By: Jim Rankin
The Star Canada | 8 October 2017
Convinced by friends that Canada’s low-wage temporary foreign worker program would provide a better life for her family, Gina Bahiwal borrowed $6,000 to pay a recruiter in the Philippines to take care of paperwork and get her a job.
Within nine months she was in Leamington packing vegetables for minimum wage, signed to a two-year work permit that tied her to an employer — and to a Canadian job recruiter who collected more money, she was told, to cover rent and utilities, in an apartment of the recruiter’s choosing.
When it came time to renew her work permit, the recruiter asked for $2,500. Instead, she received free legal help and got the permit for nothing, but by not paying the recruiter, it cost her the vegetable packing job.