{"id":3737,"date":"2024-08-14T16:29:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T16:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/cta-un-human-rights-council-report-highlights-major-labour-abuse-throughout-canadas-immigration-system\/"},"modified":"2025-01-10T16:40:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T16:40:50","slug":"cta-un-human-rights-council-report-highlights-major-labour-abuse-throughout-canadas-immigration-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/cta-un-human-rights-council-report-highlights-major-labour-abuse-throughout-canadas-immigration-system\/","title":{"rendered":"CTA: UN Human Rights Council Report Highlights Major Labour Abuse Throughout Canada\u2019s Immigration System"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UN report by the Human Rights Council says vulnerabilities in Canada\u2019s immigration system is leading to abuse of newcomers working in Canada \u2013 echoing alarm bells the Canadian Trucking Alliance has sounded for years.<\/p>\n

The report stated in its conclusion and recommendation section that \u201cCanada risks failing to live up to its reputation as a global champion of human rights if it does not act more decisively to reform laws and policies that enable the exploitation of vulnerable workers and fail to provide adequate remedy and rehabilitation to victims of exploitation and abuse.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2023, CTA called on transportation, labour and federal ministers to work together to end what the Alliance says are modern slavery practices in the trucking industry. The trucking industry \u2013 specifically, people new to Canada suffering under the abuse prevalent in the industry \u2013 has yet to receive the attention this serious issue deserves, says CTA.<\/p>\n

CTA wants federal and provincial officials to shut down trucking fleets found to commit gross violations of the labour code, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and for engaging in human trafficking and forced labour. CTA has yet to receive any meaningful response or observed any real consequences for companies involved in these practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman traffickers in our industry get rich, unscrupulous trucking owners thrive while our industry gets a black eye. Our industry is doing everything in its power to stop it, but it\u2019s time for governments at all levels to awaken, commit to meaningful enforcement and work with our industry to end these abuses,\u201d says CTA president Stephen Laskowski.<\/p>\n

The UN report noted that\u00a0\u201cthe Special Rapporteur received reports of underpayment and wage theft, physical, emotional and verbal abuse, excessive work hours, limited breaks, extracontractual work, uncompensated managerial duties, lack of personal protective equipment, including in hazardous conditions, confiscation of documents and arbitrary reductions of working hours.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

CTA has expressed many of these concerns to governments throughout Canada for many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UN report is bang on. Trucking is one the industries most affected by these abuses. We have been told of illegal pay practices, wage theft, excessive workhours, and safety concerns \u2013 victimizing not only migrant workers, but many permanent residents who are also forced into the underground economy and made to work under these conditions,\u201d says Laskowski.<\/p>\n

It has been explained to CTA by victims and organizations and individuals familiar with these practices that a sophisticated network of interests prey on newcomers wanting to live in Canada. Even visitors,\u00a0students, and tourists are convinced to enter this pathway by these modern-day slave traders.<\/p>\n

CTA has been told that the LMIA process, in particular, is the gateway for this abuse, giving employers \u2013 many involved in\u00a0the Driver Inc.<\/a> subculture \u2013 a \u201clicense to control\u201d drivers with permanent residency (PR) ambitions for months or even years.\u00a0Because it\u2019s the trucking company employer submitting the LMIA, and who must sign-off on the driver before ESDC\/ IRCC grant them PR status, the driver is often afraid to object or report things like poor working conditions, low pay, withheld\u00a0wages, injuries, forced labour etc.<\/p>\n

The entire process involves a network of operators working in a highly organized and coordinated fashion \u2013 from immigration\u00a0consultants\/services, driving schools, temp agencies, and the carrier employer. In some instances, some of these factions are integrated or may fall under the umbrella of a single company.<\/p>\n

Each of these players \u2018charges\u2019 the truck driver for services or are compensated by another entity throughout this chain. As a result, it is not uncommon for drivers to pay between $40,000-$80,000 in various stages to go through the LMIA process,\u00a0gain employment, and eventually become a permanent resident or citizen. In many cases, to pay this debt, they are forced to driver commercial\u00a0vehicles for either no wages, or significantly lower wages than legally permitted.<\/p>\n

While this entire LMIA\/PR process \u2013 which can last 12-18 months \u2013 is mostly conducted under payroll, the amount of control the employer gains over the driver allows for basement-level pay rates, non-payment for orientation\/training and other on-duty time, no overtime, dismissal upon injury, and pay deductions for everything from late deliveries to damage on company-owned equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cCTA has repeatedly presented a comprehensive plan to government how to address these problems,\u201d says Laskowski. \u201cPerhaps the UN report will motivate Ottawa and governments throughout this country to help industry end modern slavery in our sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UN report by the Human Rights Council says vulnerabilities in Canada\u2019s immigration system is leading to abuse of newcomers working in Canada \u2013 echoing alarm bells the Canadian Trucking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,17],"tags":[31,32,202,203,1999,2259,1408,52,2415],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-labour-hr-driver-shortage","category-news-releases","tag-driver-inc","tag-enforcement","tag-foreign-workers","tag-immigration","tag-labour-abuse","tag-lmia","tag-report","tag-tfwp","tag-un-human-rights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}