Good morning to everyone. My name is Magdalene Gordo. I am a caregiver under the federal live-in caregiver program. I am also a member of the Caregiver Support Services.
In January 2008 I met Lyda Alvarez. I asked her if she knew of a place or an agency. Then she told me about the Akemi Taniguchi agency. Lyda Alvarez accompanied me to the Akemi Taniguchi agency. After I had been interviewed by Akemi regarding my status in Canada and other pertinent information, she asked me whether I would like to go for a job interview with Ruby Dhalla in Mississauga, and I said yes.
On January 30, 2008, Akemi informed me through Lyda that I had a scheduled interview with Ruby Dhalla on February 1. Akemi called Lyda, because at the time I did not have a telephone yet. On February 1, Lyda accompanied me to the Dhalla residence. I thought she was just keeping me company, as I was not familiar with the area. It turned out that she was there to get her unpaid wages from when she quit.
When we reached the Dhalla residence, Tavinder Dhalla, the mother of Ruby, let us in and asked us to wait for Ruby Dhalla. When Ruby came down, she invited us to sit with her in the family room. Before dealing with me, Ruby had settled her under-the-table transaction with Lyda Alvarez. She paid Lyda her unpaid wages. Once their transaction was over, Ruby started to interview me. She asked me about personal information, contact information, and my immigration status in Canada, my arrival date, and the other pertinent information.
During that interview, Lyda and Ruby's uncle were also sitting in the family room. Tavinder, who let us inside the house, went upstairs as soon as Ruby came down to greet us.
At the interview, Ruby asked me whether I'm a caregiver. I told her that I am and that I was under the federal government live-in caregiver program. She asked me where I came from, to which I answered that I came from the Philippines, but I had applied to participate in the LCP in Taiwan, because I was working there at the time.
Ruby asked me more questions about myself, and then she started discussing with me the job description and the conditions to be made. At this point, Tavinder came to join us and started to list down my duties and responsibilities every day. The list included cooking, serving their meals, doing the laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the whole house from the second, first, and the basement floors, organizing the clothes, bed-making, and all the household chores. Those included cleaning all the washrooms, toilets, and baths every day and mopping up the hardwood floors on hands and knees.
After the enumeration and listing of the jobs with Ruby and her mother Tavinder, I asked Ruby if she could sponsor me, and Ruby said, “Absolutely, I am a member of Parliament and I could easily apply for a work permit for you.” Upon hearing her promise, I was excited, and very happy to have passed the interview. Ruby then asked me to come back on Sunday night, on February 3, 2008. She also asked me to start working on February 4, 2008.
On her way home, Lyda told me the reason she quit working for Ruby Dhalla. She told me that she was upset that Ruby Dhalla had wasted her time by not fulfilling her promise of applying for a labour market opening for Lyda.
On February 3, 2008, at 6 p.m., a friend of mine dropped me off at the Dhalla residence. I introduced my friend to Ruby, who was in front of the house with her relatives. She told me that she was happy I had come.
After she introduced me to her relatives, she took me to the kitchen and asked me to clean and organize the kitchen cabinets. “I love to see things in order and very clean”, she said. And on my first night of work, she commanded me as to what I would be doing next and the job that I had to do next in the morning. She told me how to prepare breakfast and the rest of the jobs that I would have to do the next day. She wanted me to do good work.
The next night, Ruby celebrated her birthday, exclusively attended by her family and relatives. The birthday party ended at two o'clock the following morning.
The whole day was with Madame Tavinder. She told me that I should call her Madame Tavinder and that I should call Ruby and Neil “Doctor Ruby” and “Doctor Neil”. Madame Tavinder showed me how to prepare breakfast for Dr. Neil and then oriented me about how the general cleaning of the house could be done. She instructed me that on Wednesday I would be cleaning Sonia and Sukhbir's basement apartment.
Wednesday came, Sonia picked me up in the morning, and instructed me how to clean her apartment that she shared with Sukhbir. She instructed me how to do the laundry and cook dinner. Madame Tavinder, at the end of the day, dropped me back at Dr. Ruby Dhalla's residence. That was the start of my cleaning Sonia's house every Wednesday. I felt like a vacuum cleaner being on loan to Sonia.
Dr. Ruby told me how much she appreciated my efforts in cleaning her cousin Sonia's apartment. She told me how pleased she was with my work performance. Ruby was home every Thursday and Friday until Monday. I asked her when she would file for a labour market opinion for me. She told me how she could start processing my LMO, when she could sense that I was hesitant to give her my passport.
Both Dr. Ruby and Madame Tavinder had asked for my passport several times, but I did not want to give it to them. I was convinced it was not right for them to ask for my personal documents.
On February 8, 2008, Madame Tavinder asked me to clean their chiropractic clinics, and I refused to do it. I told Madame Tavinder I would not clean the chiropractic clinics because I did not want to catch an illness from patients. I thought Drs. Ruby and Neil were medical doctors. I did not know they were chiropractors.
As the days went by, I felt uncomfortable and overworked, working from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. doing various household chores, not caregiving jobs. I did not see any proof that she would fulfill her promise of sponsoring me. She did not fill out the advertisement required for filling in the LMO. She and her mother repeatedly insisted on asking for my passport.
There was one time when she angrily called me from her office in Mississauga, demanding that I should submit my passport. I told her I left it in my apartment. Ruby angrily shouted back with an order, “If you don't give your passport, then I will never sponsor you”. From this day on, I became concerned and terribly worried about my situation working for Dr. Ruby Dhalla without the proper documentation. I was worried about wasting my time and not being able to fulfill the 24 months within 36 months.
Dr. Neil was never involved in interviewing me, orienting me with job responsibilities, nor supervising me. He never introduced himself as my employer. He did not discuss employment issues with me. Akemi also did not have any transaction with Dr. Neil in regard to my hiring. The only interaction with him I had was when he showed me how to shine several of his shoes and how to prepare his suits daily. The only thing I remember of Dr. Neil was when he looked at me in a dirty and insulting way one morning when I was cleaning several pairs of shoes.
One morning Madame Tavinder all of a sudden commanded me to quickly wash the exterior and vacuum the interior of Dr. Neil's car. When he saw me wiping the mirror of his car with a smooth cloth, he yelled at me, “No, no, no, no, don't you ever touch my mirror; you might scratch it badly. You're stupid. Do I still have to tell you this simple thing? You must go through car wash training first.”
