Portage la Prairie hotel owners face rare labour trafficking charges

Four Indian nationals worked 15-hour shifts, day after day, and earned less than half of minimum wage at a Portage la Prairie-area hotel, RCMP said Thursday as they announced the two owners had been charged with rare labour trafficking offences.

Mounties said the owners promised the four victims they would work legally at the hotel, but instead forced them to toil long hours with little pay and without proper Canadian work documents.

“It’s hard to find out how common it is, because there’s a lot of apprehension of coming forward to the police,” said Sgt. Cathy Farrell, who leads the Manitoba RCMP human trafficking unit, at a news conference in Winnipeg.

“It is one of the most under-reported crimes that we have.”

She said the issue is “often hidden in plain sight,” and affects migrant workers, recent immigrants and vulnerable people.

The people who exploit them inflict mental and emotional abuse and threaten force to manipulate them, said Farrell. Sometimes, they withhold important documents, including passports, from the workers.

She said the crime occurs in any line of work including construction, agriculture, manufacturing, food processing, hospitality and the trucking industry.

Investigators began looking into the hotel in the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie after local Mounties were called to a disturbance there on Feb. 9. They spoke with the staff and tipped off investigators about potential labour trafficking at the hotel.

Two women initially came forward, but as the probe continued, officers identified two additional hotel workers as potential victims.

Investigators discovered that three women and one man were promised legal work, fair wages and affordable living in Manitoba through labour market impact assessment agreements.

Instead, the victims worked 15-hour days and were paid well under minimum wage, with virtually no days off, Farrell said.

“It was less than half (of minimum wage), I would suggest,” she said.

The victims learned about the jobs through online advertising, word of mouth, and in one case, through a family connection.

The accused are alleged to have threatened to deport the victims to keep them on the job. One victim had their identification documents withheld.

One of the four workers never received a work agreement, RCMP said.

The other three eventually received the paperwork after many months, but the employer never fulfilled the obligations required by the agreement.

The assessment papers would have made the victims eligible for Canadian work permits.

The employees, who lived at the hotel, did everything from housekeeping and front desk duties to working in the attached restaurant and bar, said Farrell. They had been working at the business for between 10 months and a year.

The owners were arrested earlier this month.

Jai Inder Sandhu, a 62-year-old man, is charged with four counts of trafficking in persons, two counts of uttering threats and single counts of trafficking, trafficking (material benefit) and withholding/destroying documents.

Satbir Sandhu, a 48-year-old woman, is charged with four counts of trafficking in persons and one of trafficking (material benefit).

The Sandhus, a married couple, were named in a local media story in 2022 as owning the hotel on the Trans-Canada Highway, near Yellowquill Trail, on the bypass just outside Portage.

That hotel, which had been a Days Inn, was recently re-branded as a Howard Johnson by Wyndham.

A woman who answered the front desk phone at the hotel said she did not know the owners had been arrested.

Portage la Prairie Mayor Sharilyn Knox said she was aware of the case.

“It’s concerning,” said Knox. “We present Portage la Prairie and region as a welcoming community for newcomers. So hearing something like this, where people are being taken advantage of, is very frustrating. We don’t want to see things like this happening.”

Knox commended the workers for bravely coming forward.

“It’s a complete disappointment to hear people are being taken advantage of when they’re coming to our country to find a better life — that’s what Canada is about.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca