Star gets action
Exploited nannies win fee battle
October 21, 2009
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Dale Brazao
STAFF REPORTER
The province is cracking down hard on nanny recruiters, proposing a new law designed to protect vulnerable workers from being exploited.
The legislation, to be introduced at Queen's Park Wednesday by Labour Minister Peter Fonseca, will make it illegal for anyone to "directly or indirectly" charge foreign caregivers a fee to work in Ontario.
The proposed law follows a year-long Star investigation that revealed widespread abuse in the federal Live-In-Caregiver Program, with recruiters charging nannies as much as $10,000 for bogus jobs with phantom employers.
In some cases, the Star found nannies were housed in high numbers in basement apartments and flophouses around the GTA, then forced to work illegally to start paying recruiters their placement fees.
Many were also forced to surrender their passports and social insurance cards to these agencies to obtain work with other employers.
The legislation makes holding anyone's personal documents an offence and ministry investigators will be able to apply to the court for search warrants to retrieve documents. It also makes it illegal for third parties – typically associates of the recruiter – to collect placement fees on behalf of recruiters. It is unclear what penalties will be part of the new legislation.
A government source familiar with the proposed bill said it will help the "thousands of voiceless, helpless, hard-working people that are being exploited." A team of trained ministry investigators will be set up to investigate complaints.
Some recruiters currently charge both the nannies and the employers. If Fonseca's bill passes, the costs of bringing a foreign caregiver to Ontario will have to be borne only by the families that sponsor them. Families will pay recruiters to find a nanny – nannies won't have to pay to get a job.
The legislation is intended to supplement existing federal laws that call for a $50,000 fine and two years in jail for anyone who illegally employs a foreign worker. Federal officials admit prosecutions under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) are rare because it is expensive and time consuming.
When the Star published its investigation, Fonseca initially said it was up to the federal government to protect workers from such abuses. Now he has decided to do the job himself, with the federal government also taking action. "(The province is) going to be very aggressive on enforcement," said the government source. "They are going after these agencies big time."
Nanny recruiters were licensed in Ontario until 2001, when the Mike Harris Conservative government deregulated agencies – a move many say opened the industry up to widespread abuses.
The Star investigation showed a common tactic employed by recruiters is to bring a caregiver on a federally approved contract, then "release them upon arrival," telling the caregivers that their employers no longer need or want them.
In two dozen interviews the Star conducted with caregivers, only one ended up working for the family that sponsored her. The rest had all been "released upon arrival."
Earlier this year, Joelina Maluto, a Filipina mother of four, went public with allegations of abuse at the hands of a Thornhill recruiter who took her passport upon arrival and pressured her to work illegally. She never met the employer who sponsored her to enter Canada. Two other caregivers are also suing the recruiter, who is also suing the nannies after they stopped paying their $5,000 placement fees.
Pura Velasco, who has been fighting for nannies' rights for 20 years, said she is thrilled. "Peter Fonseca deserves a lot of credit for getting this done," said Velasco, who runs the Caregivers Action Centre.
Service Canada approves about 30,000 applications for nannies across Canada each year. There are an estimated 8,000 currently working in Ontario.
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced last week he is working on a "robust package of measures to crack down on bogus immigration consultants," who lure foreign workers to Canada with fake job contracts.
Kenney also plans to introduce changes to IRPA in the near future that will "further improve protections for caregivers and temporary foreign workers," according to his aide, Alykhan Velshi.
Employers who abuse their foreign workers can and will be prevented from sponsoring new ones, and the names of offenders will be posted on the department's website, federal officials say.
In anticipation of the provincial legislation, some recruiters in the GTA have taken to calling the placement fees "training fees" and "orientation packages." The ministry has already been made aware of that practice, and officers are ready to act, the government source said.
Toronto Star