Nanny&Me

*Updated LICP guidelines requires you to post on the Government of Canada's Job Bank, use 2 or more additional methods of recruitment (job boards, websites, print ads etc) and target underrepresented groups. For more information, visit the government website at: http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/foreign_workers/high_low_wage/low_wage/index.shtml 

In order to sponsor a foreign worker, you need to first demonstrate that you’ve conducted a domestic search for a caregiver. This domestic search should be exhaustive and should include posting your ad to the Canada Job Bank (required) and posting to a minimum of two other sites/media sources like Care.com or Kijiji, or in print media. We posted on the Job Bank, on Kijiji, on local community boards at libraries and recreation centres, via a print posting handed out by a friend's local nanny to her networks, and on care.com. My experience in posting for a domestic worker has been that (as I had been told ahead of time), they don’t really exist. In all of the posting that I’ve done, I’ve received maybe 6 applications (compared to 110 applications in 24 hours that I received posting for sponsorship applicants) who have just not been qualified enough (no childcare experience) for me to consider them. It's pretty understandable why it's difficult to locate a domestic worker since the job pays minimum wage and requires cooking and cleaning in addition to childcare. From what I've read (and been told), most domestic childcare professionals aim for live-out positions that pay 2-4 times the salary and require child minding exclusively. 

When you go to post your job bank ad, you’ll need your business number to get started, and then once you’ve completed the posting, you’ll need to validate your account by sending in your PD7A which is a Statement of Accounts for your business payroll account. This might sound daunting, but guess what??...the good folks at the job bank are just as helpful as the CRA! (lucky us… #GoCanada!) After I completed my online posting, I received a personal phone call from the job bank the next day notifying me that they had received my submission and explaining the account validation to me. They even provided me with the option to either fax in the PD7A or email it in…I picked email because I live in 2014. ;-) …but I think it’s awesome that they provide the fax option for those less internet savvy.

The PD7A is automatically mailed to you by the CRA when you file for your business number. It should take about 10-14 days (from what I read) to get to you. I received a Statement of Accounts for my personal income tax account and submitted that (yes this blog does prove that you can have some hiccups on the learning curve and still do this on your own) so what did the job bank do?...they immediately called me to walk me through it. I figured maybe they just wanted to make sure that my husband and I (having both of our names under the business number filing) didn’t have any outstanding debts with the CRA, but this was an incorrect assumption. In fact, I had submitted the wrong form, but the rep from the job bank was again very helpful, albeit having a little chuckle at my expense (hey I can laugh at myself too), so I called the CRA and they apologetically offered to mail another copy of the PD7A. Once this arrives, it will be easy to validate the account and be off to the races. Quick tip: when I send in the account validation, I'll also change the closing date of the posting (since it needs to be up for 14 days). It’s easiest to specify the closing date once you’ve received the PD7A because you can’t really decipher how long the whole process will take upfront.

Look what finally showed up in the mail!...it's the PD7A :-)

PLEASE NOTE: If you are interested in hiring/sponsoring a caregiver who is already in Canada, then the advertisement requirements of the process are waived. Once you select your candidate, you can move right along to filing the LMIA.

PLEASE NOTE: The above post was written as per application to the program prior to Nov. 30, 2014. Under the new LICP rules, you must post your job ad for 4 weeks (rather than 2).