This is an interesting but hardly unusual situation described by the Toronto Star article below: a local employer hires a foreign worker, supports his application, then there is some sort of fallen out and things go sour, with both parties blaming each other. What is not explained by the article, however, is that many foreign workers and the employers who hire them do not fully understand their rights and obligations under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program because many employers do not seek counsel from experience lawyers prior to starting the hiring process, and employees simply treat the program as a migration facilitation avenue. Many small businesses are ill prepared to handle foreign workers, and others simply seek to hire friends and relatives to help them migrate. This is contrary to the intent of the program to supply necessary labour to areas experiencing shortages. Large employers, who are more sophisticated, usually seek good legal counsel and make it clear to employees that their assignments are only temporary, or spell the terms of engagement in a contract.. Some changes are necessary to this process in an urgent manner, as large and small employers can not be treated in the same way.
Immigrant dreams clash in an Etobicoke restaurant - thestar.com
Immigrant dreams clash in an Etobicoke restaurant
June 06, 2010
Sandro Contenta
Jagmohan Singh Rawat came to Toronto to chase the immigrant dream — work hard, get permanent residency and bring his wife and daughter from India.
“The future is here,” says Rawat, a 38-year-old chef.
Starting him out on that dream was a man who achieved it.
Pyare Lal Gour arrived in 1997. The first two restaurants he opened failed. He made a go of it with his third in Etobicoke’s Kingsway neighbourhood. In April 2007, he needed a chef and hired Rawat through a federal program that lets employers bring foreign workers here on a temporary basis.
“I treated him like a son,” Gour says.
Last week, Rawat threw his apron on the restaurant floor and quit in disgust. He accused Gour of using the controversial migrant worker program to sabotage his bid for permanent residency. His future in Canada is now uncertain.
Gour denies the charge. But he notes in frustration that when his chefs get approval to stay in Canada, it is usually to his detriment.
“If they become permanent residents, then they don’t want to work (for me). They want to open their own business,” says Gour, adding that Rawat is the third chef on a temporary work permit to walk out on him in six years.
The dispute highlights a rule in the federal program that prevents “guest workers” from toiling for anyone other than the employers who get government permission to recruit and hire them. (In 2009, 178,640 people entered Canada on temporary work permits — from labourers making beds in hotels or gutting pigs in meat plants to accountants and engineers.)
Critics say the regulation turns would-be immigrants into indentured servants.
A Star series last fall found migrants paying thousands of dollars in recruitment fees for jobs that didn’t exist when they arrived. Others suffered poor working conditions in silence — including less pay and more hours than promised — fearful of losing jobs and temporary legal status in Canada.
A scathing report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser last November blamed poor government monitoring for widespread employer abuse.
Lower-skilled migrants are largely barred from becoming permanent residents, except in Manitoba. But skilled workers like Rawat can. If successful, they are then free to work for anyone they like.
Rawat is the sole breadwinner for his family in New Delhi — his mother, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter. There, he was making $672 a year cooking in a “fancy” restaurant. When a co-worker, Gour’s nephew, mentioned his uncle in Canada was looking for a chef, Rawat jumped at the opportunity.
He arrived at Chutneys Fine Indian Cuisine on Bloor Street West, which Gour has been running since 2004. It has four employees, 15 tables and the online reviews are mostly good.
“People do not realize how much of a struggle it is for a small businessman,” says Gour, 54, an Indian who came to Canada as a landed immigrant, after years in Dubai, with his wife and two sons. “I work 24 hours in the restaurant — me, my son, my wife — just to establish this place.”
Gour, who is now a Canadian citizen, paid Rawat $37,295 last year to work six long days a week.
Last June, Gour supported Rawat’s application for permanent residency in a letter to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
“Mr. Rawat’s skills and experience are difficult to find in Canada and his services are essential to the operation of our business,” Gour wrote.
In September, Gour changed his mind in a second letter to immigration officials.
“I would like to inform you that Mr. Jagmohan Singh Rawat is not working with us any more and I am canceling the letter which (was) given to support his immigration. As per his status in Canada he is suppose (sic) to work with Chutneys Fine Indian Cuisine only and is not allowed to work any where else,” he wrote.
Without a job, Rawat’s chances of permanent residency under the federal Skilled Worker Class program are significantly reduced. But Rawat insists he never stopped working for Gour, and the salary deposits in his bank account — seen by the Star — show no interruption and no docks in pay.
Rawat adds he had no idea Gour sent the September letter. Gour insists he knew. Both say immigration officials never called them about it.
Gour says he sent the letter, written by his lawyer, in a fit of anger when Rawat went AWOL for two days. Rawat insists he never left. In any event, in Gour’s version of the story, he concedes he never notified immigration that Rawat returned.
By then, the relationship had deteriorated. Gour claims Rawat became a difficult employee after the June letter and plotted to open his own restaurant with a former employee; Rawat accuses Gour of being a tyrant. Each denies the other’s allegations.
“I warned him so many times, I will cancel the (June) letter — three times I warned him,” Gour says.
“I work very hard for him,” Rawat insists in halting English. “All the time he shout (at me) . . . He telling me, ‘If you say something I go to immigration and send you back.’”
What’s clear is that after the September letter, Gour renewed the government permit — known as a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) — to keep Rawat as a temporary foreign worker. And in February, Gour backed Rawat’s application for an extension of his temporary work permit, due to expire in April.
In March, the Toronto lawyer helping Rawat with his residency application, Elizabeth Long, received a package of material from immigration officials that included the September letter. She says she and Rawat became aware of it for the first time.
She accuses Gour of wanting to “screw up my client’s permanent resident application because he was afraid my client would stop working for him.” Renewing his LMO and temporary work permit would ensure Rawat remained solely tied to Gour.
Gour insists that wasn’t his plan.
“If I was thinking like that, why would I give him the (June) letter in the first place?” he says.
Last week, Rawat got a call from officials considering his work permit extension. He was given until Monday to hand in a letter of employment. Rawat demanded one from Gour. It turned into a standoff: Rawat says he no longer trusted Gour and demanded a letter immediately; Gour says he wanted to speak with immigration officials and then have his lawyer write one. Rawat quit in a fury.
Rawat’s future in Canada now depends on navigating a labyrinth of regulations and options. If his work permit is denied, Long will file a request to reconsider his status, which gives him a 90-day reprieve before having to leave the country. By then, Rawat hopes an employer poised to open an Indian restaurant in Brampton will get government permission to hire him on a new work permit.
In the meantime, he still has a shot at becoming a permanent resident. To do so, he needs to score at least 67 points under the federal program for skilled workers. Not having a job means he loses out on 10 points. Long says he’ll still pass if he scores at least 10 points on his language test. He’s waiting for the results.
Prior to Rawat leaving, Gour hired another cook from India on a temporary work permit to ease the workload in the kitchen. The new hire has replaced Rawat as head chef.
Gour has applied to hire another chef on a temporary permit, and is bracing for the costs and bureaucratic hurdles of the process.
“We have to change the system,” he says.
Immigration point system for skilled workers
Education: up to 25 points
Ability in English and or French: 24 points
Experience: 21 points
Age: Maximum 10 points
Arranged employment in Canada: 10 points
Adaptability: 10 points
Total maximum: 100 points
Pass mark: 67 points
Source: Immigration Canada
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