The 19 temporary workers from Guatemala who left the Jean Lemay farm are preparing to file complaints with the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) in the hope of recovering wages unpaid. Now permanently barred from the temporary foreign worker program, their former employer owes them thousands of dollars, they allege.
The duty revealed Wednesday that the agricultural producer of Saint-Jude in Montérégie is also facing investigations from multiple police and government entities. He was further convicted of possession of property obtained by crime in April 2021, but at the same time acquitted of other criminal charges against him, including drug production.
The Guatemalan Consulate in Montreal confirmed to To have to that Mr. Lemay owes these workers debts. The diplomatic representation offered consular protection and participated in the “emergency intervention” of November 26 to pick up the workers until then who had remained in the lodgings rented to their employer, we are told.
The consular mission said “to maintain contact with the Canadian authorities who [veilleront à ce que] the employer gives the Guatemalans the missing wages ”.
“From the moment our boss was notified that he was banned from the program [des travailleurs étrangers temporaires], he stopped paying us, ”said Carlos Mendez, the informal spokesperson for the Guatemala group. He calculates that 45 days have passed between that time and the time they left their home last Friday. “We all worked days without pay. Our families are counting on us, ”he said.
Nearly half of the contingent of these men, mostly fathers, has already left Canada on Wednesday. Complaints to the CNESST will therefore be filed through the Quebec Migrant Agricultural Workers Assistance Network (RATTMAQ). Jean Lemay owes some of them up to $ 3,000, including unpaid vacation pay, according to Michel Pilon, the organization’s coordinator. “These sums are significant and, after everything they’ve been through, these people are really sickened,” he says.
Jean Lemay did not respond to repeated calls from To have to. In addition to his permanently barred access to the program, he was fined $ 198,750 for several violations of laws affecting the world of work.
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The CNESST has confirmed that it is carrying out an independent investigation into this employer following searches carried out on October 26 that concern the regulation on placement agencies and recruitment agencies for temporary foreign workers.
The 19 workers who survived the Jean Lemay farm claim that they were “loaned” to other farms, a practice prohibited without the required authorizations, because their work permit is linked to a single employer.
This practice by Mr. Lemay has already been denounced on several occasions since 2012. “Yes, at that time, we had indications that he was acting in an improper manner. We do not have the power to inspect and we therefore told Service Canada to do the verifications, ”indicates Denis Roy, immigration consultant for the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA). The Union regularly gives reminders and trainings on the rules of the program, adds Roy.
“We always thought that the government had acted and that there had been audits in 2012 and 2015”, also says Julio Lara, union representative in the agricultural sector of the United Food and Commercial Workers (TUAC) .
“We know there is still work to be done,” writes a spokesperson for the office of Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough. The ministry pledges “to further strengthen integrity measures” to ensure a safe environment for foreign workers, while saying it wants to ensure “that all affected workers are supported.”
The deputy leader of the NDP, Alexandre Boulerice, was indignant at the treatment of these farm workers. “These are human beings, not cattle that can be dragged around, any way and under any working condition. According to him, the “follow-ups necessary to supervise and protect these workers” are not carried out and he says he wishes “to clean up this program”.