A year from ‘hell’: Why one temporary foreign worker decided to call it quits on Canada

Hichem Nasri doesn’t mince words about his experience as a temporary foreign worker in Canada, calling it a “hell I don’t want to ever go through again.”

Over 14 months in Canada, the 29-year-old from Tunisia held cleaning jobs at a transportation company, an oil refinery, a bank and a Canadian Tire store. In some of those positions, he says, he faced tough work conditions: wages not paid on time, poor treatment by employers, and injuries on the job.

Through it all, Mr. Nasri inadvertently became an expert at manoeuvring the Canadian bureaucracy through numerous dealings with the federal Immigration Ministry, provincial workplace safety boards and migrant advocacy organizations. But rather than stay in Canada, he has decided to call it quits and return to Tunisia.

“This whole year was a waste of my time and money,” he told The Globe. “Why would I choose to be disrespected?”

The federal government expanded the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2022 to help employers fill a soaring number of job vacancies as pandemic restrictions were being eased. This led to a sharp increase in foreign workers with closed permits that tie them to a single employer – an arrangement that is ripe for abuse, according to many migrant rights groups.

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Now, the federal government is putting new restrictions on the program, part of an attempt to cool Canada’s rapid population growth, leaving many foreign workers feeling like disposable cogs in the country’s labour market.

“I was dispensable,” Mr. Nasri said. “I was just an object, not a human being with a life and a family and a history.”

Mr. Nasri came to Canada in September of 2023, after obtaining a two-year closed work permit to work as a cleaner with Bilodeau Transport, a poultry transportation company based in Quebec City. (Temporary foreign workers must obtain a job offer before a work permit is granted.)

Four days into his arrival, he was told by a company manager, Pierre Andre Michaud, that Bilodeau Transport had no cleaning work available. He was asked whether he could work as a truck signalman at one of Bilodeau’s clients, Exceldor, a food-processing company. It was a job for which he had no experience or training, but he had no choice. Mr. Nasri was technically still working for and getting paid by Bilodeau Transport, even though his place of work was at the Exceldor factory. Bilodeau helped transport chickens and turkeys to and from Exceldor.

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Mr. Nasri’s work permit, viewed by The Globe, states that he was brought into Canada as a specialized cleaner. Employers who get approved to hire TFWs after submitting a Labour Market Impact Assessment (a document that is needed to justify the hiring of a foreign worker for a specific role) are not allowed to arbitrarily change the job function or wage of an employee unless it is a minor change, such as an inflationary wage increase.

Mr. Nasri said that the job itself was not hard, but that the person who was training him was often aggressive and harassed him about his race and religion. (He is Arab and Muslim.) When he complained to Mr. Michaud, he said Mr. Michaud reassured him it would be dealt with.

Five weeks into the job, in November of 2023, he injured his right knee from a fall while working. The Globe viewed Mr. Nasri’s doctor’s report from Medic Axion, a private clinic in Quebec City. The doctor had recommended that Mr. Nasri take two weeks of medical leave for his knee to heal. Mr. Nasri said Bilodeau Transport did not grant him that leave, and he had to resume working despite his injury.

In a statement, Bilodeau Transport denied Mr. Nasri’s allegations against the company, saying that it treats all its employees with respect and that all jobs assigned to temporary foreign workers are “in compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.”

“Regarding the prevention and management of harassment, we have adopted a zero-tolerance policy. We deeply believe that everyone has the right to a healthy, respectful, and safe work environment. As soon as a problematic situation is brought to our attention, management acts quickly to investigate, take necessary measures, and ensure the protection of our employees,” the company said.

Bilodeau Transport was visited by Service Canada inspectors in November of 2023 and was found to have not violated any rules of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The government publishes an open database of employers who do break rules of the TFWP, and to date, Bilodeau has not been listed on that database.

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While working for Bilodeau, and with the help of Quebec migrant advocacy organization Alpha Bellechasse, Mr. Nasri applied for an open work permit through a federal program for abused workers. He was granted a one-year permit on Nov. 24 and he quit Bilodeau.

Mr. Nasri spent the next eight months in two different cleaning jobs, with the hope that he would eventually be able to get another job approved by a Labour Market Impact Assessment that would extend his time in Canada. His goal was to eventually obtain permanent residency and bring his wife and daughter to Canada. But none of the companies he worked for offered to sponsor him for a new closed work permit.

In August of 2024, with just three months left on his open work permit, Mr. Nasri saw a LinkedIn posting for a job as a cleaner at a Canadian Tire store in Edmonton. The recruiting company, Allison Jones Consulting Services, told him it was an LMIA-approved job.

But the recruiter he was dealing with at Allison Jones Consulting asked him for a fee of $6,500 to help him apply for a new closed work permit, even before he interviewed with Canadian Tire and signed an employment contract. Mr. Nasri was shocked at the quoted price.

“I called around other immigration consultants. They quoted me a price of between $600 to $2,000 for the same service.” Mr. Nasri said the recruiter tried to persuade him to pay the $6,500, but he eventually declined.

Allison Jones, who owns Allison Jones consulting said the fact Mr. Nasri declined to pay the fees proves foreign workers dealing with her business have free choice on whether to use her services, or opt for another consultancy.

At the time, Mr. Nasri did not know that Allison Jones Consulting was a popular temporary foreign worker recruiter for Canadian Tire stores across the country, and that AJ Immigration – a sister business and immigration consultancy also owned by Ms. Jones – regularly charged foreign workers up to $10,000 to place them in jobs. Ms. Jones is currently being investigated by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. She has denied any wrongdoing related to charging foreign workers recruitment fees, an illegal practice. She said the immigration portion of her business, AJ Immigration, charges workers fees for immigration services, which is legal.

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Since Mr. Nasri was still on an open work permit, he was able to legally start working at the Canadian Tire in Sherwood Park, a suburb of Edmonton without the recruiter’s assistance. Then, with the co-operation of his new employer, Mr. Nasri began applying for a work permit through the government’s Francophone Mobility Program, an immigration stream that allows French speakers with job offers to obtain temporary work permits.

But weeks into his employment at Canadian Tire, Mr. Nasri started encountering problems. His salary of $22 an hour, which according to his contract was supposed to be paid on a biweekly basis, was consistently late because it was paid by cheque. E-mails and text messages between Mr. Nasri and the manager of the Canadian Tire store show that Mr. Nasri repeatedly asked his manager to pay him on time. He was reassured this would happen, but he had to remind his boss again when another cheque was late. Mr. Nasri’s bank statements, viewed by The Globe, show that he was not paid on a consistent biweekly basis. As a foreign worker living paycheque to paycheque, he always cashed his cheques immediately, Mr. Nasri said.

Kate Mackintosh, the owner of the Canadian Tire location, said in a statement that Mr. Nasri gave them erroneous bank information, which is why he got paid by cheque and did not have his pay directly deposited into his bank account. “I am sure his cheque was left for him, but there could have been a delay in getting it to him if he did not ask the supervising managers to retrieve it for him,” she said.

Syed Hussan, director of Migrant Rights Network, an advocacy organization, said that it is common for temporary foreign workers to move from one closed work permit job to another to stay in the country. Even if they are granted an open work permit from the government after experiencing workplace abuse, he explained, they often continue holding out hope that they will find a good employer and can continue their journey to obtain permanent residency. “More often than not, they are unsuccessful,” he said.

In early November, a little more than a month into his Canadian Tire job, Mr. Nasri quit. He said he was tired of fighting to be paid on time. And even if he was granted a new work permit, he had grown weary of Canada.

“What’s the point of all this? I have a wife. I have a three-year-old daughter. Right now, I just want to return to them.”