Province probes whether workers were living in Burger King

Claims that foreign workers were living out of a Lethbridge Burger King restaurant are being investigated by provincial officials.

That news comes as a Calgary immigration lawyer and union leader said abuse of foreign workers by their employers is common in the province but is rarely detected.

In a public health order issued last week, Alberta Health Services inspectors cited a number of violations at the restaurant, including evidence of living-sleeping arrangements for foreign workers such as mattresses and other furniture.

Burger King, in an email statement, denied workers were sleeping at the site.

On Thursday, Labour Minister Christina Gray’s office said the allegations were being investigated by Occupational Health and Safety and Employment Standards officials.

“Any employer taking advantage of workers or putting worker safety at risk is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Robb Aishford, press secretary for Gray, said in a statement.

“Alberta’s workplace laws apply equally to everyone, regardless of someone’s immigration status in Canada; our government takes this matter very seriously and will have more to say pending the results of both investigations.”

That announcement comes after Varinder and Ravinder Sidhu were sentenced last May for unlawful treatment of Filipina workers at their Red Deer motel, a case in which a judge said the staff were treated like “indentured servants.”

The couple was also made to pay $83,000 in owed wages and $8,000 in penalties.

It’s a rare instance where such abuse leads to consequences for the perpetrators, said Calgary immigration lawyer Raj Sharma.

“They’re pretty adept at getting around regulations,” he said.

One of them is the fear of reprisal and loss of job or ability to remain in Canada among a temporary foreign worker force that often doesn’t know its rights.

“There’s often incredible power versus insecurity. They often can’t say ‘no’ ... they’re the breadwinners sending money home,” said Sharma, adding he’s dealt with many clients in that situation.

“Some of these people are forced to work 18-hour shifts, they have to return a certain amount of their pay, some of these people are making far less than $10 an hour and I’ve known of some given medication to keep them going.”

But he said he’s slightly surprised an employer would house foreign staff at a work site given the tax deduction for providing them normal housing.

The Burger King situation could be another indication Canada’s temporary foreign worker policy is broken, despite professed efforts by federal governments to fix it, said Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan.

Those who employ lower wage and skilled temporary foreign employees are required to provide them adequate housing and can’t hire such staff if the unemployment rate in the area is above six per cent — criteria that appear to have been violated, said McGowan.

But he said a lack of federal enforcement means such alleged offences are rarely discovered.

“What’s the point of having rules if you can’t enforce them ... a selfregulating system is a recipe for abuse,” said McGowan.

He said Canada should scrap its temporary foreign worker system and treat such workers as potential permanent residents or citizens, and ones with labour mobility rights.