Migrant workers in Canada on employer-specific work permits who face abuse, or are at risk of it, may qualify for an open work permit exempt from LMIA requirements (under IRPR section 207.1). This provision aims to help these workers by allowing them to leave abusive jobs, reduce the likelihood of unauthorized work, and support any inspections or investigations involving former employers. While assisting authorities is optional, this policy alleviates concerns about work permit revocation or deportation.
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For this process, “abuse” includes physical harm, unwanted sexual contact, psychological intimidation, financial exploitation, and retaliation. “Reprisal” refers to any action by an employer that negatively impacts a worker’s job conditions in response to the worker reporting non-compliance or cooperating with inspections. Examples of reprisal include disciplinary actions, demotions, dismissals, or threats of such measures.
Recognizing Abuse: Examples and Patterns
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse typically refers to any physical contact meant to instill feelings of intimidation, pain, injury, or other forms of physical suffering or harm. Additionally, it can encompass situations that are detrimental to one’s physical health.
- hitting, beating, slapping, punching, choking, burning, pushing or shoving a worker in a way that results or could result in injury
- confining a worker (habitual residence or other)
- living conditions in employer-provided accommodations that are unsafe or unsanitary or pose a risk to the worker’s health
- forcing or pressuring a worker to work under conditions that are unsafe or pose a risk to their health
- forcing a worker to engage in drug or alcohol use or illegal behaviour against their will and possibly creating dependencies
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse broadly refers to any scenario where force or threats are employed to compel participation in non-consensual sexual activity, as well as situations where an individual is coerced into engaging in sexual acts against their will.
- forcing or manipulating a worker into having sex or performing sexual acts
- forcing a worker to perform unsafe or degrading sexual acts
- using physical force to compel a worker to engage in a sexual act against their will
- using physical force, weapons or objects in non-consensual sexual acts
- involving other people in non-consensual sexual acts
- exposing, suggesting, attempting or completing a sexual act involving a worker who is unable to understand the nature or condition of the act, unable to decline participation or unable to communicate unwillingness to engage in the sexual act (for example, because of illness, disability, the influence of alcohol or other drugs, intimidation, or pressure)
Psychological abuse
Psychological abuse typically involves a repeated pattern of coercive or controlling behavior, along with threats or both.
- insulting, intimidating, humiliating, harassing, threatening (including with respect to immigration status or deportation), name-calling, yelling at, blaming, shaming, ridiculing, disrespecting or criticizing a worker
- controlling what a worker can and can’t do
- threatening a worker with murder
- intimidating, threatening or harming a worker with a knife, gun, or other object or weapon
- using religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate or control a worker
Financial abuse
Financial abuse is commonly defined as a form of abuse in which one individual exerts control over the victim’s access to economic resources. This may also include scenarios where information is misrepresented or withheld for the financial advantage of one party, to the detriment of the victim.
- failing to pay wages owed to the worker (excluding cases of clear pay errors that have been rectified by the employer)
- stealing or taking a worker’s money, salary, or cheques or coercing them into giving these things up
- controlling or limiting the worker’s financial resources
- withholding money or credit cards
- exploiting a worker’s financial resources
- requiring a worker to deposit money into their bank account for fraudulent purposes
- closely monitoring how a worker spends money
- destroying a worker’s property
- spending a worker’s money without their consent
- charging a worker fees for a job that doesn’t exist
- short-term layoff or lack of work where the employer was aware that the layoff would occur during the employment contract and the employee only found out after they started working
Reprisal
Reprisal refers to any action taken by or on behalf of an employer against an employee that negatively impacts their employment or working conditions, occurring as a result of the employee reporting non-compliance with regulations or cooperating with an employer inspection.
- If done as a response to the employee reporting conditions or cooperating with an employer inspection:
- imposing a penalty (for example, transfer of work location or reduction of hours or benefits)
- disciplinary action (for example, suspension or probation)
- termination of employment
- intimidation or coercion
- demotion in work level or title
- threatening to take any of the measures above
Example or Instances of Abuse or Potential Abuse in the Workplace
Abuse and the risk of abuse can encompass, but are not limited to, the following:
- The employer, a third party or both have abused the migrant worker by charging them job placement or recruitment fees based on false promises or misleading information (fraud), or are otherwise threatening, controlling or exploiting the worker.
- The migrant worker is unwittingly a victim of a fraudulent job offer or unethical recruitment (such as foreign workers paying large sums of money for a positive LMIA, being paid reduced wages to cover the “cost” of a positive LMIA, or having no job when arriving in Canada).
- The migrant worker is repeatedly harassed (for example, unwanted physical or verbal behaviour that is offending or humiliating) by a co-worker in their workplace.
- The migrant worker is threatened by their employer if they complain about their work conditions.
- The migrant worker has exited an abusive situation but would be at risk of abuse if they returned.
- Forcing or pressuring the migrant worker to perform work that contravenes the conditions of their work permit (for example, working for a different employer than stated on the permit or performing different job duties), recognizing that this jeopardizes a worker’s status in Canada, is a form of coerced engagement in illegal activity, and may be accompanied by or enable further threats, intimidation and abuse.
- The migrant worker may not be directly experiencing abuse but may be in a situation where their co-workers are being abused by their employer, putting them at risk of experiencing an abusive situation.
