My cousin, who is a Canadian citizen, has recently gotten a foreign worker pregnant. She has recently been fired from her job and her work permit is due to expire in October. Baby is due late November- early December. She is not working at this time, and probably will not be able to do so because jobs available here are not suitable for a pregnant woman. They have only been in a steady relationship for two months. My question is......what happens??? Does she get to stay and have baby in Canada? if so, does this grant her citizenship??? Or does she have to go back to the Phillipines to have the baby...and if so will my cousin have any rights??? What are their best steps to take in this situation?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanx.......
Pregnant Foreign Worker
- Thread starter mamacita
- Start date
mamacita said:
Is it possible for them to get married and your cousin initiate a spousal sponsorship? If the baby is born in Canada,the baby will be Canadian citizen but it will not grant Canadian citizenship to the foreign worker.
Since she is not working and does not have an employer to apply to extend her work permit, she would only have the option to apply to change her status to visitor. She should apply for this a month before her work permit expires and include the information that she is in her last trimester of pregnancy and can not travel. Processing her application will likely take around 2 months so by the time they get back to her on that, she may have had the baby already.
The only problem with this is the question if she will keep her health care coverage if she changes her status to visitor. There was another woman on this forum who was a temporary worker with an expiring work permit and was also pregnant. She had talked to EI, Service Canada and the health care in her province and was advised to change her status to visitor and told that she would still keep her EI maternity benefits as well as health care but it may depend on the province. This woman should ask health care about this where she lives. If she ends up without coverage, it could end up being very expensive for them to have the baby in Canada, I have heard $10,000 or so.
Having the baby in Canada will not get her citizenship. Changing her status to visitor is a temporary solution. Eventually she will get sent home unless she finds another job and gets a new work permit or she marries your cousin and he sponsors her for PR.
If she goes back to the Philippines to have the baby there, your cousin can still register the baby for Canadian citizenship. I do not know what rights he would have in the Philippines. He will have to work it out with the mother. If they end up on bad terms, he may have to go to court there to get visitation.
The only problem with this is the question if she will keep her health care coverage if she changes her status to visitor. There was another woman on this forum who was a temporary worker with an expiring work permit and was also pregnant. She had talked to EI, Service Canada and the health care in her province and was advised to change her status to visitor and told that she would still keep her EI maternity benefits as well as health care but it may depend on the province. This woman should ask health care about this where she lives. If she ends up without coverage, it could end up being very expensive for them to have the baby in Canada, I have heard $10,000 or so.
Having the baby in Canada will not get her citizenship. Changing her status to visitor is a temporary solution. Eventually she will get sent home unless she finds another job and gets a new work permit or she marries your cousin and he sponsors her for PR.
If she goes back to the Philippines to have the baby there, your cousin can still register the baby for Canadian citizenship. I do not know what rights he would have in the Philippines. He will have to work it out with the mother. If they end up on bad terms, he may have to go to court there to get visitation.
Thanks Leon. As far as i know, because she was terminated from her job, she is not eligable for EI benifits, but maybe this will not apply to her situation. Also, my cousin has a criminal record for drug charges dating back 10 years that he has not yet been pardoned for. If they do choose to get married, will this affect his ability to sponsor her?
mamacita said:
Is she not eligible for EI benefits because she does not have enough hours or because of something else?
If she doesn't have enough hours, then she has no claim but if she was denied because she's a TFW, well, it used to be that foreign workers were often denied EI for unemployment because they are not able to take the next job that comes along but lately I've heard that many are being approved to. If she was denied for that reason, she should appeal their decision and even though she is not successful with that, she still has the right to EI sickness and maternity benefits.
At http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/sponsor/spouse-apply-who.asp they mention violent crime, offence against a relative and sexual offences as being something that might hinder sponsorship so old drug charges will probably not matter.
Well thats all very good to know. I just know that if you get fired from a job you cannot get regular EI benefits because it is your fault that you lost the job. She did have good reason to be fired....she was not following regulations at a liquor establishment, so it is not a case for human rights. Maybe that does not effect Maternity Benefits...not sure...especially since she was fired 10 months before baby is due. Also, his previous live in girlfriend left him just a month before he has met this girl because he was abusive towards her. No charges were laid and police were never involved, is this something that anyone is goin to take into consideration. I realize this is a strange situation and I do not condone at all the way my cousin has acted in the past. She is fully aware of his past but still chose to pursue a relationship with him, starting before his last girlfriend had even moved out, then chose to become pregnant. Part of me thinks she did this because she was afraid she would have to return home, but I don't know that for sure. But whatever the situation is, there is now an innocent baby involved who is a part of our family, and I just really want this baby to be taken care of and given the life and family it deserves.
At http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/information/misconduct.shtml you can see that she would still get maternity benefits but the problem is, if she was fired 10 months before the baby is due, even if she had enough hours at some point, she may not qualify any more by that time since it depends on how many hours she's worked in the last year. At http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/special.shtml#Maternity3 they say that she can start collecting benefits 8 weeks before her due date and she needs to have 600 hours in the last 52 weeks so if she was working full time, she might still reach 600 hours at the time she can start collecting.
If your cousins ex-girlfriend never pressed charges against him and the police were never involved, how would immigration even be able to take that into consideration?
If your cousins ex-girlfriend never pressed charges against him and the police were never involved, how would immigration even be able to take that into consideration?
I don't know. I am not sure at all how any of this works and I have been told that when it comes to marriages with foreigners that they investigate extensively and will go as far as asking friends and relatives about the character of my cousin. It is very well known what he was like in our town, and I'm just wondering if maybe it would be better for her to try to find somebody else to sponsor her....perhaps his parents.....or would it even make a difference???
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Any input is appreciated. She has now told me that she is in the process of renewing her work permit, but I do not know how much work she will be able to do on account of the pregnancy. I personally do not think it is advisable for her to be serving in a bar while she is pregnant as she spends most of the time working alone and she is living in an isolated town with very few other options. If you have a work permit, do you have to be working a certain amount of hours, or is she able stay here with a work perrmit but while she is not working?
