Forced separation and detention of children of refugee and migrant families is an unforgivable terrorist crime against humanity
Congress of Progressive Filipinos Canadians (CPFC) National Statement June 22, 2018 Toronto, ON – We, the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians, strongly condemn the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that has grossly violated the fundamental human rights of thousands of migrant and refugee families. This racist, inhumane and violent policy has been aimed at banning people of the “third-world”, Muslims, migrants and refugee asylum seekers safe entry into the United States, unleashing its latest attacks on their children. Over the past two months, the Trump government forcibly separated more than 2,300 children from their families and has detained them in child-internment camps in Texas. The unconscionable and cruel treatment of these families and their children, torn apart from each other as they are herded into cages, identified by mere number tags on their chests, forced to sleep on floors, and stripped of their dignity, is comparable to the beginnings of the world’s worst atrocities as seen in history, particularly in the Japanese Internment camps and the Holocaust. Though President Trump has signed an executive order on June 20, [...]
Enough with the Privatization and Commercialization of Education!
The Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada - Ontario (UKPC/FCYA - ON) stand in solidarity with the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 (CUPE 3903) who are currently on strike to demand improved working conditions, quality of education and equity at York University. CUPE 3903, representing contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, along with part-time librarians and archivists at York University, is a union that currently perform 60% of teaching duties at York. We recognize that the working conditions of teaching assistants, seasonal, and part-time instructors of York University reflect the learning conditions and quality of education of students. Therefore, as progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students, we are with you in this fight against privatization and commercialization of education. Since October 16th, CUPE 3903 has been bargaining to improve working conditions for its members at York University. Although contract faculty members do similar tasks as full-time tenured professors, they do not reap the same employment benefits. Contract faculty have little to no job security and are often hired last minute without adequate [...]
-
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada stand in solidarity with continued resistance against women’s oppression and all forms of oppression GalleryNational Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada stand in solidarity with continued resistance against women’s oppression and all forms of oppression
-
-
-
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada stand in solidarity with continued resistance against women’s oppression and all forms of oppression
International Working Women’s Day Statement from the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) March 8, 2018 On this year’s International Women’s Day, the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) sends its warmest and militant greetings to all working class women around the world. Today we commemorate the legacy and contribution of the countless women who have fought and continue to fight patriarchy, class exploitation, and racial discrimination. We salute the courage and strength of all women who continue to speak up and fight against the intensifying oppression and exploitation of women. As part of the larger working class movement, we carry these struggles forward today with heightened militancy and strengthened resolve in taking the revolutionary road to achieve women’s genuine equality, development, and liberation. As imperialism continues its attacks on marginalized people, along with the rise of fascism globally, we are reminded that the struggle for women's liberation is far from over. While we bear witness to the systemic violence perpetuated against women, we also bear witness to the countless women all over the [...]
Call to scrap Canada’s Caregiver Program more necessary than ever as regressive rebranding leave thousands without permanent resident status
Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) February 19, 2018 Toronto, ON - Recent statistics brought to light in a February 3, 2018 Toronto Star article regarding the impacts of the Caregiver Program reforms made in 2014 have angered thousands as a mere 555 of 2,730 permanent residency (PR) applicants have received permanent status in the last 3 years. The rejection of 80% of the applications is the result of racist and anti-immigrant allegations championed by then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, that the caregiver program was being “abused” by the Filipino Canadian community to bring family members over to Canada. What has historically been an exclusionary program, has become a more viciously sophisticated gatekeeping mechanism that closely control the admission of transnational workers and relegating them as temporary sources of cheap labour. This program and the larger Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) provide the conditions for the many forms of abuses that systematically drive caregivers’ lives into uncertainty, volatility and desperation. With these worsening attacks, the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) stands firm in demanding [...]
Filipino Canadian youth organization celebrates 10th year anniversary of mobilizing, educating, and organizing youth
Toronto, ON - This month calls for a joyous celebration as the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada - Ontario (FCYA/UKPC-ON) enters its 10th year anniversary! Together with our sister organization, the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario (PWC-ON), we invite everyone to our panel discussion on Saturday, November 18, 2017 at University of Toronto, St. George campus. Titled “What’s to Be Done? Making the Youth Count in Canada’s Future,” this event will commemorate the history of FCYA-ON, lay out the current situation of the Filipino Canadian youth, and more importantly, assert the need to continuously uphold our revolutionary tasks as youth. Neoliberal policies, without remorse, are pushing the Filipino Canadian community further into the margins. Despite being the fourth largest visible minority in Canada, our history and contributions as a community are largely unrecognized and our struggles as workers, women, and youth unaddressed. Majority of community members are overrepresented in low wage service sector jobs and about 75% are without citizenship status. For the Filipino Canadian youth ages 15 to 24, 50% are in service [...]
Future of youth and education: A Statement on the May 18 Toronto Catholic District School Board meeting
Future of youth and education: A Statement on the May 18 Toronto Catholic District School Board meeting May 30, 2017 On May 18th, the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance - Ontario (FCYA-ON) presented at the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) public board meeting to expose the systemic racism underlying the continued neglect faced by St. Margaret Catholic School students. FCYA-ON was met with unacceptable and adverse behaviour from the board as we asserted the board’s lack of accountability in addressing the overcrowding and resource deprived state of the St. Margaret building. It became clear why the needs of the students, parents, and the Bathurst and Wilson community and their effort to push for a better learning environment had been delayed for more than 15 years. St. Margaret Catholic School is located in Bathurst and Wilson – an area dubbed as Little Manila. The school currently has over 600 students enrolled in a building with a maximum capacity meant for 300 students. Over 90% of the students are Filipino children, many coming from families who have recently arrived in [...]
May Day 2017: Women advance the working class struggle
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) National Statement May 1, 2017 Alongside thousands of working women across the world, we celebrate International Workers’ Day by continuing to advance working class women’s struggles for freedom and liberation. We do so at this critical moment and beyond, as women continue to absorb the shocks of neoliberal globalization’s assaults on our economic, reproductive, social and environmental conditions. We recall the history behind International Workers’ Day, when protests ignited by women workers erupted time and again due to poor working conditions, low wages and subjugation. We celebrate the legacy and leadership of women in leading social struggles by building our own leadership and resistance. Alongside working-class and racialized women calling for change around the world, we say that now is the moment for us to wage and sustain the struggle for all. Women continue to take to the streets in mass protest, in direct response to the resurgence of right-wing nationalism and the heightening of capitalism’s global crises. Our struggles are connected, as women’s conditions around the world continue to be [...]
Progressive Filipino Canadians against fascism: Continuing the culture of resistance towards revolutionary social transformation
Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) National Statement February 9, 2017—We are in a crucial moment in history, and to understand how we can advance our organizing efforts as progressive Filipino Canadians, there is a need for a proper analysis of current social, economic and political developments around the world. Much is happening in the global picture that impacts our national work within Canada, and it is within the global context that we must place our particular realities and immediate struggles. In 2016, we saw the horrendous record-breaking climb of greenhouse gas emission levels, the displacement and deaths of countless war refugees, and the rabid rise of anti-intellectualism, state impunity, fascism and fascist tendencies. But we have also witnessed the many forms of people's resistance being waged throughout the world. In Canada, the Liberal Government’s promises are crumbling, thus exposing the neoliberal agenda that had been brewing and implemented all along. The implications of fascist America is glaring, with Islamophobic attacks, spurts of neo-Nazi propaganda and hate crimes surfacing all over Canada. From where we stand, our work in [...]
Maveerar Naal: Commemorating the revolutionary struggle of the Tamil People
A statement of solidarity delivered at Founders Assembly Hall, York University, Toronto, ON. Karina Francisco reads UKPC's statement of solidarity Good evening everyone. On behalf of our comrades on the York University campus and the Filipino Canadian community at large, as members of the Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada, the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance, we declare that we stand in solidarity with the Tamil People both within Tamil Eelam and throughout the Tamil Diaspora in the face of systemic violence and discrimination waged by the Sri Lankan state. On this important day, we stand beside you to celebrate Maaveerar Naal, in appreciation of the immense contributions made by the fallen fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the fight for the recognition of a Tamil ancestral homeland. As members of the Filipino Canadian community, we condemn the outright massacre of tens of thousands of Tamils in Tamil Eelam, and the internal and external displacement of hundreds of thousands more. All this, while the international community has turned a blind eye. All this, while [...]
Anti-Trump Politics Solidarity Statement
November 18, 2016 Toronto, ON—The Filipino Canadian youth Alliance of Ontario and its’ sister organizations, the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario and SIKLAB Ontario, continue to stand in solidarity with the struggle against racism, xenophobia, sexism, ableism, islamophobia, homophobia and amongst all else that purports the culture of hate and oppression. As Trump’s influence warrants the recent outcrop of white supremacist groups and the intensification of hate crimes all over Canada, we cannot forget the role the state has in perpetuating police brutality and the criminalization, displacement and marginalization of Indigenous Peoples, communities of colour and the poor. Prejudice and discrimination runs deep in the legislative, executive and the judicial branches of government, but as progressives, our strength is in our genuine solidarity to fight hate and oppression with our culture of resistance and liberation. Like many transnational working class communities, Filipino Canadians have been faced by decades of systemic racism through a discriminatory and exclusionary immigration system that routinely detain and deport transnational workers and their families. Neoliberal labour and employment policies, such as the Temporary Foreign [...]
Secure and Meaningful Employment and Living Wages for all NOW!
Solidary Statement for October 1 Rally For Decent Work October 1, 2016 Toronto, ON - Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada of Ontario (FCYA/UKPC-ON) expresses our solidarity in the fight for secure and meaningful employment and living wages for all. This October 1st, we march together here at Queen’s Park with workers, union members, community members and organizers, and other progressive organizations throughout Ontario to expose and oppose the unrelenting neoliberal attacks being imposed to us working peoples. We are here to show our discontent and disapproval to the agenda that prioritizes corporate interests through maximization of profits by keeping our wages below poverty line and by cutting the budget on vital social programs and services. As progressive Filipino Canadian students and young workers, we stand firm in continuing the fight for the Filipino Canadian community’s full entitlement and participation in Canada society and in advancing and upholding the working class struggle. Anti-worker and anti-people policies have placed working class and transnational communities in precarious, vulnerable, and exploitative jobs that no other Canadians are willing [...]