With Mexican music blasting and people dancing, the party atmosphere at a downtown Montreal protest Wednesday belied the serious concern among many of the participants.
“We are here manifesting to demand our rights,” protester Mohamed Amine told Global News.
They are former employees of an international catering company, Newrest. Wednesday outside the Québec office of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), on St-Jacques Street was the last day of their three-day protest. According to them, an agreement with IRCC to accelerate their application for temporary residence permits, was cancelled.
“About a week and a half ago in a meeting with IRCC, they changed their minds and decided to put in place a different procedure,” explained Ryan Faulkner of the Immigrant Workers’ Centre (IWC), which is helping the workers.
He claims the new procedure still hasn’t been outlined and worries that unless the former workers are protected quickly, the consequences could be serious, including deportation.
“Their status is in a legal limbo at the moment,” he said, “so this incredible uncertainty is extraordinarily stressful.”
The workers allege the agency which recruited them communicated part of the process for getting a work permit was to work on probation for a few months while the permit application was processed.
“(The workers) have been here with the promise of a work permit that they still don’t have after almost two years,” protest organizer Andrea Chavez noted.
The workers claim many of them were recruited from overseas, and that others already in Canada on tourist visas were also allegedly recruited.
Authorization is being sought for a class-action lawsuit against both the recruiter and the employer, but former employee German Rodriquez stresses they need help from the government in the meantime.
“(The IRCC) already gave work permits, open work permits, because this is an unusual thing,” he pointed out.
So they are hoping the the government will go ahead and fast track work permits for 93 others.
“We need the work permits now,” insisted Chavez . “We cannot wait. They cannot wait more. They have families they have kids.”
IRCC refuses to comment, citing privacy laws, and Newrest says it did not knowingly hire people who don’t have a work permit. The agency that allegedly recruited the workers did not respond to a request for comment by deadline, but has previously denied the allegations.
TORONTO – Ontario is pushing through several bills with little or no debate, which the government house leader says is due to a short legislative sitting.
The government has significantly reduced debate and committee time on the proposed law that would force municipalities to seek permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a car lane.
It also passed the fall economic statement that contains legislation to send out $200 cheques to taxpayers with reduced debating time.
The province tabled a bill Wednesday afternoon that would extend the per-vote subsidy program, which funnels money to political parties, until 2027.
That bill passed third reading Thursday morning with no debate and is awaiting royal assent.
Government House Leader Steve Clark did not answer a question about whether the province is speeding up passage of the bills in order to have an election in the spring, which Premier Doug Ford has not ruled out.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
