By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
An Oliver winery has once again found itself in hot water after recently being slapped with a $118,000 fine and a permanent ban from ever hiring temporary foreign workers.
Toor Vineyards, the vinicultural portion of Desert Hills Estate Winery on Black Sage Road, was named along with 956 other employers who failed to meet their responsibilities as an employer under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program or International Mobility Program.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada maintains a list of errant employers on its website with the Toor Vineyards “final decision” dated Dec. 16, 2024.
The list, nearly 1,000 employers long, covers all manner of business from across the country with penalties varying from fines of only a few hundred dollars and the ability to rehire temporary foreign workers to Toor Vineyards at the extreme. In fact Toor Vineyards was only one of two employers on the list that was meted out a permanent ban.
Three reasons were given for the action against the vineyard, including:
- The employer didn’t give the inspector the documents they asked for.
- The pay or working conditions didn’t match, or were not better than, what was listed on the offer of employment, or the job was not the same as what was listed on the offer of employment.
- The employer didn’t put in enough effort to make sure the workplace was free of any of the following:
- physical abuse
- sexual abuse
- psychological abuse
- financial abuse
- reprisal
Randy Toor
File photo
Sexual assault allegation
In a separate but possibly linked incident last January 2024 Desert Hills Estate Winery’s co-founder and then president Randhir (Randy) Toor was accused of sexually assaulting a foreign farmworker – identified as a Mexican female – in his employ at his Mount Baldy cabin.
The woman reported that “she had gotten intoxicated and fallen asleep in the nearest bedroom on the second level of the cabin late in the evening but had woken up at some point and Toor was on top of her,” the application for a search warrant stated. She told RCMP officers she was “unable to care for herself due to her level of intoxication.”
The woman said that the next morning “she did not feel normal, her genitals hurt and she [was] visibly upset and crying.” A subsequent sexual assault forensic examination at Penticton Regional Hospital concluded the evidence was “indicative of a sexual assault”. The status of that case is unknown.
2023 foreign worker infractions
Desert Hills Estate Winery, which Toor co-founded with his twin brother in the late 1990s, was also found to be non-compliant in meeting its responsibilities as an employer two years ago (Jan. 13, 2023) and was fined $16,000.
The winery is currently ineligible to hire temporary foreign workers as it has not paid the penalty.
2022 immigration fraud
And in 2022 Toor was fined $90,000 for his involvement in an immigration fraud scheme. He also pleaded guilty to possessing firearms with expired licences, for which he was given a conditional discharge.
He was sentenced to complete 150 hours of community service work at the time.
Times Chronicle requests for comment have gone unanswered at the time of posting.
