Vilma Grafil was thrilled when she got a work permit to come to Canada as a foreign caregiver in January 2017.

As she works toward the minimum two years of full-time employment to become eligible for permanent residency, she has noticed the work permit issued to her on arrival in Canada is seven weeks short of the time she would need to meet that requirement.

While the Filipino nanny can still apply to extend her work permit, a new labour market impact assessment must now be obtained to prove she’s not taking away a job from a Canadian, even though she will continue to work for the same GTA family who brought her to Canada in the first place.

This situation has become a hardship for a growing number of foreign caregivers.

Not only is the labour assessment process tedious and time-consuming, say advocates, but few employers are willing to fork out the legal consulting cost and application fees for a second time. (Ottawa has eliminated the $1,000 assessment application fee for families with less than $150,000 in household income or those who require care due to a physical or mental condition.)

“I am so stressed out,” said Grafil, 47, who looks after four children between ages 3 and 10. She and other caregivers in a similar situation fear they won’t be eligible to apply for permanent residency and may have to leave Canada if their employers aren’t willing to pay the new assessment fee.

“I don’t make enough money to pay a recruiter to find another caregiving job, and I have nieces and nephews to support back in the Philippines,” she said.

In 2014, Ottawa eliminated the live-in caregiver program and replaced it with new caregiver pathways, giving caregivers the option not to live with their employers. The then Conservative government also imposed new language and post-secondary education requirements for caregivers applying for permanent residency.

“Advocates have been seeing many caregivers under the new pathways issued work permits that are less than 24 months. Some are a few months shorter while others are just for a few weeks or days,” said Connie Osorio of Kairos Canada, a faith-based umbrella group for justice and human rights.

“It was only these past few months that we started seeing a growing number of caregivers coming forward seeking help.”

Osorio said caregivers and advocates only learned recently that the Immigration Department has started requiring a new labour assessment as a precondition of renewing work permits.

Although some employers agree to shoulder the cost of the application, Osorio said others have asked caregivers to share the fee through a deduction on their salary in instalments, which is illegal under Canadian law. “This situation increases caregivers’ vulnerability,” noted Osorio, adding that the length of the work permit is at the discretion of the front-line immigration officer.

While immigration officials said their latest statistics show only 22 of the 505 work permit extension applications for caregivers processed between Feb. 1 and April 30 were rejected, advocates said they expect to see a shift in those numbers considering the increase in those coming to them for help.

The Immigration Department said caregivers coming to work in Canada are processed under the temporary foreign worker program since the live-in caregiver program was terminated, and they are now subject to the same requirements, including the labour assessment, for a work permit extension.

“Immigration officers consider a number of factors when they determine the length of a work permit, including the duration of the (labour market impact assessment) and expiration date of the foreign national’s passport,” said department spokesperson Nancy Caron.

“The caregiver’s employer needs a new (assessment) for the caregiver to obtain a renewed work permit. This isn’t new.”

However, the rules have taken some caregivers by surprise.

Nir Gepner, a staff lawyer at Willowdale Community Legal Services, said caregivers were issued a two-year work permit under the old live-in program unless their passports were to expire within that time frame. The legal clinic has seen 15 caregivers who were refused a work permit extension because they didn’t have a new labour assessment.

“A main issue here is the inconsistency of Immigration in processing these permits. Many people are processed even without the (assessment), others are refused,” said Gepner. “We try to advise people to be prudent and assume officials would want these documents, even if it is not clearly stated in their policy.”

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Lawyer Deanna Santos, who works with many Filipino clients, said there are no clear guidelines about the requirement for a new labour assessment under the new pathways program, and decisions can be arbitrary.

“The inconsistency is certainly a big problem,” said Santos. “Caregivers could lose the chance to become a permanent resident. They could lose all status in Canada.”

Caregivers and advocates hope Ottawa will restore the old work permit extension process and waive the requirement of a new labour assessment for caregivers already in Canada.