OUST HARPER – watch why at CBC.ca SILENCE OF THE LABS

OUST HARPER - do NOt vote Conservative = watch why

Silence of the Labs - The Fifth Estate - CBC Player

www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2429411271/‎

Jan 11, 2014

With massive cuts by Ottawa to everything from food inspections to water quality and climate change and the dismissal of more than 2,000 federal scientists and researchers, some scientists have become unlikely radicals -- denouncing what they call a politically-driven war on knowledge. In Silence of the Labs, Linden MacIntyre tells their story - and what is at stake for Canadians - from Nova Scotia to the B.C. Pacific Coast and the far Arctic Circle.

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Our non-profit blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who left her newborn baby – with placenta still attached – at the Bahrain Gulf Air airplane toilet - upon landing in Manila, read her story here lhttp://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.html. Her despair and desperation inspired this blog to gather all possible stories in order to help, to inform and to empower all Filipina nannies, caregivers and maids -- to liberate themselves from abuses of all forms: physical, rape, verbal, exploitation, overtime working without pay.... Send us your stories. Stay anonymous - if you like. (No one can afford to deny this matter anymore). Write in Tagalog, or your dialect, or English, or French, or any language. ALL nannies, caregivers and domestic maids are welcome, send your stories to mangococonutmay1@gmail.com

See our Facebook for Filipina Nannies - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006253052815

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Updated August 2013

Licensing requirements for recruiters of foreign workers in Canada

August 9, 2013 | Posted by Janik, Marta | Print this page

Licensing requirements for recruiters of foreign workers in Canada

By Alan Diner and Denisa Mertiri

On April 29, 2013, the federal government introduced changes to Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program ("TFWP") to address a growing public concern that Canadian employers are using the "cheaper" labour of foreign workers, instead of that of Canadians. These changes will affect Canadian employers looking to hire foreign workers through the use of recruitment agencies.

Foreign worker recruitment regulation is a developing area in Canadian law. Provincial legislation on this topic is currently inconsistent, as some provinces regulate the activities of recruiters while others do not. This article provides a summary of recruiting law in Canada, with a focus on licensing requirements.

The LMO Application Process: New employer requirements

Unless exempt by law, companies looking to hire a foreign worker must first apply for a Labour Market Opinion ("LMO"), where, among other things, they must demonstrate that they attempted to hire Canadian workers before extending offers of employment to foreign nationals.

Human Resource and Skills Development Canada ("HRSDC") reported that, going forward, it will require employers who apply for LMOs to also have a firm plan in place to transition foreign workers to Canadian workforces. Discussions with a senior HRSDC officer revealed that the requirement to provide a detailed transitional plan has yet to be put into effect (although employers must indicate in the LMO application form whether they will train Canadians or permanent residents for the position to be filled by a foreign worker, and if so, explain how the training will take place). On this note, the federal government is encouraging the use of its newly-created Canada Job Grant, which will provide employers with funding of up to $15,000 per person if they wish to train Canadian workers to perform such labour.

Provinces that require recruiter licensing

Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and, recently, Nova Scotia, have all introduced legislation to regulate the activities of recruiters, including their licensing.

Leading the movement toward recruiter licensing regulation, Manitoba implemented the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act ("WRAPA") in 2009 to provide protection to foreign-trained workers employed in the province. WRAPA requires that employers and third parties involved in recruiting international workers (such as recruitment agencies) register with the Government of Manitoba's Employment Standards Division before they apply for an LMO. Manitoba employers must generally obtain a certificate of registration prior to applying for an LMO. However, if the certificate of registration and the LMO application are not congruent, employers must apply for an amended certificate of registration from the Government of Manitoba within 15 business days of submitting an LMO application.

While employers do not pay a fee to register or apply for an amended certificate of registration, third parties must pay a $100 application fee to Manitoba's Employment Standards Division for a non-transferable licence in order to operate as a recruiter under WRAPA . This licence is valid for one year only and should be renewed prior to expiry. The Act prohibits these licensing fees from being charged back to workers.

Nova Scotia followed Manitoba's lead and recently created new rules in response to changes to the TFWP. As of May 1, 2013, employers that wish to hire recruiters must use one of the licensed recruiters listed on the website of Nova Scotia Department of Labour's Labour Standards Division (“Labour Standards”). Furthermore, as of August 1, 2013, Nova Scotia employers wishing to hire a foreign worker will require a certificate of registration from the Labour Standards Division.

While there is no fee to obtain an employer registration certificate, individuals who recruit foreign workers for employment in Nova Scotia must pay a $100 application fee to the Labour Standards Division. Approved applicants must also provide a $5,000 security deposit before they could be issued a licence. Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code specifically requires that only employers, and not workers, be charged for recruitment services.

Alberta also requires that businesses that place employees in Alberta be licensed by Service Alberta regardless of where they are located. Alberta regulates recruiters' activities and licensing through the Fair Trading Act, which requires recruiters to pay a $120 licensing fee to the Government of Alberta in order to register under this Act. The Act also makes it illegal for recruiting agencies to charge workers a placement fee.

The British Columbia Employment Standards Act requires that recruiters be licensed, and prohibits recruiting agencies from charging workers for hiring or providing information to a person who is seeking employment. Employment agencies in British Columbia will incur a $100 fee, payable to the Employment Standards Branch of British Columbia's Ministry of Labour, in order to fulfil this licensing requirement.

Provinces without legislative licensing regimes

Although Ontario amended its Employment Standards Act ("ESA") to promote fairness and sustainable employment for temporary workers, the Act does not prescribe for recruiter licensing or how licensing fees, if incurred, should be allocated. Currently, there is no legislative demand for recruiter licensing, and recruiters who wish to bolster their industry reputation may voluntarily opt for membership in the Association of Canadian Search, Employment and Staffing Services ("ACSESS"). As members of the ACSESS, recruitment agencies must abide by the association's Code of Ethics, which requires, among other things, that recruiters derive income only from their clients (i.e., employers) but not from the employees.

While recruiters will incur fees for membership in ACSESS, the association's Code of Ethics prevents these fees from being charged to clients. Ontario's ESA furthermore prevents recruitment agencies from charging fees to employees for obtaining employment through the agency, performing temporary work for a client (employer) of the agency, preparing a resumes, training for job interviews or entering into a direct employment relationship with a client of the agency (unless the employee enters into such a relationship during the first six months of the employee’s work with the agency’s client).

New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and PEI do not require that recruiters hiring foreign workers be licensed either; and recruiting agencies are not legally required under these provinces' respective labour and employment acts to charge their fees only to employers.

Lastly, although Saskatchewan's Employment Agencies Act contains sanctions against employers and employment agencies that exploit foreign workers during the immigration process, it nonetheless does not require that such agencies be licensed. However, Bill-83, The Foreign Worker Recruitment and Immigration Services Act, is being reviewed by the Saskatchewan legislature and will, if adopted, require that recruiters obtain licensing within the province.

Updated July 24, 2013

Employer blacklist empty despite labour complaints from foreign workers

By Rebecca Lindell Global News

OTTAWA – More than 200 temporary foreign workers in Alberta have complained about payroll violations, but none of their employers have been publicly named by Ottawa.

Canada has more than 330,000 temporary foreign workers, with 68,319 of them in Alberta to help stem the labour shortages caused by the resource boom.

Last year, 218 temporary foreign workers in Alberta complained to the provincial government about labour standards violations, according to numbers released by the Alberta Federation of Labour.

Of those investigated, 47 per cent were found to be legitimate contraventions.

Employers who break the rules or fail to live up to their job offer are supposed to be publicly blacklisted by the federal government, who is responsible for Canada’s temporary foreign worker program. In applying to bring a temporary foreign worker, employers also promise to abide by local employment laws.

But the list of ineligible employers on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website remains empty.

“It seems to be a ploy,” said Siobahn Vipond of the Alberta Federation of Labour. “If you don’t put anybody on it, don’t bother having the list.”

The statistics from Alberta show getting on that federal list isn’t as simple as getting caught by the province.

Employers have to be actively seeking to hire a new temporary foreign worker in order for an immigration official to initiate an investigation that could land them on the ineligibility list.

That means employers currently abusing temporary foreign workers may not face the consequences unless they try to recruit more of them.

Citizenship and Immigration said it is aware of employers who would be blacklisted if they tried to hire more temporary foreign workers.

And the department credits the threat of public naming for preventing such employers from trying to hire additional employees.

The empty list points to an abject failure of the federal government to administer the program, according to NDP MP Jinny Sims.

“If you have a bad employer exploiting very vulnerable people who come to this country trying to make a living, then there has to be consequences,” she said.

“And that blank page on the website shows there are no consequences.”

But newly-minted Labour Minister Kellie Leitch disagrees, pointing to tighter rules proposed this spring.

“We have had concerns on a number of fronts with respect to this program and that’s why we’ve moved forward with a number of initiatives, one of which is making sure we tighten up the revocation and the suspension of the program for people who are abusing temporary foreign workers,” she said.

The rules would also put the onus on employers to prove they were meeting the conditions of the program – including fair wages and safe conditions – and will also see government officials conduct inspections of companies who hire temporary foreign workers.

Leitch said the government audits employers, but both employees and the provinces can help by flagging abuses.

But the Alberta Federation of Labour said it’s difficult for foreign workers to speak out due to language barriers, insufficient understanding of the rules or fear of retribution from their employer.

As for the provinces, not all of them delineate complaints based on whether an employee is temporary or not. And the Alberta government said it does share its information with the federal government, including the names of bad employers.

But it’s up to the federal government to make sure those names make it onto the blacklist the next time they apply for a temporary foreign worker.

With files from Mike Le Couteur

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Updated July 18, 2013 We add below a Montreal legal analyst , Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier
and article on "
2011 FEDERAL REFORM: MAKING THE CANADIAN MIGRANT WORKERS PAY
IF EMPLOYER FOUND
ABUSIVE" from a compilation of articles in

MISTREATMENT OF
TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS IN CANADA:
OVERCOMING REGULATORY BARRIERS
AND REALITIES ON THE GROUND

Read full article below.

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Updated July 13, 2013 Canada's immigration system lacks heart, critics say

Thank you, thank you, thank you!" nanny advocate Pura Velasco shouts after listening to the Star's recording of Minister Peter Fonseca saying tougher laws are coming to help protect the rights of caregivers. (April 2, 2009)

Dale Brazao Staff Reporter, Published on Thu Oct 15 2009

Employers who abuse foreign workers will be blacklisted and denied permission to hire another foreigner for two years, according to tough new regulations proposed by the Harper government.

Under the rules proposed by Ottawa, any employer shown to have violated the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and the Live-In Caregivers Program will have their names and addresses posted on a government website so foreign workers will know these employers are ineligible to hire them.

The government is also working on a "robust package of measures to crack down on bogus immigration consultants," said an aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

The proposed federal changes come in the wake of Star investigations showing widespread abuse in both programs, chief among them being recruiters bringing foreign workers to Canada with bogus job offers, then shifting them into unauthorized work where employers pay them a fraction of what they were promised. The province has already announced its own action, saying in April it would crack down on recruiters who exploit nannies and other foreign workers.

The first proposal from Kenney's department deals with employers who hire workers under false pretenses. Breaches would include employers paying less than promised, inadequate accommodation and working conditions, and third parties charging fees that contravene provincial laws.

"Employers that abuse their foreign workers can and will be prevented from sponsoring new ones. This is an important punishment," said Alykhan Velshi, an aide to the immigration minister.

The proposed regulations come as a result of consultations among the immigration department, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, and all will likely play a role in any decision to deny employers foreign workers.

The proposed blacklist, or "roll of shame" as some are calling it, would include information on anyone deemed to have made a bogus job offer in the preceding two years.

"It's a warning to companies and individuals that depend on foreign workers – treat them with respect, otherwise you will lose the ability to sponsor new foreign workers," Velshi noted.

"Enforcing this will be a priority for immigration officials."

The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by the immigration department are posted online in the Canada Gazette and on the Immigration Canada website. Stakeholders across Canada have 60 days to comment before the government moves to implement the new rules.

Current regulations provide for a fine of up to $50,000 or imprisonment for up to two years for anyone who "employs a foreign national in a capacity in which the foreign national is not authorized ... to be employed." But a discussion paper accompanying the proposed amendments said those penalties are "administratively burdensome and resource-intensive to apply. Imposing a denial of service on employers is a low-cost and effective response."

Those penalties would remain in the act, said immigration spokesperson Nicolas Fortier.

The next step will involve the companies – called recruiters – who bring workers into the country.

The Star found bogus recruiters bring in workers for fake jobs, collecting up to $10,000 in placement fees, then leave the workers without a job when they arrive.

While temporary-worker and caregiver programs are federally run, it is up to provinces to enforce their own labour laws once the foreign worker is in Canada.

The Ontario government plans to introduce legislation shortly that will ban placement fees for all foreign workers and regulate the nanny recruitment industry.

Last fall, the Star detailed the plight of 11 Filipino workers brought to Canada as welders and plumbers and told upon arrival their employer no longer wanted them. They were then spirited to a dilapidated farmhouse in Elmvale and put to work in a water bottling plant or made to clean stables and dig ditches. Instead of the $23 an hour they were promised, the workers were paid between $200 and $900 for six weeks' work. They were rescued after the Filipino consulate raided the farmhouse.

The RCMP investigated but did not lay any charges against either the recruiters who brought the men to Canada with the phony job offers, or the labour boss who exploited them. Most of the men had paid about $12,000 in placement fees to work in Canada.

The Star's investigation into the caregiver program revealed some nanny recruiters were charging between $5,000 and $10,000 for jobs that did not exist. Nanny advocates have long complained that the government chooses the easier route of deporting hapless workers caught working illegally rather than charging the recruiters or the employers.

Since 1999, the total number of temporary foreign workers entering Canada has nearly doubled, increasing from 107,217 in 1999 to 193,061 in 2008, with more than 40 per cent destined for Alberta and British Columbia. Service Canada also approved more than 30,000 applications for nannies in 2008.

The new regulations will put the onus on immigration officers overseas and Human Resources and Skills Development offices across the country to assess the validity of a job offer and determine whether a prospective employer has the means to pay the worker.

The Star investigation uncovered numerous examples of Service Canada officials approving nannies for "phantom employers," people on welfare, and in one case, giving permission to a 4-year-old girl to hire her own nanny.

"If you go to buy a fridge or a stove, the store will do a credit check on you," said a Filipino consulate source. "We've seen job contracts approved for caregivers where no one has checked on whether the employer even exists."

The new regulations would also limit to four years in total the time temporary foreign workers can stay in Canada and prevents them from reapplying for at least six years.

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Nannies back bill to halt abuses

About 150 caregivers, mostly from the Philippines, gathered downtown yesterday pledging to stick together and gather support for a private member's bill introduced by Liberal MPP Mike Colle.

http://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2009/03/30/nannies_back_bill_to_halt_abuses.html

CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR

photo

Catherine Manuel, far right, takes a moment to compose herself at a rally for caregivers' rights March 29, 2009 while describing her experiences.

By: Raveena Aulakh STAFF REPORTER, Published on Mon Mar 30 2009

Tears flowed down her cheeks, but Maribel Beato didn't let go of the microphone. "My employer cared more about the dog than me," said Beato, a nanny who had a horrific experience with a North York family last year.

The family dog bit her three times but she wasn't allowed to seek medical help, she said.

When she decided to quit eight months later, the employer wanted her to sign a paper that said the family wasn't responsible for the dog attacks. "I was told I won't get the record of employment or T4 if I didn't."

She didn't get the papers.

Beato, 35, works for a "great family" now but says no one should to go through that.

She was one of the 150 caregivers, mostly from the Philippines, who gathered downtown yesterday pledging to stick together and gather support for a private member's bill introduced by Liberal MPP Mike Colle.

The bill calls for licensing of all foreign-worker recruitment agencies and a ban on collecting fees from workers brought here.

The bill, which mirrors a Manitoba law, also proposes penalties of $50,000 for corporations and $25,000 for individuals contravening the act.

Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence) tabled the bill Wednesday in response to a series of Toronto Star stories exposing how unregulated recruiters exploit nannies and other domestic caregivers by luring them to Canada with promises of non-existent jobs, charging extortionate fees and confiscating their passports.

While tabling the bill, Colle said blatant abuse of nannies can't be tolerated any longer. "The exploitation of vulnerable foreign workers by unscrupulous recruiters cries out for government intervention," he said.

Ontario Labour Minister Peter Fonseca told the Star last week he supports addressing the issue, and is checking out Manitoba's law, but he stopped short of giving Colle's bill his blessing.

Yesterday, most caregivers said they were happy the bill was introduced but feared it would not be passed before the end of the legislative session – the fate suffered by most private member's bills.

"It's a great effort but we have to push Ontario for the legislation," said Pura Velasco of Caregivers Support Services, which organized the forum.

Velasco called upon the province to immediately ban placement fees. "They (agencies) take thousands of dollars from gullible women and then dump them as soon as they get to Canada," she said.

She also emphasized that the federal Live-In Caregivers program needs to be fixed because it doesn't protect nannies. "If the caregivers are to be deported, then (those) who put them in this miserable condition should also be held accountable."

The Star's investigation found foreign caregivers can be charged up to $10,000 by Ontario agencies for jobs. Caregivers pay up in the hope of coming to Canada and eventually applying for permanent residence. Many jobs don't exist and workers are forced into menial jobs.

After the stories were published, Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said he wanted to blacklist bad recruiters. But Velasco pointed out that while visa officers might see such a list, the women themselves likely wouldn't have access to it.

Besides making it tougher for agencies to exploit nannies, Colle's bill also has provisions to prevent the hiring families from mistreating them.

"Even if there's a genuine employer in Canada, nannies are made to work long hours, do othe r work than in the contract and not paid extra," said Menchie Cuaresma, another organizer.

Yesterday, nannies cried unabashedly while telling their stories – stories they say they would not have had the courage to tell without the Star's exposé.

Guadalupe Esparza paid an agency $5,000 and came from Ecuador a year ago to look after the children of a family near Parry Sound.

She cooked, cleaned, even gardened for five months before the employer told her to leave.

Esparza contacted the agency and they found an employer in King City, north of Toronto. The agency told her to start work immediately even though she had no work permit.

"I was new, I didn't know the laws well," she said.

She worked for four months but a week before the work permit came through, the family asked her to leave because "they didn't want to pay taxes."

That was in January. She is staying with friends, has an employer lined up and is waiting for the work permit. "These agencies need to be punished so they never repeat it," she said as others applauded.

It was one of the half-dozen stories heard. There were emotional moments as nannies suggested ways to stop the exploitation.

One suggested the pre-departure orientation for caregivers given in Manila should be expanded to other cities.

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Nannies trapped in bogus jobs

Four months after being lured to Canada, housed in a basement and pressured by a nanny recruiter to work illegally, Filipina Joelina Maluto summoned the courage to take back her life.

http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2009/03/14/nannies_trapped_in_bogus_jobs.html

photo

THE NANNY: Joelino Maluto, left, a 44-year-old mother of four, claims her promised job with a Toronto family turned out to be non-existent when she arrived in Toronto from Hong Kong illegally. THE RECRUITER: Trakela Spivak, right, says she can provide a nanny within a week even though the application process typically takes up to a year. She denies breaking any rules.

By Dale Brazao and Robert Cribb STAFF REPORTERS, Published on Sat Mar 14 2009

Four months after being lured to Canada, housed in a basement and pressured by a nanny recruiter to work illegally, Filipina Joelina Maluto summoned the courage to take back her life.

Desperate and disillusioned, Maluto stood on the doorstep of the woman who had brokered her entry to Canada – nanny recruiter Rakela Spivak – and demanded return of the passport that had been taken from her.

Maluto claims in court documents that after her promised job with a Toronto family turned out to be bogus, she joined 16 other unemployed Filipina nannies sleeping on the floor of Spivak's basement "in custody, detention, imprisonment and incarceration, without proper food ... harassed, frightened, scared." She said she and the other nannies were "exploited to work for Rakela and under stress, pressured, pushed and oppressed."

Following a curt exchange, Spivak handed Maluto, a demure 44-year-old mother of four, her passport and then served Maluto with a lawsuit claiming the nanny owed $3,500 in brokerage fees.

Maluto's story of mistreatment is being played out frequently across Ontario.

A Toronto Star investigation has found that the popular federal Live-In Caregiver Program has become a nanny trap. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of foreign caregivers have paid $5,000 or more to come to Canada to care for children or the elderly during the last decade – jobs that too often turn out to be fake. Once here, their federal contracts are void. Faced with what is for them a crushing debt, some are forced to work illegally at part-time, sometimes menial jobs; others are deported.

Federal authorities are turning a blind eye to this exploitation.

Documents obtained by the Star show Canada Border Services Agency officials believe there is "ongoing fraud and misrepresentation" within the program, but the immigration and human resources departments are not taking action.

The Star presented its investigative findings to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney who said his department is aware there is abuse in the program.

"We have this whole industry, most of which is unlicensed and unregulated, and large numbers of unscrupulous operations in Canada and throughout the world who exploit people's dreams and hopes to come to Canada," he said.

Kenney says he has asked his officials to recommend changes to tighten controls over the program.

The Star has interviewed two-dozen caregivers who came to Canada over the past five years. Almost all arrived to find their employers did not exist or had hired someone else.

"It's a human depot," said Frank Luna, the labour attaché with the Philippine consulate in Toronto. "The exploitation has been so widespread and going on for so long that the perpetrators no longer feel or see evil in what they do."

In an interview, Spivak said she runs a reputable business – Rakela Care International – that brings about 200 foreign caregivers to Canada each year, mostly Filipinas coming via Hong Kong. She denied housing nannies in her basement, and claimed Maluto used her to get to Canada.

"They come here and they use me and they run away," said Spivak, whose advertisements overseas promise "real jobs" and "real employers" that will make a prospective nanny's "dream come true."

Spivak said it is not her fault if employers who use her services decide they do not want a nanny.

"It's nothing to do with me. I never know until they arrive if the client wants them," Spivak said.

In an interview, Spivak would not address allegations that her agency is violating the rules of the federal program and is exploiting nannies with high fees while failing to deliver the promised jobs.

Instead, she talked of how she trains all her nannies to do laundry and cook; and produced cards and a guest book, filled with supportive comments from nannies expressing thanks for her help.

The 17-year-old federal Live-in Caregiver Program, designed to fill a shortage of nannies, allows Canadians to import foreign caregivers through employment agencies, which in Ontario are neither regulated nor licensed.

Anyone can open a nanny importing business. The Internet is replete with ads from dozens of Ontario agencies claiming to have nannies on hand.

The promised payoff for the nannies is a chance at landed immigrant status after two years of work.

The number of foreign nannies given permits to work in Canada has tripled in the last five years (from 3,458 in 2002 to 11,878 in 2007, the most recent information available). Most are from the Philippines.

Likewise, the number of approvals Canadian families received to hire overseas nannies – issued by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada – hit nearly 36,000 last year, about 11,000 more than were issued two years before.

A border services source told the Star the level of fraud in the program is also growing.

On many days "at least 90 per cent of the women coming in as caregivers come in for bogus employers," said one official on the condition of anonymity. "The minute they start working illegally they are open to exploitation by both the agencies and the employers.

"This is clearly human trafficking," the border services source said.

A bulletin from the Anti-Fraud and Human Trafficking Section of the Canada Border Services Agency last March cites a "trend occurring in which dishonest employment agencies sign up fraudulent 'employers' to bring live-in caregivers to Canada but the contracts disappear once the caregivers arrive," the memo reads. "The caregivers are innocent and are left obligated to pay the agency fees but are left without employment."

But instead of going after the agencies, the government nabs some of the nannies, with the authority of a 2007 Federal Court ruling that found caregivers with bogus contracts cannot remain in Canada even if they find a legitimate job.

"This is so unfair to these women who have given up everything and taken on so much debt to come here and work," said Pura Velasco, of the Caregivers Support Services Centre. "We have to stand up as a community and make the government account for its lack of respect for us."

Advocates such as Velasco regularly host meetings across the GTA where nannies speak angrily about their predicament.

One recent meeting in a North York auditorium attracted more than 120 nannies. They complained openly about the fees, and the bogus families. Some talked about being forced to work 12- to 15-hour days without overtime, days off or even minimum wage salaries.

Others complained of isolation, lack of nutritious food and mistreatment by employers.

"We look at Canada as the land of milk and honey," said Mel, a 50-year-old Filipina nanny and mother of two children in the Philippines shortly after two Star reporters helped her leave a home where, she said, she had been verbally abused and mistreated.

"Everyone wants to come to Canada – until they're here."

Marsha Mason, director of Intercede, a non-profit agency that counsels domestic workers, said most of the 5,000 cases the agency handles each year are Filipina caregivers.

Mason says she recently gave $100 from her own pocket to a nanny who didn't have enough to buy sanitary napkins and deodorant.

The practice of charging fees to the nannies to secure them work is banned by governments in all western provinces, but not in Ontario. The Philippines government also bans the practice, but it still goes on, with many agencies getting around the laws by recruiting nannies working in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai.

Some nanny advocates say agencies should charge families for arranging a caregiver. While some respectable agencies do this, they say they lose business to agencies that just charge the nanny. Some agencies charge both the employer and the nanny.

Memos obtained by the Star show federal enforcement officials have repeatedly warned their bosses that the program leaves "innocent victims" open to exploitation by both agencies and employers. One memo from the Border Services Agency lists about 20 Toronto-area Live-In Caregiver agencies and individuals suspected of fraud, and recommends they be prosecuted.

Another memo from an enforcement officer at Pearson International Airport states the problem is widespread.

"Again today we had another live-in caregiver with no employer," the memo reads. "The integrity of the program seems to be in jeopardy."

At Pearson, some officials call to see if an employer exists. Most do not. Typically, the women are allowed to enter the country, are picked up by an agency driver, and then housed in basements or dingy apartments run by the agencies.

For nannies who can't afford to pay their placement fees up front, some agencies offer financing by closely related companies that charge interest of up to 20 per cent.

Some agencies compel the women to open bank accounts into which their paycheques are deposited until their placement fees are paid back. Caregivers who cannot – or refuse to – pay sometimes find themselves in small claims court fending off lawsuits from their recruitment agents. Spivak has sued two and threatened a third nanny with a lawsuit.

"It's as if all the agencies got together and came up with a template for exploitation," said Velasco, a former caregiver who has spent the past 20 years advocating for nannies' rights. "We have to stand up against this intolerable situation. It's disgusting what's happening to these women."

Three nannies interviewed by the Star say their lives in Canada became so intolerable they seriously considered suicide. One of these women is Joelina Maluto, brought in by the Rakela Agency.

"I was so depressed, I didn't want to keep living," said Maluto, who paid Spivak's agency $1,100 up front in the Philippines for a job as a caregiver looking after six children with a Thornhill family – a job that had disappeared when she arrived.

"My children are desperate and asking for money and I had nothing to send them," she said of her four daughters back in the Philippines.

Rakela Spivak has sued Maluto claiming unpaid fees; Maluto has filed a defence alleging mistreatment by the Rakela Agency. The claim and counterclaim are allegations and have not been proven in court.

Spivak runs her agency out of her spacious Thornhill home, using her red Range Rover (car cost 100,000!!) (licence plate RAKELA) to drive new nannies to the bank and other appointments. She advertises in hockey rinks and the local Shalom Toronto newspaper. Her ads boast of the 2006 "Excellent Service Awards," an honour she said she bestowed on herself at the urging of a group of nannies.

To bring in a foreign caregiver, federal regulations state that a family with suitable income must sponsor the nanny. An application must be filled out, paperwork processed, typically taking up to a year.

But Spivak, and many other agencies, can get you a nanny almost instantly. The Star found that's because a person who applies for a nanny today is actually getting one that was sponsored by another family months earlier.

When a Star reporter posing as a potential client visited Spivak, she said a nanny could be provided within a week, and acknowledged that the proper application process would take much longer.

Asked if the government could learn of the illegal employment, she told the would-be client: "Why would they have to find out?"

Spivak also said her nannies work well beyond the contractual eight hours without overtime pay.

"No, no overtime ... don't worry about that. I've never had any problems with this."

Maluto is one of nine nannies interviewed by the Star who came to Canada through Spivak's Rakela Care Agency.

All said Spivak promised them jobs for fees ranging between $2,500 and $3,500, which ballooned to $5,000 when they arrived in Toronto. All but one arrived to learn their jobs didn't exist. None had ever even spoken to employers who supposedly filled out the federal paperwork to sponsor them.

Spivak demanded the nannies sign contracts that required turning over their passports and social insurance cards.

Most were housed in Spivak's basement for as many as two weeks with as many as a dozen other women. The nannies say they slept on mattresses on the floor and spent their days cleaning the house and cooking for Spivak's family.

If the basement becomes too crowded, some are moved to an apartment at Steeles Ave. and Bathurst St. To pay their debt to Spivak, most were offered part-time jobs cleaning homes, which immediately placed them in violation of immigration rules that stipulate they must work and live with the family that sponsored them.

In an interview at her home office, Spivak denied telling the undercover reporter she could provide a nanny without proper federal approvals. She acknowledged the Hong Kong government warned her in 2007 about recruiting there without a licence.

She said the matter has been resolved and she visits Hong Kong several times a year to hold "orientation" seminars for nannies interested in Canada. Her caring treatment of the women has often been abused, Spivak said.

"You should talk about the girls that come here and are using me," she said. "Some come here to find guys and get pregnant. You know how many are pregnant?"

As to the passports, Spivak said she collects them "for safe keeping." She recently received a stern letter from the Philippine consulate in Toronto demanding she return them to their owners. Spivak said she will comply.

Until the consulate letter, nannies interviewed by the Star said Spivak would not return passports until placement fees were paid up.

Immigration Canada's website alerts foreign workers that employers cannot take their passports.

In the food court of Thornhill's Promenade Mall last month, half a dozen nannies lined up to hand cash to one of Spivak's assistants, who handed them back receipts.

Six of the women who spoke with the Star all said they worked longer than the 40-hour weeks listed in their contracts, without overtime.

Ali Martell, a former Spivak client, said she received a strange call from an Immigration official in 2007 telling her that her nanny had just arrived at the Vancouver airport.

The Martells had gone to Spivak months earlier asking for a nanny for their three children. Spivak had them fill out an application form and got them a nanny within days.

"We picked up (the nanny) and she had a completely different name than the name we were originally given."

When the nanny quit three months later, Martell said she cancelled all ties with Spivak. But Spivak used the previous application to bring a nanny to Canada without her permission, Martell said.

"It makes me sick to think about it," Martell said in an interview. "What happens to this poor woman who just showed up in Vancouver, completely alone, thinking she was going to have a job? I was devastated for her."

In an interview, Spivak denied misrepresenting her services to the Martells and said the couple never cancelled their original request for a nanny. As for providing nannies quickly, Spivak said if a family wishes to hire a caregiver without the proper federal work permits, "that's their problem, not mine."

The reporters can be reached at 416-945-8674 or at nannytrap@thestar.ca.

======================================

Federal agencies fail to protect migrant nannies

Read the Star's two-part investigation. In today's final installment, case histories expose serious problems in a system supposedly administered by 2 federal departments.

http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/03/15/federal_agencies_fail_to_protect_migrant_nannies.html

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Heron Lloyd Tait, real estate agent for the Sutton Group and president of Jinkholm International, a nanny recruiting agency.

By Robert Cribb , Foreign, Investigations and Dale Brazao, Published on Sun Mar 15 2009

http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/03/15/federal_agencies_fail_to_protect_migrant_nannies.html

A woman living in poverty receives government approval to bring a nanny into Canada.

A nanny recruiter uses falsified documents to hire a nanny for a phantom employer.

Twenty nannies pay a combined $30,000 to come to Canada and are denied work permits because their recruiter filed dubious applications.

These are some of the cases the Star found in its investigation of the federal government's Live-in Caregiver Program. Combined, they show serious problems with a system that is supposed to be administered by two federal departments — Human Resources and Immigration Canada.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of foreign caregivers have paid $5,000 or more to come to Canada to care for children or the elderly during the last decade – jobs that too often turn out to be fake.

Once here, their federal contracts are void. Faced with what is for them a crushing debt, some are forced to work illegally at part-time, sometimes menial jobs; others are deported.

The Canada Border Services Agency suspects that some agencies are abusing the program.

The Star also found federal offices have made questionable approvals of applications from nanny recruitment agencies.

In an interview, federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney acknowledged shortcomings in the program. Among the necessary reforms, he said, is tighter scrutiny around "unscrupulous" and unregulated recruitment agencies.

When employers and recruiting agencies fill out applications, federal guidelines require that employers demonstrate they can pay a caregiver's salary, plus provide accommodations in their homes.

The Star found that Theora Scott, a 34-year-old Mississauga mother of three, was approved to sponsor a nanny even though her annual income was only $24,573 and she was living in subsidized housing. That puts Scott far below Statistics Canada's before-tax poverty line for a single mother of three children ($39,383).

People sponsoring nannies need enough income to pay a live-in nanny the average annual salary of about $19,000. Based on the size of her family, Scott needed to earn at least $60,000 annually to qualify as a nanny sponsor. With Scott's low salary, almost all her income would go toward the nanny salary.

Toronto-based recruiter Jinkholm International handled Scott's application. When the nanny, a Filipina woman from Hong Kong, arrived, a border official questioned Scott's low income but allowed the nanny in. A border services agency memo reads:

"This is a questionable employment contract in that the employer showed limited income for last year and limited income potential in general," the officer wrote.

"I issued the work permit but limited the duration based on the questionable ability of the employer to retain her."

The nanny bolted from Scott's home within a month.

In an interview, Scott said Jinkholm president Heron Lloyd Tait assured her the nanny would be allowed in. A previous nanny obtained through Jinkholm also quit shortly after arriving.

"Employee quit without reason – just saying she feels unwanted," Scott wrote in a report to the government before applying for another one.

Tait told the Star both nanny contracts had been properly approved by Service Canada, a division of Human Resources Canada. He has no problem with Scott's low income, saying Scott, a caregiver for the elderly, could earn more money if she had a nanny to watch her children.

Tait and his agency are on a Canadian Border Services Agency list, obtained by the Star, of about 20 recruiting agencies suspected of fraudulently using the federal nanny program. Tait wouldn't say who told him he was on the list.

A part-time recruiter, part-time real estate agent, Tait said he provides an important service. "Mostly, what I'm doing here is helping people come and help families."

In another Jinkholm case, Toronto computer engineer Doina Brejan says she bought a house from Tait four years ago. At the time, he suggested Brejan, a single mother and Romanian immigrant, would require someone to work around the house. She says she never requested a nanny for her son, then 13.

"I needed someone to look after the garden or some stuff like that," Brejan said in an interview.

About a year ago, she said Tait called asking if she would call a government official and say that she did want a caregiver. She refused.

"I told him I don't want to hear about him ever again and I never called anybody," Brejan said.

Documents obtained by the Star show Tait charged a Filipino man named Ronell Tabafunda $8,000 (U.S.) to immigrate to Canada and work as a caregiver for Brejan.

Tabafunda arrived in Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program, sponsored by Brejan. But the two never met.

Tait says Tabafunda did arrive in Canada to find he had no employer after Brejan declined to hire him. Tait said Brejan was aware she was sponsoring a caregiver for her son.

"She knew what she was doing," he said. "No matter how well you run your business, some employers are going to refuse their nannies."

A senior border official says the 31-year-old Tabafunda remains in Canada, and recently applied for a new work permit. Tabafunda could not be reached for comment.

In some cases, nannies pay what for them are hefty fees – but never make it to Canada.

Twenty Filipina caregivers say they were left stranded in Cyprus after paying Toronto nanny agency Primecare International between $1,000 and $3,600 each in advance for jobs in Canada that never materialized.

The Star has obtained receipts showing more than $30,000 in payments to Primecare by the 20 women.

Emma Ombid, a Filipina caregiver who worked as an agent for Primecare in 2007, said there were actually as many as 27 women who paid recruitment fees to Primecare without ever being placed in a Canadian home. She says she was outraged by the way the women were treated.

"They have to leave Cyprus after five years and that's why Canada is so attractive," says Ombid, adding that some of the Cyprus nannies have returned to the Philippines after their work permits expired.

Primecare is also on the federal fraud watch list obtained by the Star. Operating out of the Peek-A-Boo children's store on St. Clair Ave. W., the recruiter never refunded the money despite repeated requests from the women stranded in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Several of the nannies, who earn an average of $500 a month in Cyprus, told the Star in telephone interviews that they borrowed heavily to pay the placement fee. They have tried unsuccessfully to reach Primecare owner Veronica Crone.

"I send message to her, but she ignores me," Mariacel Morales said in an interview from Cyprus.

Federal documents show Morales's prospective employer never provided the necessary documents to prove she could afford a nanny.

"Therefore, I am refusing your application," reads the denial from the Canadian embassy in Damascus, Syria, which processed the Cyprus nannies' applications. The prospective employer listed in Morales's 2007 application has a phone number that no longer works and an address in a Scarborough subsidized housing complex.

Letters from the Canadian embassy all cite a lack of financial information from employers as the reason for declining the nannies' admission to Canada.

In January, Crone was arrested and imprisoned in the Philippines on charges of "mass recruiting" and fraud. She remains in prison, her husband John Crone said last week.

Penalties for those convicted of mass recruiting in the Philippines include life imprisonment. A woman convicted of the offence in the Philippines last week was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"My wife has been accused of something that took place back in 2003," John Crone said in an interview. He said a man involved in a recruiting scam implicated his wife, who he said is blameless.

Crone, who owns the Peek-A-Boo store, says he is not involved with his wife's recruitment company.

"I don't know what happened with these girls from Cyprus. It's obviously a bad situation."

He said his wife has placed hundreds of foreign women in Canadian nanny jobs. "She is not a con artist ... . I'm not saying nothing ever goes wrong," he added.

During the Star's investigation, a reporter visited Primecare posing as a potential employer looking for a nanny. Under federal rules, the hiring of a nanny from overseas can take several months, even a year. That's because employers need to first advertise for a Canadian nanny. If none is available, the employer then needs to submit documents to apply for a foreign worker.

The Star reporter asked Primecare employee Joy how quickly he could get a nanny. Just a few days, he was told. He was presented with two candidates on the spot; both Filipina nannies who recently arrived from Dubai to learn their employers don't want them.

"If you need them urgently, we can arrange a plan that they can work in your residence, but in case (Human Resources Skills Development Canada) call you, and if they will ask you if this lady is already working, you say, `No.'"

John Crone says it is common for nannies who show up without an employer to start working with new employers without proper approvals.

"I guess there's a shortcut being taken, but the shortcut is so that the nanny doesn't have to sit idly for three months waiting for paperwork to go through," he said.

"I think it's true that it's the way all the agencies operate. When I hear these things, I have the same reaction you do. ... I'm appalled by it."

=================================

More Migrants Kidnapped by Kenney's Goons: Workplace Raids in Southern Ontario

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

http://www.thecannon.ca/viewpoints/opinions/more_migrants_kidnapped_by_kenneys_goons_workplace_raids_in_southern_ontario

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Written by MaryCarl Guiao

In the last couple of months Canadian-immigrant relations have been marked by unnecessarily violent, US-style mass raids, detentions and deportations of migrant workers throughout southern Ontario.
The latest example of this trend took place this past week on May 27. Early Wednesday morning, immigration enforcement officers swarmed Lakeside Greenhouse in Leamington, Ontario and arrested at least nine female migrant food packaging workers. The women, Mexican citizens, are currently being detained in Windsor County Jail.

The majority of those arrested are in Canada on valid visas. Some have pending refugee claims and are at risk in their country of origin. One of the detainees is pregnant. Though individuals awaiting refugee claim hearings hold a level of protection against immigration arrests and are in fact legally allowed to work, immigration enforcement officers bypassed protocol and disregarded any humane sensitivity when they pursued their aggressive raid.

The criminalization of these women is wrong. We must ask ourselves: what truly is their crime?
It is critical to acknowledge that as Canada continues to make it close to impossible for hardworking immigrants of trade and manual labour skills to enter our country legally. The system is pushing hardworking immigrants into precarious conditions as these individuals strive to make a living where the opportunities exist, even at the risk of being undocumented. They contribute to Canada’s economy, but again and again, the door of opportunity is being shut in their faces.

These latest arrests emphasize that our immigration system needs reworking. It seems irresponsible for our current Conservative government to focus on pursuing and arresting people who should not be seen as criminals while there are urgent issues affecting Canadians: EI, mass layoffs, and welfare rates that fall below the poverty line. Shamefully, all of this is happening while the government bails out the wealthy, whose unrestrained greed has caused the current economic crisis. The discrimination against migrants needs to stop.

Terror and Violence Against Migrants: By-products of Recent Shifts in Immigration Policy

In April, Canadian Border Services Agency and South Simcoe Police conducted raids in Simcoe, Toronto, Leamington and Windsor. Nearly 100 workers were rounded up at Cericola Farms’ food processing factories. The workers were held at gunpoint and herded into cafeteria, where CBSA agents separated workers with proof of citizenship and permanent residency from those who didn’t.
The undocumented workers were then transferred to a bus and kept shackled for a reported eight hours. Dozens more undocumented people were picked up in places unrelated to their workplace, some by enforcement officers waiting outside of shelters or impersonating lawyers.

More than 100 of these workers were later taken to the Rexdale Immigration Detention Centre, where they were put into a room with no furniture to wait unattended for several more hours. An immigration official then rushed through their rights in a reported 15 minutes using complicated legal language, providing them with biased recommendations and not adequately identifying documents which the migrant workers were pressured to sign. This inadequate level of information and support resulted in many workers unintentionally waiving their rights to counsel and options for delaying their removal and appealing to procedural actions. Later, 41 of the detained workers were forced out of Canada and deported to Thailand.

Immigration authorities did not consider the context of these cases, as many of the arrested workers possessed temporary work permits but fell into a precarious status for a number of reasons. Some reported that they faced severe danger if they were to return to their countries of origin. Others worked unauthorized second jobs because the only jobs they were legally permitted to work paid below a living wage. At least one was reportedly forced to quit due to a sexually exploitative employer. These factors have not received attention, nor any investigations have been forwarded, and no charges have been laid against any of the employers of the arrested.

Repression and raids have accompanied the changes to the immigration system made by the Harper Conservatives. All throughout Canada last summer, mass protests were held against the passing of the racist and classist Bill C-50. The bill was eventually passed in June 2008 with the Liberals refusing to vote against it for fear of prompting a politically undesirable election.

This new bill attacks immigrants' rights in a variety of ways. It allows the Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Minister (currently, Jason Kenney) to set quotas on the "category" of person that can legally set foot in Canada. This includes setting quotas based on a person’s country of origin, regardless of the skills that person may possess.

Setting quotas on the basis of a person’s country of origin represents a critical shift in Canadian immigration policy. Its precedents include the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, the Order in Council of 1911 prohibiting the "landing of any immigrant belonging to the Negro race" and the "none is too many" rule applied to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during Second World War. Under Stephen Harper, and more recently under Minister of "Censorship and Deportation" Jason Kenney, Canada's immigration policy has taken a significant step backward towards its racist roots.

In light of the many immigration and citizenship issues currently arising in both national and Ontario news (for example, the allegations surrounding Liberal Immigration Critic MP Ruby Dhalla and her family's abusive treatment of, and possibly illegal practices towards, two of their hired filipina migrant live-in caregiver workers), it is important that the Guelph public be informed about the many (im)migration issues existing locally and related events, such as this past Wednesday's raids, as, although it is not well known by the general public (with the exception of a few organizations such as Migrante Ontario and Immigration Services), there are many temporary migrant workers in Guelph.

It is important for us to recognize the root causes of immigration and migration, and in turn the recent criminalization of im/migrants. Many im/migrants are forced to come to Canada as their home countries have been savaged by wars and neo-liberal economic models that promote corporate exploitation and the destruction of local economies. Half of all people arriving in Canada today are on temporary visas and have very little chance of permanent residency. Half a million live in Canada without any status at all.

Newcomers continue to make important contributions to our country, and deserve respect and dignity. Canada should regularize non-status members of our communities so they can continue to contribute to our economy while living in safety and peace. We must grant them status, and put an end to the dehumanizing and criminalizing attacks on im/migrant communities.
The opinions posted on thecannon.ca reflect those of their author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Central Student Association and the Guelph Campus Co-op. We encourage all students to submit opinion pieces, including ones that run contrary to the opinion piece in question.

Comments

Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 3, 2009 @ 2:57am
i'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that canada not necessarily be viewed as a safe-haven or refuge for the rest of the world.

when you're here on a temporary work permit, that's fine. i hope those who were wrongfully detained are vindicated, but, by this article's own admission, not everyone had work permits and some weren't allowed to work the jobs they had.

i don't want to get into the debate of 'no one's illegal!' because i think this is more about abiding by law and the terms and conditions of the work visa (and, besides, i think we do need to regulate immigration, too).

whether it was the municipal police or immigration enforcement officers making the arrest, the point is that there was illegal migration occurring. if one of the detainees was pregnant i don't think should matter, either- in fact it could be construed as favoring her over non-pregnant males and sexist. i also don't understand the reference to bailing out the 'wealthy'. the canadian federal and ontario provincial governments bailed out general motors, which is pro-union, high-wage paying industry. this is what experts believe led to its demise and what left-wingers ceaselessly advocate.

...liberal media at it's best.
Posted by: mel1000 on Jun 5, 2009 @ 6:47am
Mary's passion and dedication to female migrant workers is evident in her column -- deservedly so, as these women keep the Canadian economy moving.

if 'Not my CSA' seriously wants to stem the tide of migrant labour -- legal or not -- then I hope they only buy products and services that are untouched by migrant labourer hands. buy produce from a grocery store? guess what, touched by migrant labourers, regardless of country of origin. benefit from clean washrooms at a shopping mall or other public place? probably cleaned by a migrant worker.

until Canadians put their money where their mouth is and pay the real costs -- including decent, livable wages for all -- of goods and services, then migrant workers are essential.

and my Canada includes refugee claimants -- we are a humanitarian country and if the time comes that we forget we were founded on that principle it will be time to call us American.

m :)
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 8, 2009 @ 7:26pm
hmmm... i do enjoy my clean washrooms at the shopping mall. i mean, don't we all?

of course i'm not against migrant workers who enter this country legally. but canada shouldn't just be carefree when it comes to monitoring its borders. we shouldn't have a 100% open door policy and let anyone and everyone in. it's so easy to go along with the mob rule way of thinking and respond yes, yes, yes, to all to demands. give everyone more money, they'd all appreciate it. i'm sure.

however, i don't really follow you when you talk about paying migrant workers decent, livable wages and the fact that illegal immigration is going on, like one results in the other. you're mixing up two different policies and coming off like saying workers choose to come here illegally, now let's pay them more.
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 8, 2009 @ 7:27pm
every time this topic of illegal workers entering this country arises, the response from the left seems to be 'they don't earn enough!' or 'who else would do our low wage jobs!' or 'no one is illegal' as if this justifies them breaking the law. but the fact is some of these workers are here illegally first. in fact, maybe, the flood of illegal migrant workers is what is keeping wages down, but that thought probably never crossed your mind. if you want to renegotiate the labor laws, raise minimum wages, or start a movement to unionize migrant workers, be my guest. but don't expect lawmakers to bend the rules to allow illegal migration. that would be sending the signal that, sure, canadians have laws, but we're so nice and you're so special that we'll bend them for you... and if you break more laws while you're here, 'we'll forgive you... we tolerate unlawful behavior'... 'you happened to be apart of al-qaeda and bombed 11 embassies... okay, come to canada, we'll rehabilitate you'.
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 8, 2009 @ 7:28pm
you still haven't responded to the issue of breaking the law. and i don't blame you, it's a tough thing to justify. but that's the germane problem we need to focus on. and, if you think about it, for every 1 illegal migrant worker who sneaks into canada, there are probably 2 dozen more who are waiting and have filled out all the paperwork to come here legally! now, you want to talk about fair! how fair is that to them? why don't you write an article about that for a change!
Posted by: J.D. on Jun 9, 2009 @ 1:08pm
Interesting article, but without citations your claims don't mean anything. Name your source if you want to be taken seriously, otherwise you sound like an uneducated person going on some crusade without a shred of real evidence.
Posted by: Start working on Jun 10, 2009 @ 11:28am
Not My CSA- The connection between paying migrants a liveable wage and illegal immigration that you stated you donâ€™t really follow, at its core has to do with the nature of the work permits given to migrants. What cases show are situations where migrants are given closed work permits to jobs that do not pay a living wage. When these individuals then take on a second job to survive it is seen as a violation of their work terms, as the second job wasnâ€™t certified/. In turn their previous work permit often is voided and they become illegal. What Mary was getting at was that if their first job paid enough, this wouldnâ€™t happen and these individuals would not fall into a precarious status.
What should also be noted is that giving these individuals open work permits to be able to travel within a certain certified industry, recognized as having labour shortages, would also improve this problem. Just as citizens have the ability to walk away from an abusive or bad job, so should migrants. This would alleviate cases where migrants experience abuse and are forced to choose between enduring this or becoming illegal.
Posted by: Start working on Jun 10, 2009 @ 11:30am
Contâ€¦

This would also allow them to work multiple jobs if they so choose, which coincides with their right to strive to better themselves.

The above is concerning migrant workers coming into the country legally. When it comes to individuals with no status, as you pointed out, discussion becomes more complicated. I recognize the difficulty in legitimizing my position within the confines of our current immigration system, as legality does pose obvious barriers. Either way I believe that we have to continue to address these issues, outside of these confines, through a humanist perspective that affirms the dignity and worth of people over dismissing them in the name of constructed laws. Things are not so black and white, and all policies should be assessed, reworked and bettered. Whether this should take the form of a call for open borders, or the facilitating of controlled entrance, and the empowering of newcomers, debate is welcome; however, what we have currently is not working.
Posted by: Start working on Jun 10, 2009 @ 11:32am
I also do not think that you should be pinning â€˜legalâ€™ migrants against no status migrants, and throwing in such words as fairness in the mix. For one you cannot generalize positions, and it just comes off very unsavoury to suddenly suggest a defence for one in the expense of the other. Furthermore, the problem here is again with our system. Those â€˜legalâ€™ migrants that you speak of are rapidly dwindling in numbers. Particularly those of manual labour or â€˜lowâ€™ skill trades. The changes to our countryâ€™s point system have made it almost impossible for them to get in legally. To emphasize the rigidity of these changes, a professor at the University of Guelph took the immigration test and did not pass, not qualifying for citizenship. I advise you to visit the webpage of Citizen and immigration Canada and have a look at it. Coupled with this restriction on providing citizenship, since our country still has vast labour shortages in stigmatized industries, our system has worked out our needs over the wellbeing of migrants by introducing and expanding temporary worker programs. Through these programs we get our workers but do not provide them with the protections of full status.
Posted by: Start working on Jun 10, 2009 @ 11:34am
More so there are so many problems with these programs that we cannot blame migrants if they consider â€˜illegality.â€™ Type in Canadian migrant worker programs in Google and you can read a plethora of reports of worker abuses, and systemic problems within these programs. So again something has to be done, this is not working.

If any of you are interested in connecting with this issue further and critically testing your current positions and opinions, I advise you to contact Student Support for Migrant Workers-Guelph, their email is SSMW@uoguelph.ca. Participate in one of their volunteer outreach projects and meet some migrants, hear their stories, and add a very critical layer to your knowledge on all this.
Posted by: Start working on Jun 10, 2009 @ 11:37am
J.D we are still waiting for more coverage on the recent raids,but I have read the sources that Mary uses and nothing can be more legit then testimonies from those migrants involved. I have a feeling that doesnt fly too much for you, so the Clifton. J. 2005, article speaks to similar deportaions which ocured within the Portuguese community in Toronto.

Sharma, N. 2006. Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of Migrant Workers in Canada.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Clifton. J. 2005. â€œDeserving Citizenship? Canadian Immigration Policy and â€˜Low-skilledâ€™ Portuguese Workers in Torontoâ€ A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Geography) The University of British Columbia (Vancouver).
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 11, 2009 @ 12:47am
re: start working

thanks for your comments. some of your points are really good especially the one about 'open' work permits allowing migrant workers to move around within a given industry. and i generally agree that that is a good idea.

what i find hard to believe is how migrant workers can afford to send remittances home yet still aren't paid enough to live a 'decent' life. it's no wonder they don't have any disposable income if they send it all home. but by doing so they're able to support their spouse, children and/or parents. so it would seem they're able to save at least some of their money (in the form of remittances) and, perhaps, aren't earning as little as one would be led to think. i admit migrant workers aren't paid much, but most of the jobs we're talking about here are in greenhouses or restaurants or agriculture or, like mel1000 mentioned, cleaning washrooms. typically these jobs have a high turnover rate, require hardly any education, and demand little responsibility. hence workers only get paid minimum wage or slightly above.
Posted by: Drew on Jun 11, 2009 @ 11:02pm
@Not My CSA
So your point is that migrant workers obviously make enough money since they can afford to feed their families back home. It is totally unfair to separate the well being of the migrant with their families back home. When discussing the income of Canadians it is almost always expressed in terms of "household" income. Providing for your family is part of being "paid enough to live a 'decent' life". I mean you could tell your kids to get a job, and that would be very libertarian of you and all, but maybe it wouldn't be in their best interests.
Posted by: chocolat et thÃ© on Jun 12, 2009 @ 1:24pm
To 'Start Working':
Wonderful to know there's an organization in Guelph that's able to help shine light on this important issue.

To 'not my csa':

The point system is discrediting the skills and academic/professional credentials of immigrants which they had attained (and worked hard to do so!) in their country of origin)- that's why they are (forced to be!) working in so-called 'low-skilled' jobs, not because they are incompetent or 'low-skilled'. To add, these credentials and programs to work outside of their country require migrants to pay lots of money. Even those that work 'low skill' jobs often pay exorbitant fees in order to be part of temporary programs in the first place. This is a huge drain on income.

I have many friends who are immigrants and are economically wealthy in their country of origin, but still face rigid or unconquerable barriers that suppress their ability to use their skills and academic/professional credentials. It also takes them longer to be in positions of economic and/or political "prestige" or power, or at least in positions that lead to having a "comfortable and secure" livelihood in Canada.
Posted by: chocolat et thÃ© on Jun 12, 2009 @ 1:27pm
[contâ€™d] To â€˜not my csaâ€™:

In Canada, many migrants working with the proper papers, such as some live-in caregivers (see links in next post) that get paid, as a National Post editor had calculated, roughly $3 hour and regularly work overtime without pay. This is not a living wage even for someone not having "valuable" skills. Canadian Immigration legislation and enforcement makes it easy for employers to get away with this, thus often (almost always) employers receive no penalty.
Posted by: chocolat et thÃ© on Jun 12, 2009 @ 1:34pm
[contâ€™d] To â€˜not my csaâ€™:

Follow the links below for
a) More information on the exploitative working conditions that migrant workers in Canada face:
"Nannies trapped in bogus jobs"
http://www.thestar.com/article/602352
&
"Federal agencies fail to protect migrant nannies"
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/602649
&
" Ruby Dhalla's notion of 'care and compassion' "
(an article that is indicative of a common practice in Canada)
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/05/08/national-post-editorial-board-ruby-dhalla-s-notion-of-care-and-compassion.aspx
Posted by: chocolat et thÃ© on Jun 12, 2009 @ 1:35pm
[contâ€™d from above]:

b) Elaboration on current exploitative Canadian Immigration Policy:
"The Shift in Canadian Immigration Policy and Unheeded Lessons of the Live-in Caregiver" Programhttp://www.ccsl.carleton.ca/~dana/TempPermLCPFINAL.pdf

To support the creation of humane work conditions for immigrants/migrants, you can write letters to demand better monitoring and protection for immigrants/migrants, regulation of employment agencies, a call to stop employment agencies from collecting fees from workers that they are recruiting and to stop the deportation of immigrants/migrants.

Letters can be sent to the
Minister of Labour (webmin@mol.gov.on.ca or pfonseca.mpp.@liberal.ala.org)
AND
Jason Kenney, Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism(Kenney.J@parl.gc.ca).
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 14, 2009 @ 5:49pm
i highly doubt that the migrant workers working in greenhouses are doctors, professors, or lawyers back in their home countries. that sounds good though.
Posted by: Not_My_CSA on Jun 14, 2009 @ 6:04pm
re: drew

maybe your parents should've encouraged you to get a job, but that would probably not have been in your best interest, which is great because you'll have more time to complain about the burden of debt you face upon graduation from university.
Posted by: Drew on Jun 17, 2009 @ 12:53pm
@Not my CSA
Actually I'm a graduate that worked all through university and is still in debt. Maybe if you actually cared about people's well being instead of shooting your mouth off and not bothering to research your personal attacks we'd live in a society where people can go to school without it being a debt sentence and workers (regardless of their origins) could actually be paid a living wage in order to support their families (whever they might be). Thanks for proving your ignorance.
Posted by: Mary on Jul 3, 2009 @ 2:02pm
re. not my csa

The fact is that racialized immigrants with 'high credentials' (eg,
veterinarians and other doctors, engineers, university graduates)
ARE working in the green houses, in the seasonal agricultural worker
programs, and in other similar placements/programs intended for so-called
'low-skilled' migrant workers.

Some folks from Student Support for Migrant Workers recently went to both
the National Migrant Justice Gathering that took place the weekend of June
20-21st at the University of Waterloo, and the Bradford Migrant Worker
Appreciation Day this past June 28th.
Posted by: Mary on Jul 3, 2009 @ 2:04pm
At the events we met many people who work with racialized migrant workers
who've confirmed this.

Furthermore, it has been widely argued (including in academic literature)
that the time employed in these temporary migrant worker programs in canada, has the effect of de-skilling workers, actively producing them as
'low-skilled' workers.
Posted by: Mary on Jul 3, 2009 @ 2:06pm
For example, migrants working within the live-in caregiver program (many of whom are nurses, teachers, university graduates, etc.) are required to take on the role of a 'caregiver' to the elderly/disabled/handicapped/children for at least two years straight (though often completing the program takes longer). Consequently, as they continue working as domestic workers, over time they lose their (accredited) skills and professional knowledge
Posted by: Mary on Jul 3, 2009 @ 2:07pm
A key reason for the (high prevalence and rate of) de-valuing and deskilling of skilled and racialized immigrants in Canada also has to do with the Western construct of racialized immigrants (eg, Africans, Mexicans, Thai) as unskilled labour.

Hence, current Canadian immigration processes reproduce and structure inequality against, including the deskilling of, racialized migrants.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Study ranks Canada third-worst among affluent nations for paid vacation

Austerity hasn't forced Eurozone countries to cut back legally mandated paid vacation. The U.S. still lacks laws guaranteeing time off.

By Morgan Campbell, Business, Published on Fri May 24 2013

http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/05/24/study_ranks_canada_thirdworst_among_affluent_nations_for_paid_vacation.html

With peak vacation season set to kick off, a U.S.-based economic policy think tank has sobering news for Canadians.

Among the 21 affluent nations studied by the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Canada ranked third-worst in terms of legally mandated time off from work, with vacation and statutory holidays combining to give Canadian workers a minimum of 19 paid days off each year.

Austria and Portugal both require employers to grant 35 paid days off — 22 in vacation and 13 in holidays — while workers in Germany and Spain are entitled to a minimum of 34 days.

The study, titled “No Vacation Nation,” is the sequel to a similar survey conducted six years ago, and lead author John Schmitt says the results haven’t changed much.

He points out that the Eurozone economic crisis hasn’t prompted cutbacks on paid vacation time in places such as Spain (34 days) and Greece (26), where hobbled economies prompted austerity measures from federal governments.

“It’s quite surprising how little change there’s been in vacation policy given the big movement towards austerity,” Schmitt says. “It speaks to how important this is to so many people in so many different countries.”

But he also emphasizes that the last six years haven’t prompted governments in low-ranking countries to increase access to paid days off.

Canada still outranks Japan, where workers are guaranteed only 10 vacation days annually, and the U.S., where employees aren’t assured any paid days off.

The study found 90 per cent of high wage earners in the U.S. have paid vacation, but without laws requiring paid time off only 49 per cent of low wage earners in the U.S. have paid vacation.

Schmitt disputes the idea that Americans simply don’t value time off work.

“We have a high level of economic insecurity (in the U.S.) and that makes people very nervous about both asking for vacation or taking vacation if they have it available,” he says.

“People are afraid that if they take vacation they’re not going to get a promotion, or are more likely to be laid off if there’s a round of layoffs.”

While the U.S. economy is growing faster than many countries that guarantee the most time off, Schmitt says there’s no link between mandated vacation time and an underperforming economy.

He points out that Germany has a lower unemployment rate than the U.S., even as its workers are entitled to 34 paid days off each year.

========================

Canada's immigration system lacks heart, critics say

Some critics say the compassion and humanitarianism that once lay at the heart of Canada's refugee system no longer exists.

Chris Seto / Guelph Mercury File Photo

Stephen Lewis co-chairs a new group, the Jewish Refugee Action Network, designed to fight Ottawa's changes to refugee laws.

By: Debra Black Immigration Reporter, Published on Fri Jun 28 2013

To many of the world’s refugees Canada represents a place of safety and asylum.

But closer to home, some critics say the compassion and humanitarianism that once undergirded Canada’s refugee system no longer exists.

In 1986, Canada and its citizens were awarded the United Nations’ Nansen Refugee Award for its collective work for the cause of refugees. Other winners have included Eleanor Roosevelt and King Juan Carlos of Spain.

Would Canada win that same award today?

It’s unlikely, suggests Peter Harder, who served as deputy minister of immigration from 1991 to 1995, and founding executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Board from 1987 to 1991.

In Ottawa today, there is now a “total preoccupation that we do not do anything systemically that would provide the Americans with an excuse to tighten our border — a hypersensitity on security risks, movement of people and refugee flows,” said Harder, now a senior policy adviser at Dentons, an international law firm.

Canada’s immigration policies have also come under criticism as the federal government tightens rules and regulations on who can come to Canada and under what circumstances. One of the few places where any compassion is left is at the Immigration and Refugee Board, some say, but even that might be wearing thin.

Cuts to refugee health care. Changes to rules for refugee applications. A bill to deport permanent residents convicted of criminal activity. A list of government-designated “safe” countries (from which it’s presumed a refugee claimant is unlikely to be legitimate). A stricter interpretation of immigration qualifications. And a growing number of deportations from Canada, more than doubling from 8,805 in 2000 to 18,859 removals by 2012. All these point to a systemic change in the country’s immigration and refugee system, resulting in a loss of heart or compassion, some suggest.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said nothing could be further from the truth. “In every respect, we are a model of generosity,” he said in an interview. “Find me one other country that is more generous with respect to immigration and refugees.

“We have enhanced our fairness and generosity of the immigration and refugee system at the same time cracking down on abuse,” said Kenney. “We’re increasing by 20 per cent our target for the resettlement of convention refugees from around the world. We’ve increased by 20 per cent the integration support they receive.”

But some believe otherwise and are pushing back. Stephen Lewis, former Canadian ambassador to the UN and a special envoy to Africa, and his wife and former Toronto Star columnist Michele Landsberg are co-chairs of a new national group, the Jewish Refugee Action Network, designed to fight Ottawa’s changes to refugee laws. The organization, made up of Jews and non-Jews alike, hopes to “restore Canada’s humanitarian tradition and democratic principles to refugees.

“All of us remember what happened to Jews where Canada is concerned,” said Lewis, referring to the refusal by Canada to admit Jewish refugees trying to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

“We don’t want to see it repeated against other groups. It’s deeply offensive and we feel a moral imperative to speak out. We feel the Immigration Act the way it’s drafted is extremely prejudicial and unfair.”

Kenney rejects the comparison. “To suggest that Canada’s asylum system, which is regarded as a model for the world by the United Nations, in any way resembles the anti-Semitic immigration restrictions of the 1930s is odious and brings discredit to those who would make this suggestion,” he said.

The newly minted organization is asking for changes that include an end to the cuts in health care for refugees that Lewis describes as “distressing,” the establishment of an independent panel to assess human rights situations in a given country, and the removal of countries such as Hungary and Mexico from the “safe country” list.

A recent Federal Court decision dismissing an application for judicial review in the case of deaf Russian painter Dmitri Smirnov, who applied to become a permanent resident under the Canadian Experience Class, is an example of the ever-tightening interpretation of qualifications to be allowed into Canada, said Peter Steida, an Ottawa immigration lawyer.

Steida handled the case, which was decided by Justice Richard Boivin. His client has left Canada and is now in Russia. But Steida believes the original decision by Citizenship and Immigration Canada to reject Smirnov’s application wasn’t a “fair application of the law or the spirit of the law.”

The original decision was, in his view, “too technical” an interpretation of the regulations surrounding the language skills.

According to the CIC, his client had failed to meet English-language qualifications, even though he had met the qualifications of a language test in American Sign Language given to him by the Canadian Hearing Society. The original decision maker didn’t give that enough credit, Steida said. The court disagreed.

Kenney said the case turned on the fact he “failed the written English test. And the court agreed that people with hearing impairments are not disabled with respect to reading and writing. And so we have a consistent standard we want to make sure our economic immigrants have a degree of official language proficiency, because research tells us that’s the most important factor in their economic prospects.”

Harder suggests that what he sees as the system’s growing lack of compassion is due to three factors: “The first thing is the post-9/11 culture of security trumps everything,” he explains.

Second is creation of the Canada Border Services Agency — under the Liberals in 2003 — and removal of immigration enforcement from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

When he worked at Immigration, Harder used to tell officers they had to balance compassion with enforcement. But he fears that balance doesn’t happen anymore because there has been a change of culture.

The third factor is a change in government, he said. The Conservative party wanted to make inroads in ethnic communities, and at the same time demonstrate it was tough on queue-jumpers.

Kenney is quick to point to Citizenship and Immigration statistics and analysis to suggest his critics are dead wrong. Canada “has the highest levels of immigration per capita in the developed world and the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history at a time when most other western and developed countries have been dramatically reducing immigration levels,” the minister said.

As for asylum claims, he said Canada has seen a significant increase following reforms his government put into place. “Last year, for example, the acceptance rate for asylum claims at the Immigration Refugee Board Refugee Protection Division was 38 per cent. Typically it has bounced around the low 40s. This year so far the acceptance rate at the IRB has been 54 per cent, as I predicted, because we have fewer false claimants coming to Canada.

Kenney added: “I think our system is very fair because people have multiple opportunities to present humanitarian reasons why they should stay.”

Toronto immigration and refugee lawyer Lorne Waldman sees daily what he describes as “the lack of compassion” in the system. He, too, attributes its beginnings to the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and the creation of the Canada Border Services Agency.

That move precipitated a change of heart, Waldman maintains. Gone was any sense of empathy that came from working within the department. The separation of responsibilities was the worst thing that happened to the immigration system, he said.

Now there is an entire cohort of officers in border services who have had no exposure to immigration, Waldman said. They “don’t know or understand that there are exceptional cases that warrant compassion.”

Their sole job is to effect removal. What’s more, CBSA officers are under no obligation to wait for a humanitarian decision rendered by Immigration or the Immigration and Refugee Board before they execute a deportation order or remove someone.

On this point, Kenney said: “In most cases people have benefited from anywhere from four to seven administrative judicial and quasi-judicial reviews of risk, of humanitarian and compassionate considerations before they’re subject to removal. If anything, I think our system errs on the side of generosity.”

Waldman would like to see the officers who execute removals and deportations be given training about Canada’s obligations under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, international law and Canada’s humanitarian and compassionate policies.

A spokesperson for CBSA responded in an email statement. Amitha Carnadin wrote: “CBSA officers, including our inland enforcement officers, are highly trained professionals who treat all individuals with dignity and respect at all times. Our officers are compassionate to the needs and concerns of individuals who are being removed, and carry out their work in a respectful and professional manner. Professionalism and strong ethics are cornerstones of the training that the CBSA provides to all of its officers, including removals officers.”

Waldman points to the case of one of his clients, Ratnam Appudurai. The 78-year-old Sri Lankan woman has been diagnosed with depression and has serious health issues. She was awaiting word on an application for leave and judicial review while the CBSA was planning to deport her. The Federal Court and Justice Mary Gleason ruled in favour of a stay of her deportation.

Gleason wrote in her decision: “There is a serious issue in respect of her pending application for leave and judicial review because the officer failed to address the arguments the applicant made based on the Canadian Charter of Rights . . . There is also a solid argument that the officer’s determination regarding the availability of care for the applicant in Sri Lanka may be unreasonable in light of the record before the officer.”

Appudurai’s case isn’t the only one Waldman has seen in recent years. “We’re constantly seeing cases like this. Husbands and wives and children being separated with the prospect of reunification years down the road with no regard for how it’s going to affect the kids. This is the kind of situation five or seven years ago just wouldn’t happen.”

He, too, invokes the memory of the rejection of Jews trying to flee the Nazis.

Immigration and refugee lawyer Barb Jackman points to a case of a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee claimant who has spent $40,000 so far fighting to remain in Canada. His case for asylum was initially rejected because of a speech he gave during a student protest against the Sudanese government and the genocide in Darfur. He was labelled a terrorist. The Federal Court granted him leave to seek a judicial review.

But he has been back and forth in court twice and just had a deportation order stayed in June. The court ruled that “a serious issue arises from the assessment of the risk facing the applicant if he returned to Sudan” and if that’s the case “it follows that he would experience irreparable harm by having to face that risk before its adequacy could be considered by the Court on an application for leave and judicial review.” It could be the autumn before the judicial review is heard.

Said Jackman: “We have entire communities that are branded as terrorists: Tamils, Sikhs, Palestinians, a student from Darfur.”

“I went to a peaceful demonstration of students to the United Nations building in Khartoum condemning government practice in Darfur,” explains the Sudanese refugee claimant who doesn’t want his name used.

“Shakespeare once said: Let’s temper justice with mercy. I’ve not seen mercy here since day one. I’ve seen nothing but cruelty. The head of the Sudanese government is wanted for crimes against humanity in international court . . . and the Canadian government still insists anyone who is opposed to this government or defending themselves is considered terrorists.”

Kenney’s response: “The Sudanese fellow came to Canada in 2007. He was found inadmissible by the IRB, not by CBSA or me but by an adjudicator at the IRB. It was redirected by the Federal Court. A fresh decision was taken he was inadmissible.

That was unsuccessfully appealed by the Federal Court . . . He had a pre-removal risk assessment by a highly trained unfettered public servant at CIC. It came back as no risk assessment. And so he’s had multiple considerations.”

====================================

http://im.metropolis.net/research-policy/research_content/doc/WP-DepatiePelletierRahi_15dec2011.pdf

Note : This publication is a follow-up initiative of the workshop “Temporary Worker Programs and Citizenship in Canada: Are restrictions of rights and freedoms for "Low-Skilled" workers demonstrably justified in a free democratic society?”, organized by Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier and Khan Rahi, 11th National Metropolis Conference in Calgary, March 20, 2009.

INDEX

Introduction and overview

Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier and Khan Rahi

1. Behind the Regulatory Screens of Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program
Khan Rahi

2. 2011 Federal Reform: Making the Canadian Migrant Workers Pay if Employer Found Abusive
Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier

3. Contracting Out Accountability? Third-Party Agents in Temporary Foreign Worker Recruitment to British Columbia
Sarah Zell

4. International Human Rights Standards and the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program: Canada and International Labour Organization Conventions
Anne-Claire Gayet

5. The Social Cost of “Healthy” Agriculture: The Differential Rights of Migrant Workers in the Okanagan
Patricia Tomic, Ricardo Trumper and Luis Aguiar

6. Improving Health, Safety and Housing Conditions of Mexican Farms Workers in Brit-ish Columbia : A Farmer’s Perspective
Shaghayegh Yousefi

7. Permanent Populations or Temporary Residents? The Story of Migration in Brandon, Manitoba
Alison Moss, Jill Bucklaschuk and Robert Annis

L’embauche de travailleurs étrangers temporaires au Québec : problèmes juridiques soulevés par la réforme de 2011
Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier

2011 FEDERAL REFORM: MAKING THE CANADIAN MIGRANT WORKERS PAY
IF EMPLOYER FOUND ABUSIVE

Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier

In 2009, both the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (SCCI) and the Auditor General of Canada made policy recommendations to Citizenship and immigration Canada (CIC) and Human Resources and Skill Development Canada (HRSDC), in order to see the federal administrative framework better protecting the rights of tempo-rary foreign workers (TFW). The following year, the Government had the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations16 (here after “the Regulations”) modified, first for minor changes17 to the Live-in Caregiver program (LCP), and later for modifications18

The Federal administration decided, in these 2010 reforms (which came into effect in April 2011), not to implement the main to the general framework of the temporary foreign workers programs (TFWP) requiring HRSDC labour market opinions.
19

16 Canada SOR/2002-227, accessible on line at http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2002-227/index.html recommendations from the SCCI and Auditor General, except for one. Instead of improved protection mechanisms, new measures were added making the TFW lose their right to work in Canada if their Canadian employer is found to be in non-compliance with the program’s objectives or conditions.

17 The details of the last federal policy changes to LCP are accessible on line at http://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2010/2010-04-14/html/sor-dors78-eng.html ; the ones

18 The details of the policy changes concerning the general framework of the TFWP were published in August 2010 and can be consulted at http://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2010/2010-08-18/html/sor-dors172-eng.html

19 About the “hierarchization” of the Canadian administrative barriers to the respect of human rights of migrant workers, see among others Depatie-Pelletier 2008a.
8
1. The House of Commons’ Committee (SCCI) and the Auditor General: Making temporary foreign workers (TFW) less vulnera-ble

In May 2009, in order to have the federal government improve the protection TFW’s rights and in particular of the TFW employed in a “low-skilled”20 occupation (TFW-LS), policy recommendations21 were addressed to the Government by the SCCI. Most importantly in matters of protection of the rights of migrant workers22, the House of Commons’ Commit-tee recommended that temporary work permits stop being employer-tied23, that the right to work in Canada never be associated with an obligation to live on the premises of the employer24, and that temporary foreign workers in “low-skilled” occupations be given, as those in “high-skilled” occupations, access to procedures to gain permanent residency25

The Fall 2009 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
26
“Various studies and report over the years have recognized that low-skilled temporary foreign workers entering Canada may be vulnerable to exploitation or poor working conditions […]. There is a risk that live-in caregivers may to-lerate abuse, poor working conditions, and poor accommodations so as not to loose the opportunity to become permanent residents. The program’s re-quirement that the caregiver reside in the employer’s home can put them par-ticularly at risk. A number of CIC internal reports, some dating back as far as 1994, raised serious concerns about abuse of the program by employers and that followed a few months later also addressed the question of the protection of TFW’s rights and of the TFW-LS in particular:
20 The expression “low-skilled” is commonly used in the Canadian context for referring to tempo-rary foreign workers, and will thus be instrumental for the purpose of this analysis. It is however a controversial expression, since it might implicate that the workers employed in this kind of occupation are less skilled or are of less social value than the ones commonly referred to as “high-skilled” workers. For example, the Canadian Council for Refugee calls into “question the notion of grading skills as “higher” or “lower”, and of attaching lesser value to some people’s contributions to the country’s economy. We believe that all types of contributions make immigrants worthy of becoming permanent residents of Canada. » (CCR 2009)
21 Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration of the House of Commons of Canada (2009), Temporary Foreign Workers and Non Status Workers – Report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, 81 p., accessible on line at
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/content/hoc/Committee/402/CIMM/Reports/RP3866154/cimmrp07/cimmrp07-e.pdf
22 Supra note 4
23 Supra note 6 at pp.24-26
24 Ibid. at pp.9-13
25 Ibid. at p.45
26 Auditor General of Canada (2009), Fall Report – The Temporary Foreign Worker Program, access. on line at http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_200911_02_e_33203.html#hd4e ,
pp.28-35
9
immigration consultants, as well as risks to individuals. Temporary foreign workers hired through the pilot project for occupations requiring lower levels of formal training may also be at risk of similar abuse and poor working condi-tions.”27
The Auditor General added that the lack of verification of the authenticity of the job offers
28 and the lack of follow-up on working conditions29
Of these five major policy recommendations aiming at decreasing the vulnerability of TFW, and thus the risk of them being abused by employers or recruiters, only one, the importance of verifying the authenticity of the job offers, has been recognized by CIC and HRSDC as important enough to be applied in a systematic manner (or, in other words, to be worthy of integration into the official Regulations). As a result, the main policy elements that enable the “law of silence” of TFW-LS in case of rights violations have been maintained in the regulato-ry framework. The Regulations now include HRSDC’s authority to deny non-compliant employer access to TFW for two years, but since it relies on TFW themselves to monitor their employers, and it cannot be effective for workers under employer-tied work permits. Ironically, the policy framework as modified in 2010 by CIC and HRSDC will make workers suffer major losses themselves if their Canadian employer is found to be in non-compliance with the objectives and conditions of the TFWP. were, in particular, putting the well-being of the temporary foreign workers at risk.
2. Key policy elements
• The retention of employer-tied work permits
In its official response to the SCCI recommendations, the federal government did not acknowledge that “the work permit [… which] specifies a single employer for whom the worker may work […] gives the employer considerable power over the employee »30
27 Ibid. at pp.33-34 , or that the employment of bonded labor is convenient or profitable for most of the Canadian employers using the TFWP. Instead, the Government argued that the very bond to a unique employer is necessary to minimize the risk of abuse they may incur at the hands of the employer. The Government alleges that giving employers a legal authority on the stay of their employee in Canada is the “only” way for the Government to keep track, efficiently
28 Ibid. at p.32
29 Ibid. at pp.33-34
30 Supra note 6 at p.24
10
enough to identify violations of rights, of the temporary foreign worker’s employment trajectory:
“In order for monitoring initiatives recently introduced or underway to suc-cessfully improve monitoring of employers […], the occupation, location of work and employer of the TFW [temporary foreign worker] must be known. […] To expand open work permits (including through the issuance of occupa-tion/sector specific or province-based work permits) […] would undermine in-itiatives recently introduced or underway to better monitor employer’s com-pliance with their commitments under the TFWP, and hence better protect TFW."31
Efficient tracking of employment trajectories of TFW does not however require employer-tied work permits, since this can be accomplished by making it mandatory for authorized employers to confirm with the employment programs authorities the beginning of an employment contract with a TFW.

Because TFW-LS are under an employer-tied work permit, if fired by their employer or if they leave the employer for lack of decent work conditions, they automatically lose their right to work in Canada, risk being repatriated or deported to their country, excluded from future work opportunity in Canada and, in the case of caregivers, losing their right to apply for permanent status.
This explains why, when faced with abusive behavior by the employer, most of the TFW employed in a “low-skilled” occupation (under the LCP, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) or the TFWP stream for other “low-skilled” workers) have endured, are enduring, and will endure violations of their human and labour rights, keeping silent, not complaining and even refusing to testify against the abusive Canadian employer: they cannot afford to lose the right to work in Canada.
31 Government of Canada (2009), Government of Canada Response to the Report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration: Temporary Foreign Workers and Non-Status Workers, access. on line at www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4017803&Language =E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2
11
In the past, the vast majority of the few TFW-LS who finally told their stories of abuses by the employer or recruitment agency did so only after being protected by a permanent status in Canada32, or after having lost not only their right to work, but also all hope to ever access a temporary work program in Canada33
However, if these workers had the possibility to accept another job offer thanks to an “open” work permit (allowing to work for most employers in Canada), a province-specific work permit, an occupation-specific work permit or a sector-specific work permit (in other words, if they would not automatically lose their right to work in Canada if fired by their employer), they would be more likely stand up, speak out, and demand the respect of their human, labour and immigration rights in front of an (or a potentially) abusive employer (or recruitment agent), even when there is a possibility that they will be unjustly fired (or denied a promised employment opportunity) for doing so. Open, sector-specific, occupation-specific and province-specific work permits, as opposed to the current employer-tied work permit, would make the monitoring of work conditions useful by allowing (thanks to a simple right to seek and accept alternative employment) the workers to better deal with the risks (such as losing one’s employment) associated with speaking out against an abusive employer. .
• The retention of the obligation to live with the employer
In the Government of Canada’s 2009 response to the SCCI recommendations, it is stated that the obligation to reside with the employer imposed upon foreign workers admitted under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is a “vital component of the LCP”, even when considering “the TFW’s vulnerability in live-in situations”, because of the “continuing shortage of caregivers willing to live in the home of those they are caring for. […] Should the live-in requirement be eliminated, there would likely be no need to hire TFW”.34
The following year, the Government of Canada did indeed decide, in the reform that came into effect on April 1
st
32 Many women from Philippines origin have wait until the obtaining of their permanent status to finally share with researchers their story of abuse by employer or recruitment agency. For some of these stories, see for example the report published by Oxman-Martinez and al. in 2004. 2011, to maintain the live-in obligation, in the Regulations for caregivers and, for the other “low-skilled” workers, through the systematic authorization of contracts including live-in obligation (which then becomes, as in the case of caregivers, a de
33 For example, the union United Food and Commercial Workers has dealt with many Mexican workers forever excluded from the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Programs. Their last report, The Status of Migrant Farm Workers in Canada 2010-2011, is now access. on line at www.tuac.ca/templates/ufcwcanada/images/awa/publications/UFCW-Status_of_MF_Workers_2010-2011_EN.pdf
34 Supra note 16
12
facto condition of the validity of their work permit and therefore of the legality of their stay in Canada).
However, alarms have been sounded for decades about the live-in obligation, including in CIC internal reports as mentioned by the Auditor General35
“The fact of living in the employer’s premises put the worker in a situation in which outside his/her working hours, the exercise of the right to privacy, pro-tected by the art. 5 of the (Quebec Human Rights) Charter, risk of being over-ridden by the right of the landlord (the employer) of limiting the access to his property/land. In this context, the free movement of the worker or his/her visi-tors might be compromised. This limitation may constitute a barrier to the ex-ercise of the freedom of association and freedom of opinion, protected by the art. 3 of the Quebec Charter. This freedom of association includes the adhesion to a workers union and to any association working for the defense of rights. The obligation to live in the employer’s premises does not apply to non-migrant Quebec workers. Therefore, the obligation to live-in imposed to agricultural workers might compromise their right to equality protected by art. 10 of the Quebec Charter on the ground of their ethnic or national origin. Moreover, this requirement included in the validated contract might also constitute a bar-rier to the exercise of the right to freedom of the worker, and also to his/her right to peaceful enjoyment and free disposition of personal property, as pro-tected by the art. 1 and 6 […]. In front of the erosion of the rights and freedom of live-in caregivers, the Commission could not underline enough to the Com-mittee the necessity of the abolition of the obligation to live-in integrated within the Live-in Caregiver Program”., and more recently by the Quebec Human Rights Commission during the 2008 public consultations organized by the SCCI, which has summarized the situation in the following terms:
36
In maintaining the live-in obligation policy for TFW in “low skilled” occupations, the Gov-ernment of Canada knowingly chose to make many fundamental human rights and freedoms of migrant workers in practice difficult, if not impossible, to exercise.
The Canadian Labor Congress has furthermore suggested that the removal of the live-in obligation would be a first step, but a formal obligation for the employer would also be required to minimize abuses and exploitation of caregivers:
35 Supra note 11
36 Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (2008), Notes de présentation aux audience pancanadienne du Comité Permanent des Communes sur la Citoyenneté et l’Immigration, p. 4 and 8 (personal translation)
13
« A fundamental flaw in the LIC program is the obligation for workers to reside in an employer’s home, thereby, creating the conditions for exploitation and abuse. Regulatory changes are needed to end this arrangement and stipulate that employers must provide a Living Out Allowance (LOA) for Live-in Caregivers. Living Out Allowances must be adequate to cover accommodations, meals, transport to and from work, and phone calls to home at a minimum. Living Out Allowances details should be developed with the input of LIC advocacy groups. »37
• No guarantee of status in case of complaint against employer
As mentioned above, if a TFW employed in a “low skilled” occupation (under the LCP, SAWP or TFWP-LS) loses his/her employment, he/she will automatically lose the right to work in Canada. For that reason, most will not complain against an abusive employer because of the fear of being dismissed.
If however, for a reason or another, a worker unjustly dismissed by an abusive employer, chances are that he/she will still not complain afterwards, and instead accept to be repa-triated by representatives of his/her government to the country of origin, in the hope of not being put on a “blacklist” (in the hope of being re-hired again in the future through a Canadian temporary foreign worker program).
For the rare abused (or injured) TFW-LS who would choose not to go away (even if without income, without the right to work in Canada and risking being excluded from the Canadian temporary work program38
37 Canadian Labour Congress (2010), Canadian Labour Congress response to IRPA Regulatory Changes Regarding Temporary Foreign Workers, p.6, access. on line at ) forever and instead stay in Canada to submit a complaint (or ask for the respect of their right to treatment and/or compensation), chances are that the validity of their work permit (of their right to stay in Canada), their financial capacity to live in Canada without income and/or their emotional capacity to stay away from children and spouse, will end long before any obtainment of justice (or compensation).
www.canadianlabour.ca/news-room/publications/canadian-labour-congress-response-irpa-regulatory-changes-regarding-temporary
38 Excluded by their Government authorities or other labor brokers who might think that such vocal workers would not be much appreciated by their “clients” (the Canadian employers) – who would then just look elsewhere (Guatemala instead of Mexico, for example) to get more “obedient” workers (workers less aware of their rights).
14
Indeed, by the end of the work permit validity, the countdown starts towards deportation by the Canadian Borders Service Agency (and possibly towards an interdiction to come back to Canada), even if legal procedures against an abusive employer are still in progress (unless the Minister of Citizenship and immigration makes an exceptional intervention to allow the extension of the stay in Canada).
This gap in the law (“you have rights, but you will certainly lose your status before being able to exercise them”) could have been easily filled by CIC/RHSDC during this 2010-2011 reform of the Regulations, for example by allowing these TFW-LS to apply for permanent status if so desired, even if only to be able to stay and work during the indeterminate period of a legal procedure towards reparation for a violation of human or labor rights by the employer or recruitment agency.
In response to the recommendation concerning a pathway to permanent status for all lower-skilled temporary foreign workers, in 2009 the Government of Canada justified the denial of access to permanent status for them (with the exception of caregivers) in these terms: they “generally have limited training, transferable skills and linguistic abilities, which mean adapting to changing conditions and finding their way around in the Canadian labor market could be more of a challenge. Moreover, it does not appear that a broad-based long-term need for lower-skilled workers exists across Canada”39
This line of argument is not supported by the data currently available in Canada. First, in the past, migrants coming for permanent settlement came with lower skill levels, but showed less difficulties integrating in the Canadian labour markets than the more recent cohorts of foreigners with “higher skills”.
40
39 Supra note 16 . In addition, more temporary foreign workers in specific low-skilled occupations are admitted every year, which points to the fact that the labour market needs they are filling are not temporary, but instead long-term, permanent, if not increasing. See for example, tables 1 and 2 below, concerning the admissions of TFW to fill the so-called “temporary” labor shortages in the sectors of domestic services and agriculture.
40 See, among other research on this subject, Worswick 2008
15
Table 1
Number of TFW employed in Canada
as caregivers on December 1st (1996-2006)
Année
Total
1996
4942
1997
5272
1998
5562
1999
5724
2000
5942
2001
7694
2002
10148
2003
12370
2004
14995
2005
17697
2006
21489
Source : Depatie-Pelletier 2007
Table 2
Numbers of Mexican and Caribeen TFW employed in Canada
as agricultural workers on December 1st (1996-2006)
Année
Total
1996
10948
1997
11891
1998
12782
1999
14742
2000
16402
2001
18098
2002
18354
2003
18457
2004
18628
2005
19879
2006
20829
Source : Depatie-Pelletier 2007
16
The federal immigration authorities not only maintained, in this last reform, the denial of access to permanent status for TFW in “low-skilled” occupations, they also modified the Regulations so that the TFW-LS will now be forced to leave Canada after their fourth year of Canadian work experience (except if from Mexico or the Caribbean and employed within the agricultural industry)41 - even though previous Canadian work experience has been shown to be a significant predictor of successful integration in the labour market and thus of successful permanent settlement process42
• No monitoring of work conditions . This measure, the “4-year time-limit”, will be further discussed in the last section of this analysis, “Making migrant workers pay for non-compliant employers”.
In 2009, CIC and HRSDC officials responded to the Auditor General that neither the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act nor its Regulations give them authority to conduct compliance reviews of employers who have not consented, but that “regulatory modifica-tions aimed at resolving some of these issues are currently being considered”43. Indeed, there is a concrete need for monitoring the work conditions of these workers. For example, according to a study by J. Hanley, 43% of live-in caregivers interviewed were not paid for overtime, 7% were not receiving minimal wage, and 16% responded to having been harassed physically or psychologically by their employer44
Even if the monitoring of employer’s compliance was considered necessary to the protection of the rights of the foreign workers by the Auditor General and the SCCI, the 2011 reform of the Regulations did not provide either CIC, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), or HRSDC with new authority to monitor employers’ compliance with the federal regulations. .

Rather, the modifications of the Regulations confirmed instead HRSDC’s authority to only deny the future privilege of a hiring permit to non-compliant employers who wish to hire foreign workers again. Since federal authorities will not monitor work conditions, it is assumed that TFW will submit a formal complaint themselves against an abusive employer (under provincial or federal labour laws and human rights protection agencies), and then transfer that information to the federal authorities, before HRSDC even begins to ask for a “justification of non-compliance” to an employer looking for the renewal of the hiring
41 Supra note 3, policy change 2 (3), referring to new art. 200(3)(g)
42 Supra note 25
43 Supra note 11, p. 34
44 Centre des travailleuses et travailleurs en maison privée et DroitsTravailleusesTravailleursMi-grants-Canada (2009b), Lettre à l’Honorable Jason Kenney sur les modifications aux programmes de travailleurs étrangers temporaires, p. 1 and 3 (personal translation)
17
permit. This measure for “monitoring” the employers of TFW-LS under an employer-tied work permit will therefore be inefficient, unless the Regulations are modified to guarantee that those who speak out against their employer are able to keep working in Canada afterwards. The Government has also maintained the provision of the Regulations which allow all employers openly in « dispute » with their TFW and wanting to replace them by other TFW to be authorized to do so:
« An officer shall not issue a work permit to a foreign national if […] the spe-cific work that the foreign national intends to perform is likely to adversely af-fect the settlement of any labour dispute in progress or the employment of any person involved in the dispute, unless all or almost all of the workers involved in the labour dispute are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents »45

In this regulatory context, it is highly unlikely that TFW would openly ask the employer for the respect of applicable labour or human rights legislation, risk an open dispute and thus replacement by another foreign worker and deportation: they will efficiently be kept silent if exploited by employers.
The Reform did however formally provide the non-compliant employers with the right to force HRSDC to allow them to keep on hiring TFW, if they are able to “justify” why their foreign worker(s) were not granted the conditions initially promised to them46. This provision essentially nullifies what little power HRSDC already has. The section makes sure that testimonies by a non-compliant employer (if submitted by someone who understand the Regulations) will by definition most certainly be covered by at least one of these broad categories (and thus constituting a “justification”): “an error in interpretation made in good faith by the employer with respect to its obligations to a foreign national”, “the implementa-tion of measures by the employer in response to a dramatic change in economic conditions that directly affected the business of the employer”, “an unintentional accounting or administrative error made by the employer” or “similar circumstances”47
3. Making workers pay for non-compliant employers .
Regulatory modifications that came into effect in April 2011 are not only inefficient to decrease the vulnerability of the TFW-LS to abuses by employers or to facilitate the monitoring of their working conditions during their stay in Canada, but they also officially make workers pay for the abusive behavior of employers.
45 Supra note 1, art. 200(3)(c)
46 Supra note 3, new article 203(1)(e)(ii)
47 Ibid., new art. 203 (1.1.)
18
First, these TFW-LS are asked to “sacrifice” their right to work in Canada (their financial survival and that of their family members) in order to make sure an abusive employer is finally found to be in infraction of federal or provincial labour, recruitment or immigration laws, so that the federal authorities will be able to forbid them from hiring TFW for two years. By complaining against their employer, chances are that they will indeed be dismissed, and thus lose their right to work in Canada.
If they are working for an employer when he/she is declared by federal authorities to be non-compliant with the TFWP, these workers will not only lose their right to work in Canada, but they will also be taken to be in violation of Canadian immigration regulations48
« This amendment places an unfair and impractical burden on migrant workers. It is unrea-sonable to presume that all migrant workers will have access to the internet, nor the linguistic or technical capacities to navigate a CIC webpage listing ‘disingenuous employers’. Furthermore, there is no evidence that disingenuous employers or unscrupulous labour brokers won’t represent themselves differently from what may appear on a CIC website ». (even if they are also the victim of a violation to the regulations in question) - which would prevent them from accessing another Canadian work permit in the future. This policy change has been called into question by the Canadian Labour Congress in the following terms:
49
Furthermore, these workers admitted under work permit will be forbidden to work in Canada for 48 months if their Canadian employer has abused the TFWP during four years
50
« This change is presented as a way to confirm the temporary nature of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. This solution is based on an assumption that the problem lies with the individual workers, who need to be prevented from continuing to work in Canada on temporary visas. The CCR considers that the problem lies rather in the labour market, which is relying on workers on temporary visas to fill long-term needs, and in the immigra-tion program, which denies access to permanent residence to workers in the “lower” skill category (filling long term or permanent labor shortages with TFW instead of hiring Canadian citizens or permanent residents). The Canadian Council of Refugees explained why this change in the Regulations might be inappropriate:
51
48 Supra note 3, new art. 183 (1) . CCR considers that […] any time limits should be placed on employers, no
49 Supra note 22 at p.4
50 Supra note 3, new art. 200(3)(g)
51 Canadian Council for Refugees 2009
19
workers, to prevent employers from using temporary workers with fewer rights to meet long-term labour demands ».52
4. Authorizations in underprotected sectors: making Canadian workers pay
Finally, it should be noted here that the Government has maintained in the Regulations the policy of authorizing the hiring of new TFW in provincial sectors where workers are not covered by the health and safety legislation (such as the domestic workers in Quebec) or, more importantly, where workers are forbidden to unionize (such as the agricultural workers in Ontario).
Because the majority of TFW-LS are currently employed in these kinds of underprotected provincial sectors in Canada, it is fair to say that the provision detailed above (“no work permit is to be issued if a labor dispute is in progress”)53
Moreover, in order for the provision asking for a reasonable effort to fill the labor shortage with citizens and permanent residents is, in effect, mostly void, since in many instances “labor dispute” cannot be identified by HRSDC agents since unionization of the workers is not protected in the sector evaluated.
54
In conclusion, in considering TFW now fully “protected” in Canada, CIC and HRSDC officials have shown, with the coming into effect of these last policy changes of the Immigra-tion and Refugee Protection Regulations, they largely underestimate the non-applicability of any (even if highly deficient) protection available under provincial labor laws for TFW-LS forced by federal Regulations to “keep silent” in the face of a violation of labor rights or other abuse by their employer (if they are to preserve their right to work in Canada). As the Canadian Labor Congress (asked to employers before allowing them to hire a TFW) to be meaningful in all cases as well, as the spirit of the Regulations asks, the federal authorities should not authorize the hiring of a temporary foreign worker unless unioniza-tion is allowed in the sector of employment in question (unless the possibilities to attract citizens and permanent residents for the job are made concrete).
55
52 Canadian Council for Refugees 2010 puts it, the Regulations are unbalanced towards the interests of employers, imposes an unfair punitive burden on migrant workers and, furthermore, does not protect the long term interests of Canadian workers and the preservation of decent work conditions in Canada by authorizing the employment of TFW in sectors where
53 Supra note 30
54 Supra note 1, art. 203(3)(e)
55 Supra note 22
20
workers are not allowed to bargain collectively or are not covered by the health and safety legislation.
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Employer blacklist empty despite labour complaints from foreign workers

Nannies back bill to halt abuses

Nannies trapped in bogus jobs

Federal agencies fail to protect migrant nannies

More Migrants Kidnapped by Kenney's Goons: Workplace Raids in Southern Ontario

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

http://www.thecannon.ca/viewpoints/opinions/more_migrants_kidnapped_by_kenneys_goons_workplace_raids_in_southern_ontario

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Study ranks Canada third-worst among affluent nations for paid vacation

Canada's immigration system lacks heart, critics say

Some critics say the compassion and humanitarianism that once lay at the heart of Canada's refugee system no longer exists.

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This blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who abandonned her baby born inside airline toilet upon landing in Manila

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.html

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/woman-you-are-face-of-god-women.html

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippinesustroops-out-now-true.html

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Jose Rizal - Noli Me Tangere - a novel MUST READ for all Filipina domestic maids who are the NEW WOMEN SLAVES of the WORLD TODAY!

Read more here about Noli Me Tangere and special quotations from Jose Rizal http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/jose-rizal-quotations.html

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Thursday

Canada's new law: BAD EMPLOYER BLACKLIST to protect nannies. Licensing requirements for recruiters of foreign workers in Canada. Nannies trapped in bogus jobs . MISTREATMENT OF TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS IN CANADA. Canada's immigration system lacks heart, critics say.

Silence of the Labs - The Fifth Estate - CBC Player

Licensing requirements for recruiters of foreign workers in Canada

Employer blacklist empty despite labour complaints from foreign workers

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Canada growing dependent on temporary foreign workers, experts fear

Who hires temporary foreign workers? You’d be surprised

Tightening the rules around Canada’s temporary foreign workers program

Nannies back bill to halt abuses

Nannies trapped in bogus jobs

Federal agencies fail to protect migrant nannies

More Migrants Kidnapped by Kenney's Goons: Workplace Raids in Southern Ontario

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

http://www.thecannon.ca/viewpoints/opinions/more_migrants_kidnapped_by_kenneys_goons_workplace_raids_in_southern_ontario

photo

Comments

Study ranks Canada third-worst among affluent nations for paid vacation

Canada's immigration system lacks heart, critics say

Some critics say the compassion and humanitarianism that once lay at the heart of Canada's refugee system no longer exists.

====================

This blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who abandonned her baby born inside airline toilet upon landing in Manila

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.html

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/woman-you-are-face-of-god-women.html

http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippinesustroops-out-now-true.html

.

Jose Rizal - Noli Me Tangere - a novel MUST READ for all Filipina domestic maids who are the NEW WOMEN SLAVES of the WORLD TODAY!

Read more here about Noli Me Tangere and special quotations from Jose Rizal http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/jose-rizal-quotations.html

.

No comments:

Post a Comment