Revenu Québec is not done with an agricultural producer from Montérégie, who hit the headlines last year for having “sold” Guatemalan workers to other farmers.
Revenu Québec has announced that it has obtained judicial authorizations allowing it to “seize and remove property” belonging to the numbered company based in Saint-Jude, near Saint-Hyacinthe, and which belongs to farmer Jean Lemay.
“His claims, established under the Fuel Tax Act, the Taxation Act (source deductions) and the Quebec Sales Tax Act, total more than $2.2 million. “said Revenue Quebec in a press release.
The government agency was therefore able to seize tractors, agricultural equipment and trailers in the past few days.
Revenu Québec has also registered moveable legal hypothecs.
This company belonging to Mr. Lemay is not in its first trouble with Revenu Québec.
In 2012, his company was fined $63,098 for filing false or misleading tax returns.
Eight years later, in September 2020, the company and its sole director, Jean Lemay, had once again been fined $52,000 for tax evasion.
Finally, last fall, the entrepreneur found himself at the heart of a scandal involving foreign workers.
According to the authorities, Jean Lemay had hired nearly 150 Guatemalan workers whom he had made work under conditions that did not meet the standards.
He reportedly made some of them work seven days a week and sold their services to other farmers in the area.
Many of them were not paid, but still had to pay the costs for food and accommodation in Mr. Lemay’s facilities.
The workers had finally been “rescued” by the Sûreté du Québec and an aid organization for migrant workers.
Jean Lemay has since been banned for life from the foreign worker recruitment program, since he violated federal hiring law by failing to meet the wages and conditions of the initial job offer.
He was also fined nearly $200,000.