Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the late show to answer my hon. colleague's question.
She is right. When she rose on November 21, 2018, she did not get a response from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. In fact, she got a response from the Prime Minister of Canada, who stood in the House and spoke about this government's strong record on enhancing Canada's immigration programming, including our humanitarian streams, our refugee streams and our economic streams.
This government well knows the importance of caregivers to the economic growth of Canada. This government knows that caregivers have been coming to Canada for decades. They help care for the elderly. They help provide special care for those with special needs and in need of special assistance. They help raise children and support families that are working hard each and every day to help Canada's economy grow.
In 2017, our government committed to addressing the backlog that was left to us by the former Harper Conservative government, a backlog of over 9,000 applications in the live-in caregiver program. We have done great work to get rid of that backlog, with over 94% of those applications having been processed. There are now 500 that are still waiting in the queue. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, caregivers can rest assured that we will not stop until that entire backlog is removed.
The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has been maintaining a 12-month processing time for new permanent resident applications from caregivers who were grandfathered into the old live-in caregiver program and has achieved a six-month application processing time in the pilot programs for caring for children and caring for people with high medical needs.
In February, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship addressed the issue of caregivers who were not grandfathered into the live-in caregivers program and who were not going to meet the eligibility criteria of the two pilot programs. He did this by launching a replacement to the live-in caregiver program. He announced an interim pathway for caregivers that opened on March 4, and the window will remain open until June 4. This program offers many caregivers in vulnerable situations an immediate pathway to permanent residency because of reduced education and work experience criteria, compared to the current pilot programs.
As well, given that the caring for children and caring for people with high medical needs pilot programs will expire later this year, our government will launch two new five-year pilot programs for caregivers, one dedicated to home child care providers and another for home support workers.
Similar to what was available under the old live-in caregiver program, these two pilots will provide a more defined transition from temporary to permanent status in Canada. In fact, caregivers will be assessed to ensure that they meet permanent residence criteria before they get a work permit and come to Canada. This means that the only eligibility criteria that in-home caregivers will have to meet when they get to Canada will be the two-year work experience requirement.
I would say that these actions demonstrate how our government is committed to caregivers. We are promising them a defined and assured pathway to permanent residency. Our actions also demonstrate our commitment to the individuals and families in this country who for decades have relied on caregivers coming from afar to help support them and their families so that they can be out in the workforce or re-educating themselves so they can contribute to the economic growth of this country.
We as a government have set out an ambitious three-year levels plan to ensure that we responsibly grow immigration levels across this country. We are doing that in a responsible way, with adequate supports, to make sure that we can take advantage of the economic opportunity that is there.