Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC)
February 19, 2018
Toronto, ON – Recent statistics brought to light in a February 3, 2018 Toronto Star article regarding the impacts of the Caregiver Program reforms made in 2014 have angered thousands as a mere 555 of 2,730 permanent residency (PR) applicants have received permanent status in the last 3 years. The rejection of 80% of the applications is the result of racist and anti-immigrant allegations championed by then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, that the caregiver program was being “abused” by the Filipino Canadian community to bring family members over to Canada. What has historically been an exclusionary program, has become a more viciously sophisticated gatekeeping mechanism that closely control the admission of transnational workers and relegating them as temporary sources of cheap labour. This program and the larger Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) provide the conditions for the many forms of abuses that systematically drive caregivers’ lives into uncertainty, volatility and desperation. With these worsening attacks, the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) stands firm in demanding nothing less than stable, secure and meaningful livelihoods for our communities. The CPFC will continue to uphold the call to scrap the Caregiver Program–formerly known as the Live-in Caregiver Program–and its umbrella Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and condemn “revolving-door” immigration and labour policies that push transnational workers into deeper vulnerability, disposability, and working conditions of hyper-exploitation and oppression.
The latest reforms to the Caregiver Program have made obtaining permanent status more stringent by streamlining workers into two pathways and capping the amount of applicants in each stream with no guarantee of their approval. These pathways — Caring for Children Pathway and the Caring for People with High Medical Needs Pathway — require applicants to complete a minimum of two years of Canadian work experience in the designated occupations of each stream. In addition, applicants must pass the Human Capital Criteria which impose a language proficiency test and academic upgrading to attain a one-year Canadian post-secondary credential. These international student tuition rates costing triple that of domestic student tuition rates, along with the mentioned barriers, first and foremost have already set inaccessible qualification criterias to be an eligible applicant. With only 555 permanent status applications approved in the past 3 years, we can clearly see that this new system further establishes the program toward an even more temporary labour program. This should be seen as a blow to genuine immigration calls our communities have been fighting for throughout the years.
We know well the social and economic impacts of the Live-in/Caregiver Program that has historically led to the deskilling, marginalization, exploitation and oppression of an entire community. The recent statistic shows that this has always been a neoliberal tool intent in serving the profit goal of cheap labour. With no national childcare in Canada, alongside the creeping privatization of healthcare, the caregiver program has become the defacto care solution for children, the elderly and those with high medical needs used by many middle and upper class families. Yet this is only an option for those privileged enough who can afford to employ a nanny. For working class families, affordable options are few, if none at all.
Under the caregiver program, women from the global south bear the burden of the growing healthcare needs of a country as they work under temporary, disposable and extremely exploitable conditions stripped of even the most basic of human and workers rights. These temporary labour programs and policies are built on the gross inequities between “first-world” and “third-world” created by the neoliberal agenda of globalization and has pushed countless transnational workers into working and living conditions nothing short of modern-day slavery in Canada.
In the midst of growing racist and anti-immigrant sentiments worldwide, the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians will continue to struggle for genuine immigration, genuine settlement, and full participation of our communities towards a socialist society. As progressive Filipino Canadians, we have always been critical of all the incarnations of the Caregiver Program and all discussions around improving this modern day slavery program. No negotiations can be made to a program that, at its core, is built to abuse and exploit the labour of women of colour–no amount of reforms can change the nature of an inherently racist, sexist and anti-worker program. We, the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians remain vigilant in our call to scrap the Caregiver Program and uphold the struggle for genuine women’s liberation and the revolutionary path towards social transformation.
Scrap the anti-woman, racist Caregiver Program!
Scrap the Temporary Foreign Worker Program!
Expose and oppose the neoliberal policies!
Genuine Immigration now!
Universal Childcare now!
End the contractualization and flexibilization of labour!
Organizations under the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC):
Philippine Women Centre of BC
Philippine Women Centre of ON
Philippine Women Centre of Quebec
Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada
SIKLAB BC
SIKLAB ON
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For more information contact
The Magkaisa Centre
416-519-2553
pwc-on@magkaisacentre.org