A Decade of Migrant Care Workers Programs

Publication Information
Canada’s history of drawing on migrant care workers can be traced over 100 years and during this time thousands of migrant care workers have flowed into Canada on temporary work permits to address the critical need for care work in the country.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has introduced a new pilot program for migrant care workers to start in late 2024 to early 2025. For migrant care workers, these programs provided some hope of pathways to permanency but precarity is still rampant for many awaiting the promise of permanent status in Canada.

The purpose of this report is to outline the inconsistencies and inability for Canada’s initiatives around in-home migrant care work to provide better conditions for such workers. Another contention this report puts forth is the necessity of providing permanency for migrant care workers in order to create structural transformation needed to reduce worker exploitation, abuse, and precarity in Canada.

Given the difficulties many migrant care workers face at their jobs and on their path toward gaining permanency, the newly introduced pilot programs will require key adjustments to guarantee that care workers in Canada can achieve the promise of inclusion while they do meaningful care work that is vital to many households.