National statement
February 15, 2012

Toronto, ON – Progressive Filipino Canadian women are once again indignant as another mainstream article from the Toronto Star titled “Shortage of live-in caregivers leads to ‘nanny poaching’” induced dehumanizing, anti-worker, and racist sentiments that normalize the idea that thousands of Filipino women under the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) are cheap and disposable commodities that could easily be acquired and traded. By touting the myth that a shortage of available live-in caregivers are leaving employers and nanny agencies helpless, the mainstream media once again, masks the reality of marginalization, deskilling, and underdevelopment of women from the Global South who are recruited under this program. The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) demands that in lieu of misleading and irresponsible statements, the media must challenge all Canadians to question and unmask the real agenda behind the Canadian government’s failure to provide a genuine solution to implementing a national strategy for childcare and healthcare as requisite to Canada’s genuine development and the successful settlement, integration and full participation of its immigrant communities.

Amidst the consecutive appearance of sensationalized news pieces on the LCP, the NAPWC remains resolute in calling for the scrapping of the LCP along with Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) as modern day slavery programs. NAPWC firmly asserts that the TFWP and LCP are labour programs created by the government to meet the increasing demand of upper and middle-income class Canadians to acquire cheap and dispensable labourers in the absence of a national childcare strategy and deteriorating health care system.

Built upon four repressive fundamental pillars, caregivers under the LCP are required to fulfill their mandatory live-in requirement in two years within 48 months, work only for one employer at a time and have temporary working status—all of which make caregivers vulnerable to all forms of abuse and exploitation. Due to the program’s eligibility requirements, a majority of Filipino women under the LCP are either professional nurses in the Philippines or have a university-level background on healthcare or other professional fields. Though undeniably skilled, the LCP relegates the workers under it into unskilled jobs that often pays them at a rate lower than the minimum wage. Aside from performing childcare, care for the elderly or care for people with disabilities, this program ties its workers to perform additional housework such as cleaning, cooking, walking the dogs, washing the car and other unspecified and often dehumanizing duties that are outside the specifications of the program. Thus, as a response to what one nanny agency stated in the article, women under the LCP leave their employer not because there are simply other employers willing to accept them, but rather as the stringent and exploitative conditions inherent within the program leave them no other choice. Such conditions, including being on-call for 24 hours/7 days a week, clearly show that this is a job that no other Canadian would take.

Contrary to the “shortage” suggested by the article, recent regulatory changes to the LCP have been implemented alongside the program’s current expansion. These band-aid solutions, such as requiring employers to pay for travel and agency fees, did not address the abuses and violations within the program. Since the employer-driven program reflects immigration’s labour-driven trajectory, no amount of regulation and enforcement will ever be effective. As well, the recent issuing of 10,000 open work permits were implemented in light of a hundreds and thousands-long backlog of permanent residency applications. Such changes only continue to deny the Filipino Canadian community their just and genuine settlement and integration as Filipino Canadian women and their families continue to be relegated into a cycle of poverty as Canada’s permanent source of cheap labour even years after completing the program.

Scrap the anti-woman and racist LCP!
Universal childcare and healthcare for all!
Expose and oppose neoliberal policies!
End the exploitation, march for genuine women’s liberation!

-30-

For more information, contact: