A van pulls up to a row of buildings in Cowansville.
Posted at 5:00 am.
It is here, in a modest apartment complex on Rue des Érables, that William Humberto Garcia Castillo is said to have lived briefly, whose misadventures in 2022 triggered an investigation by the Commission on Standards, Equity, Health and Occupational Safety (CNESST).
The man behind the wheel calls to us. He asks what “job” we are looking for.
“I’m looking for a Mr. Garcia,” he was told.
— I thought you were looking for workers.
– For what ? Do you have people?
– Yes […]. For which job? »
After this brief exchange, the driver continues his journey without identifying himself.
When we visited Mr. Garcia Castillo’s former home in late October, no one answered the door.
In an interview with CNESST in the summer of 2022, the temporary foreign worker (TET) stated that “he noticed the presence of 15 to 20 migrants of different nationalities, in the same situation as him, working illegally” through the Travailleurs agency .approx. They all have to pay for accommodation and costs associated with this placement agency.”
This is what an affidavit from the CNESST investigator in support of a search warrant refers to. who met Mr. Garcia Castillo at the airport.
The allegations contained in this February 2023 public court document have not been tested in court.
On the other hand, the CNESST stated that on October 25, 2023, two authorization “revocation decisions” were sent to the authority with “immediate effect”. An extremely rare gesture.
“From this date, the agency will no longer be able to carry out any recruitment or TET recruitment activities,” the CNESST said in a written statement sent to us.
Since January 1, 2020, all companies offering staffing or TET recruitment services must have a permit issued by the CNESST to carry out their activities in Quebec.
917
Number of permit holders for the recruitment of temporary foreign workers registered in the CNESST online register
2377
Number of recruitment agency permit holders registered in the CNESST online register
Source: CNESST
Please note that some permits have not been renewed or are suspended.
Shareholders of the Travailleurs.ca agency – whose headquarters are in a furniture factory in Saint-Pie in Montérégie – did not respond to questions from La Presse.
“We are not aware of any legal document asserting your various points,” its president, Martin Paquette, said in an email on November 7. “Under these circumstances, we cannot provide answers to your questions until we have had the opportunity to inspect the documents referred to. »
Fired
La Presse was unable to find Mr. Garcia Castillo, but we know that his story begins in March 2022. Mr. Garcia Castillo then arrives in Quebec with a closed work permit that allows him to work for only one employer in Canada: the poultry catching company Équipe Sarrazin in Granby.
He was fired at the end of April for behaving inappropriately and aggressively toward his co-workers, both his former employer and his union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, said.
“He was a person with attitude problems and threatened everyone in the homes,” said Michel Beaudin, vice-president of Équipe Sarrazin, a company that captures more than a third of the poultry slaughtered in Quebec. The work of TET teams involves grabbing chickens or turkeys by hand, putting them in cages and then transporting them by truck to the slaughterhouse.
On April 29, the day he was scheduled to leave for Guatemala, a vehicle came by to take Mr. Garcia Castillo to the airport. “When we looked for him, he was no longer there. Friends told us: “He was putting pressure on himself,” Mr. Beaudin recalls. “We bought our ticket [d’avion] and he ran away,” he added.
Michel Beaudin didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. He estimates that since 2006, between 150 and 200 TFWs hired by Équipe Sarrazin have vanished into thin air, sometimes several dozen at a time. “You must have heard of coyotes?” he says, explaining that smugglers help TFWs cross the American border.
However, he says he has never heard of the recruitment agency Travailleurs.ca.
Three months later, the Guatemalan Consulate General received a call from an information officer at the airport. William Humberto Garcia Castillo wants to go home.