Stop the Deportation!

STOP THE DEPORTATION
OF FILIPINO LIVE-IN
CAREGIVERS! JUSTICE
FOR MIGRANT AND
UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS!

SIKLAB-Canada stands in solidarity and
calls for justice for all migrant and
undocumented workers! Canada through
its Immigration Ministry has used U.S.-style
enforcement tactics, such as using children
as bait, arresting children in schools, and
targeting community members in public places like on the street, in malls, and at
subway stops. Community groups and organizations are standing up to fight against
these attacks, to fight for access without fear to public services and benefits, and to fight
for a national regularization program for the over 500,000 non-status immigrants living
and working in this country.

We draw inspiration from the millions of undocumented, migrant and immigrant workers
and supporters who rallied in the US last May 1 to protest anti-immigration legislation.
More vigilance is necessary as yesterday, the US Senate passed the Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Act that toughens illegal immigration and border enforcement and
creates a guest-worker program that supplies low-skilled foreign labour. 

In Canada, there are currently almost half a million Filipinos, making them the fourth
largest visible minority group. As migrant and immigrant workers in Canada we have
been facing increasing exploitation and attacks under Canada’s neo-liberal agenda.
The exploitation of overseas Filipino workers has only worsened as imperialist
globalization spurs on the international buying and selling of cheaper and cheaper
Third World labour.

Filipinos in Canada are part of the over 8 million Filipinos living and working outside the
Philippines. With 10% of its people staying or working abroad, the Philippines has been
described as one of the largest migrant nations in the world whose overseas workers
annually remit around 13 billion US dollars to the Philippines – thus propping up
an ailing economy. The anti-people economic policies of the present puppet
Philippine government under President Macapagal Arroyo has led to increasing
Filipino people’s resistance against US imperialism and its puppet regime. Arroyo in
response pushes the Labour Export Policy (LEP) as an attempt to quell growing social
unrest and the national liberation movement.

As a Canadian policy that seeks to fill a labour need with migrant labour, Citizenship
and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
(HRSDC) jointly administer the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).  The LCP is an expression
of the systematic commodification and exploitation of Filipino migrant labour by the
Canadian state.

Canada’s plunder and exploitation of migrant workers only serves the interests of those
who stand to benefit from privatization, the clawing back of social services, and the driving
down of workers’ wages and rights. Instead of implementing a national childcare program that
would benefit working class mothers and families, the Canadian government uses Filipino
live-in caregivers as cheap labour for upper-class families. Instead of providing accessible and
free public health care for all, the Canadian government uses Filipino nurses forced into
domestic work to perform private nursing duties for upper-class elderly and affluent people
who can pay for private care. 

Filipino live-in caregivers are subject to arbitrary and unjust deportation for failure to complete
the requirements of the LCP.  In the majority of cases, the deportations are due to women’s
inability to complete the required 24 months of live-in work within three years of entering
Canada.  The deportation of Filipino live-in caregivers should be viewed as a violation of their
human rights as migrant workers.

Canada still refuses to sign the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Despite this sorry record of violating the human rights of Filipino live-in caregivers and despite
statements that Canada wishes to regularize undocumented immigrants, Canada continues to
expand its temporary foreign workers program or movement. The expansion of Canada’s
recruitment and exploitation of temporary migrant labour should also be seen in the context
of bilateral and multilateral agreements under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), Mode 4 (which seeks to enhance the temporary
movement of workers around the world) and in the context of Canada’s need to compete for
and maintain sources of cheap, docile labour.

Without recognizing their contributions to the Canadian economy, migrant and undocumented
workers are subject to racial discrimination and kept at bottom and low wage jobs, criminalized
and even deported. We are often blamed for the socio-economic crisis that the monopoly
capitalism inflicts on the Canadian people.

Therefore, as overseas Filipino migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, we must stand in
solidarity with other migrant, immigrant, and undocumented workers, as well as Canadian
workers and all oppressed people in a common struggle. We urge all progressive trade unions,
organizations and individuals to stand in solidarity with the issues and struggles of migrant,
immigrant and undocumented workers.

Scrap the racist and anti-woman Live-in Caregiver Program! 
Stop the unjust deportation of Filipino live-in caregivers!
Justice for all migrant and undocumented workers!
Heighten our unity in struggling against imperialist globalization!
Long live international solidarity!

 Statement issued by:

SIKLAB-Canada (Advance and Uphold the Rights and Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers):
From Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Pilipinong Migrante sa Canada (PMSC)-Ottawa

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