Canada plans to grant permanent residence to 2,750 home care workers under its new Home Care Worker Immigration Pilot (HCWP).
Of these 2,750 admissions, 150 will be reserved for home care workers currently out of status in the country, according to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, who announced these targets in a press conference on March 8, 2025.
The HCWP includes two streams:
- The Workers in Canada stream (for foreign home care workers applying from inside Canada); and
- The Applicants not working in Canada stream (for foreign home care workers applying from abroad).
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has not announced the admissions allocation for home care workers through the Applicants not working in Canada stream.
Once the HCWP officially opens on 31 March, IRCC will only accept applications through the Workers in Canada stream. Foreign home care workers applying from outside Canada will have the opportunity to apply at a later date, which the immigration department has not yet specified.
At this same press conference, Minister Miller was optimistic about the future of the HCWP, viewing the new pathway as one that the department would like to make permanent based on its performance. The minister further commented on the importance of this program as a “stepping stone to proving to the rest of Canada that regularization works.”
Eligibility requirements for the HCWP
The newly announced HCWP features some of the most accessible eligibility criteria of any permanent residence(PR) pathway in Canada’s immigration system. To be eligible for PR under this pilot, foreign nationals must meet the following conditions.
Work experience
Foreign home care workers must have at least:
- Six months of recent, relevant work experience related to home care work (either in Canada or abroad); OR
- An education credential of at least six months, related to home care training.
Language proficiency
Foreign home care workers must have a level of language proficiency equivalent to:
- a Canadian Langauge Benchmark (CLB) level 4 in English; OR
- a Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens (NCLC) level 4 in French.
Job Offer
Foreign home care workers must have a full-time job offer from either a:
- Private household; OR
- An organization* that directly hires full-time home care workers to provide short-term or occasional care.
*Note that an organization in this case may refer to any of the following organizations:
- Home health care service providers;
- Home care support service providers;
- Direct care agencies;
- Personal care services in residential settings; or
- Pediatric home health care service providers.
Job offers from recruitment and placement agencies are not eligible under the HCWP. A Labour Market Impact Assessment is not needed for a job offer to be eligible under the HCWP.
Further eligibility requirements are expected to be published when the HCWP officially opens on 31 March.
A push for further regularization?
Regularization pathways like the HCWP allow foreign nationals who have lost their status in Canada (via a workor study permit) to regain legal status and even gain PR, allowing them to settle in Canada permanently.
Recent immigration policy updates have pushed for more regularization of temporary residents who are out of status but provide crucial services in Canada.
The most notable update in this regard is the introduction of a new regularization pathway for out-of-status construction workers in Canada. This recently announced pathway will allow up to 6,000 undocumented construction workers to regain legal status in Canada, and apply for PR. Construction has long been a sector where Canada’s labour market demand far outweighs the number of available workers, underlining the importance of these foreign nationals—particularly during the country’s housing supply struggles.
These regularization pathways align with IRCC’sobjectives in three crucial ways:
- They help the department meet its immigrant admissions targets, without adding a new entrant to the population (which adds to affordability and housing pressures in the country);
- They allow temporary residents who work in crucial sectors of the economy to continue to contribute to Canadian society; and
- They help address structural deficits of workers in key sectors of Canada’s economy and society, a problem that often requires immigration measures to fix.
