A British Columbia woman who ran a nanny placement agency has been sentenced this month to a 15-month conditional sentence order, including five months of house arrest, as well as 100 hours of community service and a $15,000 fine.
Operating as “International Au Pair”, “International Au Pair Canada”, and “International Homestays” Elizabeth “Lisa” Large, hired foreign women to work as caregivers and placed them with Canadian families between 2007 and 2013. She was charged and convicted for counselling foreign nationals to misrepresent or withhold material facts as to the reason for their coming to Canada.
According to a 2010 search warrant, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) began an investigation in 2008 when a young French woman arrived at Vancouver airport claiming she had come to Canada to visit her mother’s friend. Officials became interested when she couldn’t provide a phone number or address.
She later produced a letter signed by Large advising her to tell officials she was coming as a tourist and not coming to Canada to work.
Files were seized from Large’s home in Chilliwack, B.C. The five-year investigation found similar letters in the possession of other would-be nannies, some of whom were deported. According to a federal government website, evidence showed Large had counseled over 100 foreign nationals from all over the world.
Large plead guilty to the charges in May and was sentenced this month.
She was convicted under Section 126 ection 126 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act:
-Counselling misrepresentation
126. Every person who knowingly counsels, induces, aids or abets or attempts to counsel, induce, aid or abet any person to directly or indirectly misrepresent or withhold material facts relating to a relevant matter that induces or could induce an error in the administration of this Act is guilty of an offence.
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