The Doug Ford government’s recent amendments to the current stay-at-home order once again shows how politically disinterested he is in genuinely addressing the current healthcare crisis. We at the Magkaisa Centre demand Doug Ford to stop putting the blame on us — the essential workers and racialized and marginalized communities — for his uselessness and failures. He would rather misdirect the issue to continually obscure the public of his ongoing  band aid solutions. Increasing police authority and power to already heavily policed neighbourhoods, only reinforce the marginalization and racialization of working class communities living and working in  COVID-19 hotspots. Policing does not ease the pressure on our current healthcare system; it does not relieve the stress that healthcare workers are experiencing now. More importantly, the amendments do not address the root cause of the continuing rise of COVID-19 infections among essential workers, their families and in the community. Doug Ford’s continued haphazard response has clearly paved the way to our current dire situation and shows the outright neglect for the needs of essential workers most at risk of [...]

Toronto, ON -- As we commemorate International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we at the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario urgently call on all progressive forces to heighten our resolve in fighting to end racism and violence towards people of colour, most especially women of colour. We reaffirm our unceasing commitment in opposing and exposing all forms of racism at the systemic and surface levels. As progressive Filipino Canadians, we will continue to be steadfast in combating the Canadian state's white settler colonial agenda of normalizing the marginalization, exploitation, precarity and endangerment of Asian-Canadians, Indigenous peoples, Black and racialized communities.  We express our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the murdered victims of the spa shootings that occurred on March 16th in Atlanta, Georgia. As women of Asian ancestry, we condemn the shootings as a vicious racially motivated and gender-based hate crime. Anti-Asian racism has long been part of American and Canadian history. But it is no coincidence that violent attacks on Asian communities have spiked in recent times during the pandemic as former President [...]

On this International Women’s Day, we at the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) strongly affirm the path towards genuine liberation for all women from the perspective of our transnational working class community. Recognizing that at the root of current social crises are regressive state policies in immigration, privatization of healthcare, and temporary labour programs like Canada's Caregiver program. As such we call on all to join our fight against these systemic causes of women's oppression and exploitation as part of our continuing struggle for women's development and emancipation. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the Canadian public healthcare system as severely neglected and deteriorating. Our long term care homes and hospitals are more understaffed and under-resourced than ever. Filipino women continue to make up a large part of the workforce in these institutions. As Filipino women, we know this first-hand and have always fought against these deplorable conditions. This global pandemic has shown that women of colour - working as Personal Support Workers (PSWs), caregivers, nurses, and aides - are at the forefront of the fight [...]

by the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) How can we really end the cycle of exploitation of "migrant care workers Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker’s Program (TFWP) has long existed as a vehicle to recruit and cheapen transnational workers' labour. The particular category of caregiver/domestic work schemes currently under the TFPW, from the early West Indian Domestic Scheme in the 1960s, to the Federal Domestic Movement in the 1980s, the Live-in Caregiver program in the 1990s, and now the home childcare and home care support programs, have all been founded on the ability to recruit cheapened labour of women from the Global South (historically from the Caribbean and the Philippines) to enable middle and upper class Canadians access to private home care and childcare.  This is care that is overall inaccessible and denied for the majority of families in Canada in the first place. For over 50 years these labour programs have existed and have perpetuated and entrenched a systemically racist, anti woman and anti worker labour scheme within the fabric of Canadian society.  These caregiver/ domestic work [...]

On October 11, 2014 Jennifer Laude, a Filipina transwoman, was found dead in Olongapo City. She was violently murdered by U.S. marine Joseph Scott-Pemberton. For his brutal crime, Pemberton was only found guilty of homicide and sentenced to a mere 10-year prison sentence. On this day of September 7, 2020 President Rodrigo Duterte has granted Pemberton an early release serving only 5 years in jail and an absolute pardon which erases any criminal liability. Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance - Ontario) and sister organizations under the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians, the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario, and SIKLAB Ontario (Filipino workers rights group) strongly condemn this decision as a blatant disregard for Philippine laws and an outright failure of the Philippine Justice system. The Philippine government's shameless complacency to the dictates of the United States makes a complete mockery of Philippine democracy and sovereignty as a nation, and a grave injustice to the entire Filipino people within and outside of the Philippines. The Philippines is upholding a colonial agreement with the U.S. [...]

The Philippine Women Centre (PWC), Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (FCYA/UKPC), and SIKLAB Ontario stand in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives in the wake of the Black lives lost at the hands of police including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and in Toronto, Regis Korchinski-Paquet. We support the demands of Black activists and organizers to defund the police and the immediate re-allocation of funds to pro-people social services such as publicly funded and universally accessible and free health care system, childcare, education, housing, transportation, and investment in arts and culture programs. In the last few days, we have seen and heard the world scream “Enough is enough!” as protests erupt across the U.S., sparking solidarity protests across the world calling for justice in ending police brutality, systemic racism, and more urgently, anti-black racism. As the police force continue to terrorize Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities – the same communities deemed heroes for being frontline and essential workers– the police expose themselves as an institution whose ultimate purpose is “to serve and protect” capital [...]

The Philippine Women Centre of Ontario stands in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en land and water protectors for their ongoing fight against the Canadian government and Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. for their illegal encroachment on their territory. On February 10th, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested seven matriarchs and community leaders at the Unist’ot’en camps while holding ceremony to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.  We condemn the Canadian government for deploying the RCMP to protect the interests of private extractive industries while completely disregarding the sovereignty of Indigenous lands. The irony is not lost on us. It is our long-held stance that state violence is also gendered violence, with women bearing the brunt of it. Now is as important a time as any and we must recognize the common enemy to marginalized and oppressed peoples, most especially women of colour. We reject Canada’s incessant capitalist and colonial project and we stand with Indigenous women in their active and open resistance to the state; a state that espouses empty promises of reconciliation while operating on stolen land.  [...]

January 21, 2020 We are entering a new decade inspired by the growing hunger for change and transformation we are seeing around the world. We can only move forward by understanding our role and place in history while fearlessly continuing the work that has been previously laid by progressive and revolutionary women towards justice and liberation. It is a pivotal moment for us to assert the historical momentum of women leading socialist calls, ideas, and movements as capitalism continues to be denounced in the broader society. We in the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario, as part of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, continuously assert the social responsibility of reproductive work and for the care of the most vulnerable in our society. We relentlessly denounce anti-woman government programs like Canada’s caregiver program--recently what’s been renamed Canada’s Home Child Care Provider Pilot and Home Support Worker pilot program--that are inherently exploitative for us as Filipino women, and thus for women in Canada as a whole. Under Canada’s caregiver program, women/workers from the global south remain locked in [...]

National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) National Statement July 11, 2019 The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) expresses its support and commend the indigenous women and their families in Canada, since the release of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, to resolutely call out Canadian genocide on their people, community and overall toward Indigenous women, girls and the 2SLGBTQQIA. As a country that paints itself as a peace loving and peacekeeping nation, in reality, Canada has historically refused to not only not acknowledge, but also perpetuate the systemic marginalization, oppression and genocide of Indigenous peoples. We have seen continuous political inaction on issues of safe drinking water, youth suicide, and inadequate housing just to name a few. In particular, we see ongoing neglect of the human rights and well being of Indigenous peoples in Canada with the cases of thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The failure of Canada to acknowledge the basic rights, land rights, and livelihood of Indigenous peoples has laid the groundwork to [...]

May Day 2019 Statement Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians May 4, 2019 Members of the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) extend greetings of solidarity to allies, supporters, community organizations and progressives on this 133rd anniversary of International Workers Day! As a commemoration to the 1886 Haymarket Square labour strikes for workers rights, safer and better working and living conditions, economic justice and social stability, for more than a century May Day has come to symbolize the great sacrifices and celebrate important victories of working-class struggles and peoples' movements all over the world. During these times of intensifying western imperialist wars of aggression--, the exploitation of billions of people under capitalism, as well as the environmental catastrophes we face today, May Day becomes a significant moment to reaffirm and strengthen our demands of social change and call for a socialist alternative. It is in this spirit of the culture of resistance that the CPFC continues to uphold and advance the working-class struggle for socialism in Canada. On a global scale, we have observed record breaking spikes in temperatures, [...]

January 23, 2019 Toronto,ON--The Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance of Ontario and its sister organizations, the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario and SIKLAB Ontario, stand in solidarity with youth and students in the fight for the right to free and accessible education. On January 17th 2019, the Ford government announced changes towards tuition fees and loans for post-secondary education, including a reduction of OSAP grants for low-income students and slashing the six-month interest-free grace period in exchange for a 10% tuition cut. While the Ford government claims that such changes would “reduce complexity for students” and help “students keep more money in their pocket”, the accumulation of debt as a result greatly outweighs the tuition cut. The proposed changes will have little effect on alleviating the cost of post-secondary education in Ontario. Across Canada, students in Ontario pay the highest tuition fees and receive the lowest per-student government funding. A reduction of 10% is but a few hundred dollars and students are still left with over $25,000 in tuition fees for a four-year undergraduate degree. These changes will prevent [...]