SAINT JUDAS | A Montérégie farmer who was banned from the foreign temporary worker program for life has reportedly found a new scheme to employ Latinos on the black market and lease their services to companies in the area.
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In Saint-Jude, locals know Jean Lemay as an agricultural producer who led the way. Many Mexicans call it “el patrón”.
In October 2021, he became the first Quebec employer to be permanently banned from hiring temporary foreign workers for his numerous violations of the law.
“It’s the worst case I’ve seen in my career,” says Michel Pilon, director general of RATTMAQ (Quebec’s migrant farm workers’ support network).
The organization had denounced delays in wage payments, unsanitary housing and the “loaning” of workers to other companies.
Jean Lemay’s former farm at Saint-Jude in Montérégie, seen from the air. It is now partially owned by his son Jean-Philippe. The newspaper
Since then, our Bureau of Investigations has found that Jean Lemay has somehow become the king of the illegal farmhands. He is again in the sights of the authorities.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) suspects he resorted to a different type of work: asylum seekers, often without work permits.
A series of searches
On June 15, as part of a criminal investigation, the CBSA also conducted searches at the farmer’s former farm, where he still lives and which is now partly owned by his son Jean-Philip Lemay.
A few days earlier, an employee living in a Jean Lemay building had died in an accident while being driven back to work in Sainte-Hélène-de-Bagot.
José Guadalupe Briano Esparza, a Mexican asylum seeker, died in a serious traffic accident on June 6 while being driven back to work. DAVID BOUCHARD/SCOOP/QMI AGENCY
On paper, José Guadalupe Briano Esparza was a 29-year-old asylum seeker who did not yet have a work permit.
In fact, he was working illegally in a shuttering company through an employment agency owned by a certain Robert Blanchard. However, Lemay himself is the manager, as he would have told investigators.
Victim José Guadalupe Briano Esparza, 29. Photo from Facebook
Without a work permit
According to our information, the authorities also suspect companies linked to the 63-year-old of secretly hiring immigrants. As part of the agency’s research:
– Agents who landed at the farm at dawn identified about 30 people out of the 40 present who did not have work permits in Canada.
-Lemay’s cell phone logs showed hundreds of calls to illegal workers at all hours of the day and night.
– At least sixty foreigners have given the Lemay farm as their residential address to the immigration authorities.
-In one year, Sûreté du Québec police officers intercepted several cars containing about twenty people claiming to work for “el señor Lemay”, most of whom did not have work permits.
The Canada Border Services Agency searched Jean Lemay’s former farm early in the morning of June 15. Photo The newspaper
Located at the rear of Jean Lemay’s former farm, this building is used to house workers. Photo Erika Aubin
A simple call
Our investigative office has spoken to several witnesses who are observing Lemay’s actions.
“I call him and tell him I need two people and he sends me two,” explains David Fluet, owner of DF Coffrages, where José worked for a few months.
A Mexican who says he was employed by Lemay also tells us that he was hurled from Jobine to Jobine all winter.
“I’ve washed pigsties, driven freight elevators, collected eggs, plowed snow, picked violin heads, trimmed marijuana plants…” says the man, who never had a work permit as an asylum seeker. Even in his home country, he asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In the morning he and his colleagues were gathered at the old Lemay farm and then taken back to their day’s work, he continues.
Omnipresent Latino workers
A scene that has become routine in Saint-Jude. “We easily see that 50 to 60 workers are attracted on a regular basis [dans le village]but we know that there are buses that leave very early in the morning and come back very late at night from different places,” Mayor Annick Corbeil said.
In the rural community with around 1,200 inhabitants, Jean Lemay and his son have a dozen addresses.
The investigative agency also visited a former retirement home in Saint-Hyacinthe that now houses dozens of Latinos.
This former retirement home on rue Girouard Est in Saint-Hyacinthe now houses dozens of Latinos. Photo Erika Aubin
A Mexican man met in the communal kitchen and said he was waiting for his papers before he could “work for Jean Lemay”.
The dining room of a former retirement home in Saint-Hyacinthe, now home to many Latino workers, was empty when we passed in the afternoon. Photo Nora T Lamontagne
During our visit to Saint-Jude on a Monday evening, Jean Lemay himself came by in a vehicle to cut us off before coming out and yelling at us.
“Journalists are not popular here. […] I’m 5-6 here, but we’ll all start chasing you. “You won’t be able to hide anymore,” he threatened, but refused to identify himself or answer questions.
After interrupting the journalists, Jean Lemay went to the window of their vehicle to yell at them. Photo Erika Aubin
As for Jean-Philippe Lemay, he denied any connection with the illegal employment of Mexican workers. “I have the right to rent [mes maisons] to whoever I want,” he said on the phone.
Robert Blanchard did not respond to our interview requests.
– In collaboration with Philippe Langlois
Who is Jean Lemay?
The Saint-Jude farmer had many run-ins with authorities and the law over time. Here are a few:
- According to a CBC article, Service Canada was investigating his farm back in 2012 for trafficking unlicensed foreign labor to a local landscaping contractor.
- He is the first Quebec employer to be banned for life from the federal program for temporary foreign workers. He was also fined $198,750.
- Revenu Québec fined his company several times for false statements, including $63,000 in 2012 and $52,000 in 2020.
- Revenu Québec confiscated $2.2 million in property from its old farm last year.
- He was sentenced to 12 months at home for possession of property he acquired through felonies in 2021.
- In 2017, he benefited from the Jordan ruling, which ended the court case when he was subsequently accused of complicity in a fatal hit-and-run accident.
- On June 15, the Canada Border Services Agency searched his former farm as part of a criminal investigation into possible violations of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
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