rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/form/cwsignonletter2026?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-form-area-cwsignonletter2026' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> Migrant Rights Network https://actionnetwork.org/groups/migrant-rights-network https://actionnetwork.org//images/generic_facebook.jpg Please enter your information to add your name to this sign-on letter. Only the name of your organization will be shared in the final letter The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A2, Canada pm@pm.gc.ca, justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca The Hon. Marc Miller Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship 229 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6, Canada minister@cic.gc.ca, Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca Re: Migrant healthcare and childcare workers deserve rights and permanent resident status Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Miller, We are organizations that are at the forefront of childcare, healthcare, elderly care work and the gender justice movement in Canada. Today, we are adding our voice to those of migrant care workers who are facing exploitation and exclusion because of unfair immigration rules. Canada needs a federal care strategy that must include permanent resident status for migrant care workers. Many of our members and colleagues are women who came to Canada through the various migrant care worker programs. They are personal support workers, nurses, elderly and child care workers and leaders in our communities today. This includes Order of Canada recipient and former MP Jean Augustine who came to Canada in what was then called the West Indian Domestic Scheme. The Caregiver Programs have long been the only path for racialized women doing care work to come to Canada, and be guaranteed access to equality through permanent residence if they were able to complete a work term of two years or more. These programs were difficult particularly because migrants were tied to employers and unable to leave bad jobs and find alternative employment. But things got significantly worse in 2014, when the previous government turned the permanent caregiver streams into a “pilot” and imposed new unfair requirements. As of 2014, care workers have had to secure a higher language score than is required for citizenship; and have one year of post-secondary education accredited in Canada. As a result, thousands of care workers who had come to Canada expecting to apply for permanent residency were placed in limbo, unable to get permanent residency and be able to live more secure and stable lives. In 2019, the federal government acknowledged that these changes were unjust; and created a slight reprieve through a time-limited six month program that removed the education rules, but not the language ones. Thousands were able to apply. Instead of making these changes permanent, another “pilot” program was created in 2019, with the same unnecessary language and education accreditation requirements. Today, many racialized migrant women in Canada remain unable to apply for permanent residency, even after working here for years, because they cannot get their education accredited or gain a high-language score. The 2019 programs also created an application processing cap thereby excluding many care workers who met all program requirements, leaving them in the backlog. When the program opened for applications on January 1, 2023 it was full for in-country applicants in a matter of hours. Migrant care workers remain in limbo, unable to transition to becoming personal support workers, nurses or teachers or move into other more stable professions. As work permits expire every two or three years; children age; and elderly employers get more sick and in some cases pass away, these women are forced to find another employer-restricted position. Those who cannot do so become undocumented. Many are forced to take more sub-standard jobs, sometimes as healthcare orderlies and aides, or working in residential care facilities through exploitative temporary agencies. They remain separated from their own families for years, even decades, while they care for Canadian families. With the 2019 Home Child Care Provider and Home Support Worker pilot programs (HCCP & HSWP) coming to an end soon, you have the opportunity to fix the last decade of injustice and exclusion. We urge you to implement the recommendations of the Migrant Rights Network: For those care workers in Canada: Create a new Interim Program for permanent residency for care workers currently in Canada without education accreditation and language requirements. Increase the dependent age limit in this Interim Program to allow families to reunite who were excluded through no fault of their own. Issue open work permits within 30 days of application to all care workers who apply for permanent residency from inside Canada so that no one becomes undocumented. End the backlog by removing the processing cap of 2,750, and process PR applications of all care workers in Canada immediately. Immediately grant open work and study permits to family members of care worker applicants for permanent residency to reunite families. Create a comprehensive regularization program to ensure permanent resident status for all care workers that have become undocumented. And create a permanent solution in the future by: Replacing the HCCP and HSWP with a migrant care worker program that allows racialized working class women to come to Canada with permanent resident status and their families. Their full submissions are here: https://migrantrights.ca/cwsubmissions/ .   We will be watching closely to make sure that you do the right thing and act on these demands. [List of Signatories] https://actionnetwork.org/forms/cwsignonletter2026