When Jocelyn Godroy left behind her three kids in the Philippines to work abroad as a live-in caregiver, they were 10, 7 and 3.
After working in Hong Kong for four years, she arrived in Toronto in 2008 under Canada’s live-in caregiver program.
Two years later, she applied for permanent residency to reunite with her family as soon as she met the live-in work requirement.
Over the 13-year span working abroad, the former midwife has only managed to visit her children — now 23, 20 and 16 — three times because the money for trips is better spent on her kids’ education and basic needs.
“I’m taking care of others’ children but can’t take care of my own kids, who are living by their own selves,” said Godroy, 43, whose marriage has broken down and whose mother — the care provider of her children — has passed away during her time away from home. “Please put yourself in my shoes as a mother.”
Godroy’s story is not uncommon, especially among the Filipino community, the main source of Canada’s foreign caregiver workforce, said Vilma Pagaduan, a Filipino TV and radio host in Toronto, who herself came to Canada in 2007 under the same program.
“There are a lot of heartache, pain and disappointment,” Pagaduan said. “This is killing families.”
According to the immigration department, there are currently 29,000 foreign caregivers caught up in permanent residency backlog and they wait an average of 53 months to have their applications processed.
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“They are waiting and waiting and waiting. The backlog is astounding,” said MP Jenny Kwan, the NDP opposition immigration critic, at a Toronto news conference on Thursday. The conference was held to urge the Liberal government to put in the resources to process these caregivers’ permanent residence applications.
“The stories of live-in caregivers are heartbreaking and really highlight the devastating impact of these immigration policies on families. If Canadians knew of the injustices and hardships live-in caregivers have to endure, I don’t believe they would find this acceptable.”
All it takes to eradicate the backlog is for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to issue a special order to expedite the processing of the caregivers’ permanent residence applications, said Kwan, herself a mother of two.
“It has to stop. It can stop. It just takes political will,” Kwan said.
Although Ottawa has made the live-in requirement of the caregiver program optional and removed the four-year limit on migrant workers’ work permits, advocate Jesson Reyes said the caregiver program still “smack of indentured servitude.”
“The temporary nature of the caregiver program is what exposes the workers to abuse, mistreatment and the feeling of being a second-class citizen in this country,” said Reyes of Migrante Canada, an umbrella group of 19 organizations across the country that promote the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant workers.
“The demand of ‘good enough to work, good enough to stay’ must be realized in policy implementation by giving caregivers landed (immigrant) status upon arrival.”
Immigration officials said only 11,000 eligible caregivers were granted each year between 2009 and 2013, a level way below the number of applications received. This year, the government has raised the target and hoped to grant permanent resident status to as many as 20,000 caregivers and their family members, noted immigration department spokesperson Nancy Caron.
Godroy said it’s hard to be apart from her children, especially when they are sick. She scrambled to locate her daughters and son for months by phone and social media after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda), the deadliest tropical cyclone on record in the Philippines, flattened her home in Leyte.
“It’s depressing,” she said.
Advocates also urged Ottawa to require only one medical exam for the caregivers, their spouses and children to be done prior to entry to Canada. Many are asked to repeat the costly exams multiple times because results expire while their applications are in process.
