Feature Article Achieving national childcare: A progressive Filipino Canadian women’s perspective by the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario
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he recently reformed Canada’s Caregiver Program, previously called the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), is part of Canada’s long history of recruiting racialized women as indentured and cheap labour from Third World countries to fill Canada’s childcare needs. Since the establishment of Canada as a confederation, and its expansion geographically and economically, childcare has always been in demand and has historically been relegated to women. Filipino Canadian women’s history of migration to Canada has largely been shaped by these labour needs and gendered labour divisions. The 2013 report from Citizenship & Immigration Canada confirms that Filipino women make up 65% of participants coming through the Temporary Work Stream of the Caregiver Program. But their experiences are continuously marked by racism, violence, and exploitation, preserved by Canada’s history of recruiting racialized women from which domestic work programs like the Caregiver Program originate from. During the 1950s, as an economic necessity to fill childcare and domestic labour needs, Canada was forced to reevaluate their racist immigration policies in order to recruit Black women from the Caribbean islands into domestic work. Canada was able to implement a bilateral agreement with Caribbean countries that allowed Canada to establish the West Indian Domestic Scheme in 1955. Many well educated Caribbean women came through this employer sponsored program,
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