Nanny&Me

Originally I thought that using an agency was necessary, so I researched the top 4 nanny agencies that seemed the most credible in Canada. They typically charge one month’s worth of wages as their fee (so about $1,000-1,200), in addition to the $1,000 cost of the LMIA (Labor Market Impact Assessment…don’t worry this will make sense the more you read) and (approx.) $1,000 to fly a nanny to Canada. I found one agency that works with foreign workers that are already here and the rest fly them over. The agencies all seem fairly legit and do guarantee that if the nanny isn’t working out, they’ll replace them, but I couldn’t come to grips with two things: 1) why I was paying someone else to do work that I could do myself (hello…I am on mat leave after all), and 2) there were so many restrictions put in place by the agency that didn’t fit well with how we’d like to welcome the nanny into our home and support them in assimilating with our family and culture, and 3) since I would need to put in the work to do an exhaustive local search first, why pay an agency to do the second half of the work (the foreign search should the domestic search not turn up any candidates). 

Soooo after doing a great deal of research I met with two friends in the area (both with live-in nannies), they both said that using an agency wasn’t necessary. They said conducting a local/domestic search and subsequently applying for the LMIA if your search is unsuccessful isn't really that bad and thus I decided to take on the challenge.