Fourteen people and companies with ties to Canadian Nectar Products and Island Gold Honey are facing charges under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in P.E.I. provincial court, with some of them also facing criminal charges for money laundering.
CBC News has been reporting on the companies since 2022, after the Canadian Border Services Agency executed search warrants at properties across Prince Edward Island.
In Georgetown court Thursday, a federal prosecutor told the court the case is based on what was found after eight search warrants were carried out. It also relies on electronic evidence, including text messages, gathered over the last number of years.
Among those charged are Kamalpreet Khaira and his company, Canadian Nectar Products, as well as Roger O’Neill and his company, Island Gold Honey.
Several numbered companies have been charged, including:
A lawyer appearing virtually from Ontario on behalf of Greenspan Humphrey Makepeace told the court she was representing all those numbered companies, as well as Canadian Nectar Products and the Khairas.
Two people who share Kamalpreet Khaira’s surname have also been charged, as well as MCPA Consulting Group Walker and Associates and its director, Thomas Walker, a former P.E.I. accountant who was expelled from his professional organization in 2006 after pleading guilty to theft charges.
The registrar with Chartered Professional Accountants of P.E.I. confirmed to CBC News that Walker has not been reinstated since his expulsion.
The charges include:
None of the allegations have been tested in court and pleas to the charges have not yet been entered.
Search warrants unsealed after a CBC News court application show the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) had been investigating Khaira, O’Neill and their companies since November of 2021 after a tip from the Cooper Institute about poor living conditions for temporary foreign workers tied to Island Gold Honey.
Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program allows employers to hire migrant workers from outside the country to fill temporary jobs when qualified Canadians are not available.
Businesses that hire foreign workers are supposed to provide a fair wage and help cover workers’ travel and housing costs. Once workers arrive to take up the job, they are tied to the same employer and cannot work for someone else, in most cases.
In those documents obtained by CBC, the CBSA alleges Khaira runs multiple companies to access additional temporary foreign workers, and had his staff provide “fraudulent documentation to support work that did not actually take place,” the search warrant application said.
In an investigation done by CBC’s The Fifth Estate, four workers said they paid up to $30,000 each to immigration consultants who promised them jobs in Canada and eventually a path to permanent residency.
After the payments were made, workers said they arrived in P.E.I. to discover the promised jobs didn’t exist. They say they were shuttled between companies, and when they did work, they were offered substantially fewer hours than first promised.
In the search warrant documents, the CBSA said workers said they never actually worked for Island Gold Honey after being hired, but were instead brought to the business premises of Canadian Nectar Products, on Peters Road in Alliston, P.E.I.
One worker spoke of being taken to live on a farm after arriving on P.E.I. while work was being arranged. Months later, the worker was still not employed.
Another worker told CBSA that repeated phone calls to O’Neill were not returned, and no one from Island Gold got in touch after the person arrived in Canada. Instead, the newcomer was directed to Canadian Nectar Products.
CBSA investigators also talked to a worker who said they were recruited by Kamalpreet Khaira as a farm worker with Atlantic Canada Nurseries, in Belle River, P.E.I. The worker said they were told they would have to pay Khaira $50,000 in installment payments.
The worker described being shocked upon arriving at that job site because there were no company buildings or nursery — only flat ground and one house.
The warrant documents said Kamalpreet Khaira told the worker they’d be picking apples at Canadian Nectar Products instead, but would need to hide that fact.
The migrant workers also described being required to pay cash in order to receive their paycheques — which were often made out in lesser amounts than what they had paid their employer in cash.
The workers needed the paycheques to prove they were legally in Canada and gainfully employed, for the purposes of building a case for gaining permanent resident status.
Workers told The Fifth Estate they went ahead with the alleged scheme because they believed they needed the pay stub as a record of employment, something they say they were told they needed to apply for permanent residency.
In August 2022, P.E.I.’s Employment Standards Branch ordered Canadian Nectar Products to pay thousands of dollars to four foreign workers who refused to participate in what its ruling called a “cash for pay scheme.”
One worker whose circumstances were described in that matter complained of having to pay $600 in cash to receive a paycheque for $499.70.
O’Neill represented himself in court on Thursday. Provincial court Judge Nancy Orr urged him to seek legal counsel due to the seriousness of the charges.
The other companies and people were all represented by various lawyers.
Not all of the charges were read aloud in court on Thursday, but some were.
Among the allegations detailed were that O’Neill and Island Gold Honey submitted labour market impact assessments — a step in getting approval to hire TFWs — for 27 foreign workers who were not needed, and then knowingly offered them jobs that didn’t exist.
Orr read from a charge document saying that Canadian Nectar Products has been accused of knowingly employing foreign nationals who were not authorized to work there, while many of the other charges allege individuals knowingly assisted in various steps of making that happen.
Orr was not satisfied with the way the Crown had filed the charges — with many different names appearing on the same information sheets when she said they should have been split up.
The lawyers and judge all agreed it was best to adjourn the case for about a month to get everything sorted and allow time for the defence to review the documents and case.
The matter will be back in court in August.
The Canadian Border Services Agency has not replied to a CBC News request for comment.
