Caregiver Action Centre replies to MP Adler

Caregiver Action Centre replies to MP Adler

We are the Caregivers Action Centre – a group of current and former live-in Caregivers from Philippines, Japan, Latin America and Indonesia – are happy to see Mr Mark Adler accepts that Caregivers are ‘subject to rules that make us vulnerable to abusive work environments’.

We hope that this means that Mr Adler, as well as all other political parties, will soon make a public commitment to permanent immigration status on arrival for Caregivers.

Many Filipinos are children of Caregivers and have an aunt or a cousin in the program. We know that for there to be any real change for Caregivers and other migrant workers, the conversation must begin at permanent immigration status on arrival.

As long as us migrant workers have temporary immigration status, we are vulnerable to abuse. We come here having paid thousands of dollars in recruitment fees, with the hopes of getting permanent residency, and having our families join us. Tied to our employers, we feel little choice but to take bad treatment and abuse from our employers so that we can fulfill the two-year sentence we must first submit to, to get our permanent residency.

Mr Adler says that 90% of all completed Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) have been approved. This is confusing to us because an Access to Information request that has been widely reported shows that according to government data 90% of LMIAs were rejected. Not only that, in a recent community meeting we organized, 10 had their LMIAs rejected.

Perhaps Mr Adler can provide evidence, as well as reassurance, to Caregivers who are now even more afraid of quitting a bad boss, because they feel like they may never be able to get a new job. These LMIA rejections are causing a lot of problems in the community.

We are happy that the government has decided to process applications which they have not for years. This is important. However, a recent Toronto Star article showed that wait times for Caregivers have doubled from January 2014 to January 2015 – from 26 months to 50 months. Many of our Caregiver members continue to be unhappy and frustrated with the long wait times and family separation that comes with this backlog.

We sincerely look forward to Mr Adler producing new information to clear up the confusion. We are sure that the Mr Adler would not willingly lie to Filipinos at this important moment where our votes are important and that he will be committing to making the changes that Caregivers are asking for. We are also certain that Flipino-Canadians will look at the facts, and make up their own minds on who to vote for in this election, and will call upon whoever is in power on October 20th to ensure immigration status on arrival.