Caregivers from abroad play an important role in supporting Canadian families who are unable to find the care they need for a family member in Canada.
The Home Child Care Provider and Home Support Worker pilots were introduced in 2019 to provide a clear, direct pathway to permanent residence for in-home caregivers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great disruption to life in Canada and around the world and has had a detrimental impact on the processing of applications. Significant work is underway to overcome the pandemic-related roadblocks that have interfered with processing caregiver applications and to return to pre-pandemic processing targets.
In April 2021, the Department introduced an ambitious plan for processing applications from caregivers. Applications for nearly 6,000 persons including both caregivers and their family members were finalized by the end of 2021. Over 1,500 eligibility decisions on permanent residence applications under various caregiver programs were also completed. This allowed caregivers to obtain a work permit while waiting for a final decision on their application for permanent residence (for those who do not already have a work permit).
Both caregiver pilots reopened to new applications on January 1, 2022. Since then, the Department has received 2,750 applications under the Home Child Care Provider Pilot and has closed application intake for 2022. The Home Support Worker Pilot continues to be open for new applications in 2022.
Supplementary Messages
Caregiver pilots and processing times
Under the pilots, caregivers with less than two years of eligible work experience in Canada submit both their permanent resident and work permit applications together.
They are assessed for most permanent residence criteria (i.e., education, official language, job offer and admissibility, including medical, criminal and national security) before receiving a three-year occupation-specific open work permit. We aim to process these applications within 12 months, although delays associated with pandemic restrictions, as well as other processing pressures, have meant that this process has been taking longer.
Once an applicant has obtained 24 months of qualifying work experience in Canada, they submit proof to IRCC that they have completed this requirement. Our goal is to process the final component of the permanent residence application within six months of receiving the proof of eligible work experience.
For caregivers who already have two years of eligible work experience in Canada at the time they apply for permanent residence, we also aim to process those applications within 12 months from receipt of application to final decision on permanent residence.
With unprecedented processing challenges in 2020, processing of new pilot applications effectively stopped in March 2020, but resumed in February 2021. Since then, the Department has delivered on an ambitious plan set in April 2021 for processing applications from caregivers.
As part of this plan, IRCC finalized approximately 6,000 permanent residence applications for caregivers and their family members in 2021, nearly meeting the target set for the end of December 2021. IRCC also completed 1,500 eligibility assessments on caregiver applications by August 2021, to facilitate the issuance of work permits for these individuals.
Demand for the caregiver pilots continues to be high. The Department received 2,750 applications under the Home Child Care Provider Pilot in the first few weeks of January and has closed application intake for 2022. The Home Support Worker Pilot continues to be open for new applications in 2022.
IRCC continues to make progress toward processing the existing inventory of caregiver applications. From January 1 to March 31, 2022, the Department welcomed approximately 1,500 new permanent residents to Canada through the caregiver streams.
As of March 31, 2022, the caregiver processing inventory included approximately 20,000 people (including caregivers and their family members) from all caregiver pathways. This does not include applications that have not yet been verified for completeness.
IRCC continues to process applications received under previous caregiver pathways using a “first-in first out” approach, where feasible. This aims to ensure older applications are not disproportionately impacted by longer processing times (a consequence of limited processing capacity during the pandemic). At the same time, the Department is making progress processing applications received under the current pilots.
There are also alternative pathways for care providers seeking to obtain permanent residence. For example, caregivers were eligible to apply under the recent Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway, which was open for applications from May to November 2021 (or until a stream reached its cap).
COVID-19 and Vulnerability
The pandemic has highlighted the unique vulnerability of in-home work that is also often live-in work for caregivers. Concerns related to the dependence on an employer for one’s livelihood and shelter have driven significant program change since 2014.
Ensuring the protection of temporary foreign workers in Canada is a top priority for the Government. While provinces and territories are responsible for labour legislation and workplace protections in their jurisdictions, the Government has tools in place to prevent and respond to situations of workplace abuse (e.g., the Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers), and to help workers exit these situations when they do occur.
The Government has put in place a wide range of special measures during the pandemic to support workers, including those on employer-specific work permits who need to change employers, or for those on maintained status, which in turn can help support their goals for permanent residence.
Hiring caregivers as temporary foreign workers
In June 2019, the Department put in place a refusal-to-process for new employer-specific work permit applications from outside Canada that require a labour market impact assessment in the caregiver occupations. To support the pilots’ goal to secure a clearer path to permanent residence for current and new in-home caregivers, those who hold job offers but have not yet acquired the 24 months of work experience are assessed for permanent residence prior to being issued an occupation-specific open work permit. This does not apply to certain groups of foreign nationals such as those destined to work in Quebec. Foreign national caregivers already in Canada on employer-specific work permits can extend their work permits through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, with some limited exceptions, and apply for permanent residence through the pilots.
The Minister has signed updated Ministerial Instructions related to the refusal-to-process, which come into force on April 23, 2022.Aligned with the Department’s intent to not process work permit applications for caregiver occupations received outside of the caregiver pilots (and therefore with no pathway to permanent residence), these new provisions will ensure visitors in Canada are not able to apply for a work permit in a caregiver occupation. This includes those who may apply through the visitor-to-worker public policy, and foreign nationals who apply for an initial work permit in a caregiver occupation at Canadian ports of entry.
