Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER JANUARY 2019 NEWS 3 Temporary foreign worker protections boosted in British Columbia with Bill 48 Employers face increased enforcement measures, much higher penalties BY SARAH DOBSON STORIES about the mistreat- ment of temporary foreign work- ers in Canada have filled the me- dia for years. Tales of exorbitant fees being charged to workers, or of passports or wages being with- held, have painted a bleak pic- ture for many involved with the program. While the federal government is responsible for the Tempo- rary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), it's the provinces that are responsible for enforcing labour laws. And, gradually, provinces such as Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick have responded to the concerns. e latest province to step up is British Columbia, which passed Bill 48, the Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act, at the end of November. Most importantly, foreign worker recruiters will have to be licensed, and employers that re- cruit and hire temporary foreign workers will have to be registered with the provincial government. "Workers coming to B.C. want to feel safe, confident their rights are protected, and that abusive employers will be held account- able," said Harry Bains, minister of labour for the province. "The exploitation of anyone working in our province runs against the values of British Co- lumbians. We need to shut any door that allows recruiters or employers to wilfully ignore and abuse the rights of workers in this province." e federal government issued 47,620 work permits for foreign nationals destined for B.C. in 2017, of which 16,865 were issued under the TFWP. Fixing past abuses Currently, employers that hire for- eign workers through the TFWP must ensure they meet all of the conditions and requirements of the federal program, as outlined in documents such as the La- bour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application, and LMIA decision letter and annexes, ac- cording to Daniel Lee, an associ- ate at Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang in Vancouver. Inspections may be conducted for up to six years after a work per- mit is issued but, in practice, some employers are still treating foreign workers unfairly because the in- spections are random, he said. Workers often pay recruiters il- legal fees for the promise of a job and, once they arrive in Canada, they are sometimes underpaid or not paid at all, said Lee. ey may also end up working or living in conditions that are un- fit and unsafe, and could be bullied or intimidated by employers that threaten to deport them if they don't comply with their demands. "What the government is notic- ing is a lot of these job offers are not genuine and they want to pre- vent that from happening, and also prevent abuses from recruiters of these workers in giving false hopes and false information," he said. Literally every worker who comes to Canada is paying an ille- gal recruitment fee unless they're coming to work for family, accord- ing to Susanna Allevato Quail, a lawyer at Allevato Quail & Roy in Vancouver. "e only time we've ever seen someone not pay an illegal fee is when it's for a family member, so the fees are nearly universal, and the only way to recoup them prior to this legislation was through the employment standards branch and there was a six-month limitation to do that." e foreign workers were also required to first approach their employer with a complaint, before reaching out to government, she said, "so lot of people were scared to do that." But many are hiring foreign workers because they have chronic skills shortages and can't find Ca- nadians to fill these roles, said Su- san Martyn, a senior immigration lawyer at PwC Law in Vancouver. "These tend to be employers that have exceptional track re- cords when it comes to things like respecting employment standards and abiding by the terms of the for- eign worker program rules." So it's disappointing the B.C. government didn't decide to target high-risk sectors such as agricul- ture and hospitality, she said. "The government could have approached this in a more target- ed fashion and required employ- ers to register if they're going to be employing these semi-skilled foreign workers who would then EMPLOYMENT > pg. 12

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