Seafood processing company fined $1M, banned from hiring temporary foreign workers for 10 years

The feds have imposed a historic $1 million fine against a New Brunswick seafood company and banned it from hiring temporary foreign workers for the next 10 years, after finding that the company — Bolero Shellfish Processing Inc. of Saint-Simon — had violated multiple workplace standards.

The penalty was the largest-ever issued to an employer under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, according to a statement from Employment and Social Development Canada. The same company was previously fined $2,000 in 2020 for similar violations, according to a federal database of non-compliant employers.

The company, which is based in Saint-Simon on the Acadian Peninsula, received the penalty for “failing to provide proper wages and working conditions, failing to comply with federal and provincial labour laws, and failing to provide a workplace that was free of abuse,” according to the statement. The company has reportedly stated that it rejects the decision and will challenge it in court.

Federal regulations require employers to make a “reasonable effort” to provide a workplace that is free from physical, sexual, psychological or financial abuse or reprisals. But migrant workers have documented abusive conditions in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for years.

The Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre, which campaigns for the rights of temporary foreign workers, issued a statement renewing calls for the federal government to stop issuing “closed work permits.”

Closed permits bind migrant workers to a specific workplace, meaning they cannot seek employment elsewhere, except by applying for an open work permit available only to “vulnerable workers who are victims of abuse.”

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“Fines are important, but for many of these companies, it’s just the cost of doing business,” said Tracy Glynn, a founder of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

“We can cut these abuses at their root if we do what workers, human rights advocates, and researchers have been calling for, which is ending closed work permits and providing open work permits to all.”

In April 2024, another fish processing company in New Brunswick — Pêcheries LeBreton — was banned from hiring migrant workers for two years and fined $365,750 for multiple violations.

At the time, it was the largest known fine in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program’s history. In 2023, Pêcheries LeBreton was also fined $30,000 for failing to provide a workplace free of abuse.

The non-profit Madhu Centre said in its statement that it has provided support to workers at both companies, helping them to receive open work permits for vulnerable workers.

The group called for government to increase efforts such as “regular unannounced inspections of the worksites and housing of temporary foreign workers.”

The Investigative Journalism Foundation reported last week that Employment and Social Development Canada “has performed fewer and fewer inspections of workplaces since 2020, even as the number of permits approved under the [Temporary Foreign Workers Program] has nearly doubled.”

Seventy-seven per cent of the approximately 12,000 inspections done since 2020 were “strictly paper-based,” meaning that inspectors never visited the workplace, according to the report.

In 2023, UN Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata met with migrant workers employed in seafood processing in New Brunswick.

His 2024 report called the Temporary Foreign Worker Program a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery” and urged the federal government to provide a clear pathway to permanent residency upon arrival and end the closed work permit regime.

Editor’s note: Tracy Glynn of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre is also coordinating editor of the NB Media Co-op.