Dhalla, caregivers give conflicting testimony

Ruby Dhalla and two caregivers from the Philippines, one of whom broke down sobbing, gave conflicting testimony to a Commons committee Tuesday about their employment at the Toronto-area home the Liberal MP shares part-time with her mother and brother.

The caregivers portrayed the Dhalla family as demanding and demeaning during a Commons immigration committee hearing while Dhalla issued a sweeping denial of her involvement in their hiring by her brother and mother except for an initial call to an agency that finds jobs for foreign caregivers.

Dhalla described a loving home in which caregivers, paid $250 weekly, are provided with their own 1,500-square-foot basement suite with a 60-inch flat screen TV and private kitchen. She described her mother cooking for a caregiver and the two of them lying on sofas watching TV together.

By contrast, Magdalene Gordo, who said she was employed at the Dhalla home for 17 days beginning Feb. 4, 2008, testified she "was mentally tortured and physically stressed" by long work hours, alleged insults, and no sign that Dhalla would get her a work permit.

"They show you you’re a slave," she said. "They do not show you love or compassion."

Immigration committee chairman David Tilson indicated the hearing did little to clear the air on the week-old controversy in which Dhalla firmly denies the allegations of Gordo and Richelyn Tongson that she hired them, supervised their exploitation for menial tasks and promised, but failed, to get work permits for them.

Dhalla insists her brother hired them, her mother paid them cash at their request and she had little contact with them in any way because she lives there on weekends only and is busy with constituency work.

"They both had opposite stories," Tilson said. "Who’s telling the truth, I have no idea."

Dhalla, whose voice sometimes quavered with emotion, several times suggested the widely publicized allegations by the two foreign workers were part of an attempt "to gain permanent residency in Canada."

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said there is no arrangement to ensure the two women get permanent residency status, but they have been assured by the Immigration Department they will not be penalized for "whistle-blowing" or for working at the Dhalla home without a work permit.

The women were and are legally in Canada to work as caregivers and become eligible for permanent residency status once they have been here for 36 months and if they have worked 24 of those 36 months. They are supposed to get a work permit for each caregiving job they take, said Kenney’s spokesman.

The caregivers testified by video conference from Toronto, providing details such as: Neil Dhalla’s instructions on how to shine shoes properly, of cleaning hardwood floors on their hands and knees, and working from 7:30 a.m. until 11p.m. or midnight.

Tongson, who worked in the home for three months from Feb. 22, 2008, burst into sobs while describing her anxiety about getting proper documentation. She said she cannot return to the Philippines, that her husband is unemployed and she has four children.

"I don’t want to see them starving," she wailed. If she did not send money home, "nobody will feed them."

Dhalla described herself and family as victims of "innuendo and allegations that are false and unsubstantiated" and go against the grain of everything she has stood for as a young female politician and daughter of an immigrant.

"Can you imagine how it feels to have the very values and beliefs that have defined you as a person and that you have championed as a family put into question?" she asked, recounting her immigrant mother’s sacrifices to raise her and her brother.

She noted changing details in the women’s claims. For example, Gordo, who had said publicly that Dhalla had taken her passport for two weeks, testified she never gave the passport to Dhalla. Tongson had said Dhalla took her passport but she had signed a receipt showing she had given her passport to her brother to apply for her work permit.