Canada-Philippine deal to ensure labor rights

The Philippines Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is targeting to secure better employment opportunities for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during a fresh round of bilateral talks with Canada and China.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III is in Canada this week to prepare for the signing of an accord that primarily aims to ensure that the labor rights of Filipino health-care workers, particularly nurses, are protected.
“This is currently not included in the terms and condition of their [Filipino health-care workers’] contract,” Bello told reporters in Manila.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Bernard P. Olalia said Manila is targeting to sign the bilateral labor agreement (BLA) with Yukon, Canada.
“A joint communiqué [will be signed] to show our intention to do a BLA,” Olalia told the BusinessMirror.
This will be the first BLA that the Philippines will forge with a Canadian territory.
The POEA’s web site showed the country currently has BLAs with the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Colombia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Unlike Canadian provinces, which are created and given sovereignty by the Canadian Constitution, Canadian territories rely on the Canadian federal government for its operations.
Once signed, Bello said the new BLA may also eventually lead to the hiring of more Filipino medical workers.
Based on the POEA’s deployment data from 2015 to 2017, only a few Filipino health-care professionals are employed in Canada.
In 2015, only 10 newly hired Filipino health-care workers were deployed to Canada. The figure dropped to eight in 2016. There were no new hires deployed to Canada in 2017.
As of April 2018, there are a total of 901,218 Filipinos in Canada (or 2.6% of Canada’s national population) who came to the country as temporary foreign workers (TFWs), permanent residents, or naturalized Canadians.
Today, the Philippines continues to be a leading source of immigrants to Canada, followed by India, China, and Iran.
Most Filipinos initially work in Canada as temporary foreign workers, and then apply for a permanent resident status once they get the opportunity.
In 2017 alone, remittances from Filipinos in Canada increased by 12.6% (from USD 572,820,000 in 2016 to USD 644,754,000 in 2017).
Following his trip to Canada, Bello said he will proceed to China to negotiate for another BLA with his Chinese counterpart.
Aside from teachers, he said they will discuss how Beijing and Manila can expand the deployment of OFWs to China.
“We will talk about the possible deployment of additional overseas Filipino workers [to China] like skilled workers and even household service workers,” Bello said.
The labor chief said, however, that the talks will not touch on the state of Chinese nationals, who are working in the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogo).