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Employee refuses to honour LCP contract after positive LMO -- HELP!!

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Nov 24, 2013
3
0
I am a paraplegic in BC in need of live-in home care assistance.
In Jan 2013, I met and hired a part-time (8 to 16 hours a week) care aide who was holding her own work visa. We agreed for me to help extend her visa and employment by sponsoring her under the Live-In Caregiver Programme as her existing visa would expire in November 2013.

The three-year contract we agreed on and submitted to HRSDC states 40 guaranteed hours a week at $13.50/hr, plus vacation and statutory entitlements, reimbursement for medical insurance, and no charge for room-and-board (furnished private room in my apartment with a lockable door and free wifi, cable and local phone access).
I received the positive LMO in October 2013 and applied for her new work visa right away.

Now that the visa is guaranteed, she is refusing to honour the contract.
-She has refused to move in, stating vague reasons of wanting her privacy.
-She has been seriously under-performing in her job and neglecting a number of the duties. (For example, care aides working the morning shift are required to give me a bed bath every morning and to help me with personal clean-up after I use the bathroom. Since receiving the positive LMO, she has taken significantly less care in these duties, regularly leaving soap or waste residue.)
-She has refused to pick up the contractual 40 hours and will only do the part-time hours.
-She has demanded I give her a raise to $16/hr, saying she has another offer for $17/hr.
-She has refused all attempts to address the above issues. (Example, when asked to rinse me again to remove soap residue, she says "ok ok" but doesn't do it, or pretends not to understand me.)
-She claims her English is too limited to understand me when I try to raise my concerns with her, but English communication had not been a problem with her before October.
-I asked a friend to talk to her in her native language to address the above, but it went nowhere. She denied underperforming at the job, made the same excuses about not wanting to move in, said she was too overworked to do 40 hours a week with me because she was working for 2 other families (both of which she was supposed to quit when the LCP contract started) whom she has no intention of leaving, and wanted a raise to $16/hr or she will quit working for me altogether because a friend of the family has offered her $17/hr to work for them instead.

At this point I'm so frustrated and feel so cheated and betrayed, I am happy to just give her notice and let her go.

She had hired a representative of some kind for herself to do the LCP application, against my advice. At the time, I thought if it would give her peace of mind, it was her choice. The company was terrible and messed up her application, in the end I ended up dealing with HRSDC in her stead myself. Now I am afraid I will be held responsible for the representative's fees.

The representative told us that she would be considered to be working under the LCP contract as of November1st, and that her work visa has been approved; but visa document has not arrived yet. Will I get in trouble for keeping her employed during this time?

I read that if I terminate her before the end of the contract, I will be blacklisted by HRSDC. Is this true? How can I avoid this?

Thank you!
 

Leon

VIP Member
Jun 13, 2008
21,950
1,311
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
She can't apply for PR under the LCP program unless she is a live-in and she can't just change jobs on the spot, even if she has a better offer. She'd need an LMO for the new job first before she can apply for a work permit and go work there.

I am sure you can still fire her if she is under-performing her job, see http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=212&t=17

Can I fire an incompetent foreign employee?

Yes. If an employee does not carry out the duties agreed to in the contract, you can give the employee the required notice or pay in lieu of notice. For more information, contact your provincial or territorial labour standards board.
You could also contact HRSDC and ask for advice or a lawyer. The important thing write now is to document her underperformance and issuing write-ups. Make sure you have a witness when you give her the write-ups. As far as I know, 3 write-ups in less than a year and you would be bullet proof to fire anybody.
 
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