Originally published on January 1, 2025.
Last winter semester, MacEwan’s communication studies shared an internship opportunity at Edgy TV with students via an email from the department’s faculty advisor. Two MacEwan students have come forward with allegations against Edgy TV, claiming that they were not paid for their work while interning with the company in 2024. Jay Deibert, a fourth-year communications student, and Sean Bell, a fifth-year communications student.
Edgy TV is one of the subsidiaries that exist under the Marketing and Media International Group, Inc., which oversees the management of a handful of different projects including Edgy TV and Edgy Magazine. The company is based out of Montreal, QC.
When Deibert first received the email, they said that they were first drawn to the promised wages listed with the job. Between $25 and $29 per hour.
“It was presented as good pay,” Deibert says. “It’s hard to find something that is close to 30 dollars an hour… going into your graduating year, you know?”
After an interview with Edwige Dazogbo, the head of the company, Deibert was brought on for an internship from July 2 to Aug. 16. They were initially brought on to assist with video editing and to help out in Edgy TV’s promotional and PR department, under the official title of paid intern.
Deibert did not interact with other interns at the company, only occasionally working with broadcast specialists for the network and with Dazogbo directly.
Deibert was set to receive their paychecks from Edgy TV bi-weekly, but come the day of their first expected payment, they did not receive any money.
“Anytime I asked regarding payment, there were always [two kinds of] responses,” Deibert says, “There was either calling me out for miscommunicating or there was ‘it’s been delayed because we were having problems with some of our finances.’”
Deibert says that at first, they appreciated that Edgy TV was communicating with them and being open about the payment issues and that they did not feel that they were at a place where they could pursue any legal action against the company.
“It was around the end of August that I started getting skeptical,” Deibert says. “There were some claims they were making regarding payments that were not being given out or that were taken away due to legal reasons. And then, excuses kept coming.”
When asked why they remained in their internship if they were not receiving any payments, Deibert gives two main reasons.
Since their internship was only a short-term contract, Deibert felt that they could wait until the end of the contract and give the company some time to clarify what was going on. From there, they say things just became more complicated.
The second reason Deibert chose to stick it out at Edgy TV was the promised wages.
“[Edgy TV] knew that part of the reason why I signed up for the job was because of the pay,” Deibert says, “They knew that it was one of the only sources of income I had at the [time].”
They say that without the expected income from Edgy TV, they were forced to rely on money from family members to ensure they could pay their bills.
Deibert says that they ultimately brought the issue to their field placement professor, who provided them with links to get in contact with Susan Dut, who then got them in contact with Tracy Whatmore, the supervisor of MacEwan’s work-integrated learning program.
Deibert says that they appreciate how vocal MacEwan has been in their support of the students impacted and their plans to sever contact with Edgy TV in the future, but that they wish more research had been done initially.
“Doing my own research, there were very obvious signs… [that] there was something wrong or something very unstable with these companies,” Deibert says. “I hope later on… the school puts a little bit more care into what they promote to their students because there is the potential that what they’re being told is not true… and this is just a prime example of that.”
“I think, if anything, [MacEwan] see this as ‘This won’t happen again with this company,’ but this could happen again with another. And it’s very easy for students to be put in the same situation I was in.”
Deibert plans to reach out to the Quebec and Alberta labour boards if they do not get their money soon. So far, they have only received $1,000 of the money they are owed.
Bell experienced very similar struggles throughout his own internship.
He says that when he first applied for the internship with Edgy TV, it already “didn’t feel right.”
“I couldn’t find any information on the company, what they do, anything about their reputation… so, there were red flags… but, I was desperate for a job,” Bell says, “I was telling myself, ‘I’m sure I’m just overthinking this… because a MacEwan advisor would not pass through a job to students that wasn’t approved or vetted by the university.’”
After he applied, Bell was interviewed by Dazogbo, and hired as a writer for Edgy Magazine, working 20 hours a week from May 15 to June 26. Bell’s contract specified that his pay would be $29 per hour.
Bell was supposed to receive his paycheck bi-weekly, but after two weeks had passed, he still had not been paid.
At first, Bell says he was not super concerned since he had just started, but then his payments continued to get delayed. Near the end of his internship, Bell was informed by Dazogbo that the company was experiencing issues with the money coming in but that she had spoken to her accountant and HR and he would receive his owed payments soon.
“I just hope no other students have to go through this shit.”
Sean Bell, fifth-year communications student
Bell decided to give Edgy TV a personal grace period of about two-to-three weeks after his internship concluded but still was not paid. “At that point, instead of emailing her directly again, I emailed the university and told them what was going on,” he says.
Bell was put in contact with Whatmore so that her department could contact Dazogbo and get him the promised money.
“It was frustrating because then [Dazogbo] was just doing the same thing with them,” Bell says. “[And] now it’s five months later, so they’re not putting on any pressure. So, I don’t feel like MacEwan is doing anything about it.”
“As a student, you’re counting on your university to have your back and to look into these companies and make sure everything is above board,” Bell says. “Maybe this will be a learning point for MacEwan to help students in the future… I just hope no other students have to go through this shit.”
After being put into contact with Whatmore, it was ultimately suggested to Bell that he reach out to the Alberta Labour Relations Board. Bell says that he feels that this is the only way he will get paid.
Without the promised wages to help pay bills throughout his internship, Bell says that his partner was forced to absorb the costs of all the bills and mortgage payments.
“We had to max out credit cards… and we’re still paying [them] down,” Bell says.
Bell did eventually decide to reach out to the Alberta labour board and Dazogbo was given until Nov. 15 to pay him the total amount he was owed, about $3,000.
At the time of writing, both Bell and Deibert have yet to receive the full amounts owed to them from Edgy TV.
Dazogbo says that Edgy TV intended for all internships with MacEwan students to go smoothly, but that there was a delay in a loan application resulting in the missing funds.
She says that her company has had a “well-established relationship with MacEwan University since 2022, until these delays,” and that they hope to have the rest of the payments to all interns affected within the next five weeks, once they receive their loans.
The Griff reached out to MacEwan University’s Career and Experiences office with interview requests on multiple occasions and did not receive a response in time for publication.
Graphic by Forrester Toews
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