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21st Annual Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March

Website: http://womensmemorialmarch.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/236552276421022/
Download poster and distribute it here.

The first women’s memorial march was held in 1991 in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman on Powell Street in Vancouver. Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Unceded Coast Salish Territories. Twenty one years later, the women’s memorial march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women.

On Tuesday Feb 14th 2012, we will gather at noon at the Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main Street (corner Hastings, Vancouver) where family members speak in remembrance. Given space constraints, we ask the broader public to join us at 1 pm, when the march takes to the streets and proceeds through the Downtown Eastside, with stops to commemorate where women were last seen or found; speeches by community activists at the police station; a healing circle at Oppenheimer Park around 3 pm; and finally a community feast at the Japanese Language Hall. Thank you to Buffalo Spirit for the big drum.

Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. Over 3000 women are known to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1970s, and annual women’s memorial marches now occur in dozens of communities across these lands.

Women continue to go missing or be murdered with no action from any level of government to address these tragedies or the systemic nature of gendered violence, poverty, racism, or colonialism. The Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March Committee and DTES Women’s Centre have recently made submissions under Article 8 of the Optional Protocol of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and are now seeking justice internationally.

This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women – especially Indigenous women – face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. The February 14th Women’s Memorial March is an opportunity to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters, remember the women who are still missing, and to dedicate ourselves to justice.

On February 4, 2011, the Employment Standards Branch (ESB) ordered Khaira to pay $236,800.52 to tree planters who worked for the company from March to July, 2010 in various parts of BC. Mr. Bajwa and Khaira unsuccessfully appealed the ESB’s decision, and in its June 28, 2011 decision, the Employment Standards Tribunal instead increased the amounts owing to 7 workers.

In October, 2011, the ESB paid the workers about 43% of the wages that they are owed by Khaira, using Khaira bid deposits held by the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Mines from 2010. ESB is also attempting to recover the remaining pay owed to the workers. “We appreciate that ESB continues to take proactive steps to see that the workers are paid the wages they are owed,” says Ros Salvador, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre who is representing more than 25 former Khaira workers. “We will be following the criminal proceedings closely”.

The federal government has spent more than a year investigating Khaira, but has yet to provide employment insurance to many workers, choosing instead to rely on Khaira’s drastically underreported hours to deny the workers EI benefits they are entitled to.

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For more information, please contact

Sarah Khan, co-counsel for the workers                                604-608-0383 ext. 28

Jessie Uppal, BC Federation of Labour                                 604-220-0739

BC’s Employment Standards Tribunal recently upheld the February 4, 2011 decision of the Employment Standards Branch (ESB), ordering Khaira Enterprises Ltd. to pay $236,800.52 in unpaid wages. To date, workers have not seen a penny of their money even though they won their appeal.

BCPIAC lawyer Ros Salvador, counsel to several former Khaira employees, recently received  internal government documents that show Khaira was awarded contracts in 2010 without any consideration of past health or wage payment issues during its 2008 and 2009 government contracts, and that the Ministry of Forests was fully aware of the deplorable conditions and non-payment of wages as early as March 2010 and refused to take any effective action.

The Western Silvicultural Contractors’ Association had warned the government that it was not possible to complete the contracts for the amount Khaira had bid. “All the government cared about was getting the trees planted and paying as little as possible” says Salvador. “Under the low-bid policy, government saves money through the exploitation of workers. We think the Ministry of Forests should pay the full amount of the workers’ wages, otherwise, government profits from the abuse caused by refusing to consider workers’ rights”.

Meanwhile, the federal government still has made no move to correct the workers’ hours and earnings so they can receive their Employment Insurance, continuing instead to rely on Khaira’s false records. Service Canada promised to apply to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to make the corrections once it received the ESB Determination, but the ESB Determination was released five months ago and the file still has not been referred to CRA.

“These workers have waited far too long for the back wages and Employment Insurance to which they are entitled. The appropriate Provincial and Federal agencies need to ensure that former Khaira workers receive this money immediately,” says Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour.

A report following an investigation by the B.C.’s Forest Safety Ombudsman is expected to be released shortly. “We hope the report will address the underlying government practices that ignore workers’ rights in favour of saving money” says Salvador.

Former Khaira workers will be available for comment at BCPIAC after 2 p.m. on July 20.

For more information, please contact

Ros Salvador, BCPIAC                                                  604-687-3063

Evan Stewart, BC Federation of Labour                          604-430-1421

Pat Bell, Minister of Forests, Lands and Mines, has told reporters that the government is holding bid deposits which can be accessed to pay the worker’s wages and that he expected the funds would be transferred to the workers quickly. The workers have still not seen a penny of this or any of the wages ordered by ESB.

Many workers have been in financial crisis for months due to the unpaid wages and the inability to collect Employment Insurance (EI). EI continues to rely on Khaira’s drastically underreported hours to deny the workers the benefits they are entitled to. “I wonder whether most Canadians know that if their employer lies about their hours, they can be made to wait up to six months or more before they see their EI benefits,” says Ros Salvador, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre who is representing 25 former Khaira workers.

Several workers are homeless and workers continue to lose their housing due to the non-payment of their wages. One worker who lives in Quebec City and is owed $12,000, was scheduled to be evicted on February 14, 2011 because he has been unable to make rent. Despite repeated requests, Khalid Bajwa, a director of Khaira, has refused even to pay this worker the $1,400 that Bajwa admits is owed to him.

Salvador says “It is unthinkable that workers who are owed tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and unpaid EI are being left homeless because of inaction and delayed action on the part of the federal and provincial governments.”

Even if Bajwa appeals the ESB decision, Salvador says this is just a stalling tactic, and there is no legal impediment to the funds being distributed to the workers immediately.

BCPIAC is calling on the Ministry of Forests to fulfill its promise and transfer the funds to ESB right away, and ESB and the Minister of Finance to ensure those funds are immediately released to the workers. “We can’t accept any further delay in the workers receiving their money,” says Salvador.

The workers welcome the recent announcement that BC Forest Safety Ombudsman Roger Harris will be investigating the Khaira situation, and the workers are hopeful that the results of the investigation will address the broken systems that failed them.

For more information, please contact:

Ros Salvador, BCPIAC   604-687-3063

Evan Stewart, BC Federation of Labour  604-430-1421

The ESB has ordered Khaira to pay within five working days. The ESB has also ordered Khaira to pay $3500 in administrative penalties for contravening several provisions of the Employment Standards Act.

In his 110-page Determination of January 17, 2011, Karpal Singh of the ESB found that Khaira:

• under-reported the days and hours worked by employees
• didn’t pay workers as required for statutory holidays, overtime and vacation pay
• should have paid workers for travel time to the worksites
• made unauthorized deductions from the workers’ pay cheques

The BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC) is representing about 25 of the workers. “This is a monumental victory for the workers,” said BCPIAC lawyer Ros Salvador. “We hope Khaira pays right away”.

“We welcome the determination by the ESB that these workers were systematically underpaid,” says Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour. “However the $3,500 fine against Khaira is wholly inadequate. The message to rogue operators is you can rip off your workers for hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you get caught you will be fined a few thousand dollars.”

Many workers have been in financial crisis for months due to the unpaid wages and the inability to collect Employment Insurance (EI). EI continues to rely on Khaira’s drastically underreported hours to deny the workers the benefits they are entitled to.

Most of the workers are originally from Africa and they were routinely subjected to racial slurs, discrimination and racialized violence. BCPIAC has just filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal against Khaira, Mr. Bajwa and Mr. Sidhu on behalf of many of the workers.

“The ink is hardly dry on a binding order that tells BC Hydro what it must tell the public about these huge rate increases. BC Hydro agreed to the terms of that order.  But already they are breaking their own word and the Commission’s direction to them,” said Quail.

At issue is a release dated December 2, 2010.  It quotes BC Hydro CEO Cobb saying that “Given the measures taken by the Province, we estimate that the projected rate adjustments will result in an average monthly bill increase of about $7 each year for each of the next three years.”

The BC Utilities Commission issued an order that very same day, which finalized the terms of Hydro’s rate increases which took effect on April 1.  It included a protocol for the information that BC Hydro was to provide to the public about current and planned increases.  The order identified increases over each of the next four years amounting to 16.27%, 5.11%, 9.51% and 8.05%.  The Commission identified the total impact as 44% over the next three years, or 55% over the next four.

“The terms of the Utilities Commission order were negotiated.  BC Hydro consented to them.  We customers insisted on transparency of public information because we knew Hydro would try to sugar the pill, and minimize the impact on ratepayers if left to their own devices,” said Quail.  “They have ignored the order and done exactly what we feared.”

The complaint asks the Utilities Commission to direct BC Hydro to retract Cobb’s statement and re-issue it in corrected form which complies with the December 2 order.

for more information contact Jim Quail at (604) 687-3034

Workers employed by Khaira were forced to work extremely long hours with few breaks or days off. They slept in crammed storage containers with no ventilation and were forced to drink untreated water and eat expired or inadequately cooked food. We understand that the Ministry of Forests was aware of the situation and allowed these practices to continue until July 2010 when the camp was finally shut down due to the deplorable conditions.

Most of the workers are originally from Africa and they were routinely subjected to racial slurs, discrimination and violence. Ros Salvador of BCPIAC states, “This situation is just an extreme example of the widespread racism that Black people and refugees experience in BC on a daily basis. It is not an isolated incident.”

Many of Khaira’s former employees are living in a state of poverty as a result of Khaira’s non-payment of wages and other abuses. They are hopeful that Khaira will pay them the money that they are fairly owed. “We are expecting a decision from Employment Standards regarding unpaid wages later this month, but the company director Khalid Bajwa has hired a lawyer and is opposing the workers’ claims”, said Ros Salvador from BCPIAC.

Additional economic crisis and homelessness has resulted from Employment Insurance’s refusal to pay the benefits to which workers are fully entitled. EI has failed to recognize that the workers’ records of employment (ROEs) provided by Khaira are incorrect and vastly under-report the number of hours worked. “More than two months ago, we provided EI with extensive evidence detailing the actual hours worked, and yet EI is still being denied based on false records prepared by Khaira”, said Ros Salvador.

“Last summer these workers were let down by every single provincial agency entrusted with enforcing the regulations that would have prevented their abuse,” says Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour. “Now the federal government is ignoring the plight of former Khaira employees. These workers are entitled to Employment Insurance and they need it now.”

A former Khaira employee will be available for comment at BCPIAC on December 9.

For more information, please contact

Ros Salvador, BCPIAC                                                        604-687-3063

Jim Sinclair, BC Federation of Labour                                 604-430-1421

Download BCPIAC Overview for Advocates

“The tenants had to bring foreclosure proceedings against a property owned by the Sahotas before the family finally sent over the cheques,” said Sarah Khan, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC).

A second group of 12 tenants, who also had to be evacuated from the Pandora building in October, 2007, are still waiting for their damage awards, which total about $50,000. This group of tenants has just filed a court application to sell a property owned by the Sahotas so they can collect their money.

“The Sahotas should not be forcing the second group of tenants to go to court just to collect their awards, this is completely unnecessary and simply seems to be a stalling tactic used by these landlords,” added Khan.  “These tenants lost everything, it is not fair to make them wait so long for compensation.”

As a result of this case, BC Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman has decided that all Residential Tenancy Branch damage awards for compensation for destroyed assets will not affect the eligibility of tenants in receipt of income assistance. BCPIAC commends the Minister for this very fair decision.

Pandora Tenants from both the first and second groups will be available to speak with the media at 10am on Wednesday October 6, 2010 at the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre located at 208 – 1090 West Pender in Vancouver.

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For more information, please contact

Sarah Khan, BCPIAC                                                         604-687-3063

604-687-4134