United Filipinos can make a change in Canada

The former chief of staff of Philippine president Joseph Estrada believes a united Filipino community can be a strong political force in Canada.
Aprodicio Laquian, co-author of the book “Seeking a Better Life Abroad: A Study of Filipinos in Canada”, said there are nearly half a million Filipinos living in Canada today, according to ABS-CBN North America News.
Of that number, 15 have been elected to public office including two in the province of British Columbia.
One of them is Fil-Canadian unionist turned legislator Mable Elmore of British Columbia who recently visited the Philippines to reconnect with her family and dig deeper into the reasons why Filipinos have to migrate to Canada amid exploitative conditions being imposed on migrant workers there.
Canadian-born and raised, Elmore is the first Filipino member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Her mother migrated to Canada in 1965 to work as a nurse before she married Elmore’s Canadian father.
“We have returned to the Philippines as a family several times,” she said in an interview with Bulatlat.com, “We have lots of relatives in Cebu.”
In her 10 years of being active in the labor movement as member of the Canadian Auto Workers and bus driver for a public transit, Elmore has witnessed the harsh realities that most migrant workers have to go through. And because the Philippine government is intensifying the sending of overseas Filipino workers, Elmore said, it seems to be distorting the realities of working abroad.
Despite the glossy image of Canada as one of the places where Filipinos would want to migrate to, poverty and lack of job security are realities her constituents have to contend with. Elmore said they have a very low minimum wage and high poverty rates at British Columbia. That is why her primary goal as member of the Legislative Assembly is to provide affordable housing, raise the minimum wage and support working single mothers.
As a unionist with the Canadian Auto Workers and a former bus driver  Elmore participated in the longest public transport strike in Canada in 2004. The strike was against the privatization of the transport industry. The strike lasted for four months. Elmore said that because of the strike they gained back the portion of the public transport that had already been contracted to private companies.
Among the many forums that Elmore has organized is the First Labor Peace Forum in 2006. She is also a delegate to the British Columbia’s Federation of Labor.
Construction workers and employees in the fast food industry in Canada are usually recruited from the Philippines. Yet, Elmore said most of them have working permits that are tied to their companies making it hard for them to find other jobs.
She said they suspect that some OFWs working in Canada have gone underground, working as TNTs or Tago ng Tago (literally means ‘keep on hiding’) since they would be sent home once they are discovered. As a result, those who go underground have nowhere to turn to and ask for help should they need one. “They do not know what their rights are and they do not have confidence to assert their rights,” Elmore said.
“Many of [these Filipinos] were escaping from politics back home. So they are too engrossed in raising a family, paying the mortgage on the house, getting the children educated and its very difficult for them to enter politics. Politics here is very different from politics in the Philippines,” Laquian said.
A 2006 population census earlier showed that there are 410,700 Filipinos living in Canada, making them the fourth largest minority group in the country for that year.
The census showed that most of the Filipinos in Canada (141,225) are between 25 to 44 years old. The second largest age group of Pinoys living there are between 45 to 64 years old (99,690).
Recently, the Filipino community in Vancouver held a coming-of-age party to welcome a new breed of Filipino Canadian leaders in various sectors of society.
These include university professors, lawyers, hotel executives and artists, among others said ABS-CBN North America News Bureau, Canada.
Statistics Canada or StatCan, the federal government agency producing statistics used in, among others, aiding the formulation of Canada’s policies, released on 8 March 2010 a report projecting a big increase in the number of this country’s resident foreign-borns including Filipinos in the next 20 years.
The report said the visible minorities could comprise the majority of the population in Canada’s major cities such as 63 percent in Toronto, 59 percent in Vancouver and 31 percent in Montréal.
The StatCan report said, “Between now and 2031, the foreign-born population of Canada could increase approximately four times faster than the rest of the population,” reaching between 9.8 million and 12.5 million, amounting to up to 28 percent of the country’s total population.” Canada’s total population now is 33.87 million.
Inquirere.net said in an editorial that what could be seen as encouraging for foreign-borns especially Filipinos were statements from industry players themselves who have been very vocal about the need to hire skilled foreign workers.
Companies were quoted as saying that Canada should give more serious attention to attracting immigrant skilled workers by giving more weight to work experience.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said Canada risks losing out in the global competition for workers, noting that other countries have more efficient immigration-and-labor rules.
The Canadian Construction Association, for its part, said its industry will need to replace 317,000 workers by 2017, including on-site workers, managers, and supervisors. The chamber, however, noted that “it’s easier to get into Canada as a permanent resident with a couple of degrees in Greek pottery or Greek mythology rather than 25 years experience as a welder” because of a policy of point system geared toward people with post-secondary education and with proficiency in Canada’s official languages, while giving very little points or merit for experience or qualifications in a trade.
The chamber further said for such a very difficult task as replacing hundreds of thousands of workers, it needs better and more efficient immigration policies from government.