In one of the largest cases of its kind, the Ministry of Labour has ordered the owners of a number of Toronto-area businesses, including four now-closed Chinese restaurants, to pay employees more than $675,000 in wages owed to them.

A group of 68 immigrant workers at Regal restaurants chain were denied their pay in a variety of ways, according to evidence provided by the workers and accepted by the ministry.

Often they were misclassified as liquor servers, who are not entitled to full minimum wage in Ontario. Some routinely received pay cheques that bounced. Others simply weren’t paid for months on end, the ministry found.

All told, the ministry found the restaurants’ bosses owed workers $676,693.79 in basic salary, overtime, public holiday pay, severance pay and termination pay.

“They are not high paid workers to begin with, and yet they are owed that much,” said Avvy Go, whose Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic represented the bulk of the claimants.

“So you can see how many hours they have worked and how many months of unpaid wages you’re talking about.”

Claims were filed against six businesses owned by Ellen Pun, who workers said was their main boss, and Patsy Lai. The four Regal restaurants have since closed, but the ministry’s year-and-a-half investigation found that the two women operated a series of at least 19 related companies.

“I do want to commend the ministry and investigators involved, they were extremely diligent,” said Go. “They checked every single thing.”

But it’s unclear whether the workers, one of whom is individually owed more than $30,000, will ever see the wages they’re legally entitled to, Go told the Star in an interview.

“To be very honest, I’m not particularly hopeful,” she said.

Although the Ministry of Labour was initially able to make contact with the business partners, the women then seemed to disappear: phone calls went unreturned, emails unanswered and the pair submitted no evidence to the investigation, according to ministry documents.

“This case shows the limited efficacy of enforcement right now,” said Go. “If there was a way of more proactive enforcement, if government had stepped in earlier before she (Pun) closed the shop, then the employees would not be out of pocket in the first place.”

According to Go, the two women are now trying to declare bankruptcy. Pun’s sprawling Aurora home was recently sold through power of sale for $3.35 million. The Star was unable to reach Lai and Pun for comment, despite multiple attempts.

Numbers for the four Regal restaurants, Regal Chinese Cuisine & Banquet Hall in Scarborough, two Regal Palaces in Richmond Hill and one Regal Palace in Mississauga, were no longer in service — and the number for the company's head office Ellen Food Group Inc. appeared to be disconnected.

In addition to trying to collect unpaid wages from the two business owners, the ministry can also prosecute them — which could result in hefty fines and even imprisonment.

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Last year, the ministry pursued just eight employers through such prosecutions. But Go says she hopes those powers are deployed in this case.

“If the government chooses to prosecute, then I think it sends a very strong message that it is serious about pursuing bad employers who choose to cheat employees.”