The Caregivers’ Action Centre (CAC) started through conversations over a decade ago. We met in parks and mall food courts. We talked about what it would take to make our lives better. We knew we had to change the laws that govern our workplaces and our immigration status. We knew that we had to build a movement of all migrant caregivers.
CAC is winning improvements in working conditions and migrant rights while building a powerful movement of Care Workers by:
- Building the participation and leadership of Care Workers;
- Amplifying the voice of Care Workers, their families along with other migrant workers; and,
- Building powerful provincial and national campaigns for positive change.
Who are Care Workers?
Since the late 1800s, we’ve been providing in-home care for families. We’ve been called domestic workers, live-in caregivers, nannies and caregivers. We choose to be called Care Workers. We do the necessary work that makes all other work possible.
About Care Work
Care Workers do the important work that allows our society and economy to function. We feed and care for children so that parents can work. We provide the necessary support for the elderly to live out the last chapters of their lives in their homes. We care for people with disabilities to support their independence.
Our domestic work, child rearing, and elder care are all essential needs in the labour market and critical to the well-being of a growing and aging population. We provide care for our employer’s family while we are prevented from caring for our own families here in Canada. We do this work from a position of precariousness that is created by Canada’s immigration and labour laws.
“We should be equally treated and not separated from family. This should be the real Canada spirit! Fairness, justness and respect.”
CAC is building on the work of our foremothers in the migrant care worker movement who have been fighting for justice for all for over a hundred years.
We demand:
- Permanent Residency status upon arrival for caregivers and regularization of status for all those currently working as caregivers under the
- Live-In Caregiver Program and under the two streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
- Decent wages, dignified working conditions, and the right to organize into unions
- Protections from recruitment agencies
- Recognition of and respect for caregiving as real and important work, the work that makes all other work possible
Membership
If you are a current or former Care Worker, join us and become a member.
- It is FREE.
- You join a community of caregivers fighting for change.
- You get free workshops and training on topics such as workplace rights; immigration issues; taxes and Employment Insurance; navigating the caregiver programs; community organizing 101, and more.
- Become part of history and fight for the rights for all caregivers to have Permanent Status upon arrival
- Build your confidence by advocating for social change alongside people in a similar situation to you.
- Raise your voice by getting the chance to speak directly to policy-makers.
- Get support if you are facing problems.
For more information, please feel free to contact us or to visit our join page.
“CAC is our family because we left our family back home. This group makes me strong. It’s important to have a group that stands with you shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”- W.N.
Contact and other details
Contact us at [email protected] or by phone 647-782-6633.