Foreign nurses out $24,000 — and left with no recourse — after job offers in N.L. disappear

Joy Thompson has a dream of reuniting her family and having her daughters finally join her in Canada.

Thompson came here in 2004 as a domestic worker to help support her children and put them through school back in the Philippines. 

"If I did not go out of my country, there's nothing for them. There's nothing for us," she said.

Thompson saw her children occasionally over the years. Her son, also a nurse, works in Yellowknife.

When Thompson's boss introduced her to the owners of a Toronto-based employment agency in late 2018, Thompson felt the dream of bringing her two daughters to Canada was finally about to come true.

Her daughters, Aubrey and April Nuval, were working as nurses in the United Arab Emirates. Thompson jumped at the opportunity when Rose and Bert Smith, co-owners of Apex Connection Corp., told her they could help get them Canadian visas.

But almost five years later, her daughters remain in the U.A.E., after their arrangement with the agency evolved into a dispute and the family found themselves with nowhere to turn for recourse.

Last fall, the federal government announced a new immigration plan that would see Canada welcome half a million immigrants per year by 2025, a move that could lead to an increase in those offering prospective newcomers help in obtaining a Canadian work permit.

Experts told CBC News it's important to only give money to a licensed immigration professional who is authorized to give immigration advice.

Thompson said that within a week of meeting the Smiths at the hotel where she worked in Niagara Falls, Ont., Rose Smith told her that a close friend in Newfoundland needed workers at the seniors home she operated. 

Rhonda Simms, the owner of Pleasantview Manor in Lewisporte, N.L., needed personal care attendants, Smith told Thompson. The Nuval sisters were willing to take $15-an-hour positions, well below their nursing qualifications to get permanent residency in Canada.

Thompson signed two service agreements with Smith's agency — Apex Connection Corp. — for $24,000, or $12,000 each for Aubrey and April and their partners. The nurses had raised most of the money and, with help from family, had gathered the funds for the agreements.

The agreements included processing their federal immigration applications, their provincial applications and finding an employer willing to sponsor their permanent residency application.

However, by early 2021, more than two years after the agreements were signed, the job offers were gone.