Parliament began debate on a private member's bill Tuesday that seeks to lay down a set of rules for unpaid internships in Canada.

Bill C-620, called the Intern Protection Act, was put forward by NDP MP Laurin Liu (Riviere-des-Mille-Iles, Que.), in June 2014.

The proposed act includes a cap on the number of hours of work and the right to refuse dangerous work. It would also limit the use of non-educational internships.

If passed, it would ensure that all internships are linked to educational programs, or that they offer some kind of educational benefit to the intern.

"The reason we need (the law) is we're seeing more, especially young workers, ending up in a cycle of unpaid work," NDP MP Andrew Cash for the Toronto riding of Davenport, told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday morning.

The Toronto MP has long advocated for the protection for unpaid interns, pointing out that the unemployment rate for young workers is twice the national average.

Currently, there are laws protecting unpaid interns in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Albert and Quebec, but there are no laws directed at federally-regulated employers.

He said some "very profitable and powerful Canadian companies" are abusing internships. The act would firmly define a set of rules for federally regulated companies, he said.

"There are many good internship programs out there, but we continue to hear very troubling stories from those who have done internships in large, very profitable corporations who were taken advantage of, forced to do work that was of little benefit to them or brought on simply as a replacement for paid workers," Cash said at a news conference in Ottawa.

An unidentified company brought in as many as 300 interns to do work including marketing and data analytics, he said. Other interns told Cash they were promised paid work at the end of their internships, only to find that their paid position was only to train the next round of interns.

Cash also mentioned Andy Ferguson, a 22-year-old whose death inspired the bill. Ferguson died after working a 16-hour day at an Edmonton radio station where he was doing an unpaid internship. Ferguson fell asleep at the wheel, and his vehicle crossed into another lane and crashed head-on into a gravel truck.

The act would ensure that unpaid interns have the same rights and protections in the workplace as those who are paid, he said.

The act would also prohibit companies from replacing paid work with internships.