Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance
SIKLAB (Advance and Uphold the Rights of Overseas Filipino Workers)
Filipino Nurses Support Group
Philippine Women Centre of B.C.
Joint Statement

Filipinos in Canada congratulate indigenous people of Canada for government apology for historic wrongs: Commit to strengthen solidarity with indigenous people in their on-going struggle for genuine justice

June 29, 2008

As overseas Filipino workers, women and youth in Canada, we extend our warmest congratulations to the indigenous families and communities who are bravely confronting the Canadian government for the historic wrongs it has exacted on indigenous people since colonization.

The June 11, 2008 public apology of Prime Minister Harper for the torment and harm done by the residential school system is a significant victory for indigenous communities and the people of Canada. We acknowledge that this apology was certainly preceded by long years of suffering and hard struggle for your families and communities to achieve a public admission of guilt.

We commend your hard-fought struggle in seeking justice. We also stand with you in solidarity in your ongoing struggles. We know that this must be only one long-standing victory in your struggle and that you will continue your efforts to gain concrete actions and accountability of the Canadian government for redress and social justice. The Canadian government continues to refuse to sign the United Nations’ on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, exposing its unwillingness to wholly correct Canada’s racist history and the systemic racism that continues today.

As overseas Filipino workers, women and youth in Canada, we too are struggling for social justice as Canada and its institutions continue to deny its racist history and the forced underdevelopment it is imposing on our community. Because of the worsening social-economic crisis in the Philippines and the Philippine government’s state policy to export its own people to work and live abroad, and because of racist, anti-women and anti-worker immigration programs like the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), our families are also being forcibly separated by government policies.
The LCP is Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s labour program that imports live-in domestic workers, 95% of whom are Filipino women. Through the LCP, parents and children are separated for an average of five years and often more.  They are only allowed to bring their families to Canada once they complete 24 months of work within a 36 month period.  These years of family separation have significant negative long-term effects on families.

After re-unification, many newly-arrived Filipino youth also face personal and systemic racism in Canada. Many drop out of school to work in low-paying jobs.  The harshest impacts of the LCP can be seen in the recent deaths of live-in caregivers like Editha Mangaoang, Jocelyn Dulnuan and Arcelie Laoagan, and the children of former live-in caregivers: Jomar Lanot, Deeward Ponte, and Charle Dalde.

Like your communities, we do not want to wait for decades for Canada to own up for its racist policies the shatter any possibility for our genuine equality and development.

Instead, with your communities’ recent victory, we are inspired to continue to heighten our campaign to scrap the LCP. With your victory, we are motivated to persist in our struggle to realize our community’s aspirations to build communities and societies where people are not forced to leave their homes and families to survive, and where they can achieve genuine equality, freedom and development.

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