A residence for seniors in Lévis — the Villa Mon domaine — has been the subject of a series of complaints in recent months for its treatment of temporary workers recruited in Africa. Among other things, its owners are accused of having made employees work for months without paying them when they did not yet have their work permit.
“Several employees say they worked up to 11 months, full-time in the form of volunteer work, receiving only $50 a week to buy food,” reads a report sent to Service Canada. The duty got a copy.
The document claims that they “are forced to work evenings and nights”, that “their superiors do not respect their days off and rest” and that they are forced to work “even if they are sick”.
This complaint was filed in July by the Lévis immigrant aid organization, Le Tremplin. The duty was also able to consult another complaint addressed to Service Canada by the same organization, the following month, as well as another filed in October with the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST ) by another organization that helps temporary workers, the Immigrant Workers Center (CTI). These complaints mention the cases of six employees of the residence.
Located in Lévis, Villa Mon domaine is a private residence for seniors with severe loss of autonomy. It has 63 rooms and is certified in good standing by the Ministry of Health and Social Services.
Its owners, Natacha Gauthier and Éric Simard, owned another residence in Lotbinière, which they sold in August. In recent years, they have recruited a dozen workers from Madagascar and West Africa to meet their labor needs.
Six departures out of twelve temporary workers
In interviews, the owners say they have nothing to be ashamed of and, on the contrary, describe themselves as exemplary employers who empathize with their workers. “We help them, we are there for them,” says Mr. Simard.
The couple confirms having hired a total of twelve temporary workers in the past and say they are waiting for three more recruits from Madagascar.
He denies all the allegations contained in the complaints about illegal work and working conditions. “On average, they worked 37 hours a week. We have never forced someone to do double time, ”maintains Mme Gautier.
The owners further confirm that six workers have left the residence in recent months, among other things because they were badly coping with criticism. “When we tell them things, sometimes they take it badly, they think they’re going to be fired and they start making a fuss,” says Mr. Simard. I think we had bad people. »
The Tremplin organization received a visit from an employee of this residence for the first time last summer. Many have since followed.
They showed up in a state of “total panic,” says Christine Orain, coordinator of Tremplin services. “They are very vulnerable, especially the women,” she explains. Very often, these are people who don’t want to make noise, stir things up, who are afraid of reprisals. They come from countries where there is violence, they are conditioned to fear authority. In the eyes of the speaker, it is “modern slavery”.
On schedule without a work permit
As indicated above, the CTI also filed a complaint with the CNESST, which handles the files of temporary workers on the Quebec side. The organization filed a series of complaints between October and December on behalf of the same six workers. The reasons ? Insufficient remuneration, prohibited practices, psychological harassment, disparity in working conditions and constructive dismissal.
The duty was able to speak with three employees and ex-employees of the residence. One of these people explained that she had worked full time as a beneficiary attendant for months before getting her work permit. She was already in Quebec with a tourist permit when she applied for the job. In the absence of a salary in good standing, the employer remunerated her with prepaid credit cards so that she could buy groceries. “It was really difficult, I couldn’t send money back to my family. »
According to him, the employer was continually postponing the steps that would get him his permit. “It’s exploitation, they use foreigners to pay them less,” she says.
Asked about this specific point, the owner Éric Simard confirms having hired Africans already present in Quebec as attendants. Yes, he says, the latter did “a little bit of volunteer work at the residence while waiting for their permit”, to learn the trade, but never more than “nine hours a week”.
Gold, The duty was able to consult schedules of the residence which show that several employees worked full time before having their work permit, and this, for months.
Relaunched on this subject, Natacha Gauthier maintained that the schedules had to be “false”. “We put them on the schedule, but they never worked full time. We were always waiting for the permit. […] Hours change regularly. »
Vulnerable workers
In an interview, one of the workers described the presence of a climate of suspicion and intimidation within the establishment. “At the residence, we are not allowed to talk to each other. If we speak, they automatically come to ask us what we are talking about. »
The owner replies that “it’s really the opposite”. “That’s really not how we act with our employees. »
Two of the interviewees said that the staff present was insufficient and underqualified to take care of the patients. “The residence is full of difficult cases. There are more than sixty residents for two people without a nurse at night,” said an employee. Again, the owner replies: with two attendants on the floor, she does better than “the minimum threshold”, since the Ministry of Health requires the presence of at least one attendant at night in small residences.
Very anxious for their future in Quebec, the workers all requested anonymity. They fear reprisals from the owners of the residence, or even deportation to their country. Some are also afraid that their name will be removed from employment agencies.
According to our information, the residence was inspected by Service Canada during the week of October 18. The government could not confirm the information, nor the progress of the investigation, citing confidentiality rules.
The duty also learned that at least two employees had been accepted, following complaints, to participate in the federal Department of Immigration’s vulnerable worker pilot project.
This program, created in 2019, allows temporary workers who experience abuse to obtain an open work permit and change employers.
To be eligible, one must be a “victim of violence” or at risk of being so. The term “violence” is not limited to physical violence and includes cases where workers are subjected to threats and reprisals.
More and more temporary workers
But not everything is settled, according to Valentina Monroy, an integration advisor at Le Tremplin. “It is not normal”, according to her, that it took three complaints before the government intervened. “The laws are there,” she says, but “it’s extremely difficult” to prove that there have been abuses. The residence can still hire temporary workers, she says. “Despite the investigation, they can still bring people in. »
However, the federal government can impose fines on employers who do not respect the rules of the program governing the use of temporary workers. It can even deprive them of the right to recruit new foreign workers.
In Quebec, 63 companies have been punished in this way since 2017, but the residence in question here is not one of them.
How can we explain that Ottawa did not automatically penalize the company, when by granting open permits, it implicitly recognized that its employees were victims of violence?
“The issuance of an open work permit to a vulnerable worker, on its own, is not enough to deem an employer to be non-compliant,” responds the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship from Canada. “An inspection must be carried out, and the employer must be given the opportunity to demonstrate compliance with the relevant program conditions. »
At the federal level, open permits and employer sanctions are not the responsibility of the same ministry.
In response to questions from Homeworkthe Department of Immigration assures that when an open vulnerable worker permit is issued, “the immigration officer sends a summary of the allegations to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)”, which “triggers an inspection of employer or widens the scope of an inspection”.
However, according to Cheolki Yoon, a speaker at the CTI who follows dozens of files of this kind each year, the two ministries work in parallel. “We have never seen a proper investigation mechanism for immigration in collaboration with ESDC. »
Due to the labor shortage, Quebec and Ottawa announced in January the relaxation of a series of criteria relating to the use of temporary workers in nine key sectors, including health care. In recent years, the number of temporary workers employed as attendants has increased significantly in Quebec, rising from 5 in 2018 to 380 in 2021.