Gail Alexan­der

Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Hire Pro Dri­vers (HPD) has iden­ti­fied 35,000 long-haul truck­ing va­can­cies in Cana­da that could be filled by TT na­tion­als and there is al­so the "strong pos­si­bil­i­ty" of work­ers get­ting per­ma­nent res­i­dence, Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste- Primus­said yes­ter­day.

Bap­tiste-Primus' dis­clo­sure came in yes­ter­day's 2017 Bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate.

It may have been a ray of light on a dark­en­ing job mar­ket where she said 1,848 per­sons have lost jobs T&T to date.

But Guardian checks re­vealed that HPD, which did sim­i­lar em­ploy­ment place­ment dri­ves in Ja­maica in 2012-13, has been the sub­ject of ar­ti­cles in Cana­di­an and Ja­maican me­dia re­gard­ing al­leged prob­lems with its en­deav­ours.

Bap­tiste-Primus said the un­em­ploy­ment rate be­gan climb­ing be­tween 2014 and 2015 from 748 to 1,100 per­sons. To date in 2016 it is 1,848. But this is "the tip of the ice­berg" she said since em­ploy­ers do not have to re­port ter­mi­na­tions num­ber­ing un­der five.

Bap­tiste-Primus said rea­sons giv­en by com­pa­nies for job loss­es in­clude or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing, de­crease in busi­ness, wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic fac­tors lead­ing to re­or­gan­i­sa­tion for com­pa­nies to en­sure vi­a­bil­i­ty and im­pact of the fi­nan­cial down­turn glob­al­ly.

She said the Min­istry's ten-point plan to as­sist the job­less which was in­tro­duced sev­er­al months ago–fol­low­ing the Acelor­Mit­tal clo­sure–in­clud­ed train­ing, coun­selling, busi­ness fi­nanc­ing and ex­plo­ration of over­seas op­por­tu­ni­ties.

On the lat­ter, she said Gov­ern­ment was part­ner­ing with Cana­di­an HPD which she de­scribed as a re­cruit­ment agency which is com­ing to T&T in De­cem­ber.

"They said they've iden­ti­fied 35,000 va­can­cies in Cana­da for long-haul dri­vers,"she added.

Bapt­site-Pri­u­mus added HPD wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to part­ner with T&T as the va­can­cies could be filled by na­tion­als. She said there was al­so the "strong pos­si­bil­i­ty " of work­ers mi­grat­ing per­ma­nent­ly to Cana­da.

She added Gov­ern­ment would con­cre­tise the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the De­cem­ber HPD talks.

The British Co­lum­bia com­pa­ny's web­site states it pro­vides a "com­pre­hen­sive 'turnkey' so­lu­tion to car­ri­ers seek­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­enced Class 1 dri­vers, me­chan­ics, welders and oth­er trade re­lat­ed skilled pro­fes­sion­als." It al­so spe­cialised in "con­nect­ing em­ploy­ers with ex­cep­tion­al long-haul pro­fes­sion­al dri­vers, me­chan­ics, welders and oth­er trade pro­fes­sion­als."

In 2012, then Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son Miller had laud­ed HPD for as­sis­tance with "the most re­cent group of Cana­di­an em­ploy­ers to re­cruit Ja­maicans for per­ma­nent jobs in Cana­da."

A Jan­u­ary 2013 Ja­maican Glean­er ar­ti­cle re­port­ed on the ex­pe­ri­ence of some dri­vers re­cruit­ed by HPD who con­firmed favourable ex­pe­ri­ences.

In Feb­ru­ary 2013, Cana­da's "Globe and Mail" re­port­ed the British Colom­bia and Al­ber­ta gov­ern­ments were in­ves­ti­gat­ing is­sues con­cern­ing HPD.

The ar­ti­cle stat­ed BC's Em­ploy­ment Stan­dards Branch con­firmed "ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion" un­der­way "in re­la­tion to Hire Pro Dri­vers, a BC com­pa­ny run by Michael Pat­ter­son that links Cana­di­an em­ploy­ers to truck dri­vers from oth­er coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ja­maica." No de­tails were giv­en by the Branch.

The ar­ti­cle al­so al­leged the com­pa­ny's own­ers sought "a fee in ex­change for job place­ment" con­cern­ing an­oth­er com­pa­ny he owned- Marmic­mon. It al­so not­ed the own­er was "in­volved in sev­er­al ini­tia­tives to con­nect Ja­maican work­ers with prospec­tive Cana­di­an em­ploy­ers, in­clud­ing serv­ing as li­ai­son be­tween Ja­maican and Cana­di­an schools for a pro­gramme to train li­censed prac­ti­cal nurs­es."

That ini­tia­tive was sus­pend­ed in 2011, due to al­leged in­abil­i­ty to meet con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions. It stat­ed the own­er was lat­er fo­cused on "the in­dus­tri­al sec­tor which is hun­gry for qual­i­fied truck dri­vers and heavy-du­ty me­chan­ics."

In March 2013 the Ja­maican Glean­er re­port­ed the Globe and Mail ar­ti­cle and HDP's in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der the head­line "Trou­ble Brews in Cana­da/Ja­maica dri­ver em­ploy­ment pro­gramme."

It stat­ed the en­ti­ty which had part­nered with the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment to find em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for Ja­maicans in Cana­da and "which has had good suc­cess in get­ting dri­ving jobs for Ja­maican truck and trail­er dri­vers" was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for pos­si­ble breach­es Cana­di­an labour laws.

The Glean­er ar­ti­cle stat­ed it was al­leged pro­gramme par­tic­i­pants were re­quired to pay up to CAN$750 for train­ing, which in­clud­ed dri­ver as­sess­ment and log­book cours­es, and this could be il­le­gal. It not­ed Pat­ter­son de­nied any wrong­do­ing.