The plan was to spend a couple of months in Toronto to work on her English. But Letícia, a manufacturing engineering graduate from Minas Gerais, a landlocked southeastern state in Brazil, said something changed her mind during the four-month language course. “I saw life in Canada—the security, the good life that I could have here. And I heard about this program,” said the 31-year-old. “So I decided to look for a family and try for a better life here.” It was 2018, and Letícia would’ve heard of the Caring for Children Pilot. Under the program, foreign workers could come to Canada to work as a caregiver and, after two years, apply for permanent residency. She decided to go for it. When it was introduced in 2014 by the Stephen Harper government, the Caring for Children Pilot—in tandem with another program, Caring for People with High Medical Needs—was designed to replace the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and address its flaws. The LCP, which ran from 1992 to 2014, was rife with exploitation. Migrant caregivers were required to live with the families they worked for; moreover, their work permit was tied to their employers. This made it easy for employers to take advantage of caregivers, by having them work longer hours than specified in their contracts, for example, or by withholding their pay. Conversely, it also made it difficult for caregivers to raise complaints. Between enduring abuse and potentially losing their work permit—which would mean leaving Canada—many caregivers bear the former. Under the Caring for Children Pilot, which lasted for five years until 2019, foreign caregivers were no longer required to live with the families they worked for. Letícia still did, however. The children were aged three, four, and six; on top of looking after them, Letícia was also tasked with other chores around the house. And while the family was nice to her for the most part, there were problems around the payment of her salary. At first, they asked that she pay for her lodging, even though she was living with them. Then they asked that she pay back a portion of her salary as ‘taxes’. Later, when their youngest child started attending daycare, they said she would be working fewer hours—and asked that she return some of the money she was paid. “We often see situations where employers do things like deduct taxes, or pay wages then ask the worker to pay back part of it—those are certainly illegal,” says Amanda Aziz, an immigration and refugee lawyer based in Vancouver, who also works as a part-time staff lawyer with the Migrant Workers Centre. She adds that the living situation makes caregivers particularly vulnerable, as do the requirements for securing permanent residency. “There is a huge power imbalance in this labour context,” Aziz said. “Workers are often fearful to even try to enforce their rights because they are reliant on the work from the employer to be able to qualify for permanent residence.” In June 2019, the open work permit for vulnerable workers was launched to address scenarios like this—it permitted workers with employer-specific work permits (such as caregivers) to seek new work immediately. They can also make a complaint to the Ministry of Labour. But between managing the toll of abuse and keeping their work permit secure, many caregivers are not aware of these options. “Most people who are in these situations don’t know about this,” says immigration lawyer Lou Janssen Dangzalan, of Toronto-based LJD Law Corporation. “And they can’t be faulted for that—all of their mental and emotional bandwidth are focused on their abuse.” It’s also rare for abusive employers to be held accountable. “There is a whole compliance regime that is, in theory, supposed to ensure that employers who don’t abide by good employment practices are no longer eligible to hire workers,” says Aziz. “But in practice, it’s pretty rare for the employers to be facing severe consequences.” On some occasions, Letícia had to work through being sick. While friends encouraged her to look for another family, Letícia was also concerned about losing her opportunity at a permanent residency. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I got depressed. And I was afraid of finding a worse family.” “I kept going because I was thinking of my papers.” One of the LCP’s biggest legacies is the backlog of pending permanent residency applications. In March 2019, the Interim Pathway for Caregivers was implemented to address the backlogs; this permitted caregivers who have gone through the LCP and the Harper pilot programs to apply for permanent residency if they have completed 12 months of full-time work, among other requirements.