For immediate release: October 15, 2008

TORONTO,ON – More than 50 members of the Filipino community from Toronto and Montreal gathered on October 11, 2008 to celebrate SIKLAB Canada’s three years of educating, organizing and mobilizing Filipino migrant workers. The event was celebrated with a dinner and a forum on the Live-in Caregiver Program at the OISE building at the University of Toronto. SIKLAB–Canada is a national progressive organization that advances the rights and welfare of Filipino overseas workers.

With the theme, “Sulong Migranteng Pinoy! Towards genuine development, equality and human rights,” the event gathered migrant workers, women and youth to discuss urgent issues facing the community, including the lack of visibility in Canadian society and Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).

“Despite our large numbers, Filipinos in Canada are virtually invisible in the larger society,” says Roderick Carreon, Chairperson of SIKLAB-Canada. “Through our organizing work, we hope to increase our visibility and participation in Canadian society to address the most confronting issues facing our already marginalized community,” stated Carreon.

Carreon also encouraged members of the community to participate in Canadian society, but “participation in the sense that we do not become just vote banks during election times. Our participation should lead to increased visibility and ultimately to our successful settlement and integration in Canada,” he stated.

Filipinos are the third largest visible minority group in Canada, numbering over 500,000. The largest concentration of Filipinos in an urban area is in the Greater Toronto Area, with over 250,000.

The group also had a discussion on the Live in Caregiver Program based on the community’s perspective and the corresponding issues that the community face. According to Manny Sayo, a community researcher and one of the main discussants at the event, “almost half of the total population of the Filipino community in Canada have in one way or another been negatively impacted by the LCP.” He also stated that “the program systematically streams our community to poverty and that the impacts of the program would be felt by the succeeding generations.” Sayo encouraged the youth in the audience to deepen their understanding of the LCP and its impacts through community integration and use that knowledge for the benefit of the community.

The group also used the opportunity to reiterate their call on scrapping, what they call “the racist and anti-woman LCP”. The group is advocating for the abolition of the restrictive requirements of the program and is calling for landed immigrant status once they enter Canada.

The group also listened to inspiring messages from the organization’s Manitoba, Quebec and British Columbia chapters.

With chapters in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba, SIKLAB Canada holds workshops, carries out political campaigns and is involved in various public policy engagement activities. Together with other progressive national organizations such as the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada and Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance – Canada, SIKLAB seeks to end the cycle of poverty and strives to work towards the genuine settlement and integration of the Filipino community in the larger Canadian society and supports the movement for national democracy in the Philippines.

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For more information:

Contact: Yolyn Valenzuela- 647- 262- 2660