Immigration Protesters demand: Full status for all

Immigration Protesters demand: Full status for all

Protests outside Marco Mendicino’s office

By Irish Mae Silvestre
The Philippine Reporter

On Saturday, July 4, over 100 protesters gathered outside Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino’s office at 511 Lawrence Avenue West. The protest was part of a series of rallies scheduled nationwide. Their demands: full immigration status for non-permanent residents.

This comes shortly after the COVID-19-related deaths of migrant workers Juan Lopez Chaparro, Bonifacio Eugenio Romero and Rogelio Muñoz Santos.

“Migrant and undocumented people have faced the worst of the COVID-19 crisis,” said Nil Sendil, an organizer with the Workers’ Action Centre, a member organization of the Migrant Rights Network, which coordinated the cross-country mobilizations that took place in Montreal, Richmond, Toronto and Picton. “Many have lost their lives and livelihoods because of lack of healthcare, labour protections and rights directly tied to their lack of permanent resident status. Migrants need full immigration status now so that they can protect themselves and their families.”

Leny Rose Simbre

Each year, the country’s agriculture sector relies on 60,000 migrant farm workers from South America. Activists have long been calling on the government to take action to protect migrant workers, undocumented workers and foreign students. The pandemic has further exposed the plight of those who have fallen through the cracks in Canada’s immigration system.
Some of the issues include poor and unsafe living conditions, which could lead to high infection rates. If workers contract the virus, lack of healthcare access means they’re less likely to seek medical attention.

Those who lose their jobs can’t claim emergency insurance, leaving them unable to support themselves and their family. Workers are also less likely to speak up about unsafe working conditions or ask for sick days, thereby possibly exposing colleagues to the disease. In one case, simply asking for a day off resulted in a woman being fired from her job and losing her housing.

Sendil said that the Minister of Immigration has met with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change but has yet to commit to taking action.

“We’re asking the federal government to work with us to develop a regularization process to ensure permanent resident status for all migrant workers, refugees, undocumented people, students and others in the country,” she said. “We want a single tier immigration system – that means everyone arrives in the country with permanent resident status in the future.”
The Philippine Reporter has reached out to Mendicino’s office but has yet to receive a response.

Pinky Paglingayen, a former migrant careworker, calls for federal action to bring full immigration status for all workers.

One of the speakers at the rally was Leny Rose Simbre, the chairperson at Migrante Ontario, the local chapter of an international organization that fights for the rights of migrant workers. She said that most of the stories she heard at the event was about people making the sacrifice to support their families only to suffer from exploitation and abuse from their Canadian employers.

“We have to recognize the efforts of workers because they provide essential services, especially during the pandemic – they’re also the frontline workers who mostly work in farms and groceries, care institutions and other essential services,” said Simbre. “The deaths of the three workers is a big wake up call. It’s not fair the government couldn’t protect them; they were left behind.

“They’re essential to the Canadian community and should be given status. If they had status, they’d have access to healthcare and legal aid.”

According to Simbre, protestors who braved the heat wore masks and used hand sanitizers provided by organizers. As for the mood, Sendil said it was that of anger.

“Migrant care workers, farmworkers, refugees, international students perform essential work with no protections,” she said. “Lives have been lost, too many migrants have been excluded from emergency income supports and health services during the pandemic. This suffering must end. Full immigration status for all is the only solution that will keep our communities safe.”

Remembering migrant farm workers who died.

Photos: I.M. Silvestre

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Numbers source: https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/migrant-friendly-canada-struggles-to-attract-migrant-farm-staff