“Caring is not something that we must will ourselves to do it is something that we always, already do.”
Fiona Robinson
Although caring for others is an essential part of the human experience, the importance of caregiving in Canada has been greatly undervalued and unacknowledged. This has manifested in a variety of inadequate solutions to Canada’s need for caregiving from the Canadian government. Some of these solutions have included, the implementation of immigration policies that bring foreign caregivers (many of whom are women) to Canada. These solutions are influenced by neoliberal ideologies that deals with care in a privatized way, often placing the responsibility of care on women who are positioned lower on the global hierarchy, as seen in the Live in Caregiver Program (LCP).
Canada’s history of attempting to fill the need of caregivers with the migration of domestic workers from abroad has been complicated and often exploitative. Many of these workers are women from poorer countries and are motivated to work as a caregiver in Canada in the hopes of providing for their families and obtaining permanent residency. However, before the Live in Caregiver Program was implemented the right to permanent residency was often unfulfilled, with limited numbers of permanent residency status approved and preferential acceptance towards European caregivers. Further, due to the devaluation of caregiving work in the society these caregivers were often considered to be unskilled, invaluable, and disposable workers leading to unfair and discriminatory treatment.
As a result of the unfair and often exploitive treatment of these workers, they began to unite and through various demonstrations, lobbying, and activism demanded a right to permanent residency and regulations to protect them from unfair treatment. This contributed to the creation of policies that granted these foreign workers the automatic right to permanent residency through the Foreign Domestics Movement in 1981, which was later revised as the Live in Caregiver Program in 1992.
The implementation of the LCP allowed participants to enter Canada as a temporary worker for up to 3 years and granted the participant the eligibility to apply for permanent residency after 24 months of caregiving work (caring for children, elderly, or disabled persons). On the surface this program appeared to be a mutually beneficial situation that would meet the needs for caregiving in Canada and provide an opportunity for individuals from poorer countries to come to Canada and obtain their permanent residency. However, the conditions of the LCP including workers having a temporary status, a live-in requirement, and an employer-specific work permit has made these workers vulnerable to unfair treatment, and exploitative work environments.
Caring for Caregivers 