On the losing side of bargain

Iqbal Sidhu

Canada prides itself as a fair and just society. It’s time for Canadians to introspect if these tenets are applied to immigrants and international students.

In a curious turn of events, Jobandeep Sandhu, a student from Punjab has been served a notice of deportation by the Canadian authorities for violating the terms of his student visa. According to reports, he was working too much. It’s an irony that while youngsters are fleeing India in record numbers due to lack of work, they are now being deported  from the places they had fled to for working too much.

International students in Canada are allowed to work 20 hours a week when their universities and colleges are in session. They can work full-time (30 hours a week or more) during ‘official’ breaks between semesters and during internships. Jobandeep was caught working full-time as a driver when the police officer asked him to produce his driver’s logbook (books that drivers carry to record work hours) during a routine traffic stop. This incident has also generated a debate over whether police officers are legally allowed to inquire about the legal residence status of unsuspecting people — immigration matters are looked at by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). 

Whatever the conclusion of this debate be — it is going to be of no help to the plight of this poor young man who has been deemed unwanted in Canada and is directed to be on his way back home. His future has been jeopardised simply for working, paying taxes to the Canadian government and contributing to the  Canadian economy; all the while paying exorbitant college tuition fees — which are to the tune of more than three times what domestic students pay — and striving to not be a heavy, dollar-denominated burden on his parents for want of funds. It would be interesting to find out if the Canadian government will be open to returning the unwittingly collected taxes and pension contributions from this young man’s pay checks since he was working illegally, which obviously makes the government collections illegal too — I have a feeling he is not going to get a refund.

Immigrants are one of the most hardworking groups in Canada. They contribute immensely to its society and economy but most often they find themselves on the losing side of the bargain: Exploitation and abuse by employers, mostly immigrants, is common. Racism is an everyday reality. The jobs they find are often low-paying, hard and have hazardous working conditions. Getting a loan from the bank for a car or a home is extremely difficult given the lack of borrowing history. Among immigrants, students face these difficulties more acutely than others. They are also the most vulnerable to economic and social hardships on account of their temporary status in the country. 

Stories of employers not paying their student employees after making them work for one to two months and in one notorious case six months abound. This is because they work off-the-books, over their stipulated 20 hours a week. Adding insult to the injury is another fact that almost all these vulture employers also tend to be Punjabis.

“I used to work at a local Indian restaurant at $6 an hour. When I quit that job, I had $500 outstanding, needless to say, Aunty (the owner lady) never paid up.”

Laments a former student from Montreal. To put things in perspective, the minimum wage in Montreal at that time was $12 an hour. “I used to work two shifts a day because I needed to pay for my college while I was studying. I would sleep in a bus or the metro during my commute to college and then back to the factory,” Inderpal Singh of Brampton, now an entrepreneur, reminisces as his eyes moisten.

“I subsisted only on sandwiches for a long time. The first time I ate daal-roti at the gurdwara after that, I was shocked! — I had forgotten how it tasted.” 

No data is available on the total number of Punjabi students in Canada but the number is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. If one includes former students, who have since graduated and become permanent residents and citizens, the number will swell up to 50,000 or even higher. These are tremendous numbers; and there is no other more damning testament to the dilapidation of Punjab than these droves of youngsters fleeing their home by the thousands.  

Sadly, the stories of lives of these aspiring immigrants are all too similar to Inderpal’s or the anonymous student from Montreal. To make matters worse, to this long list of drudgery, injustice and grief, we can add the dreadful possibility of these poor students getting deported back, nullifying enormous sacrifices that they make everyday simply to subsist. Canada prides itself on its sense of justice and fairness. Perhaps, it’s time for Canadians to ask themselves if the treatment being meted out to students like Jobandeep is fair and just.