Ontario’s Ministry of Labour published a news release in late May alerting the public that a Toronto businessman and his private school were fined $410,000 for failing to comply with orders to pay wages.
At the time, those fines were already two weeks past due with the courts.
Anchuan Jiang and his company Ontario International College were convicted under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) in March for not paying nearly $185,000 in wages owed to 14 employees as ordered. On top of the fines, there was also a 25 per cent victim surcharge. Both were supposed to be paid in Toronto’s provincial offences court by May 12.
But they weren’t.
As of last week, Jiang hadn’t paid a cent of the $580,730 in fines and surcharges, according to Toronto’s court services division.
It’s a familiar story: Jiang has been convicted before. Now, his case has employment lawyers calling for new enforcement tools to ensure workers get paid and new employees aren’t victimized.
Four years ago, Jiang and his previous company, Norstar Times, were fined $100,000 for failing to pay more than $320,000 in wages as ordered. Those earlier fines, which total $141,610 with the victim surcharge, still haven’t been paid either.
CBC Toronto first reported on wage theft claims involving Jiang seven years ago when former employees reached out with stories of waiting years to be paid. Most of them were international students who’d recently graduated or other newcomers working their first job in Canada.
Despite the province’s enforcement efforts since then, a CBC investigation found that Jiang still owes up to $952,000 in wages and more than $732,000 in overdue and unpaid fines.
Jiang did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Employment lawyers say Jiang’s case highlights the limitations of Ontario’s enforcement system for wage theft and why new tools are needed to stop employers from continuing to run a business — and potentially victimize more workers — if they haven’t paid outstanding wages and fines.
“It’s very telling that this employer has previous convictions and was able to start a new business and do the same thing all over again,” said Ella Bedard, staff lawyer at the Workers’ Action Centre, which helps low-income workers solve workplace problems.
“There needs to be consequences for employers who don’t pay, that aren’t just slapping more fines on top of money owed.”
Ontario’s Ministry of Finance handles collections of orders to pay wages on behalf of the Ministry of Labour if they’re not paid within 30 days. CBC Toronto asked the Ministry of Finance how much money Jiang and his companies still owe in unpaid wages.
In an emailed statement, spokesperson Scott Blodgett said the ministry can’t discuss specific cases or “say anything that may breach confidential taxpayer information.”
Public records, however, offer some insight into the ministry’s recovery efforts.
There are 13 active writs of execution against Jiang, and one against Ontario International College, registered by the Ministry of Finance on behalf of the labour ministry between 2018 and 2024. All together they total more than $952,000 in debt.
Writs can be used to enforce debts by having a sheriff seize and sell a debtor’s assets to pay off what they owe. While it doesn’t appear the finance ministry has tried to seize and sell Jiang’s fully-detached Toronto home, it has placed a lien of more than $300,000 on the house, according to Ontario lien records.
Last year Bedard says Workers’ Action Centre helped recover $250,000 in unpaid wages for workers across the Greater Toronto Area, but that’s “just a drop in the bucket” of the wage theft claims brought to the organization.
“If the case ends up going to the Ministry of Finance, we know that it becomes very unlikely that they’re going to get their money — and so we try to prepare workers for that,” she said.
In its statement, the finance ministry said it makes every effort to recover amounts owed to workers under the ESA.
Despite those efforts, internal government records obtained by CBC through a freedom of information request last year show that of the nearly $80 million in unpaid wages owed to Ontario workers between the 2017-2018 fiscal year and July 2024, almost $60 million remained unpaid last summer.
“That is a huge number,” said Joanna Mullen, an employment lawyer with Waterloo Region Community Legal Services. “It certainly demonstrates that the efforts to date, the tools that are at the disposal of the government, are insufficient.”
Mullen made submissions on changes to ESA enforcement at the Ontario legislature last fall. She told the standing committee on finance and economic affairs that she supported proposed amendments to increase fines in Bill 190, but argued the change wouldn’t make a difference for some employers.
“What we need you to be doing is to change the law to allow the ministry to go in and say ‘stop, you’re done. You can’t have employees anymore. You can’t operate a business in the manner that you have been,”’ Mullen said she told the committee.
Practically, the employment lawyer says that could be done by stripping an employer’s business license and banning them from applying for a new one, or taking away other licenses like a liquor or driver’s license.
A similar enforcement mechanism already exists for occupational health and safety, according to Bedard.
“If you’re an employer who repeatedly causes serious, life-threatening injuries on your work sites, you at some point aren’t allowed to operate a business anymore,’ she said.
“Why hasn’t that happened to this individual? It’s not something that currently the Ministry of Labour has power to do, but it seems like a consequence that would make sense for such egregious cases.”
Bill 190 passed without any of Mullen’s suggested amendments in late October.
CBC Toronto asked the Ministry of Labour whether it plans to implement new enforcement tools like a licensing regime for employers or the ability to strip non-compliant employers of other licences they need to operate their business.
The labour ministry did not provide a response before deadline for this story.
