Foreign caregivers wait years to call Canada home
2016/01/19 Leave a comment
The human impact on lengthy processing:
Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s website says it currently takes an average of 47 months to process the permanent resident applications of those caregivers in the backlog. The New Delhi office is currently finalizing 80 per cent of its overseas dependant cases in about 40 months, the department said.
Immigration spokesperson Nancy Chan said officials have been “aggressively” trying to bring down the backlog by admitting record numbers of permanent residents.
“At the start of 2014, the backlog of applicants for permanent residence through the LCP stood at about 58,000 people, including principal applicants, as well as their spouses, common-law partners and dependants,” said Chan in an email.
“As of Dec. 3, 2015, the backlog of applicants for permanent residence through the LCP has been reduced to about 38,000 people.”
Under the old program, foreign caregivers were required to complete 24 months, or 3,900 hours, of authorized full-time live-in employment within four years to qualify for permanent resident status.
In Chhabra’s case, Chan said, although she applied for permanent residence in February 2011, the department did not receive all the required paperwork until June 2013.
Ranjit Kaur Grewal, 30, said her application has just passed the 47-month mark, and counting. The fashion design graduate took a six-month course as a personal support worker and came to Canada in 2008 under the caregiver program.
“We come because we believe we can have a better future here,” said Grewal, who applied for permanent residency in December 2011 and married her engineer husband, Shivek Dhillon, the next year through an arranged marriage.
Grewal became pregnant after a trip to visit her husband and gave birth to their daughter, Savreen, in Canada. However, to work and support herself, the young mother, a warehouse packer in Malton, had to take the little girl back to India when she was only seven months old.
“We do miss our family,” Grewal said. “The wait is just so hard on us.”
Many of the caregivers, while waiting for their permanent status and family reunification, don’t really have a life, said Sukhdip Kaur, who has been in the queue for 49 months to get her status and reunite with her husband, Gurpiar Sran, a plumber in Punjab.
The 33-year-old Ottawa woman was recently caught in a late-night robbery while closing the Tim Hortons restaurant where she works as a manager.
“You just get up, go to work, go home, go to bed and start the next day,” said Kaur, who has a master’s degree in history from India and was a teacher. “You are alone and don’t have a life here.”
Source: Foreign caregivers wait years to call Canada home | Toronto Star
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