By Michelle Gamage | The Tyee
Canadian home care workers are feeling trepidation but are hopeful.
Last week the federal government released the first details on a new program, kicking off March 31, that will control how and when foreign workers can apply for permanent residency.
Home care workers generally come from overseas to help provide care for seniors, disabled people and youth in their homes. Workers have to meet language and education requirements set by pilot programs that change every five or so years. Previous pilots also set the length of time people had to work in Canada before applying for permanent residency.
The Home Care Worker Immigration pilot is different.
This new pilot will offer a one-step immigration process for workers and their families — basically, workers who meet the requirements will be given permanent residency on arrival.
That’s great news, says Cenen Bagon, a member of the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers’ and Caregivers’ Rights.
“This is what we’ve been really fighting for, for care workers to come in as permanent residents because care work is essential work,” Bagon said. “Care work isn’t temporary work, so why would workers be in temporary working conditions when the work is permanent?”
Automatically offering home care workers permanent residency is something migrant rights groups have been fighting for since the 1980s, she added.
To be eligible to apply for permanent residency under the new program, a caregiver must pass a Canadian Language Benchmark or Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens Level 4 test, have completed the equivalent of a Canadian Grade 12 education, have worked for at least six months as a caregiver and have an offer for a full-time home care job.
But Bagon said care workers still have a number of unanswered questions about the new program.
For example, why is the government requiring home care workers in Canada to have offers of full-time home care jobs if they’ve already worked the required amount of time in the field? she said.
This will trip up many home care workers who have already been living and working in Canada, who completed the six months of work experience and now want to apply for permanent residency. Now they will have to scramble to be able to get a job offer so they can apply for permanent residency, she added.
Two streams for the new pilot
The new pilot will have two streams: workers already in Canada, and applicants not working in Canada.
On March 31, home care workers already working in Canada will be able to apply for permanent residency, according to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website.
People not working in Canada will be able to apply at a “later date.”
“This will allow us to prioritize the transition of home care workers already living and working in Canada, from temporary to permanent residence,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada told The Tyee in an emailed statement.
Bagon said this is a good strategy to address the incredible backlog of care workers who came to Canada through care provider pilots but have not yet been able to apply for status.
A 2016 paper from the Migrant Workers Centre BC, then called the West Coast Domestic Workers’ Association, notes that from 2005 to 2014 an average of 5,540 caregivers got their permanent residency each year, compared with the average 31,859 caregivers who were given work permits each year.
In its email, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said that as of Dec. 31, 2024, there were 36,000 applications still to be processed for caregivers and their families received under the previous Home Child Care Provider and Home Support Worker pilots, which ran from June 2019 to December 2024. These pilots have ended but all of the applications will still be processed.
That captures only the number of people who were able to apply, not the much larger number of people who weren’t, Bagon said.
Each year 2,750 people working in home care and 2,750 working in child support can apply for permanent residency. These numbers are set by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in its email.
Bagon said migrant rights groups are calling for the government to allow an unlimited number of people to apply for permanent residency and for their applications to then enter a queue that would carry over year after year.
Currently, she said, applications open once a year and fill up within hours of opening. Anyone who can’t apply in time has to wait for next year for their next chance to apply.
This leads to exploitation by “unscrupulous immigration consultants” who charge thousands of dollars to file applications on behalf of workers, according to a letter written by Migrant Rights Network and the Landed Status Now Working Group, and sent to Marc Miller, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship. The letter outlined the organizations’ concerns with the pilots and advocated improvements.
The Migrant Rights Network is a migrant-led coalition of 40 organizations in eight provinces, and the Landed Status Now Working Group is composed of all the migrant care worker-led organizations in Canada, including the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers’ and Caregivers’ Rights.
Because pilot projects change every couple of years and there are only a set number of spaces to apply for permanent residency, many home care providers can get caught in a bureaucratic limbo, Bagon said.
Typically a caregiver can apply for permanent residency after two to three years of being in Canada, but there are many workers who get stuck in limbo and have been waiting five to 10 years to be able to apply for permanent residency, she said.
How many workers fall through the cracks is hard to calculate, as caregivers work in people’s homes rather than in more public spaces.
Bagon estimated there may be as many as 10,000 home care workers stuck waiting to apply for permanent residency, though she said that estimate should be taken with a grain of salt.
Supporting workers and their families
Delaying when people can apply for and receive permanent residency has huge consequences, Bagon said.
The policies are isolating, for example, because parents can only apply to bring their families over once they’re given status, she said.
When a parent is given permanent residency, their child has to be 21 years or under to be brought over, which adds to the stress of needing to apply for immigration right away, Bagon said.
“Supporting families is considered essential work in Canada, so why not support the families of those doing the work?” she asked.
Precarious work and an unclear future negatively affect workers’ mental health, Bagon added.
The longer a worker goes without being able to apply for permanent residency, the more chances there are for them to become undocumented, she said.
This pushes them to accept work where they’re paid under the table, which increases an employee’s risk of being abused.
“We want them to be able to work with the same benefits as other workers in Canada and not be exploited,” Bagon said. “It’s very important for employers to realize when they have a happy worker they’ll be a happy employer.”
In its email, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said it is “exploring options to regularize undocumented migrants who have been contributing socially and economically to Canadian communities” and that it “recognizes the vulnerabilities and barriers that a lack of status creates, and that regularization yields economic and social benefits.”
“Some” home care workers without status “may still be eligible for the Home Care Worker Immigration pilots” but “a limited number of spaces will be available,” it continued, adding that more details will be released in the coming weeks.
In the letter sent to Minister Miller, migrants rights groups called for the government to grant permanent residency to all workers who lost status through no fault of their own while they waited to be able to apply for status.
The letter also called for the government to make a permanent policy, rather than implementing pilots that shift requirements and outcomes every couple of years.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not answer directly when asked if it would consider switching the pilot to a permanent policy.
