Wu, a 34-year-old Chinese teacher, and her husband, a computer programmer, were squeaking by on minimum-wage jobs and could not afford to pay $1,200 a month for daycare.
Though the separation was devastating, the couple could see no other way out. They sent their baby daughter to China to be raised by her grandmother, who was already caring for the toddler they had left behind.
"I felt so guilty. This wasnt how my new life was meant to be. I came to Canada to have a better quality of life, not a worse one."
According to social workers in Torontos Chinese community, dozens, even hundreds, of recent Chinese immigrants have sent their infants back to China to spend their early years with relatives. They are separated from their own children due to financial constraints and unaffordable daycare in a country they came to, ironically, because they thought it would be a great place to raise children.
Canadians are, by now, familiar with the heartache Filipino and Caribbean women endure when they leave behind their children to come to Canada as live-in nannies. They end up parenting their offspring via long-distance phone calls and video cameras.
But the phenomenon of Chinese professionals immigrating here, and then sending their children back to China, is a new trend in what global experts call "transnational parenting."
It raises troubling questions about how well Canadas immigration selection model is working and may help explain the recent decrease in immigration applications from China.
"We discovered dozens of professional immigrants from mainland China were doing this because they all asked us how to get passports for their babies," said Florence Wong, a social worker with St. Stephens Community House in Toronto.
In 2002, Wong conducted a study of Chinese immigrants in five prenatal programs. Seventy per cent of the women said they were planning to send their children back to China to be raised by relatives. Social workers dealing with the community in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Toronto, confirmed the trend.
Many Chinese professionals in their 30s came to Canada believing they would find jobs in their fields that pay well, but were forced to accept minimum-wage jobs. With family incomes of $1,000 a month, daycare often wasnt affordable; yet they also did not qualify for subsidies.
"I have met so many immigrant women who want to send their babies back to China as soon as they are three months. I tell them not to do it. It is so hard emotionally," said Faith Wu, an engineer who immigrated from Guangdong province in 2000. "I blame Immigration Canada. Chinese people are losing interest in coming to Canada because of this."
As Chinas economy has surged ahead in recent years, the number of immigration applications to Canada has dropped off dramatically. The number of Chinese applicants decreased to 19,000 in 2006 from a high of 40,000 in 2004, compared with 132,000 applicants last year from India.
Word has travelled back to China the Canadian dream isnt all its cracked up to be, said Sunny Wu. She would do anything to recapture those early years with her children. When she and her husband moved to Toronto in 1999, they were buoyed by their good fortune, dreaming of a new life in a clean, friendly country of wide-open spaces.
They were planning to send for their older daughter once they got settled.
I came to Canada to have a better quality of life, not a worse one.
Canadian wages on the rise
By Sunny Freeman
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Fri, Aug 27 2010
Canadians have been bringing home more money each week than they did during the economic downturn, when jobs and workers´ hours were slashed, but economists warn a return to recession in the United States could derail rising incomes.
Unemployment hits 15-year high in Ontario
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Sat, Jun 6 2009
Overall, Ontario was walloped by a net loss of 60,000 positions, bringing the province´s running tally of employment losses to 234,000 since the labour market peaked last October.
Employment insurance numbers jumped 10% in March
By CBC News
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Tue, May 26 2009
The number of Canadians collecting regular employment insurance benefits grew by 65,300, or more than 10 per cent, in March, marking the biggest monthly increase since the job market began to deteriorate in October.
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Thu, Aug 14 2008
This summer, Americans were paying, on average, $4.09 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline to fuel the vehicles they rely on to get to and from work everyday. This represents an increase of $1.14 over the same time last year.
Immigrant employment rising, StatsCan report says
By Eric Beauchesne, Canwest News Service
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Wed, May 14 2008
OTTAWA - Immigrant employment, seen as a way to offset projected labour shortages, increased sharply last year in Canada, easily outpacing that of native-born workers, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday.
