Caregiver Program Canada

There are two pilots: one covers child care, the other home support. You may qualify if you have the language skills and education the program asks for and the right sort of work background or training behind you.

To be eligible, you must:

• plan to make your life and your work in Canada, outside Quebec
• satisfy the particular conditions of the stream you choose
• bring a solid background of relevant jobs or training
• be admissible to Canada

Admissible means that nothing in your history, certain old immigration problems, for example, stands in the way of your being let into Canada.

Every pilot splits into two streams. Which one suits you comes down mostly to where you live at the moment.

With the Workers in Canada stream, you are allowed to be abroad when you send in your application, on a holiday for instance. You will still have to show that your normal home is in Canada.

Your right to work must come from one of three sources: a work permit that is still valid, maintained status, or a special public policy. Maintained status is what you have when you asked to renew your work permit before it ran out, so your status carries on while the decision is pending.

If none of these gives you the right to work, this stream is usually closed to you, though a public policy can sometimes open it to home care workers who lack status or work permission. For instance, a job done without a work permit does not qualify.

Home care workers who lack status or work permission can sometimes still get into the Workers in Canada stream through a public policy. A policy like this is a special government rule that lets a program welcome people the usual rules would keep out.

To rely on it, every point below must describe you:

• You are in Canada at the time you apply.
• You have no permission to work right now, and you are either a visitor or you hold no temporary resident status at all.
• You entered Canada legally on or before 16 December 2021, and have lived here without a break ever since.
• At some point in those years, you held a work permit.
• Nothing makes you inadmissible except letting your status lapse, holding a job or going to school without permission, or a family member doing either.

You do not qualify if your life in Canada started after 16 December 2021, or if a removal order hangs over you. After you apply under this policy, you and your family may be able to have your temporary resident status restored or extended.

You need to sit a language test and reach Level 4 or higher in each of the four skills, writing, reading, listening, and speaking. English or French are both fine for the test.

Your schooling also has to match a Canadian high school diploma, or go beyond it. If your studies happened outside Canada, an assessment of your education will be needed to show it matches a Canadian high school diploma or more.

Your experience or training has to fall under certain job codes, and the pilot decides which ones. The codes come out of the National Occupational Classification (NOC), the official Canadian list that gives every type of job its own number.

Under the Child Care pilot, the jobs are:

• Home child care providers (code 44100)
• Early childhood educators and assistants (code 42202)

The Home Support pilot covers:

• Home support workers, caregivers and related occupations (code 44101)
• Nurse aides and orderlies, plus patient service associates (code 33102)

A few jobs inside these codes do not count, so checking whether your own job qualifies, before you apply, is worth doing.

A work permit tied to an employer may let you spend a stretch working in Canada in home child care or home support. First, your employer needs a positive labour market impact assessment, which is government approval saying they may hire someone from abroad for that job. After they get it, the work permit is yours to apply for.

You may be able to get this permit if you already hold a valid study or work permit here in Canada. Applying from inside Canada may also work if your job will be in Quebec and you qualify to apply from within the country.

This kind of permit is off the table in these situations:

• You would apply from outside Canada for a job located outside Quebec, in another province or territory.
• You are in Canada just as a visitor.

To help protect your ability to keep working, get your application in to renew your permit or update its conditions ahead of the expiry date. If you asked for a renewal in time, maintained status may be yours, letting you carry on in your role during the wait. You may also be able to begin work for a new employer without sitting around for approval first.

Caregiver files are currently taking about 77 months to process. Inside Canada, renewing a work permit runs about 121 days at the moment. These numbers shift over time, and they are estimates rather than promises about any one case.