A Manitoba hotel owner charged with human trafficking has been granted bail after four of his employees from India reported being underpaid, forced to work 15-hour days and threatened with deportation.
Jai Inder Sandhu, 63, sat quietly in the prisoner’s box in a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday afternoon as Manitoba provincial court Judge Robert Heinrichs delivered the reasons for his decision. Those reasons cannot be revealed because of a publication ban.
Sandhu’s release conditions include abiding by a curfew, turning in his Canadian passport to RCMP within 48 hours of being released from custody and having no contact with the four complainants in the case or with his co-accused, Satbir Sandhu, 48, unless they’re with their lawyers or as needed for court purposes.
RCMP announced last month they’d charged the two, who are a couple, with trafficking in persons and receiving material benefit from trafficking, while Jai Inder Sandhu was also charged with withholding or destroying documents and uttering threats.
Police did not identify their hotel by name, but CBC News confirmed Jai Inder Sandhu is an owner of the Howard Johnson hotel in Portage la Prairie.
Sandhu’s release conditions include a bail of $10,000 cash and sureties for a total of $40,000. He was also ordered to live at a specific address in Winnipeg and not move without permission from the court.
Mounties previously said their investigation in the case began on Feb. 9, when they got a call about a disturbance at the hotel west of Winnipeg, where the four employees lived and worked.
Two female employees later came forward to report their situation to police, and another woman and a man were later also identified as victims, RCMP said.
Mounties said all four were promised fair wages, affordable living and legal work in Manitoba through federal labour market impact assessments — documents issued to employers by the federal government that allow them to hire foreign workers if they can’t find a Canadian or permanent resident to fill a position.
Until recently, those assessments both allowed foreign nationals to work legally in Canada and increased their chances of becoming permanent residents by adding points to their permanent residency applications.
WATCH | 2 arrested in labour trafficking investigation, say Manitoba RCMP:
2 arrested in labour trafficking investigation, say Manitoba RCMP
In the Portage la Prairie case, while three of the employees eventually got the assessment document, which would have legalized their work, the employer didn’t meet the conditions outlined. Another of the employees never got one, RCMP said.
The employees reported being paid roughly half of Manitoba’s minimum hourly wage and said they faced threats of deportation and other intimidation tactics. In one instance, one person said their identification documents were withheld from them, Mounties said.
The four did “pretty much everything” at the hotel, from working the front counter and the restaurant to doing cleaning, RCMP said. One person was recruited through friends of family, while others got involved through word of mouth or advertisements online.
All had been working at the hotel for 10 months to a year, police said.
