We all know that childcare in Canada is a bit of a joke (at least outside of Quebec). There’s not enough of it, it’s somewhat questionably regulated, and finding a place the parents are comfortable with and that will take you is difficult. And it’s expensive.

I didn’t like the idea of daycare for the Poptart. I didn’t like the idea of her being in a large centre and liked the idea of her being in a private home even less. So I looked into the Live-In Caregiver Program.

In order to deal with a shortage of childcare in Canada (you know, rather than implementing accessible, affordable, quality daycare everywhere) the Canadian government created the Live-in Caregiver Program. This allows families to “import” nannies on 2-year work visa for child care or elder care. At the end of two years, they get permanent residence status, and can fast-track citizenship if they like. The families get a live-in caregiver, provide room and board (deducted from pay, unless you’re in Quebec), and get child/elder care and a bit of cooking and cleaning. The new changes also require employers to provide one-way air flight from the country the nanny is coming from, medical insurance until she is eligible for provincial plans, etc.

The process is confusing and there are at least 3 federal agencies involved. Trying to wade through the steps alone is difficult and time-consuming. So we went to an agency in Ontario. Back when I contacted them, they were operating under Ontario provincial law which didn’t require that they charge the families anything. They were really helpful, knew what they were doing and came highly recommended. They got the process rolling, we made an offer to a candidate, and at the beginning of February, I got an email from the agency asking for proof of address to send to Canadian Immigration. This is late stage and meant her work visa was almost approved.

And then, the federal government changed the laws governing the program, which is fine because honestly: the laws before were lax and probably resulted in a lot of abuse. Now for us, the new laws are not grandfathered and don’t really kick in until April 10 or so.

Now here’s the fun part: when a federal law changes, if there is a corresponding provincial law then the provinces have to bring their laws in line with any new federal law/changes thereto (in other words, a federal law supersedes a provincial law).

After sending proof of address, I kind of hunkered down and tried to ignore the fact that I have to go back to work. And then it was the beginning of March and I hadn’t heard anything. So I emailed the agency for an update.

The email bounced back.

I went to their website. There was a parking page there.

I called them. Their voicemail was full.

This was a Friday. Over the weekend, I put my Mad Internet Sleuthing Skillz to work and got ahold of them through the owner’s mother who was a fan on their facebook page. Apparently, Ontario had changed their laws and gave them 48 hours to shut down. Apparently there is a letter floating around somewhere that explains fully what happened, but I’m not holding my breath to get it.

Side note: How difficult is it to send an email to your database explaining or putting up a page on your website about what clients should do? Really.

Anyways, since they’d been above board all the way along and we would be stuck asking grandparents for help (and we’d been doing this for 6 months), we decided we wanted to proceed with our offer. On Sunday afternoon, I emailed the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong, where her visa was being processed, with my predicament.

FYI: if you sponsor an individual and you do not have their contact information you cannot get it from the Consulate processing it. Just sayin’. This is because they are private individuals and under the Privacy Act, they will not release information even if you are the sponsor, unless you have a signed release from the individual (which, when you’re looking for contact information, is redundant). All I could get was that a decision had been made and sent to the applicant. They wouldn’t even tell me what the decision was.

So average people can’t get the information, but apparently Members of Parliament can. So off I went on Monday and within two days had an answer: the visa had been approved (after weeks of waiting for it. I suspect involving my MP helped).

On the Thursday evening (so Friday in Hong Kong) I got a call from the Hong Kong agency and our nanny.

She arrived the evening of March 24th. And she is lovely and the Poptart adores her. She came with us to playgroup yesterday and all of the babies started migrating towards her.

I got to the airport right as her flight arrived. I hadn’t stopped for gas because I was running late and wanted to be there in case immigration needed to talk to me. And then I waited for an hour and a half while she was interrogated and they called my house to confirm. At least Darren was there to answer questions.

Then we went back. It’s about an hour from the airport to my house. I got to the Pitt River bridge and traffic just ground to a halt. The Einsteins finishing up construction closed 3 of 4 lanes on the bridge and it would be at least 45 minutes to get over to the other side.

When my fuel went down to two bars on the gauge, I looped back into Port Coquitlam to get gas. Because running out of gas here would be really, really bad. I phone Darren from the gas station to let him know I’d be later then expected (I had phoned him already about the delay), and he suggested going through Langley and over the Golden Ears. So I did. Back along Mary Hill Bypass, onto the freeway, over the Port Mann, and over the Golden Ears.

25 minutes.

Her flight arrived at 7:30pm. We got home close to midnight and are still recovering from it.

But the Poptart really likes her and she is excellent with babies. I’m clinging to that in hopes it’ll eventually make me feel a bit better about going back to work.