureaucratic,” Skill Development and Labour Minister Graham Bruce says that having the director grant permission to those children seeking jobs was just a formality and, to the best of his knowledge, no child's application was ever turned down. The current regulations also did very little to protect children, he adds. “Often you get a lot of bureaucratic regulation and rules, but when you follow them through, they don't actually offer you anything.”

In this case, rewriting the legislation around the permit process will go hand in hand with changes to the penalty section of the ESA that have already been made, says Mr. Bruce. Originally, the penalties were discretionary. If an employer was found in contravention of the ESA, such as for non-payment of wages, the penalty was a "wrist slapping," the minister explains. A second offence was usually a discretionary fine of $100. Now when employers break the rules, there are mandatory fines: $500 for the first offence, $2,500 for the second and a $10,000 fine for the third violation. Under the proposed legislation, the onus will be on the employer to ensure they have a letter from the teenaged employee's parent or guardian before letting them work. If they don't, and they are caught, they face the fines.

“This is not a lack of regulations,” Mr. Bruce says. “This is actually protecting young people. Some people in society think you need to write rules and regulations and that by the simple fact of writing rules and regulations you'll protect people; well, that's not how it works. So, you as an employer knowing that you can be faced with a mandatory fine of $500, you're going to follow due diligence.”

On top of concerns for those children who choose to be out in the work force, Ms. Luke fears the new rules will make it easier for families to exploit their children and farm them out for extra income. Taking the government out of the permit process could make it easier for that to happen, she says. "There needs to be a third party in a civilized society to ensure that the rights of the child are being taken care of. The interests of the parent and the interests of the child are not always the same and this move assumes they are."

Mr. Worboys adds that it could put more youth at risk — especially those from low-income families who are under pressure from provincial cuts to welfare and social programs. “We believe this law could have a disproportionately negative effect on immigrant children, children from minority groups and poor children.”

But if parents were exploiting their children, the old system would not have prevented that practice, Mr. Bruce argues. “If they were forcing their child to work, they weren't going through the permitting process in the beginning anyway.” Under the current legislation, he says, no one checks to see whether parents had granted permission for their child to work. That won't change if the amendments are approved. In addition, neither system ensures that all working children are bothering to get permission at all. “When you look at the number of permits applied for and granted, we know there are far more than 300 young people out in the work force.”

As well, there is no system in place for the ESB to ensure employers are complying with the new rules. The new legislation, while it has higher penalties for employers who fail to obey, will operate on a complaint-driven basis, says Mr. Bruce. But there has been no system in place to check whether parents were giving their children permission to work anyway, adding that the government can't take sole responsibility. “There is, in our society, a responsibility on parents as well. It's fine to think you can place everything on the state, but for things to work you've got to have parental involvement.”

But Ms. Luke says that the government should have been working toward ensuring there was more compliance instead of simply throwing out the current system. “If they didn't track non-compliance, then they have no way of knowing if just the mere fact that they had a permitting process was a deterrent to exploitation, which it might have been,” she says. “There may have been a whole pile of people that never even tried to hire a child to do something inappropriate because they thought they'd get caught.”

Prof. Fudge agrees. “Just because people are not following the law, doesn't mean that's a good enough reason to get rid of it. You have to ask what are the pros and cons of this — I don't think there was this kind of discussion in British Columbia.”

Rules vary from province to province Current requirements for employing children between 12 and 15 across Canada:

British Columbia
Permit required from parent and school, as well as director of Employment Standards Branch. The director can impose conditions.

Alberta
Permit required for children age 12 to 14, unless working as clerk or delivering newspapers, flyers. Cannot work more than two hours on a school day, or more than eight hours on other days. Cannot work between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Saskatchewan
Children under 16 can't work in any hospital, nursing home, hotel, restaurant or educational institution.

Manitoba
Permit required to hire children under 16. Director not to issue permit if job could negatively affect child's safety, health or well-being. Children can't work in job that has them producing, cleaning, altering, repairing or servicing any machinery.

Ontario
Children under 16 are not allowed to work in logging or construction.

Quebec
Children under 17 must be able to attend school and are prohibited from working between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless delivering newspapers or working in the performing arts. Children under 14 can't work between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless employed in artistic endeavours or working at summer camp. Written parental consent needed for children under 14.

Newfoundland
Written consent from parent required for children under 16. Can't work in jobs that are unwholesome or harmful to the child's health or normal development, or would affect school attendance.

Nova Scotia & New Brunswick
Children under 16 can't work in the forest industry, garages and service stations, hotels and restaurants, theatres, dance halls, shooting galleries, bowling alleys, billiard and pool rooms — unless they are family-owned. Children under 14 can't work in jobs that are likely to be unwholesome or harmful to their health or development. Children under 14 can't work more than three hours a day on school days or eight hours a day otherwise and can't work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Prince Edward Island
Children under 16 can't work in jobs that could affect their health, safety or moral or physical development, or in construction. They can't work between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

By Gwendolyn Richards
7 August 2003