May 24, 2016 - 12:08 PM
EDMONTON - An Edmonton woman has been sentenced to 2 1/12 years in jail for exploiting foreign workers.
Jennilyn Morris was also ordered to pay $22,000 in restitution to 13 of those workers.
Canadian Border Services Agency says Morris made job offers between 2007 and 2010 to three people in the Philippines to induce them to come to Canada to work for her company.
CBSA says Morris, who is 46, did not pay the wages promised, or the required amount of overtime pay stipulated in the contracts, and did not employ the workers in the positions approved in the contracts.
It says she also employed at least 68 foreign nationals between 2006 and 2010 who were not authorized to work in Canada.
The CBSA executed two search warrants in April 2011 and seized over 12,000 evidentiary documents relevant to the investigation.
Morris was charged in June 2014.
"The CBSA takes violations of Canada's immigration laws, including fraud, very seriously and works to identify, investigate, and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who violate our immigration laws. This sentencing is evidence of that," Kim Scoville, regional director general of the CBSA prairie region.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2016