Over 80 progressive Filipino Canadians from 14 different mass organizations across Canada together with friends and supporters from the United States, strengthened their unity to advance the just and genuine settlement and integration of the Filipino Canadian community at a groundbreaking national conference called Counterspin towards our just and genuine settlement and integration held last April 30 – May 2, 2010 in Montreal, Quebec.

The two and a half day conference was organized by the various progressive Filipino Canadian organizations of the Kapit Bisig Centre in Montreal, Magkaisa Centre in Toronto, and Kalayaan Centre in Vancouver as an educational event to deepen understanding of the history and current situation of Filipino Canadians; to understand the nature of the Canadian state and society and their role in helping shape the Filipino Canadian community’s reality; and to develop action plans for just and genuine settlement and integration in order to achieve full participation and entitlement. The conference was also a continuation of a pioneering project launched three years ago: Filipino Community and Beyond: Towards Full Participation in a Multicultural Society.

As host organization, Kapit Bisig Centre of Montreal opened the conference on the evening of April 30th with reception and arts exhibit and closed the evening with three short films that were produced, directed and performed by Filipino Canadian youth and their organizations in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. All three films expressed the youth’s vibrancy and continued inspiration to educate, organize and mobilize the Filipino Canadian community in the midst of various challenges such as family separation, racism, poverty, deskilling and violence.

On the following day, the conference held panel discussions, fielded questions and shared experiences to deepen understanding of genuine settlement and integration for Filipinos who seek Canada as their final destination in their journey of migration. The morning session shared a brief history of Canada as a “white settler colonial state” whose current political economy continues to be guided by the dynamics of its capital accumulation within the larger context of a neo-liberal global economic system amidst a growing crisis in natural and human environments. It showed a timeline of the organizing work of progressive Filipinos in Canada and their organizations – from their inception and subsequent growth – within the framework of the history of Filipino migration after Canada removed the discriminatory racial provision from its immigration program in 1962. It acknowledged the importance of the three community centres in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal in bringing forward the struggle of Filipino Canadians to settle and integrate in order to achieve full participation and entitlement in Canadian society.

Today, Filipinos have become Canada’s third largest source of immigrants. At the same time, they are also part of that huge transnational Filipino community that seeks permanent home and settlement in their receiving countries even as they continue to maintain certain attachment to the Philippines.

Subsequent panels presented on the Canadian political structure – from federal to provincial and municipal – and how this political structure develops laws and policies such as multiculturalism and immigration that help shape our reality in Canada. Another panel presented a brief about social services in Canada, the challenge of accessing these services and how these are used as “social stabilizers” to maintain the existing political economy and social system under neo-liberal capitalism.

The panel in the afternoon gave an in-depth presentation on “Filipino transnationals” who have grown to around 10% of the Philippine working population. Many of these transnationals are in continuous “circular migration” from one country to another and seek permanent residences outside the Philippines. It looked at migration as life-altering and a journey that may have been “propelled by the need to earn money but the hope is to find life’s completion somewhere in that journey; a home, a community, a society that will value one’s work, a nation where one can make a difference and history,” not necessarily in the country of origin. Thus, the struggle for genuine settlement and integration becomes a primary call for these Filipino transnationals who may go back to the Philippines but for a brief visit or sentimental journey. The panel then tackled the challenge of community organizing based on participatory learning through the process of action, reflection and analysis of action and then, back to action for community and social transformation.

Subsequent panels looked into the issue of doing alliances and united front work with individuals and groups both inside and outside the Filipino community. They shared how the three community centres in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto developed and built linkages over the years that sustained and supported their various efforts at political education and mobilization. The last panel presented on arts and culture as tools for community organizing and mobilization. It emphasized that new art and cultural forms would have to be developed with their content reflecting current reality and challenges facing the community for them to be effective and have lasting impact.

The day’s conference was capped by an enjoyable solidarity evening where participants from various cities, including those from the United States, contributed their talents and skills through different cultural presentations. It was also graced by groups and individuals from other communities who contributed music and spoken words as strong gestures of support for and solidarity with the conference.

On the last day, the conference held an assessment and sharing session. Those who spoke praised the weekend event and accepted the challenge to create and nurture a new path of genuine settlement and integration – a path that would lead to full participation and entitlement in a multi-ethnic and multicultural society within a world that is facing the crisis of neo-liberal globalization and the crisis of environmental degradation and climate change. They decided to bring to their particular territories and organizations the conference declaration with its action plans for deepening and implementation.

The conference announced the formation of the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) as the national centre of various progressive organizations that would lead in the struggle for genuine settlement and integration of Filipino Canadians along the process of supporting the socialist movement in Canada and the global anti-imperialist solidarity movement.

Thus, the conference and the CPFC signify a landmark and a beginning of a new paradigm in our educating, organizing and mobilizing work.

Issued by the Conference Secretariat
May 15, 2010
Montreal, Canada