The federal government granted employees open work permits to enable them to leave an abusive situation, a program that became available in 2019. They joined between 26 and 42 workers on the island who were allowed open work permits between the program’s start and end May 2022. CBC News agreed not to identify the two workers who gave interviews, including not naming the agribusiness involved. The workers worry about retaliation against their families back home, by the agent in Vietnam who recruited them, as well as by the operator of the PEI farm. “It was all a scam,” said one worker, who we’ll call Thi. News of farm trouble is deeply troubling to the PEI Federation of Agriculture. The federation’s executive director, Donald Killorn, said it was important to the industry that the program worked well. “The temporary foreign worker program is one of those federal tools that is critical,” Killorn said. “Our members want to see it work properly. We don’t want to see it as a tool to take advantage of people. We need the program to work — and that includes enforcement. It includes treating temporary alien workers properly.” Donald Killorn, executive director of the PEI Federation of Agriculture, says the industry is “dependent on temporary foreign workers.” (Kirk Pennell/CBC) Labor shortages are starting to become a problem in a wide variety of sectors in PEI, but Killorn said they have been a problem in agriculture for years. “At this point, I would say the industry in Prince Edward Island is dependent on temporary foreign workers,” he said.
40% of farm workers?
Figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Statistics Canada underscore just how deep this dependency runs. An estimated 40% of PEI’s agricultural workforce could be temporary foreign workers. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press) IRCC reports that 1,475 general farmers came to PEI in 2021 under the temporary foreign worker program, with an additional 85 people working in nurseries and greenhouses. Statistics Canada reports that PEI had a total of 3,600 agricultural jobs that year. The methodologies between the two agencies are not the same — there could be differences in how workers are categorized — but the numbers strongly suggest that about 40 per cent of people holding agricultural jobs in PEI are temporary foreign workers. In total, across all industries, approximately 2,400 temporary foreign workers came to PEI in 2021. Of these, approximately 15 were granted open work permits.
Requesting relief from obligations to the employer
The open work permit program was created in 2019 specifically to allow workers in abusive situations to leave the employer that brought them to Canada. Under the terms of their visa, temporary foreign workers can only work for the employer who sponsored them, under normal circumstances. According to the Open Work Permit Program website, “Any behavior that intimidates, controls, or isolates you can be abuse. Abuse can be physical, sexual, financial, or mental.” Before issuing an open work permit… an officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that the immigrant worker is experiencing abuse.- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada In an email to CBC News, IRCC further clarified the process for granting travel authorization to workers. “Before issuing an open work permit to a vulnerable temporary foreign worker experiencing abuse, an officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that the immigrant worker is experiencing abuse or is at risk of being abused in the context of their employment in Canada,” the statement said. . “The “reasonable grounds to believe” standard requires more than “suspicion,” but less than the civil law standard of “proof on a balance of probabilities.” With an open work permit, the worker, previously limited to one employer, can legally work anywhere in Canada in any job.
Privacy concerns were raised
For privacy reasons, IRCC does not provide details on the number of open work permits granted in any province. Reports values below five as blank and rounds other data up or down to the nearest multiple of five. No PEI farms failed inspections under the temporary foreign worker program. (Jane Robertson/CBC) The IRRC recorded gaps for open work permits issued in Prince Edward Island in 2019 and 2020. The statistic was 15 in 2021 and also 15 in the first five months of 2022. Given the rounding requirement, the actual total could be up to and 26, and up to 42. Despite the granting of these open work permits, no farms in PEI have failed a federal government audit of their temporary foreign worker operations. Service Canada publishes a list of workplaces that have failed inspections. The last failed inspection in PEI was in 2018 — at a veterinary drug manufacturer. CBC News traced 22 of the open work permits issued in PEI to the same farm.
Costs start with Vietnamese agent
CBC News spoke with two temporary foreign workers from the farm. The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and the excerpts presented here are translations. This arrived in PEI last fall. He said he paid an agent in Vietnam just over $60,000 to set up the deal to work on a farm on the island. A worker we’ll call Thi collected discarded bottles to cash in her deposits to pay the rent after she wasn’t scheduled for the work hours she was promised. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Her family had to borrow the money from loan sharks, she said, but she was promised that working on the farm for a year would not only let her pay back that money, but also earn extra cash. There are rules built into the program to ensure this possibility. Employers are required to pay for the return ticket from the home country to Canada. They must also provide accommodation at a maximum rate of $30 per week. If this accommodation is not on site, transport to work must be provided. In addition, the program sets minimum wages for the various jobs for which workers come to Canada, based on wages offered locally at the Job Bank. In PEI, it’s currently $15 an hour. Employees must also be paid for at least 30 hours per week during the mandatory two-week self-isolation period put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The promised work was never delivered
The problems started early, Thi said. He was not paid for the period of isolation. nor was she offered a job at the end of that period. The employer did not provide accommodation, Thi said, and she had to rent a place in Charlottetown. Her contract was for 40 hours a week, she said, but months went by without work and without pay. “My husband was struggling financially during the pandemic, so he couldn’t send much,” she said. Every day I thought if I would have a job tomorrow and when I could finally have some income.- Worker called Thi “The money didn’t really help because, you know, Vietnamese money doesn’t have as much purchasing power as the Canadian dollar.” There were many days when she couldn’t buy groceries, so she went to the community refrigerator in Charlottetown to get food. He often walked around town picking up containers of liquor to collect the deposit. “Every day I felt like I was in crisis mode,” he said. “Every day I thought about whether I would have a job tomorrow and when I would finally be able to have some income.”
“No choice” but to sign forms
Managers at the farm gave her no explanation for the lack of work, she said. they just told her to wait. In February, Thi was called to an office in Charlottetown. She was presented with a series of forms to sign. A temporary foreign worker from the farm was there to help them translate. She said a form said she had been provided transport and accommodation. Another form said he didn’t work from October to February because he claimed vacation time. He said he knew signing those forms would be lies and refused. “Then they told me if I didn’t sign, I’d be sent back to Vietnam the next week,” he said. He decided he had no choice but to sign.
Work for weeks, then none
Another worker, who we’ll call Van, told CBC News of a similar experience. Van worked on a different farm than Thi, but their managers said the businesses had the same owners. The van arrived in PEI in September. Like Thi, he said his contract was for a year and promised 40 hours of work a week. He had also paid an agent more than $60,000 to make the arrangements, he said. Then I realized the whole thing might be a scam.- Worker called Van The harvest was underway, so Van had a job in September, but like Thi, he said he had to give cash to receive his salary. His salary was only $11 an hour, he said. Vann said he was also told he could work on another farm if he wanted, and his contractor employer would issue him a check – as long as he paid cash for it. But he knew this was illegal under the terms of his work permit. “That’s when I realized the whole thing might have been a scam,” Van said.
He said the inspection was coming
Work on the farm stopped sometime in October when the harvest was completed. There was no work all November, he said, but in November he was also asked to sign forms. He was told that someone from the federal government was coming to inspect the farm. He was not allowed to keep copies of any of the forms, he said, but he remembered them being similar to the ones Thi had signed, certifying that his employer had provided him with transportation, lodging and money to pay for living expenses — none of which were true. he said. Because he was out of work from mid-October to…
