Stop the cycle of LMIA use and abuse
Turning off Queen Street East onto the southbound ramp of Highway 410 in Brampton, Ont., I noticed a group of young men seated on the grass outside a shuttered restaurant. One sign among many they had placed around them stood out – “Stop LMIA Abuse!”
This happened the same evening I wrote about truck drivers describing how they were exploited and abused by unscrupulous trucking company owners misusing the labor market impact assessment (LMIA) program.
The truck drivers were ordered to work while they were exhausted, sick and injured. They paid thousand of dollars in LMIA “fees”. Wages were docked and they were shortchanged for work completed. Cabotage rules were broken in the U.S.
The men protesting in Brampton were food and hospitality workers. On occasion, one sees truck drivers protesting unpaid wages, but they are hardly ever seen protesting LMIA abuse. They hide in the shadows while on their journey to live and work legally in Canada, trying to survive indentured labor, humiliation and horrific working conditions.
I spoke to drivers on LMIA work permits, and they admitted that they got into the situation with their eyes wide open. A lot of pain for a lot of gain. Some of them demanded that they should be offered permanent residency in Canada, paving the way for citizenship, because they spent thousands of dollars to come here as students. They then paid thousands of dollars for a LMIA work permit.
Canada does not owe them anything
No matter what they believe, Canada does not owe them anything. Many of them were sold dreams by education brokers and immigration agents. Canada allowed them in as students. But they are not interested in studying. They don’t want to return home once their education program is complete. Their goal is to find employment and use the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) system to immigrate by any means available.
For some trucking company owners, these desperate students are easy pickings. Their modus operandi is to demand thousand of dollars in cash for a work permit and then exploit the workers.
These unscrupulous and greedy people are trading in a TFW program that was fashioned to help industries overcome labor shortages. This under-the-table money fuels high-end luxury vehicle purchases, extravagant lifestyles and real estate investments.
A truck driving school owner recently made an interesting observation. “Some trucking companies will cease operations in a hurry if they can’t use drivers on LMIA work permits,” he said.
Lower operational costs for shady carriers
These companies have lower operational costs, thus helping them bid for freight at lower rates, undercutting carriers that obey the rules. They are also giving keys to inexperienced drivers and sending them to our cities and towns.
Trucking associations have been urging the government to only allow pre-approved and vetted carriers to use TFWs. This would be a good starting point. Continuous enforcement will help bolster the rules.
There is plenty of blame to apportion in this situation. Students-turned-truck-drivers are abusing the system and are in turn being abused by greedy employers.
Danger on the road
Trucking companies are abusing the rules and selling LMIAs left, right and center. These actions are likely to continue as the money keeps flowing in and they go unpunished.
It’s the motoring public who will be on the road next to these tired and frustrated truck drivers. Would you be comfortable driving next to a trucker who is sleep-deprived? Would you want a loved one sharing the road with a truck driver who has popped painkillers and is working because they are not allowed to take time off due to an injury?
This cycle of use and abuse will lead to an incident with painful human consequences. Can Canada live with another Humboldt tragedy on its conscience?
Have your say
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So this is the government’s answer to the shortage of qualified drivers in Canada? Unreal, while Canadian drivers have to abide by strict regulations and requirements this offers a loophole for companies to hire lower cost labour and continues to slash rates to be competitive in a market place that’s already saturated with increasing operating costs. Leave it to the politicians to manage yet another industry that’s struggling to maintain compliance and integrity while juggling costs against safety.
Your articles are touching the fundamentals of our industry. Why are these people being abused and you journalist collecting the information, not able to make a list of these carriers and educating and warning the shipping public and government institutions of all these facts.
For years government institutions have been looking and watching, no action.
It is time to stop this mafia. Same thing for the drivers Inc scheme, our industry is suffering and at risk.
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He is already putting his neck on the line and risking the papers survivial. I may not like him but he is a good person and sees things differently than me and many other people that were born here. You should know a certain trucking ass was told by me and others in Jan of 2020 about the problems with the way foreign drivers were being treated. Before the last fed election I was involved with trying to support 2 candidates that wanted to clean up the treatment of foreign (students) ) that came over here with a plan to become professionals. They found out that their best choice would a truck driver for low wages for 2 to 3 yrs or for females to work as a nanny even though they often were people like lawyers or accounting people. The fed gov needs to hire people from ont the insurance company no longer want to insure to drive truck( even though that is illegal) because they had crutches or a wheelchair vin the truck that are good with numbers I know of at least 6 such people if the gov paid them $1300 wk plus a meal allowance . We would have full list of trucking companies and Tim Hortons that should have fines place on them or put out of business in very short order. But there is a lot of push back by certain larger trucking companies that have over 980 units based of ont. We seen the push back when pushed for paid sick days and med care for those drivers the go into other provinces and/or cross the border.
I do not expect you run this but I and many other drivers have got by trucking companies and are probably still bitter not just about the treatment I got . But more bitter when fighting for all drivers
Freight rates will go up like a person told me at the truck show.
These drivers are not the problem but the trucking companies the same as some of greenhouses that often use labor services that pay less than a fair wage or foreign students that borrowed against all the families assets in the country they came from. I know the stories people tolde about my grandparents did after WW2 to help people who came with less than nothing
I am working with many foreign workers to make their lives better but in the past 6 yrs have did everything I can to warn people of the scam .