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The City of Port Alberni in the province of British Columbia has reported that the provincial and federal governments are investigating a complaint regarding the mistreatment of temporary foreign workers recruited for a local company.
Although the company was not named by the city in a press release on Wednesday, Canadian radio station broadcasting 93.3 The Peak said the workers, who are all Vietnamese, were employed to work for SAN Group.
They said each of them had paid US$30,000 to come to Canada at the group’s remanufacturing mill and were promised $30 per hour wages and accommodation.
The complaints focus on the living conditions of the 16 men who are residing in a single trailer on the San Group property, where the only source of running water appears to be outside.
The city stated that after receiving the complaint about the workers' accommodation, it informed local authorities.
According to Canadian television channel CHEK News, the 16 men claimed they have received $18 an hour without any overtime compensation and were packed into a trailer housing 24 men without access to running water.
Additionally, they had to pay $350 monthly for a single bedroll in a shared bedroom.
All of them have been relocated elsewhere to safer accommodations following the complaint.
Vietnamese Canadian Kim Tran, who found out about their situation and has been helping them, told CHEK News, "Where they lived was so poor, like worse than animals to me. They lived in a rotten trailer, and they had no water."
San Group’s Technical Manager Raz Hanif was quoted by Canadian news site Nanaimo News Now as saying that he "knows nothing about" how the workers came here, blaming an immigration consultant who arranged the transfer.
Gord Johns, the Member of Parliament for Courtenay-Alberni, has also been involved in alerting Canada’s Immigration Minister and demanding federal assistance.
