The owner-manager of a once popular Kingston sushi restaurant has been fined and confined for a period of time to her home after pleading guilty to three offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Mija Park, 47, pleaded guilty with the assistance of an interpreter in Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice to illegally employing five foreign nationals in her restaurant between Feb. 1 and April 23, 2014, when they weren’t authorized to work in Canada. She also pleaded guilty to failing to leave the country when her own visitor’s visa expired on Nov. 3, 2013, and to illegally performing work after signing an undertaking that she wouldn’t work without the proper authorization.

She was given two consecutive conditional sentences to serve in the community under restrictions; the first confining her for three months to her home on house arrest and the second placing her under an 8 p.m to 6 a.m. curfew for two additional months. She was also fined a total of $10,000, placed on probation for another 12 months and was ordered by Justice Allan Letourneau to perform 35 hours of free community service.

Park operated Jina Korean and Japanese Healthy Food (Jina Sushi), which initially opened several years ago as a small restaurant on King Street West between Yonge Street and Mowat Avenue and then relocated to 409 Johnson St., near University Avenue.

Her lawyer, Fergus O’Connor, told Justice Letourneau that his client was sushi chef, as well as manager and worked at the business six days a week, building a reputation that resulted in hers being “widely viewed as the best sushi restaurant in Kingston.” After the move to Johnson and University, he said the restaurant developed a loyal and enthusiastic following among Queen’s University students.

In late April 2014, however, the restaurant was closed following an investigation by the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The reasons were contained in a sparse, agreed statement of facts submitted to the judge by federal Crown prosecutor Emilie Taman.

The statement of facts doesn’t disclose what initiated the investigation. But five of the restaurant’s employees were found to be working there illegally.

It was also learned that while Park paid them at a rate that Taman said was “equivalent to minimum wage,” she paid them in cash and didn’t apply overtime rates although they frequently worked shifts in excess of eight hours.

The federal prosecutor suggested to Justice Letourneau, “there was a degree of exploitation,” in that practice, a characterization that was strongly opposed by Park’s lawyer Fergus O’Connor.

He suggested that his client worked alongside and as hard as any of her employees and that she was trying to help them remain in Canada.

Part of the problem, however, was that Park, who’s married to an associate professor at Royal Military College, hadn’t been legally living in Canada herself for almost six months when the charges were laid. And the agreed statement of facts states that she never obtained permission to work in Canada.

She was here on a visitor’s visa issued May 13, 2009, which had expired on Nov. 3, 2013.

But O’Connor said it was actually his client’s husband who assumed responsibility for “renewing the paperwork,” and suggested his failure to do it was an oversight. He told Justice Letourneau Park had previously renewed her permission to remain in Canada “a number of times.”

It was also noted in the agreed facts that after signing an undertaking in April — when she was charged — that she would refrain from working, Park was witnessed working at her restaurant in July and October 2014. On one occasion she was seen washing windows and tables.

O’Connor told the judge someone else was found to take over the business and Park initially honoured the undertaking. But he said she felt compelled to return when “the restaurant went down hill.”

A year later, he said “my client’s income is lost completely,” and her husband has been put to considerable expense as a consequence of her immigration problems.

Justice Letourneau asked the two lawyers about Park’s current immigration status and Taman told him that wasn’t her area of expertise, but “there’s certainly no guarantee she’ll be allowed to remain in Canada.”

O’Connor told the judge, however, that the sentence he’d imposed — which was jointly recommended to him by O’Connor and Taman — “will not preclude her from applying to remain in Canada.” The defence lawyer acknowledged that Park may not be successful, but he said her convictions don’t bar her from trying.

sue.yanagisawa@sunmedia.ca