Canada’s live-in caregiver “ran out of control” and faces significant changes in the “fairly near future,” Employment Minister Jason Kenney has warned.

The minister said the program, which provides cheap nannies abroad, especially from the Philippines is being abused as many of the applicants end up working for relatives and that the program is being used to get permanent residency status in Canada.

“I was in Manila a few years ago to give a seminar on nannies’ rights. … I was there with 70 caregivers who were coming to Canada. None had questions about rights. All 70 of them were going to work for relatives in Canada and all they wanted to know was: what was the penalty for working outside the home illegally, and how long it would take them to sponsor family members,” said Kenney said during an editorial board meeting with the National Post recently.

According to government estimates, two-fifth of the people who have come into Canada on this program had the ulterior motive of family reunification.

Canada’s live-in caregiver program has granted permanent residency to more than 60,000 people between 2008 and 2013. Majority of these people are women from Philippines.

Georgina Cipriano who works as a live-in caregiver for a retired couple said:"I came here December 2013 legally with a legitimate Canadian employer who I'm looking after since then. I'm a registered nurse in the Philippines and worked as an assistant nurse for two years in Norway. I gave up my good-paying job there and came here believing that Canada is a good country for my family and myself.”

"I'm very lucky I got them. I consider myself to be fortunate with these two people whether they are Filipinos or whatever they're nice, goodhearted people. That's what I wanted to," Doris Holdaway, employer of Cipriano.

"In my experience, and we have been a non-profit society since 2006, we have been assisting employers. I have not met too many caregivers who were sponsored by their families. I'm surprised to hear about the abuses especially in Alberta because the laws here are enforced," said Edith Dimaculangan, president and founder of the Filipino Growth for Change.

Live-in caregiver Maricar Apsay said, "I got here in Canada last June 2010. I was from Taiwan. I applied through an agency. When I got here my employer was a Canadian elderly."

They hope upcoming changes to the LICP will not just be based on the alleged abuses Kenney mentioned.

"This will definitely be a disservice to the Canadian moms and children of seniors. The Filipinos are Christian and it is that culture that they are able to provide love and care. It's a natural gift that comes from them," said Dimaculangan.

Cipriano added, "I appeal to the Canadian government to protect the integrity of the legitimate live-in caregivers like myself. They should not make them suffer the consequences of what the abusers of the LIC did.

The nanny crackdown comes on the heels of drastic changes to the Temporary Foreign workers program.

Small business and restaurant owners have said they will suffer and some of them may have to shut down as a result of of the drastic changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The restaurant industry employs 1.1 million Canadians and is the number one source of first-time jobs for young people. About 2 per cent of the industry’s employees are temporary foreign workers. In areas of the country with severe labour shortages, the TFW program is vital, allowing restaurants to remain in business, and to continue to provide jobs for their Canadian employees. 

The changes were made in the wake of a report by the C.D. Howe Institute which was harshly critical of the federal government’s controversial temporary foreign workers program, saying it has spurred a higher unemployment rate in western Canada.

The study says changes to the program made between 2002 and 2013 made it easier for employers to hire temporary foreign workers and consequently contributed to a hike in the joblessness rate in Alberta and B.C.

As well, the report says, Ottawa eased the rules in the absence of any empirical evidence of labour shortages in many occupations.