Taiwanese immigrant accuses local hair salon of fraud, abuse

A Taiwanese immigrant is accusing a local hair salon of employer fraud and abuse. Lucas Wu says he was approached earlier this year to work for Mentor, an international chain of hair salons.

On Saturday, Wu told reporters through a translator that earlier this year he agreed to come to Canada to work and learn English, but later found out that he was basically an illegal worker.

The citizen of Taiwan, which recently received a designation where visas aren’t needed to come to Canada, claims Mentor arranged to get him a dubious student card. He says his employer then deducted $500 from his paycheque each month for tuition, even though he did not attend school. He also says he was paid below minimum wage and that his employer failed to deduct the proper taxes from his paycheques.

This week he turned to Don Davies–the MP for Vancouver-Kingsway and Deputy Critic for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism–for help.

Davies presented what he claimed was one of Wu’s pay stubs, which showed that the young man from Taiwan was paid just over $1,100 in gross income for a month of full-time work with just $11 deducted for tax.

Says Davies: “This is not only unfair to Lucas, but it is also extremely unfair to all of the local businesses in our community that have to compete with this business while also paying their share of contributions and deductions to the government.”

Wu is set to return to Taiwan in the next couple of weeks, but Davies hopes to use his story to call on Mentor to respond to “a case of what appears to be exploitation of a foreign worker and a wholesale violation of a number of Canadian laws.”

Global News contacted Mentor Hair Salon in Metrotown, but they refused to comment on the allegations.