For months, six for Marie and eight for Lindsay (fictitious names), their faces were among the familiar faces to which the sixty or so residents of Villa Mon Domaine were able to cling, most of whom require a lot of help and care. . And then poof, in October 2021, nothing. The two African beneficiary attendants, who had agreed to work on a voluntary basis in the hope of obtaining a valid work permit, found themselves caught in a fatal spiral, which illustrates the disastrous consequences that our choppy reception structure can have on vulnerable people.
In good faith, and on the advice of an immigration lawyer, the latter have undertaken to graciously work twice as hard in a context made even more difficult by the pandemic. Presented as our guardian angels, several temporary workers came to lend a hand in our establishments, while the health system was experiencing its worst moments. Ottawa and Quebec subsequently agreed to regularize their status. Marie, originally from the Ivory Coast, and Lindsay, freshly arrived from Cameroon, were also hoping to obtain a place among this contingent.
At Dsee, they explained that the directors of the residence had introduced them to volunteering as a good way to obtain a work permit. It wasn’t until they were asked to disappear for a few days, after Immigration Canada inspectors announced their visit, that they realized something was wrong. Supported by the Center for Immigrant Workers (CTI), they finally filed a complaint in May for “human trafficking” in Ottawa, which refuses to comment on this particular case.
This new investigation by our reporter Isabelle Porter completes an already shocking first part. Last March, six other employees of the same residence for seniors had testified to recurring problems at Villa Mon Domaine. The latter had then suffered a series of complaints for its way of dealing with temporary workers and its use of volunteer attendants. A CNESST investigation has also led to a series of sanctions. Another would still be in progress on the federal side.
The heartbreaking testimonies of Marie and Lindsay are added today to the already heavy liabilities of the Villa Mon Domaine. Arrested again, the Minister of Labour, Jean Boulet, undertook to launch a new investigation to shed light on this file, which he described as “revolting and [d’]unacceptable”. But his powers are limited.
Most of the power is in Ottawa. However, despite all the alarm bells, the Villa Mon Domaine still does not appear on the register of “Employers deemed non-compliant” compiled by the federal government. Questioned in the light of these new facts – which the owners of the Lévis residence refused to comment on – Employment and Social Development Canada laconically recalled that it “does not tolerate any abuse towards the workers of the PTET [Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires] or misuse of it”. The registry currently has 594 employers deemed non-compliant.
This would only be the visible part. The CTI has exposed huge gaps in the recruitment and tracking of workers transiting through the TFWP. Unlike Marie and Lindsay, these workers already have a work permit, which gives them some protections. They are no less the object of abuse of all kinds: unjustified recruitment fees, unpaid or suspended salaries, refused sick leave, threats of expulsion, undeclared accidents. However, their remedies are as rare as their protections. And the slowness at each stage favors shortcuts, even accommodations that rarely serve the workers.
In another survey from last September, The duty, under the pen of Sarah Champagne, had documented the case of Rudy Samayoa, a temporary worker awaiting surgery for tendinitis he had suffered while working in a factory. After seven years of service, his employer had not renewed his contract. Threatened with deportation — his work permit being associated with this single employer — he turned to the federal government, which, although the CNESST recognized that it was indeed an employment injury, refused him the open permit that would have allowed him to stay.
These stories call for urgent changes in Ottawa as in Quebec, which, as usual, do not share the management of their respective jurisdictions very well. As long as this two-speed regime persists with its current mechanisms as imperfect as they are insufficient, men and women of good will will see their hopes crushed by a machine in great lack of humanity. And make no mistake, they won’t be the only ones to suffer. It’s the whole of society, which really needs their brains and their arms, which will lose out at the same time.