Men’s employers have different take on facts
As Renaldo Verdeflor and Francis Dura face deportation to the Philippines, the story of how RCMP and a Canadian Border Services agent nabbed the pair earlier this month for working illegally in the Yukon points to glaring holes in programs for recruiting and placing foreign workers.
Photo by Vince Fedorof
Top left: Renaldo Verdeflor Bottom left: Alex Furlong Right: EMOTIONAL MOMENT – Francis Dura dabs at tears during Monday’s news conference while Ailene Gayangos looks on. Dura and Renaldo Verdeflor face deportation from Canada for working illegally in the Yukon, officials say.
As Renaldo Verdeflor and Francis Dura face deportation to the Philippines, the story of how RCMP and a Canadian Border Services agent nabbed the pair earlier this month for working illegally in the Yukon points to glaring holes in programs for recruiting and placing foreign workers.
At a Yukon Federation of Labour press conference Monday, Verdeflor, 45, and Dura, 28, spoke of unpaid wages, unfulfilled job promises and humiliating treatment by border services agents. Federation president Alex Furlong called for leniency at each of the pair’s admissibility hearings, where both are likely to be sent packing.
“All Francis or Renaldo want is to come to the Yukon to have a better life,” Furlong told media assembled at the union hall on Second Avenue.
Flanked by Verdeflor, Dura, Yvonne Clarke, president of the Canadian Filipino Association of the Yukon, and Ailene Gayangos, association vice-president, Furlong told a meandering tale of how the two men ended up in the Yukon.
According to Furlong, Verdeflor was in the country on a temporary foreign workers visa sponsored by Alberta Oats Milling Ltd., but when work ran out at the rural mill, he passed on plane fare home (part of the deal and offered to Verdeflor by Alberta Oats Milling). Instead, Verdeflor opted to try his luck in Whitehorse.
And before his arrest earlier this month, Verdeflor said he worked part-time hours over a period of several weeks for a local business without pay.
Whenever Verdeflor asked about his money, or his application with the Yukon Nominee Program (a territorial government initiative that allows local businesses to sponsor and employ foreign workers), the employer threatened to report him to immigration. Neither Furlong nor Verdeflor would release the name of the business or its owner for fear of being sued.
This morning, the Star heard a very different version of the story from Glenys Baltimore, owner of the Chocolate Claim, where Verdeflor worked.
“The truth of the matter is he didn’t have a valid work permit, but told me he did,” Baltimore explained. “When I finally asked him to see it and saw he was not honest with me, I told him I could not continue to employ him.”
When Baltimore offered to get him a work permit, Verdeflor never came back.
She then called Canadian Border Services Agency to ask how she could pay him. Despite his lack of the necessary documents to work in the territory, the agency thanked Baltimore for the tip and said she could issue a cheque, which was delivered when a border services agent apprehended Verdeflor.
The man had a valid social insurance number, said Baltimore, so she assumed his work visa was legitimate.
“It’s my own naiveté that I hired him ... a valid social insurance number is not enough,” Baltimore said.
“Had he been upfront with me in the first place, we could’ve tried to put him in the program here… but once he was working illegally, I had no other choice but to report him.”
With Verdeflor in custody, a search for his documents led the RCMP and one border services agent to a residence where Dura lived. Officers discovered him hiding in a closet, and when Dura’s documents were checked, he too was without valid work visa.
For Dura, his Canadian story begins on Jan. 16, 2010, when he arrived in Alberta from Dubai where the 28-year-old had been working in the petroleum industry.
According to Dura, he paid $3,500 to an agency that arranged his entry into Canada and $650 for a plane ticket to Calgary, where he was set up to work at the Canadian Tire store on Sarcee Boulevard under the federal government’s temporary foreign workers program.
At Monday’s press conference, Furlong said the store failed to honour its end of the bargain and left Dura unemployed, broke and desperate.
Dura said he called his aunt, Gayangos, and she arranged transportation and living accommodations in Whitehorse.
Dura told reporters he hid in the closet because he was afraid when police arrived at his residence. Living in Dubai under strict working conditions and Islamic law, said Dura, had made him jumpy and fearful of authorities.
While neither Furlong nor Dura would reveal the Whitehorse business where Dura was employed before his arrest, the labour federation boss said paperwork for Dura’s sponsorship under the Yukon Nominee Program was working its way through the system.
This morning, Brent Slobodin, assistant deputy minister of Education, the department under which the program is administered, confirmed that Dura’s application was filed.
“Basically, (Dura) had shown up at Tim Hortons, was hired, the manager phoned our staff person and the manager was informed to have him stop work immediately,” Slobodin told the Star. “Things were inadvertently done by the manager ... it’s really up to the immigrant to indicate he didn’t have (the appropriate) work permit.”
If only Dura had shown up at the Canadian Tire in Calgary, where he was approved for employment under the terms of his temporary foreign workers visa. When the Star contacted the Sarcee Canadian Tire in Calgary, owner Chris Pustowka said he sponsored Dura, arranged an interview, but Dura never appeared.
“He was supposed to come to work for us, we had him listed as we’d like him to come ... but the information we got is he went to visit some family up in Whitehorse,” he told the Star.
To hire foreign workers, Pustowka said he must get what’s called a labour market opinion (LMO) indicating the business has exhausted other options for finding local workers.
“And each LMO has a limited time period and Dura’s gone off to the Yukon and he never reported to work or never showed back up,” said Pustowka, who went ahead and hired somebody else.
Tomorrow, Dura faces an admissibility hearing in Whitehorse with the Canadian Border Services Agency and on July 20, Verdeflor must appear before a similar hearing to answer for similar charges of violating the Immigration Act.
The two men said they would like to remain in the Yukon, however, Furlong believes both will be deported.
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francias pillman
Jun 29, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Gee is this problem going to turn into what the USA has with Mexicans? Same sob story of looking for a better life. You broke the LAW, you are CRIMINALS. Glad to see the RCMP enforcing our laws.