SIKLAB-BC (Advance the Rights & Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers and their Families)
Media Release

LOCAL GROUP OF FILIPINO LIVE-IN CAREGIVERS TO STAGE PROTEST WITH POTS AND PANS ON EVE OF GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS

March 20 , 2009

 
(Vancouver, BC) – A local group of Filipino live-in caregivers and their supporters will stage a noise barrage on Saturday, March 21, 2009 at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson Street side) at 12 noon to show their displeasure at not being included in a planned consultation with the Citizenship and Immigration Canada Minister Jason Kenney who is in Vancouver.
 
With the weekend visit of CIC Minister Kenney, SIKLAB-BC (an organization for Filipino migrant workers and their families) and other progressive Filipino organizations are outraged that he has made no effort to consult with the Filipino community, especially Filipino caregivers, who make up more than 96% of all those who enter Canada through the CIC’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).
 
Wearing aprons and armed with other “tools of their trade” (such as brooms, pots and pans), the group hopes to remind Canadians of the presence of Filipino live-in caregivers within the country and gain support for their campaign.  After a cultural performance, the group will hear testimonials and speeches, and then troop to the offices of Citizenship and Immigration Canada on Burrard St.
 
SIKLAB-BC says the protest is timed to mark the eve of cross-Canada consultations on LCP hosted by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (a co-owner of the LCP with Citizenship and Immigration Canada).  In the consultation invitation obtained by the group, HRSDC specifically mentions that in the climate of the current economic crisis, jobs must go to Canadian citizens and permanent residents first.
 
Glecy Duran, Chairperson of SIKLAB – BC, expressed concern about the consultation.  “Not only are we extremely skeptical about whether this consultation will result in any genuine change in the LCP, we are deeply concerned that Canada is using the economic crisis to heighten anti-immigrant sentiment and entrench the exploitation of temporary foreign workers, including live-in caregivers, without doing anything to respect and promote our human rights,” she said.
 
Duran says that the Filipino community is now the third largest visible minority group in Canada, and the top source for migrant labour, surpassing both China and India in terms of temporary workers and immigrants combined.
 
The group would rather see the LCP scrapped as they view it as an anti-woman and racist policy. “Instead of coming here as modern-day slaves, we want the government to allow us to come to Canada as permanent residents with our families and the right to choose our employment.  We also call on Canada to implement a universal childcare program for all women and their families,” Duran added.
 
“We are trapped and rendered invisible inside our employers’ homes.  We toil away in these jobs working long hours and for little pay.  But we feel that it is time to stand up for our fundamental human rights and the dignity of our community and its long-term settlement and integration in Canada by bringing our concerns to the Canadian public through this protest.”
 
A petition to CIC Minister Kenney calling on Canada to scrap the LCP, respect the rights of live-in caregivers and implement a universal childcare program will be circulated at the protest.
 
Since the early 1980s nearly 100,000 Filipino women have come to Canada through the LCP and its predecessor the Foreign Domestic Movement.  The group says that the women are a source of cheap labour, performing childcare, elderly care for those with disabilities and other domestic duties for middle and upper-class families.  They name the LCP as Canada’s ‘de facto’ national childcare program and say that it exists because of the privatization of Canada’s healthcare system.
 
For nearly two decades, Filipino women and the progressive Filipino community have been calling for the scrapping of the LCP because of the documented abuse and human rights violations of the women and their families.  The group says that the LCP has relegated the Filipino community to the margins of Canadian society – continually trapped in low-income jobs and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation – one generation after another.
 
The group’s protest also falls on the International Day for the Elimination of Racism.
 
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