From Vancouver to Gaspé, immigrants wait for months for a response to their request for an open permit for vulnerable workers in order to escape the abuse they suffer. An emergency program supposed to offer this protection quickly is blocked, according to five organizations which support workers in such procedures.
A form of safety valve to address the risks of single-employer licensing, known as “closed licensing,” the program launched in 2019 with a promise to process applications in five days. This delay is all the more problematic as political leaders use it to defend themselves from criticism, notably formulated by the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery.
But this “rapid” way of “resolving the situation of vulnerable employees”, as described by the Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, in parliamentary committee, is broken. Of the sixty requests that these organizations have submitted since last January, only five have been processed, they confirmed to Duty.
Of the 1,349 applications received for the first three months of 2024, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has only issued 201 permits so far, significantly below last year’s average. Only around thirty permits were granted in March. The program webpage has been modified on the sly since November 2023.
These responses, which arrive in dribs and drabs, create an “untenable situation” and “a lot of pressure” on immigrants, says Noémie Beauvais, community organizer at the Center for Immigrant Workers (CTI).
“Someone calls me in distress almost every day,” illustrates Florian Freuchet, community organizer at the CTI du Bas-Saint-Laurent.
Homeless
This is the case of Lilou, who would have “found himself on the street” if emergency accommodation had not opened its doors to him, he says. All the people who confided in Duty asked to use assumed first names for fear of harming their immigration case.
Recruited as an electromechanical technician by a company in eastern Quebec, he noticed irregularities in his pay, such as unjustified deductions, after only a few weeks. A Canadian colleague begins to insult him. Then came certain physical attacks: he and his colleagues from the same country of origin were grabbed by the collar and objects were thrown at them.
They are also made to clean toilets and other places, tasks that have nothing to do with the position indicated on their work permit. Lilou refuses one day to carry out a task very far from those listed in his contract: a few days later, he is fired.
A migrant worker cannot be forced to contravene the conditions of their work permit, it is clearly stated on the program page. But Lilou has been waiting for “even just a response, whether positive or negative”, for more than three months, being penniless for accommodation.
Financial exploitation, such as failing to pay due wages, is also a reason accepted by IRCC. And a rather frequent pattern, indicate M. Freuchet and Mme Beauvais.
Such delays do not allow leaving an abusive employer without falling into financial and psychological misery, they say. Alberta, a person who works in the regional health field in Quebec, therefore remained employed by the placement agency. Her employer was aware of the complaints she filed against him, which does not help to reduce tensions.
The latter owes him more than 100 unpaid hours and refuses to give him his contract. She had to insist on numerous occasions that the promised hourly rate be respected. The same employer is the subject of several complaints to the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST).
From 5 to 52 days
IRCC claims that processing times are currently 52 days and “there is no service standard” for this program giving access to an open permit. These requests are nevertheless “to be processed as a priority, given the vulnerability of the applicants”, we are told by email.
However, for four years, from 2019 to the end of 2023, this ministry nevertheless indicated on its website that agents must to treat these requests “urgently (5 working days from the time of receipt)”. This mention has been discreetly modified on the page in recent months, now reporting “communication” within five days, and no longer treatment. The ministry continues to ensure Duty that there has been “no change in guidance or policy regarding the processing of these permits.”
The number of temporary open permits granted increased from 580 to 2061 between 2020 and 2023: this “constant increase”, says IRCC, can partly explain the longer delays.
But if the temporary immigration valves were opened, this increase was predictable, community organizers say. “If you have a system that creates abuse, you should at least invest in staff,” says Jonathon Braun, legal director of the Migrant Workers organization in Vancouver. Of the 12 files they have submitted since December, only one has received a response.
A “ plaster »
“Initially, if the license was not closed, it would not keep people in abusive and toxic situations. […] We shouldn’t even need such a program,” says Mr. Braun.
“It was already a plasterbut which is no longer worth anything,” notes Raphaël Laflamme, also a community organizer for the CTI in Quebec.
Lawyers have already used the analogy of a “bandage [sparadrap] on a gunshot wound” in a study published in 2022 in a scientific journal. The researchers concluded that the program providing access to open permits for vulnerable workers could not counteract “the high risk of abuse imposed on workers.”
“There was only a very narrow and very restricted path to being able to leave abuse, which many workers were already hesitant to take. Now it just doesn’t work anymore. So what’s left? » asks Syed Hussan, director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. This pan-Canadian network also has 15 applications blocked at IRCC.
Deep distress
Roland found himself accompanied by police to the hospital after calling 911. He had been having suicidal thoughts for several weeks and had begun planning to act out. “I was no longer myself,” he said in an interview.
From his second week working for a Quebec chain of restaurants in the Quebec region, his ordeal began. A colleague in the kitchen insults him, tells him that he has too many children, that he knows nothing. “He was only stopping me from working. […] He told me: “You will see that you are going to return to your country, we will show you that you are not at home here.” »
When he complains to his superiors, his hours are reduced to the point where he no longer makes enough money to support his family back home. He also has debts to repay there, incurred to pay an immigration consultant. They try to send him to another restaurant or make him wash dishes, in contravention of his work permit.
Soon, citing the lack of customers, he was kicked out. It was last fall. “I started to panic. I sacrificed everything by leaving my country,” he says. The father had worked for more than 15 years in an international hotel chain. He understands that no employer wants to take steps to change his closed license. This is where it sinks to the bottom of the barrel.
Months later, he submitted his application for an open permit for vulnerable workers, which he had been waiting for almost two months. In the meantime, he has no choice but to go to food banks to get food.