Does Canada" Care" About Migrant Caregivers?: Implications Under the Reformed Caregiver Program

Domestic and caregiving work have been part of the Canadian fabric since our colonial founding and have long represented one of the most easily accessible routes for migration open to women. Until very recently the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) operated as the primary program in Canada facilitating this labour migration. While the LCP has been replaced by the Caregiver Program (CP), it has yet to be determined how these changes will impact migrant caregivers. We suggest that many lessons can be drawn from our knowledge of migrant caregivers’ experiences under the LCP that can help us understand the dynamics of new immigration policies. Using the global care chain framework, we consider here whether Canada’s caregiver migration policy demonstrates a concern for the wellbeing of migrant caregivers as workers, as family members and as citizens. Our analysis suggests that the CP does not adequately address the concerns raised through the global care chain critique. Rather, the CP continues and deepens the trend of using immigration policy to hold people in substandard employment, with very little care for migrant caregivers whether in terms oftheir labour rights, their family relationships or their sense of belonging and citizenship.

Publisher: Canadian Ethnic Studies Association