Submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

Submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

Scrap the Live-in Caregiver Program and give landed status to caregivers coming to Canada

By National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC)
Submitted: 19 October 2006

I. Introduction

The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC), formed in March 2002, is a national alliance of community organizations of Filipino women in Canada. Through more than 15 years of community organizing, education and advocacy work, our member organizations have raised the voices, experiences and struggles of Filipino women and the community in Canada to address and resist their continuing economic, social and political marginalization and inequality.

Network members of the NAPWC include:

• Philippine Women Centre of B.C.
• Filipino Nurses Support Group
• Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance (Vancouver)
• SIKLAB – Filipino Migrants Group (Vancouver)
• Philippine Women Centre of Manitoba
• Philippine Women Centre of Ontario
• Philippine Canadian Youth Alliance (Ontario)
• SIKLAB – Filipino Migrants Group (Ontario)
• Pilipino Migrante Sa Canada (Ottawa)
• Philippine Women Centre of Quebec
• Kabataang Montreal (Montreal Filipino Youth)
• SIKLAB – Filipino Migrants Group (Quebec)
• Pinay (Montreal)

The NAPWC seeks to empower Filipino women and the community to understand the roots of the barriers they face as migrants, immigrants, women of colour and marginalized workers; and to collectively assert their struggle for their human rights, genuine equality, peace and development.

As a community of migrant and immigrant women, a key part of our work concerns immigration policies. Aside from community-based research into the impact of Canada’s immigration policies on Filipino women and the community, we also conduct education in the Filipino community towards empowerment and engagement in the public policy process. As well, we conduct advocacy and lobbying work for specific policy changes in the immigration field that aim to improve the collective situation for Filipino women and the community in Canada. In the past, we have presented our analysis and position through briefs to this Committee, the Legislative Review Advisory Group (we submitted the only brief on the Live-in Caregiver Program or LCP to this body) and elected government officials and through community-based and academic conferences and public fora. Through the efforts of KAIROS and its network, NAPWC is making its second presentation before this Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

II. The Filipino community in Canada

Since the late 1960s, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of Filipinos in Canada. It is estimated that the Filipinos in Canada now number over 400,000. The community has grown by more than 31% since the Census of 1996. Overall, Filipinos are now the fourth largest visible minority population in Canada. The Census statistics also showed that the Philippines is the third source country of immigrants arriving in Canada in the last 10 years.

Studies show that the majority – approximately 65% — of the Filipino community in Canada is made up of women. Close to one-third of the Filipino community in Canada is made up of livein caregivers who entered Canada under the immigration program called the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and its predecessor program called the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM).

In 2005, and according to statistics from the Canadian embassy in Manila, Filipino women make up 95.6% of live-in caregivers in Canada even as they constitute only 2.2 % of all Filipino domestic workers working outside the Philippines. This large disproportionality of Filipino women in the LCP shows how Canada benefits much from the labour export program of the Philippines and how effective Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program is in providing cheap child care, care for the elderly and people with disability and other domestic work.

III. The Position of Filipino Women in Canada

Until the early part of 1970s, Canada directly recruited many Filipino women to work as teachers and nurses in hospitals and schools experiencing a labour shortage. As such, early Filipino women immigrants were an indispensable part of the growth of the Canadian economy. To illustrate this, many Filipino women worked in remote areas, including many First Nations reserves, because Canadian nurses and teachers would not work there. A large number of Filipino women were also directly recruited to work in Manitoba’s garment industry.

Since the turn of the century, Canada has also been exploiting the cheap labour of poor female migrants as domestic workers. This process began with the arrival of European wo followed by Caribbean women who came in the 1950s. In 1973, a temporary visa system was stablished, rather than have the women enter and remain in Canada illegally (Macklin 1994: 17). Through the struggle of Caribbean women, a more regulated immigration program was created in 1981. The Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) program marked the institutionalization of Canada’s exploitation of women from developing countries to do domestic work. This policy of importing domestic workers is the direct result of women in Canada moving into the work force. When women in industrialized countries leave the home to work, hiring a nanny becomes an affordable option for most middle and upper class families. At the same time, Canada refused to implement a national child-care policy, choosing instead to address the social responsibility of child care by providing this option for families who could afford a live-in caregiver.

The implementation of the FDM perfectly corresponded to the escalation of the Philippine government’s Labour Export Policy. Thus, with the FDM there was “a dramatic rise in Filipina entrants” (Macklin 1994: 21). The LCP replaced the FDM in 1991 and remains the official Canadian government program for live-in caregivers. Although live-in caregivers’ organizations, including Filipino women’s groups, struggled against changes to the program that made it more difficult for women from developing countries to migrate (such as higher educational and training requirements), they also criticized the fundamental pillars of the program perpetuating the exploitation and op pression of these women.
Many Filipino live-in caregivers face long hours, low (or no) wages, physical and emotional abuse, de-skilling, isolation and low self-esteem. Canada, while championing itself as a defender of human rights, ignores the flagrant violation of these women’s rights as workers and as women.

In fact, Canada has failed to sign the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights and Welfare of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

IV. Filipino women and the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP)

Having been seriously sick and bedridden for a long time, Leila Elumbra has been ordered by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to leave the country. A Filipino domestic worker who came to Canada over two years ago under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), Elumbra has not been able to meet the LCP requirement of working for 24 months within 36 months because of her long sickness. She failed to meet the requirement not because she willfully violated it but because of circumstances beyond her control. She did not choose to get sick after working for 22 months – 2 months shy of the LCP requirement.

The case of Elumbra shows how the LCP puts women under this program in a very vulnerable and precarious situation. Having temporary immigrant status and subject to immediate deportation upon non-completion of contract, these women have practically no rights as workers and as women in this country, despite the contributions that they make while working.

There is strong evidence of the failure of the LCP to look at the equality and human rights of these people. There is therefore, the need to critically look at the LCP as a program that brings in women from other countries under temporary status and as cheap labour to take on the work that ordinary Canadians would not ordinarily do.

The program must be scrapped and Canada should let these women come in with landed status so that they can maintain their dignity as people and not be dehumanized because of the failings of the program. These women are productive and immediately contribute to the Canada economy upon their entry.

The Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is a government program that brings in mainly women from the South, to work as live-in caregivers and to care for the young, the elderly and people with disability.
Developed and implemented in 1992, the LCP is the latest development in Canada’s continuing program of recruiting foreign women to work as live-in caregivers since over 100 years ago. There had been various schemes that changed over time such as the Caribbean program which brings in women from the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s, the Temporary Employment Act (TEA) in the 1970s and the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) in 1981. From an ad hoc scheme of bringing in these foreign women to do domestic work, this practice was finally given legislative approval with the LCP becoming part of the Immigration Regulation Protection ACT (IRPA).

The LCP has three fundamental pillars:

1. Mandatory live-in requirement which makes it illegal for a live-in caregiver to live outside the home of her/his employer during the course of the contract.

2. Temporary immigration status for 24 months within a three year period making them vulnerable to immediate deportation upon non-completion within this period.

3. Employer-specific work permit which ties them down to a single employer at any time making them vulnerable to abuse and arbitrary demands by their employer.

Under the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) in 1981, live-in caregivers have generally, only two major types of work: to care for the child and to do light housekeeping. More was added to these two when the LCP replaced the FDM in 1992. Under the LCP, there are now four major areas of work that women under the program are required to do:

1. Child care
2. Care of the elderly
3. Care of people with disability
4. Housekeeping and other household chores

Hence, advocates, such as the Philippine Women Centre of B.C., call the LCP as a program that looks after people “from cradle to grave and from stroller to wheelchair.” They also insist that the LCP answers or privatizes the public demand for universal child care and the growing health care needs of Canadians.
Overall, the marginalized position of the Filipino community in Canada, including the situation of Filipino women, is the context for this brief. Canada has had entrenched and institutionalized programs like the FDM and the LCP for over 20 years, defining the legislated poverty of the Filipino community in Canada.

V. Impacts of the LCP

Since we began researching and advocating for the live-in caregivers, we have seen the economic, political, social and cultural impacts of the LCP on these women and their families:

Some of the economic impacts are:

1. De-skilling. Women lose their skills and their professional knowledge over time as they continue working as domestic workers

2. Non-accreditation and recognition of education and training despite the relatively high level of education and having practiced their profession in the Philippines and other countries.

3. Downward economic mobility as they find difficulty in moving up to other good paying jobs outside the LCP.

4. Their being tied down to a single employer at minimum wage, virtually legislates these women into poverty.

5. Even after they are done with the program, many of these women continuously to be stuck in low-paying “dead-end” jobs having been de-skilled and their past education and training not recognized.

6. Because of lack of economic opportunity and poverty, some of these women have become victims of prostitution and sex-trafficking.

Academics, who had been doing research on Filipino domestic workers and the Filipino community, have come out with the following results on the economic impacts of the LCP:

• Prof. Gerry Pratt, University of British Columbia, 2003:

• These women suffer from long-term downward occupational mobility as they continue to do domestic work as housekeepers and home care workers. (Prof. Gerry Pratt, UBC, 2003)

• Prof. Dan Hiebert, University of British Columbia, 1997:

• Filipino women are more likely than others to be housekeepers and childcare workers.

• Filipino women have highest degree of occupational segmentation by any other group of women.

• Filipino women make 52% of median income of women in Vancouver.

In terms of political impact, our continuing work with these women shows the following:

1. The LCP undermines the general women’s struggle for equality, democracy and human rights.

2. Because of their precarious and uncertain status as temporary workers they could not participate in the political affairs of society thus, further disempowering them and increasing social inequality.

3. The program creates a pool of people (mostly women) whose rights could be easily violated both in the workplace and society at large simply because of their temporary status despite relatively long years of stay in Canada. They are outside the Canadian citizenship circle with all attendant rights and privileges even as they directly contribute to the Canadian economy.

4. There is delay or denial of immigrant or resident status which could lead to deportation due to bureaucratic hurdle and neglect in the timely processing of their status.

5. Because they could not vote, advocacy on their behalf are hardly recognized or given enough attention in political debates. LCP hardly comes in discussions on universal daycare and health care when it is obvious that the LCP and the women under it are directly being used to address these two issues.

6. These women lack the necessary legal aid and support when they encounter problems because of their temporary status and as non-immigrants.

The social impacts of the LCP on these women are as follows:

1. Their non-immigrant status deepens their experience of systemic racism and discrimination because they are not considered part or member of the imagined Canadian community and they are made to feel that way.

2. Their status under the LCP makes many of them uncomplaining in the face of violence against their person because they fear that to complain would negatively impact their future to open residency and eventual citizenship.

3. They continue to suffer long separation because they could not bring in their families under the program. Our study shows that separation, on average, lasts between 5 to 8 years, thus, making these women virtual strangers from their families once they reunite either in the Philippines or in Canada.

4. Many suffer immediate deportation even for minor non-compliance such as failure to make the 24 month live-in within 3 years or for living outside the home even with permission of the employer.

5. Their economic and social marginalization continues to undermine their successful integration and settlement in a multicultural society even after they had already finished with the program.

The cultural impacts of the program on these women are as follows:

1. Even as they become residents and citizens, these women continue to be victims of systemic racism and discrimination. There is still non-recognition of their skills and educational training.

2. Their marginalized position leads to growing social alienation thus impeding smooth transition towards settlement and integration.

3. Individual and collective disempowerment abounds among these women as they continue to feel the impact of the program.

4. The long separation, their economic difficulty and marginalization cause alienation between children and parents and between individuals, families and the larger society.

5. The program reduces if not denies more active participation in civic and community affairs that makes for ideal or good citizenship.

6. If they do make social contributions, the women feel that these are tokenized if not reduced to songs, dances and food all in the name of multiculturalism. Hence, there is hardly any closure to that citizenship divide inherent in the program.

VI. Conclusions and Recommendations:

• Given the above impacts of the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) among these women and our community, NAPWC and its member-organizations reiterate the call for the scrapping of the LCP and its fundamental pillars. We have done extensive lobbying efforts at local, national and international levels by pointing out that the program is fatally flawed as it violates the human rights of Filipino live-in caregivers thereby creating the context for systemic abuse and vulnerability of these women and further stalls their development and increases inequality including economic segregation.

• We urge this committee to seriously look at these impacts and find ways to mitigate them by developing more progressive and positive public policies where these women and the community are consulted for their benefit and general well-being of Canada. In this regard, CIC should support community-based organizations that deliver services and communityempowering programs to these women, their families and the community.

• Promote full access to settlement and integration services such as housing and health for livein caregivers. For instance, women under the LCP who have already applied for family reunification are not allowed to access affordable social housing prior to arrival of their families. This is discriminatory against these women who at this stage of their integration and settlement in Canada, should already have the same rights and opportunities as any other immigrant.

We ask the Standing Committee to look positively at our recommendations. We reiterate that these are based on our community research and findings of scholars and other advocates. We hope that they are positively acted upon to ease the burden on these women and their families and pave the way for faster and easier family reunification, integration and settlement in Canada.