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This report elaborates the shift in immigration policy which began unfolding in Canada
from the 2006 expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, culminating in June
2008, with the amendment of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It shows how
this shift has been modeled on some of the weakest elements of the Live-in Caregiver
Program (LCP), the longest standing immigration program offering temporary migrant
workers the possibility of permanent residency. Presenting figures never calculated
before on the LCP – estimated retention rates, or a measure of the success of the
Program in retaining temporary migrant workers as permanent residents – the report
demonstrates that only 50 per cent of migrant live-in caregivers entering Canada from
2003-2005 became permanent residents by 2007. Calculated yearly for the period, 2003-
2007, the estimated retention rate falls to 28 per cent by 2005. It is thus argued that the
shift from permanent residency to temporary migration as a basis for the immigration
system will not lead to building citizenship and labour supply in Canada. It is further
argued that this is due to the inordinate amount of power granted by government to
employers in the migrant worker-employer relationship. Testimonies of temporary
migrant caregivers documented from the 1990s are used to illustrate this power
imbalance. Judging from the pro-employer reorientation of Canada’s immigration
system, federal and provincial governments have not learnt from testimonies presented
by feminist advocates over the past 20 years.