The allegations are shocking.

Lack of safe drinking water and toilet facilities at camp, a shortage of food and malnutrition, improper food handling, unsafe transportation of workers, non-payment of wages and employment standards violations, physical and verbal abuse of works, workplace racism, death threats to workers, refusal of proper medical treatment for injured workers and a failure to report workplace injuries to the WorkSafeBC.

These allegations came to light this week when the B.C. Federation of Labour held a news conference in Vancouver outlining these claims of serious abuses of migrant workers at a silviculture camp near Golden. Most of the workers are Canadian citizens or permanent residents originally from Burundi and the Republic of Congo.

Khaira Enterprises Ltd. from Surrey, which had the $280,000 government contract to clear brush from the area, has seen that contract suspended after 25 workers were found in horrible conditions at the camp. The company has also been banned from bidding on any further contracts for a year.

WorkSafeBC, the B.C. Employment Standards Branch and the provincial government, specifically Labour Minister Murray Coell have launched investigations’ into the workers’ claims.

If the allegations are true, the conditions and the treatment that these workers were exposed too are completely unacceptable both from a labour standpoint and that of human rights.

While I applaud Minister Coell for stepping up swiftly with its investigation, I’m wondering why these incidents went unnoticed for so long in the first place?
This was a government contract for clearing brush and there are anywhere from 100 to 200 similar government contracts running at various times depending on the month and time of the year according to the Forest Ministry. If that is the case, then how many more of these camps potentially are at risk? How many more workers are out there that are being treated unfairly and unjustly?
I’m not saying all companies involved in these government contracts as horrible and that they treat their workers with disrespect, but we really don’t know, do we?

It’s pretty clear that enforcement and proper monitoring of the camp was not done and that lack of proper monitoring falls squarely at the feet of the provincial government.

We live in a great country and a great province, but when I hear of cases of abuse such as the one described in Golden this past week, it makes my stomach turn.

The provincial government needs to step up its regulations and enforcements. It shouldn’t take citizens or labour groups coming forward to expose horrible allegations such as this in order for government to act. Something is wrong with this system and more clearly needs to be done to protect workers and their rights.

It’s just not right and no one deserves to be treated this way.