Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Filipinos and their Canadian allies in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver concluded a successful national day of protest with rallies and actions last Friday, January 13, 2006 protesting the unjust deportation of live-in caregivers. The national day of protest was coordinated by SIKLAB-Canada, a national alliance of Filipino migrant workers in Canada, to mark the delivery of over 1000 signed petitions calling for a stop to the deportations to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) Minister Joe Volpe at his Toronto campaign office. In Vancouver, REVP Patty Ducharme and members of Labour and community groups attended a rally.

Since April 2004, SIKLAB-Canada has been campaigning for a moratorium on the deportation of live-in caregivers who cannot complete the requirements of the program. In the majority of cases, the deportations are due to the women’s inability to complete the 24 months of live-in work within three years of entering Canada.

The national alliance criticized Canada because it “does not take into account the oppressive working and living conditions of live-in caregivers. Instead, Canada penalizes live-in caregivers with its inhumane implementation of an exploitative and racist policy. Canada must be held accountable to the thousands of live-in caregivers who toil under the LCP.”

“Last year, CIC Minister Volpe promised to review the LCP in order to address the urgent issues arising from the program,” SIKLAB-Canada pointed out in its statement. “To date, there has been no review, only lip service made by an administration adamantly refusing to take responsibility for its own policies.”

In Toronto, SIKLAB members and more than 40 supporters crowded the sidewalk outside the campaign office of Immigration Minister Joe Volpe. Organizers were stopped short of hand-delivering the 1000 petition signatures by several police, who barred the organizers from entering Volpe’s office. “We find it ironic that when marginalized immigrant women want to hand-deliver 1000 petitions we are met with a closed door and police,” commented Yolin Valenzuela. Despite police harassment, the organizers continued their rally. ” If Volpe thinks that this is going to stop us, he’s wrong. We will continue to hound Minister Volpe until he takes responsibility for the office he represents,” vows Valenzuela.

In Montreal a mixed group of over 20 community supporters and members of SIKLAB-Montreal gathered outside the metro station in the heart of the Filipino community as passerbys signed petitions. An information forum was held later in the evening attended by 40 members of the community. “We cannot wait for politicians’ lip service and election-time promises, while families are being destroyed by the inhumanity of the LCP,” says Roderick Carreon, chairperson of SIKLAB-Canada and SIKLAB-Montreal. “We will continue to educate and empower our community around this issue, because families are at stake.”

The national day of protest ended in Vancouver with a vigil rally for those live-in caregivers already unjustly deported from Canada outside the regional headquarters of CIC. Over 80 people gathered, holding candles while listening to representatives from the International League of People’s Struggle, the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, as well as representatives from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Hospital Employees Union call for the scrapping of the Live-In Caregiver Program.

“Racist immigration policies and deportation, and discrimination against working people is a trade union issue,” emphasized Fred Muzin, President of Hospital Employee’s Union, BC during the rally. ” There’s thousands of people who come to this country looking for a better future and they’re treated as thought they are second-class citizens, even though Canada is built on the backs of immigrants,” said Muzin.

Sid Tan, president of the Association of Chinese-Canadian for Equality and Social Justice; Erica Fuchs of Justicia for Migrants; and representatives from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, No One Is Illegal, Grassroots Women, the Filipino Nurses Support Group, the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, and the Iranian Federation of Refugees and the Bus Rider’s Union also joined in the demand to scrap the Live-In Caregiver Program.

As SIKLAB-Canada honored those women who have already been forcibly deported from Canada over the last few years, the Siklab-Canada has vowed to continue calling for an end to the unjust deportations of Filipino live-in caregivers and to scrap the LCP.