The majority of the respondents described how Canadian embassies in their home countries were helpful in facilitating the process of their immigration to Canada. The only problems in dealing with embassies identified by respondents include: delays in processing the papers, the sheer amount of documentation required, and high processing fees.

I planned to go to Canada probably before we arrived five years. So, uh, and then there’s a kind of little bit problem back where I came from. Like, you know, change of some personnel from the embassy. That’s what they’re telling us. But it took us almost five years just to be in here and then, you know, um, we have to pay for the processing fee and everything for each family member. And of course before that we have to submit a lot of documents, you know, to identify each one of us and for us adults, you know, the education and everything, uh, medical. And we spent a lot of money for that. And then plus the processing fee which, uh, you know, well I think it took us... well we spent around... well how should I say it?... a quarter million just to come here(BC Care Worker 10).

Besides embassies, other formal organizations defined by participants as generally helpful in the process of their immigration to Canada are immigration lawyers and immigrant organizations. According to immigrant care workers, the only drawback of these agents of migration is that they are also very expensive.

The interviews did not suggest that recruitment agencies play a major role in processes of the care worker’s migration to and employment in Canada. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise given the large proportion of our sample which came to Canada as refugees. A few who did rely on recruitment agencies report that having to pay a recruitment agency is a big disadvantage of using this route to employment. Thus, they conclude, it is better to deal directly with human resources to avoid such pitfalls. Overall, the costs of immigrating were particularly noteworthy. As one worker noted emphatically, “if you have the money you can leave.” (BC Care Worker 11)

Some of the respondents (mostly coming from the Philippines and parts of Europe) involved in our study came to Canada through Live-In-Caregiver Program and were directly sponsored by their employers. Although this program was helpful in bringing them into Canada and securing them a job in a new country, these interviewees reveal it is disadvantageous in two main ways. First, it does not allow the applicants to bring their families with them until after the waiting period. Second, it makes them do unnecessary additional training for which they have to pay.

They trick us, you know? ... you can come here in Canada, um, as a live-in caregiver program if you are already a nurse or a teacher or a midwife. But then they still ask me to go for the training. So I enrolled. I was able to have my six months training at the live-in caregiver program because they said that it’s not only [to care for a] patient that you are going into but because you have to do the household work.” (BC Care Worker 14)

Other problems arose when there were difficulties with the LCP sponsors:

I didn’t go through an agency. ... I was direct hired by my employers. But ... after a couple of months ...they had a problem, a problem through the family. They don’t need my service any more so I have to apply agency to look for [a job]. (BC Care Worker 6 )

In some cases, when an internationally trained healthcare worker plans to be employed in a home care setting, he or she is directly sponsored by the employer.

My friends processed my papers because, uh, I had a friend already here and she said I will help you. So my friend helped me and gave my papers to the employer and the employer was the one who processed my paper and no, I don’t have an agency. (BC Care Worker 11)

But in many cases, immigrant care workers found their job through informal networks (i.e.-family, friends, and relatives already living in Canada) mostly by informing them of the sources of employment or by recommending them to prospective employers:

The job in which I am working now, a friend of mine who worked there said that in the place which I am working now ... She said they were looking for a director of care and said ‘Why don’t you talk with the administrator because you are a doctor and according to the regulations of the Hamilton, you can work there as a director of care without a license.’ Yes? Being a doctor, having a medical past or training, I went there and I was hired. (Ontario Care Worker A7)

One exception to the lack of reliance of recruitment agencies was found in Québec by participants who migrated under the Live-in Caregiver Programme. Some cited the use of agencies based in the Philippines, while others used the services of agencies based in Canada. As with respondents in other provinces, they all spoke of the high cost of this service. Unfortunately, some of the respondents had negative experiences with these agencies. Upon their arrival, some found that they had to find their own employers, a task that the agencies had promised to do for them.

So the problem was the immigration called the parents of this family... I mean, the family, they called them and suddenly the old man denied that they were... they didn't sponsor me like ... so immigration, they sent me letters and they said, madam, I'm sorry, your papers were... there were some problems in your papers. Your employer denied that he sponsored you, so I called immediately my agency. I said, what happened? How come... how come you didn't tell me anything about this problem? How come I have to find out with immigration? Not with you. Of course, the first ... if there's some problem the agency will still have to tell me, so I said, how come we didn't know about this? He said, oh, Miss, it's a slight problem. I guess we will fix it. So that's why my papers took like two years, two years for me ... (QUÉBEC Care Worker 5).