Filipiniana News
– July 2019
by
Maria Deanna P. Santos
After a long wait, IRCC finally launched on
18 June 2019, the new caregiver programs which replaced the Caring for Children
and Caring for People with High Medical Needs pathways. The new programs, called the Home Child Care
Provider (HCP) and the Home Support Worker (HSW) pilots, were created under
Ministerial Instructions and will be in effect for the next five years.
Moreover, the Interim Pathway for Caregivers
had also been extended for another three months, from 8 July 2019 to 8 October
2019.
Lastly, the IRCC also launched a temporary
public policy that will grant a pathway to permanent residency for 500 of
out-of-status construction workers (and their qualified dependents) in the
Greater Toronto Area. The applicants
will be assessed by the Canadian Labour Congress which will then refer those
qualified under this program to IRCC.
Further implementing details have not been released as of this
writing.
What Changed, What Remained, in the New
Caregiver Pilots
The HCP and HSW pilots will authorize the
issuance of occupation-specific work permits to the caregiver applicants, an
open work permit for the caregiver's spouse and study permits for their
qualified dependent children.
Under these new pilot programs, the visa
officer will assess not only whether the caregiver meets the requirements for
the initial work permit issuance, but also whether the caregiver and their
dependents will qualify for permanent residency. However, the permanent residency will only be
granted after the caregiver completes the required two years of full time work
as a home childcare provider or as a home support worker in Canada as these
occupations are defined in the national occupation classification.
These pilot programs eliminate the need for
prospective Canadian employers to obtain labour market impact assessments
(LMIA) when hiring caregivers from outside of Canada. They will only have to prove the genuine need
for the caregivers' services, their financial capacity to pay the required
wages and other benefits and their willingness and ability to comply with
applicable employment standards.
Caregivers under these new pilots will have
greater flexibility in moving from one employer to another (subject to
compliance with reasonable contractual obligations) or possibly work for more
than one employer in the same occupation.
Hence, it is expected that caregivers will not anymore be forced to
endure abuses which occurred all too often in the past because they were tied
to a specific employer and needed to obtain a new LMIA and work permit to work
for another.
However, as in the previous Caring for
Children and Caring for People with High Medical Needs pathways, the new pilot
programs kept the education and language requirements, i.e. education that is
equivalent to at least one-year completed Canadian postsecondary credential and
a minimum language score of CLB 5 in all abilities (reading, writing, listening
and speaking) in IELTS or CELPIP for English and TEF or TCF for French.
Pros and Cons of the New Caregiver Pilots
These new programs are indeed good news for
those who are able to meet the job offer, education and language
requirements. The ability to bring their
family members to Canada as temporary residents (workers or students) is also a
positive development as this will not only prevent lengthy family separation
between caregivers and their family members, but will also remove the
uncertainty of being granted permanent residency after completing the required
two years of full time caregiving work.
However, although the new pilots are being
touted as a "guaranteed path to permanent residency" for caregivers
and their families, this may not necessarily be so. In fact, the two-step process may still pose
serious challenges arising from the hybrid and conditional status of the
caregivers who will arrive under these new pilot programs.
For one, the period within which to complete
the 24-month work requirement has been reduced to 3 years from the previous 4
years. Although it helps that the work
permits are now occupation-specific instead of employer-specific, the reduced
time frame may still prevent some caregivers from fulfilling the 24-month work
requirement for various reasons, e.g. if they would like to switch from being a
home caregiver for children to a home support worker for an elderly; if they suffered a prolonged illness which
prevented them from working; or if they
had to leave an abusive employer and were unable to quickly find another.
Moreover, the vulnerability of a caregiver
does not end simply because their work permits are not tied to a specific
employer. By the very nature of their
job as workers inside their employers' homes, isolated and unable to assert
their rights as organized workers, being new to this country without a strong
support network, are factors which may still lead to their becoming victims of
abuse and exploitation not just from employers from also from recruitment
agents and other unscrupulous individuals.
Hence, the same possibility of losing their
status or failing to obtain their permanent residency still exists under this
new program. Moreover, these new
programs will entrap caregivers who are
already in Canada but who are unable to meet the new requirements for permanent
residency, whether under the new pilots or the extended interim caregiver
pathway.
If those who do not meet the new permanent
residency requirements will be left to rely on the highly-discretionary options
such as the H&C (humanitarian and compassionate) route, can we still claim
that we are truly "caring for our caregivers"? Or are we just
perpetuating the colonial practice of siphoning cheap labour from poorer countries
then throwing them out after benefiting from their services because they were
deemed undeserving of permanent residency?
The recent temporary public policy creating
a PR pathway for out of status construction workers in the GTA is a good
start. It will be even better if a
similar policy will be created for the benefit of the equally in-demand and
deserving migrant caregivers.
This
article is meant for information purposes only and not as specific legal
advice.
The author is a Filipino-Canadian
immigration lawyer and may be reached at deanna@santoslaw.ca
or tel. no. 416-901-8497.
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