Toronto, Ontario – March 7, 2011 – Members of the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino Sa Canada–Ontario at York University (UKPC@York) take great pride in the successful launch of its first lecture series, “Exposing Canada’s Neoliberal Agenda: The Context Behind the Commodification and Racialization of Labour in Canada.” Held at York University in Toronto on February 16th, 2011, the public lecture signified that Filipino Canadian youth and students are putting forth the discussion and debate on the impacts of neoliberalism and the need for the just and genuine settlement and integration of racialized communities in Canada. The launch of the lecture series portrayed the unrelenting will of progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students to become future leaders of the movement towards the full participation and entitlement of the Filipino Canadian community.

Through an interactive dialogue with students, campus allies and community members, Emmanuel Sayo, from the Philippines Canada Task Force on Human Rights (PCTFHR – a member organization of the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians) exposed Canada’s neoliberal agenda by sharing its history from the perspective of progressive Filipino Canadians. Through a historical materialist perspective, the lecture traced Canada’s history as white settler state, emphasizing that its expansion necessitated the presence and systemic subjugation of racialized communities to become permanent sources of cheap labour. Contextualized through the experiences of the Filipino Canadian community, Canada’s 3rd largest visible minority group and largest source of live-in caregivers and temporary foreign workers, the lecture provided the foundational knowledge for participants to understand neoliberalism and the context of the commodification and racialization of labor in Canada. Most importantly, its call for the just and genuine settlement and integration for Filipino Canadians is a demand to eradicate the cycle of importing and deporting racialized cheap labour.

As members of the Filipino Canadian community are constantly attacked by Canada’s neoliberal regressive economic policies to become its pool of cheap and dispensable labour, Filipino Canadian youth inherit the poverty and economic marginalization of the entire Filipino Canadian community. “We can no longer ignore the issue of neoliberalism and the intensifying class exploitation we experience as racialized working-class youth in Canada,” says Charie Siddayao, a UKPC@York member and undergraduate student.

The public lecture examined the need to help reclaim the progressive movement in Canada and brought out the need to build genuine solidarity with other progressive groups and individuals in order to end the oppression and exploitation faced by racialized peoples and the working-class.

“As students in the academia, we are often exposed to theories that are not grounded in the lived experiences and realities of the working class in Canada. Therefore it is crucial to apply theory into practice and intensify our community-based activism as progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students. As we have learned from the lecture, Marxist theory strives for the emancipation of the most oppressed and marginalized peoples of society, it is not intended to be purely an academic exercise for a privileged few,” says Ken Santos, a fourth year Political Science student.

Since neoliberal expansion and the systemic subjugation of racialized peoples go hand in hand, progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students assert that the advancement of the struggle for the just and genuine settlement and integration of the Filipino Canadian community will continually expose the neoliberal agenda of globalization. In this process, progressive Filipino Canadians strengthen their resolve to reclaim the progressive movement from the perspective of the working-class. The success of the lecture series undeniably exemplified the commitment of progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students to the struggle for the full entitlement and participation of the working-class and racialized peoples in Canada

UKPC’s lecture series will continue on March 5th, 2011, in its second public lecture “Reclaiming the Revolutionary Road towards Women’s Liberation.” The second public lecture will further deepen the analysis of all progressive individuals to understand that the liberation of all women is fundamental towards genuine social change and transformation.

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For more information, contact:
Aila Comilang
(416) 519-2553
ukpc-on@magkaisacentre.org
www.magkaisacentre.org
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