Travel-nurse company turned my life upside down, health worker says
Youeen Siviniant has filed employment standards complaint against Canadian Health Labs over unpaid salary
The company at the heart of the travel-nurse controversy is now the subject of a complaint over unpaid wages under New Brunswick's Employment Standards Act.
A nurse who moved to the province from France to work for Canadian Health Labs as a personal support worker says the company turned his life upside down when its contract with the Vitalité health authority expired in May.
Youenn Siviniant was still on the job in mid-June when Vitalité told him to stop coming to work.
His actual employer, CHL, never notified him the contract had ended, he said.
Siviniant was promised work at $80 an hour, but ended up making $35 as a personal support worker at the Edmundston Hospital. (Yves Lévesque/Radio-Canada)
He is still officially an employee of the company but has not been paid since June 19.
The company also terminated the lease for the house in Edmundston where he's been living with his family and reneged on a promise to pay to ship his belongings back to France, Siviniant said.
"I can't understand how a company can act that way in the health sector," he said. "It's a question of values, of morals, for me.
"When you work in the health sector, you have to have ethics, you have to have values, because you're helping people, people who are sick."
Canadian Health Labs CEO Bill Hennessey did not respond to a request from CBC News for an interview about Siviniant's case. An automatic email reply said he "likely will be unresponsive" because he was travelling.
"It further demonstrates the depth of the problem that we're facing with CHL, not just gouging the taxpayers with these exorbitant contracts but also with respect to the way it treats its own employees," said Liberal MLA and health critic Rob McKee.
"That's the problem with privatization."
McKee said Liberal MLAs have heard of a handful of other similar cases.
The use of private travel-nurse companies by the province's health care system turned into a major political controversy in the spring after a scathing report by Auditor General Paul Martin said due diligence wasn't done on the expensive contracts.
Vitalité's three agreements with Canadian Health Labs had cost taxpayers $98 million as of earlier this year — the bulk of the $173 million spent as of that time on travel nurse contracts.
Dr. France Desrosiers, the health authority's CEO, told the legislature's public accounts committee in June that she got "the green light" for the spending from top officials — after offering them other staffing options that would have been less expensive.
The second of the three CHL contracts took effect in November 2022 and was for personal support workers such as Siviniant.
He provided CBC News with a copy of his labour complaint, documents showing he worked for CHL and an image of a company email that said CHL would pay to ship his family's belongings back to France. His allegations have not been proven in any legal proceeding.
Siviniant, a nurse, said he was recruited in France to come to Canada to work for CHL and was promised $80 an hour once his credentials were validated here — a process that he was assured would be quick but that still hasn't happened.
Instead he started work as a personal support worker at the Edmundston Regional Hospital at $35 an hour, eventually getting a raise to $55 an hour.
Siviniant's
contract with CHL expired in May. He is also prevented from working
directly for Vitalité for a year until CHL consents in writing. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
At first, he assumed Canadian Health Labs was a recruitment firm and that he'd be employed directly by the public health system.
He didn't know much about CHL's contracts until the Globe and Mail published a major investigation in February 2024, but he wasn't perturbed, since his job was going well.
"It was pretty relaxing compared to what I experienced in France," he said, where he often dealt with twice as many patients on a normal shift.
During busy periods in Edmundston, "the nurses would panic and said, 'it's tough today,' and I would say, 'this is a normal day in an emergency department in France.'"
Siviniant had moved his entire family — his wife, three children and a dog and a cat — to Edmundston, along with all their belongings.
The plan was to eventually apply for permanent residency and stay long term. He said CHL told him his job was permanent, and Vitalité never told him otherwise.
But in mid-June a health authority supervisor told him CHL's contract for personal support workers had ended, and he was no longer to work at the hospital.
"I was in shock," he said. "What was I to do? I came from France, I didn't come alone, I have a wife and three children. What's going to happen? The answer they gave me was, 'CHL is your employer. Sort it out with them.'"
A clause in CHL's contract prevented him from going to work directly for Vitalité, which is always looking to hire nurses and personal support workers.
The non-compete clause prevents the health authority from hiring former CHL staff for a year until CHL consents in writing.
"This is another problem that CHL has created for the health care system in New Brunswick," McKee said.
Vitalité vice-president Frédéric Finn said in a statement that asking CHL to waive that clause, which the contract allows, "is a possibility we are exploring" and something it has done with other companies.
Vitalité
vice-president Frédéric Finn said the health authority is considering
asking CHL to waive the clause that prohibits their employees from
working for them without approval. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
The health authority did not respond to questions about how many CHL employees are no longer working at its facilities because of the end of the contract or about what it thought of CHL's behaviour.
Facing a likely return to France, Siviniant persuaded CHL to pay the cost to ship the family's belongings back home, only to be told six days before their scheduled departure that the CEO had vetoed the expense.
The family didn't have the money to pay the estimated $40,000 shipping cost themselves.
Making matters worse, Siviniant's wife had already quit her job at a local nursing home.
And, they learned, CHL had terminated the lease on the house the company rented for them in Edmundston, effective Aug. 31.
"Employers in France can't behave this way," Siviniant said. "But based on what I've learned, they're not supposed to in Canada, either."
Last month, the legislature's all-party public accounts committee asked the auditor general to convene an inquiry into the travel-nurse contracts to uncover more information.
McKee said cases like Siviniant's should be part of that probe.
Martin's office said he's still considering the committee's request.
McKee also called on the province to help Vitalité find a way around the non-compete clauses in its contracts so that workers cut loose by CHL can stay in New Brunswick and work in the health care system.
In the last few days, things have been looking up for Siviniant.
The nursing home where his wife worked is taking her back. Siviniant is interviewing for nursing home jobs. And the owner of the house that CHL rented for them will sign a new lease directly with him.
"We are going to stay here, and not reluctantly," he said.
"We really love the area, we really love Edmundston. We have a network here now, neighbours, friends, and we don't want to leave that."
He hopes his labour complaint, which can lead to a hearing by the Labour and Employment Board, will force CHL's CEO to pay him his unpaid salary. Siviniant also hopes it will deter the CEO from treating other employees the same way.
"Part of it is defending my family," Siviniant said, "and part of it is making sure he doesn't do it again."
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/vitalite-ceo-dinner-ticket-1.7147575
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/former-mla-brian-macdonald-travel-nurse-lobbyist-1.7211180New human rights commissioner resigns before starting role
Birju Dattani was scheduled to start the job last week
David Baxter · CBC News · Posted: Aug 12, 2024 2:11 PM
This is NOT the problem of Vitalite or the provincial government.
Too bad the guy in the story was (apparently) screwed, but he’s sure not the first, and won’t be the last to be unfairly treated by an employer.
All employers in NB are required to follow the provincial Employment Standards Act. If they don’t, then a contract or non union employee has recourse under the Act.
Everybody knows that
And this "plan" seems more like lighting cigars with $20 bills.
What? That's heavy duty money for a PSW. No wonder Canadian healthcare is in such bad shape.
"The one-year Personal Support Worker Ontario College Certificate program, delivered over 28 weeks, prepares you for an in-demand career in the healthcare field."
6 figure salary for a 28 week course.
there are a lot easier ways to earn a living
As of Aug 5, 2024, the average hourly pay for a Psw in Ontario is $28.00 an hour.
While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $76.20 and as low as $12.74, the majority of Psw salaries currently range between $15.14 (25th percentile) to $24.04 (75th percentile) in Ontario.
so if they are making 114K/yr...they are doing a lot of OT
Meanwhile - other Canadians are complaining about other people's salaries when they do get a job that pays a decent wage and want them to make less so that the globalist corporation can have even higher record profits...
I always find it quite ironic that the people that feel the need to protect the large globalist corporations and rich elite are the same people that told us we needed to watch out for them in 2016.
New human rights commissioner resigns before starting role
Birju Dattani was scheduled to start the job last week
Canada's human rights commissioner Birju Dattani has resigned before ever officially starting the job, according to a post on his LinkedIn account.
Dattani agreed to go on leave last week — the day before he was set to officially begin his role — following complaints about past comments and actions of his that were called antisemitic by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).
"I remain a steadfast believer in the Commission's work, mandate, and its importance to our democracy," Dattani posted on LinkedIn on Monday.
The complaints triggered a fact-finding mission initiated by Justice Minister Arif Virani and run by the firm Filion Wakely Angeletti LLP. They submitted their report to Virani on July 31.
"The findings speak for themselves," Virani said in a media statement. "I received Mr. Dattani's submissions in response to the report on August 1, 2024. I have accepted Mr. Dattani's decision to step down as Chief Commissioner. As I have said, maintaining the confidence of all Canadians in the Canadian Human Rights Commission remains my top priority."
Virani added that the search for a new commissioner will begin as soon as possible and the interim commissioner, Charlotte-Anne Malischewski, will continue to serve in the role in the meantime.
Virani's press secretary Chantalle Aubertin replied "no comment" when asked if Dattani was paid during his leave or received a compensation package after resigning.
CIJA has pointed out that Dattani used the name "Mujahid Dattani" in some of his online activities and speaking engagements, a name that was not covered by the initial Privy Council Office (PCO) background check.
The report's findings state that, "on a balance of probabilities and based on the totality of evidence," Dattani omitted the name Mujahid Dattani from his background check forms and omitted periods of unemployment.
The report does not offer advice on whether Dattani should continue in the role of human rights commissioner.
The report also says there is no evidence that Dattani is antisemitic.
"Based on Mr. Dattani's evidence, the scholarship that was reviewed and provided, we cannot find that Mr. Dattani harboured or harbours any beliefs that would be characterized as anti-Semitic or that he has demonstrated any biases (conscious or unconscious) towards Jews or Israelis," says a segment of the report cited by Dattani in his Aug. 1 letter to Virani.
Another excerpt of the report cited by Dattani says he has a "high degree of self-awareness and sensitivity" regarding the challenges faced by Canadian Jews.
Deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman took to X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, to call for an investigation into how Dattani was hired.
"A welcomed announcement — one that was made way too late. Antisemites should hold no position in Canada's government — especially one entrusting them to safeguard Canadians' rights and freedoms, including the right to worship and the right to free speech," she said.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said it is still reviewing the report.
"As we stated from the outset, we find that the witch-hunt against Mr. Dattani to have been utterly unacceptable, and motivated, as the 'context' suggestion of the third party report suggests, by political considerations about the ongoing conflict versus anything else," NCCM advocacy officer Fatema Abdella wrote in an emailed statement.
"We are disappointed that yet another racialized minority has had to go through national attacks on their person based on allegations of hate that turned out to be unfounded, and we are sure that the Government of Canada realizes the dangerous precedent that has been established here: it is fine to drag every appointee through the mud as long as they're brown or Muslim."
CBC has reached out to CIJA for comment.
A second name and social media
In Dattani's letter to Virani, he says he was raised Hindu but became Muslim in 2001 and adopted the name Mujahid. Dattani says that in 2017 he chose to again go by his given name of Birju Dattani, but Mujahid remains part of his identity.
Dattani says in his letter that he misinterpreted the intent of some of the boxes in the background check form and accuses the investigator of "glazing over" his explanation.
"We do not accept Mr. Dattani's suggestion that his choice of name was sometimes 'just whimsical'. Mr. Dattani was strikingly thoughtful in respect of what names he chose to use and when," the fact-finding report states.
Dattani used the name "Mujahid Dattani" in a handful of advertised speaking engagements in 2015 on the Middle East, as outlined in the report.
At one of these events, Dattani recalled a fellow panellist saying "we need a caliphate again." He said he told the investigators he could not remember who made the comment.
CIJA pointed to a blog post alleging that when he was an academic, Dattani posted articles on X that compared Israel to Nazi Germany. The posts and Dattani's account appear to have been deleted. CBC News has not independently viewed the alleged posts.
Dattani previously told CBC News that he shared the post, titled "Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today," in order to generate conversation.
In his letter to Virani, Dattani states that he deleted his Twitter account eight years ago and would go back and provide more context on the intent of his posts if he could.
Dattani cited excerpts from the fact-finding report which say he "deliberately de-emphasized" and "made attempts to downplay" how his academic work was critical of Israel.
In his submission, Dattani criticized those statements as "subjective" and said they lacked evidence.
The report states that while Dattani's past involvement in advocacy and criticism of Israel would not necessarily have interfered in his ability to do the job of human rights commissioner, he should have been more forthcoming in the application phase.
"Mr. Dattani's efforts to downplay the critical nature of his work was concerning and, certainly, his failure to directly disclose this work deprived the Government of the opportunity to have a discussion with Mr. Dattani about what, if any, impact his scholarship and perspective would or could have if he were appointed to the role of Chief Commissioner," the report says.
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