This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Canadian Families are bracing themselves to find out what other improvements the Conservative Government has planned for 2011
2010 a very dark year as Jason Kenney puts huge financial risk on Canadian families struggling to find childcare, elderly and disabled care
73% of Canadian mothers are in the workforce and the Canadian Population is aging dramatically, yet Immigration Minister Jason Kenney who oversees the Live-in Caregiver Program, Canadas de-facto source of caregivers for children, elderly and the disabled, chose to amend the program, putting large financial and emotional burdens on Canadian families who are in desperate need of childcare, elderly and disabled care.
The reason many families choose to hire a foreign caregiver is that they are unable to find somebody already in Canada or a Canadian citizen to fill the position.
However, after paying all the recruitment fees, airfare, and medical insurance etc. which is in the range of thousands of dollars, the foreign caregiver has no legal obligation to work for that family, who has basically given them a free ride into Canada by providing a job offer.
It is well known within the industry that some caregivers simply use Canadian families as a ticket to Canada, without any long term interest in working for them. Now that the Canadian Government has made it even easier for foreign caregivers, e.g. four years instead of three to apply for Permanent residence, it is becoming common knowledge among overseas caregivers that they can easily job hop once they get to Canada. And all of this with a nice big stamp of approval from Jason Kenney and his department as he touts his significant improvements to the LCP.
While eager to take on marriage fraud or crooked ghost consultants who victimize people who dream of immigrating to Canada, the government allows caregivers to victimize families who dream of having reliable permanent care for their children or elderly loved ones.
One could say that, In their quest for personal gain and to gain entry into Canada, the foreign caregiver displays a disregard for Canadian families in desperate need of care for their children or elderly loves ones. When dishonest caregivers lie on their application accepting a job offer fully knowing that they wont genuinely plan to stay with the family and by using naïve families as a stepping stone into Canada, it slows down the immigration system for those caregivers who have sincere intentions of working as a caregiver for the family on the job offer. This undermines the fairness of Canadas immigration system.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada ( CIC ) does not currently follow up to investigate the reason(s) why a caregiver would change employers soon after arriving in Canada, basically allowing foreign caregivers to use taxpaying Canadian families simply as a means of gaining entry into Canada. It order to maintain the integrity of the Immigration system it is highly recommended that CIC set up a system to hold caregivers accountable when changing employers shortly after arrival in Canada. This could be a good indication that the job acceptance was not genuine.
For example, a family in Thunder Bay with four children, the parents work shift work, decides to hire a foreign caregiver as there are no childcare spaces or local caregivers available. The family waits the twelve months of processing time and renovates the caregivers live-in accommodation. The family decides to hire the caregiver through a placement agency, not wanting to hire someone to look after their children and live in their home, off the internet. They need to pay all recruitment fees that are incurred, the caregivers airfare, medical, etc. all of which will be anywhere from $3000- 5000. Two weeks after arriving, the caregiver decides to leave the family and move to the more appealing Toronto area where there are plenty of caregiver jobs available. There is no accountability to CIC whatsoever.
Jason Kenneys response to this scenario, that "a person participating in the LCP program as the employer of a live in caregiver is expected to accept the risks associated "
and "an employee may decide to quit their employment at any time, including before they have started " basically endorses caregivers to use families as a ticket to come to Canada.
It looks like the Canadian Government is penalizing families for being working parents, who in return pay taxes into the Canadian economy. The needs of Canadian families is obviously at the bottom of the Conservatives party priority list as they seem quite comfortable asking families to gamble their money on a much needed caregiver who has no commitment to them in the first place. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Canadians have fewer children. If the Government was more in touch and more supportive with Canadian families, maybe families would reconsider having more children.
As Canada comes out of the recession, many predict a labor crisis looming further down the road. With the vast majority of mothers in the workforce, it would only be logical for the current Government to attempt to support Canadian families, and not force them to risk several thousand dollars on essential needs like hiring a caregiver in order to help raise a family.
The Harper Government is very much out of tune with Canadian families by comparing private families with corporations. A corporations main goal is to turn profit; a family’s main goal is to raise a family. Unlike corporations, many families are unable to even write off these additional costs as their child tax credit is already maxed out by the expenses of the caregiver. Another strike against a hardworking family who ultimately contributes to the Canadian economy.
Jason Kenney says one of his priorities for 2011 is to maintain the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. When it comes to foreign caregivers, he is looking the other way, allowing them to prey on hardworking taxpaying Canadian families in need of childcare, elderly and disabled care.
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There should be gucomment_IDelines in place that protect families against this sort of situation; however, can you force an employee to stay with a specific employer for a certain amount of time?
They are right on! I have several friends who have been screwed by their nannies.
The Government needs to be in touch with families needs.
How about we don`t want any more useless immigrants who take our tax dollars. When us true Canadians arrived in the 1700s, there was none of this welfare state garbage for you to suck dry. Go away. Believe it or not….most of us really don`t want you.
For anyone willing to do their homework, this should come as no surprise. Harper and his ‘Out there’ Christian views would rather have moms staying at home and raising families than at work.
This is also the same government that axed the Liberal childcare program only to replace it with $100 a month – a night at the movies with a family these days. We have two young children and get $200 a month that we do use towards helping offset daycare expenses of $1,600 a month. And what do we get for that? A reassessment by CRA saying that the money is taxable and we now owe $1,300 back to the feds. How does that make sense?
Harper and his policies are completely out of whack but people are more interested in who looks more Prime Ministerial in the polls than taking a look at the actual policies of the party.
I have a very simple solution for the latest nanny fraud! Canadian families would still pay for the nanny to come here. However, if the nanny would not stay a minimum of 2 years with the sponsoring family, they would have to pay the family back the $ 5000, or face no rights to PR after 3 years and/or deportation back. This is a very easy policy to implement. It does not force the nanny to work with the employer. She is still free to move from Thunder Bay to posh Toronto upon arrival to Canada, but now she would need to repay the employer’s money efforts only (we will be generous enough to forget about the time consumed to process the live-in application!). Let’s be serious and not abuse honest hard working families!
The next vicious move by Jason Kenney has happened. 3rd party representation is now only Immigration Consultant or Immigration Lawyers. See bulletin http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2011/ob317.asp
What this means Employers are faced to pay higher fees to not only a Caregiver Agency (finders’ fee) but also a fee to a lawyer or Immigration Consultant if the employer wants 3rd party representation.
The result of this fewer legitimate agencies and more ghost agencies acting as an unpacomment_ID friend to complete the complicated forms. But really these ghost agencies (indivcomment_IDuals) will be pacomment_ID under the table.
Shame on new Jason Kenney for making it even more costly for an Employer to hire a Caregiver.