New Caregiver Pilot Promises Quick Path to Permanent Residency
On June 3, 2024, Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship made an exciting announcement about the new, enhanced, Caregiver pilot. He expressed that with the increasing reality of the aging population, along with the need to improve the program to better suit the needs of the caregivers, certain enhancements will be made to the pilot program that expires today, June 17th.
The most important change is that caregivers and their families will now have a one-step path to permanent residency. Instead of being issued a work permit and accumulating one year of work experience in Canada, they will now be issued permanent residency upon arrival. This is meant to address the issue of workers who find themselves in abusive employment situations and the difficulty with finding new employment while on a work permit (and trying to meet the work requirement for PR). This can be seen as a major improvement to the Caregiver program, one of which has been fought for by advocates for over 20 years.
Other noticeable changes that we are aware of at this stage, are:
Language: The English or French language requirement has decreased to that of a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 4 – previously a CLB 5 requirement.
Education: The requirement is now that of the equivalence of a Canadian high school diploma – previously a minimum of a one-year post-secondary qualification was required.
Work Experience: Recent and relevant work experience is required, although the exact minimum requirement is not yet known. The difference is that now, instead of the work experience requirement being Canadian experience as it was in the previous pilot, it is now open to foreign work experience.
Job Offer: There must be a legitimate offer of a full-time home care job. Previously, the pilot only accepted job offers from private individuals, whereas now it has been expanded to include organizations that directly employ home care workers. This means that caregivers will now be permitted to work for “organizations that provide temporary or part-time care for people who are semi-independent or recovering from an injury or illness.” This still excludes placement agencies.
Challenges
While the announcement is a welcome change and we are hopeful that it brings about a positive influence on this particular sector of immigration, certain challenges could be identified:
1. How will this impact Canadians employing child or elderly care?
Caregivers will now have PR once their application is approved. The employer often waits for a considerable amount of time, and what’s to say that the new permanent resident will decide to work in another occupation once landed? This pilot program has the innate potential for it to be abused by those who are not intending to work as a caregiver once they arrive in Canada with Permanent Residency in hand.
2. Lengthy Processing Times
A major flaw in the Caregiver programs is the backlog and timelines for processing these applications. It has not been uncommon for these work permits to take one to two years before being issued. This is partly due to the concurrent processing of Permanent Residency which must be approved in principle before issuing a Caregiver work permit. By the time the work permit is issued, the employer no longer requires childcare, or the elderly employer has passed away or moved to a retirement home. This issue, and the current backlog, have not been adequately addressed as yet. With demand increasing as per the 2024 – 2026 Immigration Levels Plan where it is expected that over 15,000 foreign caregivers will be required, how will the processing timelines address this demand?
3. Program Caps
The pilot programs have caps for the Home Childcare Provider and Home Support Worker and the competition to get accepted was intense in this first come, first serve scenario. The Home Childcare Provider cap maxed out within minutes of opening, while the Home Support Worker program usually took longer to fill. With the lowering of requirements for these programs, the competition will be only fiercer. We can assume that along with the increasing demand, the caps will be raised, but we do not have further details regarding this at this time.
4. How to find a job offer
Since the programs do not allow for placement agencies to select eligible applicants for these types of positions, the employer and candidate must find alternative methods to pair up. Usually, this is simply by personal knowledge of a foreign caregiver (referral by a family member or friend who knows the caregiver), or word of mouth. Most private households don’t advertise this type of position. This is challenging for an eligible caregiver with no contacts or family in Canada.
That being said, this announcement by the Minister is hopeful, and a step in the right direction for the struggling caregiving industry. The exact details of this enhancement pilot will be provided in the Fall of 2024, with the launch expected to be in January 2025.
Penned by Dianne Olsen, Senior RCIC at ICL Immigration Inc.
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