º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍø

•Basic English skills at Canadian Language Benchmark Level 4 to understand instructions and have a conversation;

•The equivalent of a Canadian high school diploma;

•Recent and relevant work experience; and

•A full-time home care job offer.

However, while the home care worker immigration program, which the government promised would “improve support” for migrant caregivers, is still awaiting details, recruiters are stepping up to take on applicants to fill the spots, with some promising to connect them with employers.

Advocates fear that predatory agents are going to take advantage of migrants desperate for permanent residence, and the money could be all for naught when the rules are unclear and misinformation abounds.

“The new pilot programs will grant permanent residence status to caregivers on arrival in Canada and allow them to pursue other jobs at any time,” , formerly known as Twitter.

But the Immigration Department is not the only one who has promoted the new home care immigration programs that are meant to address the chronic shortages of caregivers to look after Canadian children and people who need care.

Ever since Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s initial announcement, the department has been silent about the details of the new program other than a terse update quietly posted on its website in January: “The new Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots will open on March 31, 2025. We’ll provide more details shortly.”

Meanwhile, recruitment agents here and abroad have been working hard to advertise the programs to migrants desperate to be in Canada permanently. Some are even promising job offers on social media.

“Who wouldn’t want to be a permanent resident when they arrive in Canada?” asked Jhoey Dulaca, a former caregiver from the Philippines and now an organizer of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, a grassroots advocacy group in Toronto.

“These recruiters are charging $4,000 and $5,000, aside from all the other fees.”

The lack of official information prompted Dulaca’s organization to launch a website recently to help people  amid an information vacuum.

The federal government has made successive reforms to the caregiver programs over the years. It removed the live-in work requirement — which led to exploitation — and it imposed minimum postsecondary education criteria and language tests. Ottawa also put an annual cap on the number of permanent resident applications under the program.

While foreign caregivers welcome the government move to grant them permanent residence upon arrival, Dulaca said Ottawa needs to immediately provide details about eligibility criteria, application procedures, applicable job experience and what documents are required and accepted. Details should not be released only on the opening day.

The concern is echoed by MP Jenny Kwan, the NDP’s immigration critic.

“There are serious concerns over the lack of any word from you on the details of such a program,” Kwan (Vancouver East) wrote in a December letter to Miller. “There is fear that your government could go back on its promise and that the new PR Pathway for Caregivers may not be put in place at all.”

Filipino caregiver Trixy Mapagpala belongs to different caregiver social media groups and gets confused by all the information out there about the new program. So she contacted about 10 immigration consultants in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, but all asked for fees up front, from $3,000 to $4,000, to prepare the applications.

Everyone in the caregiver community is nervous and desperate, she said, and many have paid up because they fear they would be left behind.

“There’s a lot of rumours about the (application) process,” said Mapagpala, 41, who arrived Quebec in 2022 to look after three toddlers and now works in Calgary. “Some people are saying those inside Canada are excluded. I’m just confused.

“I’m making minimum wage and I still need to support my husband, two young children, parents and siblings back home. Even if it costs just $100 or $200, it’s a big deal for me.” 

Under the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan, the Immigration Department said Canada will admit more than 15,000 caregivers as permanent residents. However, it wouldn’t say if there’s a cap on the applications for the new program, or how the targeted 15,000 permanent residence spots will be split between addressing existing caregiver backlogs and the new program. 

Dulaca urges the government not to limit the number of applications it will accept and not to send back the ones received after the cap is reached.

“Allowing all eligible care workers to apply will ensure that no one is excluded from the program simply because they were unable to apply (online) in the first few hours,” she said. “Applications over the annual cap should be kept in the queue for the next year.”

Mapagpala said an application cap is unfair to those who are eligible but can’t secure a spot. It not only means longer family separation, but makes migrant caregivers who are already here more vulnerable to potential exploitation because they need employers to sponsor their work permits.

“I worry, what if I can’t get into the queue because of the cap?” she said. “It’s so stressful.”