Toronto Sun nanny article recycles and reinforces anti-immigrant sentiments
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC)
National Statement
January 26, 2011

On January 19th, 2010, a Toronto Sun article titled “Nannies abusing sponsorship programs” promoted anti-immigrant and racist sentiments that inconsiderately fail to see the ongoing marginalization and underdevelopment of thousands of Filipino women under the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). For the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC), a progressive Filipino Canadian women’s organization, this article is yet another irresponsible statement that masks the systemic “loopholes” and weaknesses behind the LCP.

The NAPWC strongly contends that anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric cannot be used to disguise the critical issue of childcare. It is clear that despite the urgent need for a genuine national childcare program that addresses the needs of all Canadians, particularly for working-class and racialized communities, the LCP continues to be promoted and expanded, by the Canadian government, as a cheap alternative to satisfy our growing childcare, healthcare and eldercare needs. The expansion of the Temporary Foreign Workers’ Program (TFWP) and the LCP is a clear testament of the country’s rapid implementation of its neoliberal agenda through the privatization of healthcare and childcare.

While the article claims that employers are being left high and dry by nannies who abuse “the loopholes of getting into Canada,” we acknowledge that such stories are merely distractions from the growing, yet undocumented cases of abuse, trafficking and violence that Filipino women experience under the LCP. On all fronts, it is clear that the recent changes to the program have failed to address its systemic flaws. Despite efforts by the Conservative government to make the LCP more palatable, the rising cases of violence and abuse, exploitative agencies, trafficking, bogus employers and maltreatment perpetuated against Filipino live-in caregivers have not abated, but rather intensified. Simply put, there is no way of regulating a program that is based on modern-day slavery.

For the majority of Filipino women who toil under the LCP, they are instead welcomed into their new homes by barriers such as false employment, exploitative working conditions, family separation and legislated poverty. The fundamental pillars of the LCP force them to fulfill their mandatory live-in requirement in 24 months within 4 years, have temporary status and work only for one employer at a time—all of which sets the context for their vulnerability and exploitation. Although many see and portray the LCP and the TFWP as a way for Filipinos to enter Canada, as the article claims, the NAPWC, once again, reiterate that such programs were not created for immigration purposes.Instead, they were created to fill the labour demands and labour shortage in Canada, since the jobs prescribed under these programs are jobs that no other Canadians would take.

As such, we at the NAPWC remain steadfast in dismantling all recycled attempts at promoting and reinforcing anti-immigrant and racist propaganda. We will oppose the continued attacks on women of colour and its communities and expose what mainstream media fails to address about the existing systemic flaws and hypocrisy of the Canadian government. Together with other racialized and working-class communities in Canada, we will counter the cycle of importing and exporting women from the Third World through the LCP and the TFWP. We will uphold on our call to scrap this sexist and racist LCP and intensify our efforts in exposing and opposing Canada’s neoliberal agenda.

Scrap the anti-woman and racist LCP!
Expose and oppose neoliberal policies!
End the exploitation, march for genuine women’s liberation!

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Organizations under NAPWC:
Philippine Women Centre of BC
Philippine Women Centre of Manitoba
Philippine Women Centre of Ontario
Philippine Women Centre of Quebec

For more information, contact:
Joy C. Sioson
pwc-on@magkaisacentre.org
www.magkaisacentre.org
(416) 519-2553