Foreign workers can sue over no jobs

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has certified a class-action lawsuit against Mac’s Convenience Stores and three immigration consultants alleged to have collected thousands of dollars from foreign workers who were promised jobs that didn’t exist.

A written decision posted Tuesday says the case involves employment contracts for work at Mac’s stores in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program.

The decision says four representative plaintiffs paid up to $8,500, only to arrive in Canada to learn there were no jobs at Mac’s, they couldn’t work elsewhere and their money would not be returned, the decision says.

The plaintiffs represent about 450 workers, including Prakash Basyal, a Napalese man who was recruited at a job fair in Dubai.

Basyal says in an affidavit that he met immigration consultant Kuldeep Bansal at a recruitment fair in the summer of 2012 and was told he’d be guaranteed a job in Canada if he paid $8,000.

Bansal arranged for him to be interviewed in Dubai by a Mac’s representative in November 2012 and again in February 2013 by phone, Basyal says in the document, adding he signed an employment contract a month later to work at a Mac’s store for two years at a wage of $11.40 an hour.

Overseas Immigration Services, Overseas Career and Consulting Services, and Trident Immigration Services are named as defendants in the lawsuit, and the decision says they are related companies controlled by Bansal, whose sister is the sole director of Trident.

The class-action designation allows the hearing to go forward as a single case, but the allegations have not been tested in court. Lawyers for Mac’s and the consulting firms declined comment.