By Faye Arellano
Maria, 35, arrived in Canada a decade ago under the defunct Live-in Caregiver’s Program. Her initial employer changed her mind about hiring her and immediately released Maria on her first week.
It took Maria about seven months to find a new employer who was willing to do the required paperwork. This time, Maria endured almost two years of abusive working conditions and unfair treatment before deciding to escape from her new employer.
“I was hired as a nanny for a toddler and yet I was also expected to do all the housework. At first, I did not mind despite the heavy chores, long work hours and insults I received from my female employer, ” she said. She always got in trouble with her employer when Maria would prioritize taking care of the toddler before doing the housework.
“She was obssessed with a spotless house and would constantly check the surfaces for dust,” Maria recalled. “Sometimes she even wanted me to vacuum the floor while holding the baby in my arms,” she said.
Maria tried numerous times to leave her employer, but her employer would not accept her resignation. When Maria finally mustered the courage to escape the deplorable working conditions, she had no idea that she would end up in a more precarious situation.
Hoping to complete the required two-year work experience in order to apply for permanent residence status, Maria took a job in King City, Ontario
However, by the time that the new employer was able to obtain the Labour Market Opinion, Maria’s work permit had expired. She enlisted the help of a lawyer to restore her work permit and her legal status, but to no avail.
By 2014, Maria was already accustomed to living and working in the shadows. She took on “under the table” cleaning jobs that paid $12 an hour. She would ask people or check community billboards for menial work opportunities.
For the last four years, Maria has been working as a caregiver for a family. Maria has continued to fill a job that she originally took on when she first set foot in Canada.
Maria is just one of the many non-status caregivers. They perform the same chores that regular caregivers do, but they do not have protection and they live in constant fear and vulnerability.
Undocumented caregivers are exposed to all kinds of abuse and exploitation.
It is a fact that Canada relies on foreign caregivers to take care of their children, elderly and loved ones with disability.
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These caregivers are needed at homes, hospitals or long-term care facilities to render vital services to Canadian families.
By employing caregivers, Canadians leave their homes for work with peace of mind and confidence that their young children are being taken care of. With Canada’s ageing population, the need for care at home, long-term facilities and hospital will only continue to grow. Canadians with disabilities also benefit from the care and support of a dedicated caregiver.
Most foreign caregivers are successful in transitioning to being permanent residents. However, there are those who have lost their legal status because of various reasons. There are those who are refused because they did not meet the two-year work experience requirement within the prescribed time period. Others are able to file applications for PR only to be refused because of missing information, lapse of time and some other reasons beyond their control.
These days, many caregivers are losing legal status specifically because of the two requirements- post-secondary education and language proficiency- that were first introduced by then Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander in 2014 when the LCP was reformed.
What was then a decades-old caregiver program that guaranteed an automatic permanent path for participants in exchange for the kind of work that few Canadians are willing to do, was drastically altered to a purely foreign temporary workers’ stream.
In 2019, two new caregiver pilot programs were again launched this time by the Liberal government. The Labour Market Impact Assessment was scrapped under these two new pilots and work permits became occupation-specific making it easier to participants to change employer. These two particular changes made the caregiver program more favourable to participants.
But when Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the pilot program failed to show the success story which many hoped for. As a result, immigration targets are not being met. This also prompted Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino to create a pathway to PR for some 90,000 international students and foreign workers. And yet, some 6,000 caregivers who have applied for PR will not likely know their fate until December, 2021.
In the meantime, there’s is a vast number of caregivers who will certainly remain on the margins of society. A new pathway is needed to regularize these non-status caregivers and put them back on track. An amnesty program may be the quick-fix, innovative solution to address the plight of undocumented caregivers and fill the shortage of essential workers especially during the pandemic.
These out-of-status caregivers are already in Canada. They have made contributions to its economy and paid taxes before losing their status. They are vulnerable and have limited resources to regularize their status. An amnesty is a means to regularize non status caregivers that has not been tried and tested before. This unprecedented time may be an opportune time to consider and implement a policy that will be both
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compassionate for the vulnerable and at the same time a practical means for Canada to continue to grow its economy and build communities.
