Foreign workers seek Canadian government protection
Global News
With Mexican music blasting and people dancing, the party atmosphere at a downtown Montreal protest Wednesday belied the serious concern among many of the participants.
With Mexican music blasting and people dancing, the party atmosphere at a downtown Montreal protest Wednesday belied the serious concern among many of the participants.
“We are here manifesting to demand our rights,” protester Mohamed Amine told Global News.
They are former employees of an international catering company, Newrest. Wednesday outside the Québec office of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), on St-Jacques Street was the last day of their three-day protest. According to them, an agreement with IRCC to accelerate their application for temporary residence permits, was cancelled.
“About a week and a half ago in a meeting with IRCC, they changed their minds and decided to put in place a different procedure,” explained Ryan Faulkner of the Immigrant Workers’ Centre (IWC), which is helping the workers.
He claims the new procedure still hasn’t been outlined and worries that unless the former workers are protected quickly, the consequences could be serious, including deportation.
“Their status is in a legal limbo at the moment,” he said, “so this incredible uncertainty is extraordinarily stressful.”
The workers allege the agency which recruited them communicated part of the process for getting a work permit was to work on probation for a few months while the permit application was processed.
“(The workers) have been here with the promise of a work permit that they still don’t have after almost two years,” protest organizer Andrea Chavez noted.