The Home Childcare Provider Pilot closes for 2022

The Home Child Care Provider pilot is closed for 2022. The news was announced by IRCC on Monday 17th January, as the cap of 2750 applications has been reached or exceeded. Any applications received after this date and in excess of the cap will be returned to the applicant, and any fees paid will be refunded.

The program will open again on 1st January 2023.

The Home Support Worker pilot remains open, and is currently accepting applications for 2022. IRCC are also accepting 2,750 applications for this program.

The HCCP pilot program was introduced in June 2019 and six months later, COVID-19 began to impact the world. IRCC received a huge number of applications for this program throughout 2020, yet due to the COVID lockdowns were unable to process efficiently. This led to the announcement of a temporary public policy, which is outlined by IRCC as follows:

“This public policy will facilitate the granting of permanent residence for caregivers who applied under the Home Child Care Provider Class or the Home Support Worker Class in 2020, but whose application was not entered into processing due to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

The introduction of this policy demonstrated how in demand home child carers are in Canada, and with a small annual cap of 2,750 it was anticipated the following years would fill up quickly. I’m not sure anybody anticipated the speed of which 2022 would reach its cap.

Full details of the temporary public policy for COVID affected applications can be found at..

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/public-policies/caregivers-permanent-residence.html