Rowell Pailan spends his days applying for jobs in factories, in restaurants, in shops. He’s ready to take any kind of work.
Last September, Pailan quit his job with the company he came to Canada to work for over what he says are disputes about his treatment, including hours and wages. Now, he can’t find an employer willing to do the paperwork to change his closed work permit — a standard part of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program that ties workers to specific companies.
He knows the end date on that work permit means time is ticking on his Canadian dream.
I’m still asking myself, what I am doing here, what I’m doing here in Canada,” he said in a recent interview in his Wolfville, N.S., apartment.
“I’m just always thinking for my family, not for myself, actually.”
Pailan, a citizen of the Philippines, is one of a group of at least 13 temporary foreign workers who came to Canada in 2023 to work at a large Canadian Tire store in Etobicoke, an area on the west side of Toronto.
But before their work permits expired, many of the workers quit their jobs at the store. Pailan and another worker are speaking out, saying the owner paid them less than the agreed-upon wage in their contracts, and threatened to demote them or fire them.
Some workers were able to convert to an open work permit, meaning they were no longer bound to the Canadian Tire. Others, like Pailan, were denied open permits and remain on closed ones that restrict their work opportunities.
This comes at a moment when the Canadian government is making major adjustments to the TFW program, and the number of workers seeking to break free of closed permits because of abuse claims has “doubled or tripled” in the last few years, according to Immigration Minister Marc Miller.
Pailan’s former employer was Ezhil Natarajan, the owner of the Canadian Tire in Etobicoke.
Natarajan has owned and managed various Canadian Tire stores through his company named GeethaEzhil Inc. since 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Canadian Tire stores are all independently owned and operated, and the corporation notes on its website that each store has the “sole and exclusive right to interview, select, hire and train their staff.”
The job offer was appealing to Pailan, who says he has 16 years of experience managing clothing stores overseas.
“All the things that he told me about the contract: that I’ll be working minimum 35 and 40 hours a week, and there will be overtime pay and there’s a lot of benefits that I will get,” he said.
Natarajan made a similar job offer to Jhan Cresencio, another worker who arrived at the Canadian Tire in early June 2023.
Both Pailan and Cresencio say they paid $7,900 US (approximately $10,000 Cdn) to a recruitment agency to get the job at Canadian Tire.
Cresencio, also a citizen of the Philippines, says he was initially “happy and grateful” for the job offer. He says he’s worked in retail for 12 years, the last five at clothing stores and as an executive assistant in Saudi Arabia.
He expected to have a good experience working in Canada, but says those expectations vanished when he actually started.
Both Pailan and Cresencio were hired on closed work permits that tied them to Natarajan’s Canadian Tire branch. Their contracts described store supervisor positions, at a rate of $20 per hour for full-time positions between 35 to 40 hours a week.
Problems with work schedules, pay
Cresencio says on Boxing Day 2023 Natarajan shouted at him in front of customers and other employees in a derogatory manner, after he lent his key to another employee to retrieve something from a break room.
“He was shouting at me that if I don’t want to work with him and if I act like that, he will terminate me. He will demote me,” Crescencio said.
He says he felt humiliated and that this kind of treatment was unimaginable.
“I’ve been working for about 13 years,” he said. “This is the worst kind of employer that I work with.”
Both Pailan and Cresencio showed their pay stubs and work schedules to CBC
