Yes. Thank you very much to the committee for your interest.
I'll be brief.
The language barrier is one of the vulnerability issues. I was involved in the building trades with the workers on the Canada Line. They were Spanish-speaking workers who were being paid less than $5 an hour on a federal-provincial project. Our taxpayers were paying them less than $5 an hour.
This case has been at the Labour Relations Board in B.C. and is now at the human rights board. We have a decision from the human rights coalition. There is coercion. There is intimidation. The employer has been ordered to pay half of the legal costs.
We're right at the very beginning of this issue, and five years from now it will be much more.... I am called daily, “Señor Barrett, se me puede ayudar?”
In another life I was a Spanish teacher. I have now become the advocate for the Latin Americans in this city, who come after being promised $25 an hour. All of their paperwork is fine with Service Canada. These promises are broken time and time again. It's widespread.
The Shangri-La tower, the Children's Hospital, two buildings at UBC, and public projects...because the construction industry is subcontracted, it might be SNC-Lavalin at the top, but it's subcontracted and subcontracted. By the time it gets to the worker, it's $7 an hour, $12 an hour on public projects. It's widespread, not just in Vancouver, but throughout Alberta.
Please take a few minutes to read our submission. Wayne can talk about these legal costs--expensive. We're not a trade union movement that has $200,000 to spend on every case.
Thank you very much.