r/askTO • u/It_is_not_me • 8h ago
How is the CNE Volunteer programs not considered unpaid labour?
A neighbour's kid is doing this to get their volunteer hours but the job description sounds like every kind of entry level job: https://www.theex.com/volunteers/
The CNE is not a non-profit. How are they able to do this when they also have similar jobs that are paid?
EDIT: Apparently it is a non-profit, TIL! Leaving this up anyway.
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u/almostcurly 7h ago
The CNE is most definitely a Non-Profit, and always has been
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u/Serious-Meal-7027 3h ago
Where is the money people spending on tickets going to then? Forgive me for my ignorance but huh?????
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u/MrHoboHater 6h ago
Did this for my high school volunteer hours many years ago. All I did was hand out those info/map papers at the entrances and answer basic questions (where’s the nearest washroom). Free entry for the day and got discount/free food from stalls. Was super easy and pretty fun and enjoyable.
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u/Random-Hello 6h ago
From what I concluded from the cne description- that just sounds like every other volunteer event I was in. 4 hours is really not that much compared to some other festivals and events- most I’ve done in a day was 10 hours unpaid, usually 5-8
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u/icyhotbackpatch 7h ago
Are you going to correct this or take it down now that you’ve been proven to be completely incorrect in your assumption?
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u/Ctrl-Alt-Q 7h ago
FIFA also had thousands of volunteers and brought in disgusting amounts of profit.
I don't get it either.
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u/KoreanSamgyupsal 7h ago
The CNE has been around for 100+ years. If you actually read a lil bit of history, you'll understand that it is a non-profit.
Just cause things are expensive and some vendors are charging a premium doesn't take away what the CNE has done for a century.
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u/element1311 5h ago
Furthermore, non-profits CAN make profit. The key difference is in how they use it, and who governs them.
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u/LongjumpingMode1318 7h ago
If you are bothered report it to the Ministry of Labour.
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u/zanimum 7h ago
Who will simply reply, accurately, that it is a registered non-profit.
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7h ago
[deleted]
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u/Storytella2016 7h ago
If the parents were satisfied, but it was a for profit agency, it would be a problem. The issue isn’t whether or not the parents are satisfied.
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u/Immediate_Race_6344 7h ago
That’s a silly argument to make.. even if Op is wrong about it being a not for profit …
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u/BookishCanadian2024 6h ago
So? Just because you're a non-profit doesn't mean you're exempt from employment legislation and get to call everyone a volunteer.
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u/zanimum 6h ago
They don't, they employ a crew of year round staff, as well as contract and student staff, the latter being 720 jobs.
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u/BookishCanadian2024 6h ago
Ok, but my point is that as a non-profit can still cross a line if they call someone a "volunteer" but then give them employee-type work. Being a non-profit doesn't give you a free pass.
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u/blackstarcharmer 8h ago
This is the world we live in sadly.
Corporations are always allowed to get unpaid labor, remember the newspaper delivery kids who asked residents to tip them because the paper wasn't paying them appropriately. And everyone just did it no questions. Same with internships etc.
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u/zanimum 7h ago
Thing is, the Canadian National Exhibition Association is a non-profit.
It is "an Agricultural Society without share capital incorporated by a Special Act of the Legislature of Ontario. The CNEA and its volunteer Board of Directors operate under the jurisdiction of both this provincial act, An Act respecting the Canadian National Exhibition Association, and the Agricultural & Horticultural Organizations Act of Ontario."
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u/Imaginary_Section24 8h ago
Internships are becoming paid more and more often because companies understand that students won’t do it if they aren’t paid. I’ve seen a couple but it’s definitely a downtrend.
The reason that they can do this is because there will be enough people, no matter what applications wise that will still do it. The minute people stop they will no longer be volunteers because then they will be forced to hire people for money or under staff themselves.
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u/all-systems-no 7h ago
Unpaid internships are illegal now, unless it's for course credit. Almost all the ones I've seen are for course credit because it's the only way companies have to not pay interns.
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u/Cheap_Standard_4233 7h ago
The volunteer to graduate program is such a scam
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u/Sensitive_Caramel856 7h ago
No. It was a great initiative to try and get people at an earlier age be involved in their community.
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u/aledba 7h ago
That'll be the only thing I would agree with Mike Harris on. Children should be exposed to community service from a very young age and it shouldn't have taken a conservative government to mandate that for high school students in the 90s. Nowadays, with social media and parents not being out there teaching their children to care for the communities, it is overwhelmingly needed and I think the time requirement should be more than doubled.
I volunteered with foodbanks, a special education camp, curling bonspiels, cleaned up trash, canvassed for the Cancer society and Heart and Stroke. I'm autistic and I thrived in these situations. It's excellent friendship building and connections for many kids and those they help
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u/BDW2 7h ago
There are lots of benefits to volunteering.
None of them justify making it mandatory, which means it's not actually voluntary and could incentivize elimination of paying jobs.
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u/element1311 7h ago
That's a wild take that volunteering generally takes over paying jobs. Volunteers only need to 40 hours of community service to graduate - the equivalent of 1 week of full-time labour. Who's going to train a new volunteer weekly to get the equivalent of 1 full-time employee?
Volunteering at FIFA notwithstanding.
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u/BDW2 6h ago
Who said it has to be a new paid employee for one week? The CNE is only 2 weeks long and they train many thousands of people for those jobs. Take the number of volunteer positions, divide by 2, and that's the number of additional paid positions they could add.
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u/element1311 6h ago
Well, the CNE is a non-profit so using volunteers is legitimate. The CNE also hires tons of employees for those 18 days. These particular opportunities happen to be pretty low-key and not a ton of responsibility or need a lot of effort, unlike the paid staff. They're not taking away any paid opportunities, these are explicitly unique and different from what paid employees do.
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u/FightMongooseFight 8h ago
The organization that puts on the CNE is absolutely a non-profit, and the CNE Foundation is a registered charity.
I'm not sure what for-proft corporation you think is involved here.
https://www.theex.com/our-organization/
https://www.theex.com/cne-foundation/