Does anyone know if you can do voluntary work while you are on holiday in Canada? I would be keen to help out with something locally during the summer holidays but do not know if I would be allowed to do this??

Thanks

It depends what you mean by voluntary. Basically it is ilegal to work and work is defined by HRDC as anything that you would normally expect compensation for.

So for example if there was a local company that say designed web pages and you were visiting Canada and were a web designer. If you 'volunteered' to do some web design for them which they are using in a commercial nature then you are technically breaking the law and working illegally because you are in effect doing work for free.

If on the other hand you wanted to help out at your local soup kitchen where people are never paid and it's all voluntary and a regular Canadian wouldn't expect to be paid then you are technically ok. No one is going to deport you from Canada for giving soup to homeless people but they will deport you for working for free.

So in short you can't use that clause to get work experience in canada without pay, internships or anything like that which is in effect doing work you'd ordinarily expect to be paid for, is not allowed unless you are legally authorized to work in Canada.

Drew