OTTAWA | January 27, 2012

New opportunity for live-in caregivers

By Yamina Tsalamlal       Producer Robin Grant
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In 2008, Angelica Herrera left her home in Colombia to come work as a caregiver in Canada.

Herrera, 26, found out about the Live-in Caregiver Program through her friend in Bogota. At the time, Herrera was part way through her degree in public administration, and saw the program as an opportunity to travel and try something new. But she says it was a tough decision to leave her country and studies.

“Sometimes, you have a dream — one dream of my life was to go to another country and travel… I can get a degree another time,” Herrera says.

In 2008, she began the application process to gain permanent residency. She says she was told it would take three months, but instead she waited one year to be accepted.


Herrera enjoys travelling in Canada during her time off.

After a series of interviews over Skype, Herrera finally got a job with a family in Hamilton with two young girls.


“It was very exciting, the family received me with love … they really welcomed me to their house and to their home,” Herrera says.

After a year, the girls’ mother decided she would stay at home and take care of her daughters. Herrera began another online search to find a new family.

In 2010, she began working for a family in Mississauga with a young boy. Once again, she says the family was very welcoming.

That being said, Herrera is getting restless.

Her concern is the wait times to apply for permanent residency status. She says she goes online all the time, but is not finding the information she needs to apply. While she has worked the mandatory two years as a caregiver to start applying for permanent residency, she was told by the family friend of her employers — a lawyer — that she could wait up to three years to gain residency.

“It’s sad because I like Canada, but I have to work as a caregiver,” Herrera says. “I don’t want to be thirty and just a caregiver.”

Changes to the system

In Canada, there are many caregivers like Herrera. Since a series of consultations with caregivers and advocates in 2009, Citizenship and Immigration has been introducing changes to improve the lives of these temporary foreign workers. The latest change could benefit people like Herrera who foresee a long wait for permanent residency.

In December, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced 10,000 open work permits would be available for those waiting for permanent residency. As of December 11, all applicants who apply for permanent residency will get an open work permit.  Open work permits will allow live-in caregivers to leave the home of their employer, seek employment elsewhere and apply for college or university. 

In 2009, Citizenship and Immigration received more than 10,000 permanent residency applications from caregivers — the highest number in 10 years. In 2010, 6,093 applications were received. That same year 7,769 applications were approved — they most likely applied in previous years.

“The main point of the changes are … They can get on with their lives, they can seek employment in different fields, they can set up their own households sooner than they could have before,” says Bill Brown, communications advisor for Citizenship and Immigration.

Currently, the average wait time for permanent residency is about 18 months.

Reforms not enough

Not everyone sees the changes as a good thing.

 Herrera is active, so staying in all day does not suit her.

“We’ve seen nothing but reforms to the program for the last 20 years,” says Reuben Sarumugam, a volunteer with the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance National Council. “Why are you going to continue calling them reforms when there hasn’t been a decrease in the exploitation and oppression in the program?”

 The Philippines is the largest source for live-in caregivers in Canada, with nearly 6,000 caregivers arriving between January and September 2011.

As far as integrating these groups into the community, Beba Svigir, executive director of the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, sees the benefits of permanent residency. Temporary foreign workers are often unable to access the same settlement programs like immigration information, language or employment training that permanent residents can use.  

Svigir adds that employers can do more to help their caregivers network in the community and find resources so that once they finish their employment term, they can make a smooth transition to starting a new career, starting their own household and even bringing family over.

Herrera says she did not know about the open work permits released in December, but could benefit from these resources. For her, this could mean the difference between returning to Colombia or having the chance to start a new life in her adopted country. 



Audio

Peter Showler explains why caregivers are vulnerable to abuse.
What is permanent residency?

Benefits of being a permanent resident

Unlike a temporary foreign worker, permanent residents have most of the same rights as Canadian citizens.

Permanent residents can:

  • benefit from social services like health coverage
  • live, work and study anywhere in the country
  • apply for Canadian citizenship
  • be protected under the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms


Permanent residents cannot:

  • vote
  • apply for jobs with high security clearances
  • remain in Canada if they are convicted of a crime and told to leave
The challenges of being a caregiver

While Angelica Herrera says her experience with employers has been mostly positive, there are still fundamental challenges that caregivers face.

Capital News asked Peter Showler, a law professor and director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa and Beba Svigir, executive director of the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association to outline some of them.

Power imbalance
The Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is considered to be employer-driven. In other words, it is the employer who holds most of the power due to the isolated and the vulnerable nature of the caregiver’s position. Caregivers are often afraid to complain if there is abuse or exploitation because the employer could threaten to send them home. Not only that, but because caregivers don’t have a network for help, they often do not know where to turn.
 
Contract breaking
The most common complaint from caregivers is that their employer is not abiding by their contract, such as making the caregivers work longer hours than agreed upon or not paying a fair wage.

Isolation
Isolation comes in various forms. Physically caregivers are isolated because most of their time is spent in the home. They can also feel isolated from their ethnic community because of their location or because of the long hours. It can also be emotionally exhausting to not be able to leave the home and to be away from their families.

Lack of resources
Temporary foreign workers do not have access to the same settlement services that permanent residents do, such as immigration information, family law, language or employment classes.

Integration issues
Integration into the community can be difficult once their employment is finished. More often than not, caregivers end up continuing in the same employment because they only have experience in this field in Canada and lack the skills to work elsewhere. Not only that, but since they were often isolated, they don’t have any ties to the community in which they live.