A Canadian Tire store at 175 Vetiver Drive in Toronto, in October, 2024.Sammy Kogan /The Globe and Mail
The federal government has fined the owner of a Canadian Tire CTC-A-T store in Toronto more than $100,000 for violating the rules of its Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Ezhil Natarajan, who is franchise owner of the store in the suburb of Etobicoke, remains under investigation by provincial authorities for allegedly exploiting foreign workers.
Employment and Social Development Canada, the ministry that oversees the TFW program, did not provide specific details of Mr. Natarajan’s violations. But it found infractions under two categories: that pay or working conditions did not match what was listed on an offer of employment, and that workers were assigned to roles different than what they were hired to do.
A year ago, The Globe and Mail reported that at least 13 employees at the store, all foreign workers, either resigned or were fired by Mr. Natarajan after they alleged that their wages were arbitrarily reduced and that they were required to do jobs for which they were not hired. At the time, officials at ESDC were already investigating Mr. Natarajan.
The federal decision against Mr. Natarajan was issued in July and made public on ESDC’s web page of employers found non-compliant with the TFW program rules. As of Sunday, the page shows that Mr. Natarajan has yet to pay the $111,000 penalty levied against him, and thus is ineligible for the TFW program.
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The store owner has also been under investigation by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour for the past year. In an e-mail to The Globe, a ministry spokesperson confirmed that the investigation continues, and that no decision has been made.
Mr. Natarajan did not respond to questions from The Globe about the ESDC fine. Last year, his lawyer, Arthur Tarasuk, told The Globe that Mr. Natarajan denied the allegations levelled against him by the workers, and intended to disprove them.
The TFW program is a key immigration stream in Canada and is used primarily by agricultural and retail employers for job vacancies that can’t be filled domestically. The government determines if employers are eligible by evaluating Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications, in which employers explain why they need to hire from abroad to fill a position.
The program has been rife with accusations of employer exploitation, linked in part to its “closed work permit” design, which ties a participant’s ability to work in Canada to a single employer. This design, critics say, increases a worker’s dependence on the employer because they are unable to change jobs easily in instances of exploitation.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been heavily critical of the TFW program recently, calling on the federal government to shut it down entirely and end the issuance of new work permits. Mr. Poilievre has linked the program to the rise in domestic youth unemployment and the suppression of wages.
After the pandemic broke out, Ottawa vastly expanded access to the program, resulting in a soaring number of LMIA approvals between 2022 and 2024. It has since tightened eligibility criteria in line with a policy goal of reducing the overall number of temporary residents in the country.
Federal government data show that Geethaezhil Inc., the registered business name of the Canadian Tire owned by Mr. Natarajan, was approved to hire 34 workers through the TFW program between 2022 and 2024.
One of Mr. Natarajan’s former employees, Rowell Pailan, alleged that his wages were reduced from $20 an hour to $16.55 after Mr. Natarajan demoted him, changing his role from a supervisor to a shelf stocker.
Under the rules of the TFW program, employers who want to change an employee’s job duties and/or wage must complete a new LMIA and get a new work permit issued. Mr. Pailan said he did not get a new work permit but continued to work in a different role under the same permit.
According to documents obtained by The Globe last month, six foreign workers who were formerly employed by Mr. Natarajan have since received open work permits from Ottawa, part of the Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers Program, designed to help foreign workers who have experienced exploitation.
Ontario fines recruiter charging foreign workers for placements at Canadian Tire store
One of the Canadian Tire workers who received the open work permit said in his application to the government that Mr. Natarajan was “known” for verbally threatening employees, and that he frequently warned workers that their hours and pay would be reduced if they did not comply with his instructions. The Globe is not naming the worker because he is concerned about repercussions from his current employer.
Separately, a recruiter Mr. Natarajan used to hire temporary foreign workers, Allison Jones Consulting Services Inc., was fined $165,000 by the Ontario Labour Ministry in June for illegally charging foreign workers for job placements.
Mr. Pailan had paid Allison Jones more than $10,000 to get the Canadian Tire job in 2023. A Globe investigation last year exposed how dozens of Canadian Tire franchise owners were using the recruiter to staff their stores with temporary foreign workers.
Allison Jones, the owner of the recruiting company, said she intended to appeal the ministry’s decision.
Canadian Tire did not respond to a query about whether Mr. Natarajan is still the franchise owner of the Etobicoke store. In response to The Globe’s investigations into Mr. Natarajan and Ms. Jones last year, Canadian Tire changed an internal policy on hiring, barring its franchisees from using recruiters and immigration consultants who charge fees to foreign workers.