On November 1, 2016, Rupaleem Bhuyan (MMP’s principal investigator) and a youth (daughter of a live-in caregiver) addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to speak on the topic of Family Reunification. Each drawing from their experiences, they linked recent changes in immigration policies that have eroded access to family reunification for migrant workers to the hardship faced by many immigrant families. The youth, with support from Esel Palanqui from Thorncliffe Neighborhood Office, gave a moving testimony about her family’s experience of many years of separation and the challenges she faced to obtain permanent residence after her mother, who had completed the Live-In-Caregiver Program, fell ill and passed away from cancer. Based on the MMP’s work, Rupaleem made a number of recommendations to policymakers, including granting caregivers permanent residence upon arrival and swiftly addressing the backlog of permanent residence applications.
Speaking about family sponsorship, Rupaleem endorsed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s plans to repeal conditional permanent residence (CPR), a regulation which currently requires sponsored spouses to live with their sponsor for 2 years. The proposed changes come after the work of advocates to highlight the policy’s impact on increasing the vulnerability of sponsored spouses, particularly women, to multiple forms of violence. Rupaleem also made recommendations to extend an existing exemption in cases of abuse and neglect to other sponsored family members, such as grandparents and children.
Looking ahead to 2017, the MMP research team will continue to work with our community partners to raise awareness around the impacts of upcoming policy changes on immigrant women. These changes include:
- Repeal of the federal Live-in Caregiver Program (suspended since 2014), and its replacement by two pathways to permanent residence for caregivers: the Caring for Children Class and the Caring for People with High Medical Needs Class. More on the announcement here.
- A reduction in the number of caregiver applications accepted from 22,000 in 2016 to 18,000 in 2017, in Canada’s new Immigration Levels Plan.
- Repeal of Conditional Permanent Residence for sponsored spouses to take effect in 2017. Read the draft regulations here.
Read Rupaleem’s statement to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.