Angelica Maico arrived from the Philippines in the summer of 2012. She works as a live-in caregiver for the two young children of her sister and her husband. Living with her extended family in east Vancouver, Maico is grateful she has Skype to communicate with her own daughter and son in the Philippines, to whom she sends money. Like the vast majority of the more than 100,000 Filipina women who have come to Canada through the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), Maico, 43, plans to get out of domestic work after the mandated minimum of two years. Missing her Philippines family but enjoying the camaraderie of Vancouver’s musical group, The Singing Nannies, Maico hopes to upgrade her skills as a graphic designer and “start a new life.” She plans to apply after two years for her teen daughter and perhaps her older son to immigrate to Canada. She’s been estranged from her husband for 14 years even though, as she says, “Filipino law does not allow divorce.” Live-in caregivers like Maico have become a feature of Canadian cities. They are often met pushing strollers, babysitting in parks or supporting frail seniors. Whenever the media covers live-in caregivers, the angle usually focuses on their difficult working conditions and separation from faraway families. But many other questions are arising about Canada’s unique Live-in Caregivers Program — including whether too many foreign domestic caregivers are coming to work only for their extended families, whether it leads to poor economic outcomes and whether the LCP has, in the words of an immigration department document, become a “hidden form of family reunification.” Canada tops caregivers’ destination lists Canada is the first choice for many live-in caregivers from the Philippines, which exports 10 million members of its workforce. Hundreds of schools in the Philippines train women and a few men as live-in helpers, particularly to serve as temporary workers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia, the U.S. and the Middle East. But Canada often tops caregivers’ lists as a destination because it’s the only country that offers the privilege of citizenship to domestic workers, more than nine out of 10 of whom in Canada are Filipina women. “The only thing Canada offers is permanent residency. Why else would a caregiver come here? Without it you’d just go somewhere else,” says Lorina Serafico, a former live-in-caregiver from the Philippines who is now a mortgage broker. She co-leads the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights. The main reason Filipino women caregivers are willing to work long hours at low pay in Canada is to gain citizenship and sponsor loved ones to immigrate, says Serafico, 51, and her longtime partner, Julie Diesta, 53, another former caregiver who now works in the health care industry. However, the intense popularity of Canada’s LCP is raising a host of questions — from the federal department of immigration, educational and labour market researchers and migration policy specialists. They want to know if there are better ways to design a program that has roughly 20,000 foreign live-in-caregivers working in Canada at any one time. The numbers working in the field comprise only a fraction of those who have come to the country through the program, since extremely few stick with live-in work.

The LCP has proven so desirable in the 22 years since it began that most of the 625,000 Filipinos now in Canada (112,000 in Metro Vancouver) directly or indirectly trace their arrival to it, Serafico says. “It’s been big.” Despite its popularity among many Canadian Filipino voters, Immigration Canada has posted a document on its website raising questions about the LCP. A major concern in the document, titled Immigration Levels and Mix, is whether the LCP has become a “hidden form of family reunification.” It confirms most domestic workers do not continue as nannies and seniors’ aides after two years, when they can start applying for family members to immigrate. Significantly, adds the document, “Analysis from visa offices processing LCP applications suggests that ... as many as 40 per cent of live-in caregivers come to work for relatives in Canada, raising the question of whether such employment would be available for non-family members.” The department’s online document minimizes a private report from the Canadian consulate in the Philippines, which was obtained under access-to-information legislation by Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland. The report pegs the portion of Filipino caregivers working in Canada for their own relatives at 40 to 70 per cent. Prod Laquian, a UBC professor emeritus who was raised in the Philippines and has written about Asian immigration, wonders about the value of caregivers coming to Canada to live with their own families — and he recognizes “the vast majority try to get out of the LCP as soon as they can,” occasionally to work as live-out helpers, but mostly to pursue careers in the health care industry. All in all, though, Laquian believes the LCP has brought a host of friendly, hard-working English-speaking immigrants to Canada. Even while most caregivers would not qualify to come to Canada under any other category, Laquian believes “it’s good for Canada to have immigrants who come in at the bottom of the ladder.” Still, a range of stakeholders are raising several issues about the LCP. In addition to concerns over the LCP being a hidden form of family reunification, questions are being raised about whether the program contributes to poor educational and workplace performances; subsidizes affluent families; means lowers wages for Canadians; unnecessarily hurts the Philippines and should be replaced with an “au pair” program. Here is a summary of nine debates emerging over the live-in caregivers program: How much does Canada need foreign caregivers who work for their own families? Since 40 to 70 per cent of Filipino caregivers live with their own sponsoring families in Canada, Kurland says it makes it hard to tell whether a family “is pulling a fast one” and the foreign domestic worker is properly trained or “performing their duties.” Kurland is not necessarily against foreign helpers working for relatives, but he joins the immigration department in wondering how many Canadians would actually hire a live-in helper if the overseas person was not in their extended family. Is the LCP a back-door family reunification program? Statistics Canada data shows in any given year Canada grants permanent residency to almost as many dependents of live-in caregivers as to the domestic workers themselves. The backlog for live-in caregivers and dependents seeking permanent residency is three years and contains more than 25,000 people, mostly Filipinos. Still, in 2011 Canada gave permanent residency to more than 11,000 caregivers and their children or spouses; in 2012 the figure was 9,000.

Poor school and workplace performances Numerous studies show the offspring of Filipino immigrants, especially boys, do not perform well in schools across Canada. UBC professor May Farrales has focused on the achievement gap among Filipino students in Vancouver, where they drop out of school more and have lower averages. Researchers place blame on the way Canada’s live-in caregiver program separates children from their mothers. “The average age of separation is from five or six,” says Pratt, “and the average age of reunification is 13 — both tricky ages.” Filipino-Canadians rely more on taxpayers support Filipinos earn less than Canadians in general, according to a York University study, which says the LCP’s “two-step” approach to immigration has “led to poor economic outcomes for those entering through the program, as well as long periods of separation from family.” Those who come to Canada in conjunction with the LCP, says the study, end up on average receiving more taxpayer support than other Canadians. While some believe the family separation dilemma could be eased by giving live-in caregivers and their dependents permanent residency upon arrival in Canada, Kurland says that’s not feasible. It would remove live-in helpers incentive to complete even their two-year stint. Does the LCP subsidize affluent families? The media have run stories about well-off Canadian couples engaging in “nanny poaching” because of reportedly strong competition for live-in caregivers. But, if many caregivers work for their own families and virtually all leave such live-in duties as soon as they can, how intense can demand be? Caregivers “from less developed countries are prepared to work long hours for low wages in order to obtain permanent residency,” says Martin Collacott, a former ambassador to Asia who is spokesman for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform. “In effect, the relatively small number of affluent Canadians who can afford to bring in live-in caregivers from overseas are being underwritten by taxpayers.” Other countries more attractive to domestic workers, except for one thing Most Filipino live-in caregivers would avoid Canada and choose to work in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia or Japan or if it weren’t for the offer of citizenship, say Serafico and Diesta. Live-in helpers earn only $20,000 to $25,000 a year in Canada. And most in Canada, like Maico, have to pay boarding costs of more than $300 a month, as well as pay for their travel costs. In contrast to flights from Canada, a flight from Singapore to the Philippines can cost as little as $79, says Diesta. In addition, families in Asian countries are often required, through international labour agreements, to finance their temporary workers’ frequent trips home to visit family. Are live-in caregivers circumventing immigration screening? Most immigrants to Canada are admitted based on job skills or potential to invest. But live-in caregivers are babysitters, nannies and seniors helpers, which Immigration Canada ranks as low-skill. They are not eligible to get into Canada through regular immigration categories. “Is the LCP really meeting an ongoing labour-market need or simply functioning as a means of immigration to Canada by individuals who wouldn’t otherwise qualify?” asks Collacott, who frequently appears before immigration subcommittees in Ottawa.