Live-in Caregivers In Canada and the possibility of Abuse
Being able to work as a live-in caregiver in Canada has been so popular to the whole world that a lot of people are lining in for the job.
It is a very wonderful offer, and with the new rules that took effect since April 2010 that says there are 2 options the person will take for calculating their work experience to be eligible to apply for a permanent residence in either 24-months of full-time employment, or just 3,900 hours of full-time employment.
The new rules also says that the worker should be able to have four years from their date of arrival to complete the employment requirement to be eligible for permanent residence under the program, and they no longer need to take the standard mandatory requirement of taking a second medical exam when applying for a permanent residence. These new rules are very wonderful to the worker and they only need to work for 2-4 years starting from their arrival in Canada to be able to apply and be eligible for permanent residence.
What would be the possible abuses?
Working as a live-in caregiver/nanny in Canada does not require placement fees for workers from abroad. However, some agencies do not totally follow this, and charge high amounts of placement fees on foreign workers applying for a live-in caregiver job in Canada, and landing them in a non-existing job in the country.
Other abuses may also come from the workers themselves. There have been reports from the Association of Caregivers and Nanny Agencies Canada that people, and there are a great number of them are using and abusing the live-in caregiver program to get into the country. This would mean that some workers would be sponsored by a family to work for them in Canada, but once the worker gets into the country, that worker would actually ditch the family sponsoring him.
Other cases tell of people changing families or intentionally doing things that would fire them from the job. And, once that has been done, the person could get a job that is not on the description of the job he applied for in the first place since their work permits can be used to work for anywhere else. Plus, there is also the possibility of abusive employers.
What would the Canadian government do with this problem?
To prevent abuse for live-in caregivers in Canada, the minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, Jason Kenny set up new rules to strengthen the temporary worker program including the live-in caregiver program in Canada But what about the sponsoring families as well as reputable agencies that cannot charge the foreign worker anything for landing them the job, what is their benefit in these new rules?
Well, the best answer to this would be that this program should work in both ways. As the government is helping foreign workers from abuse, in turn, foreign workers should be honest in their jobs and they should treat their employers fairly, as they are given fair treatment from their employers, if there would be abuse, one could always report them.
It’s the trust you give to your fellow human being that is important.