A construction company in Dartmouth is desperate to find help for three Philippines employees who may have to leave Canada due to an error in their requests to renew work permits.
In two cases, Brycon Construction forgot to pay a fee of the $ 230 employer as part of the application. In the third, he neglected to present an impact assessment of the labor market.
Immigration, refugees and citizenship of Canada (IRCC) rejected renovations and told men that they had to stop working immediately, leaving them with the option of restarting their entire application from zero or leaving the country in 90 days.
“I thought, ‘My God, is this really happening?'” Said Dave Hiscock, Brycon Construction operations manager. He said he cannot understand why the department did not mark that a small detail of the application was missing.
“It is a horrible penalty in case a rate was not paid or if a piece of paper was placed. You are uprooting more than three lives,” said Hiscock.
“These people have not done anything wrong while they have been in Canada. They have paid their taxes. They are a good work staff.”
In a statement, IRCC told CBC that the responsibility is in workers to ensure that their requests are complete. If they believe there was an error made in the decision, they can appeal. Otherwise, they have to re -apply.
On average, it takes about 180 days or six months to consider a new application. During that time, men cannot work and their provincial health card becomes invalid.
Brycon Construccion has just started working on the Booting 103 twinning project between Hubbards and Chester on the southern coast of the province.
The men, Jafferson words, Raddy Adams Manicadao and Rene Achievement, are vital for the project, said Hiscock, who called his local member of Parliament, but he was told that nothing could be done to issue the process.
The rejections were a shock for the three men, who arrived at the same time in 2022. All have requested to become permanent residents, hoping to stay here and take their families to Halifax. Now, they don’t know how food will be allowed.
“It is a dream city for me. It is a better future for my daughter,” said Wordsan, who has been waiting for approval to get his wife’s six -year -old daughter from the Philippines.
“Seeing them fighting, he is doubling the difficulties I am experiencing now.”
Achievement sends money home to keep his wife and three daughters. He does not know if he can afford to wait for the new six -month process.
“Without a job or income, I can’t survive here,” he said.
Adams Manicadao said that his savings have almost left and that he can no longer pay for his wife’s insulin to handle his diabetes.
The situation is becoming increasingly common, said Elizabeth Wozniak, an immigration lawyer based in Halifax.
She said years ago, immigration officers could use their discretion to mark a missing piece of an application that could be solved in minutes. Now, he said, work permits are directly rejected.
“When it doesn’t work, it goes very, very very fast, and the consequences are huge,” he said. “It is a mined field when you request extension applications.”
Meanwhile, it is almost impossible for Brycon to hire local staff or hire the work, HISCOCK said. When he reserves six work interviews, he is lucky if an applicant appears, he said.
“There are many days of getting the hair and asking where we are going to find people to do the job,” he said.
Brycon now employs 18 international workers among a staff of 120. Everyone hopes to keep the company in the long term and become permanent residents in Canada, said Hiscock.
The operations manager said he learned a terrible lesson and is advising other companies that learn from error.
In the future, Brycon will use immigration consultants to ensure that the requests of their international employees are carried out correctly, he said.
“This will never happen again under my watch, never. Lesson learned.”
