Unraveling the hypocrisy of Canada’s family reunification program

Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians
National Statement
March 3, 2011

The Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC), a national alliance of Filipino Canadian workers, women and youth organizations, is not surprised with the announcement on the increase in immigrant visas approved by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) in 2010, numbering 280,636, as well as with the CIC’s announcement to cut-back on visa approval for family sponsorship and skilled workers categories. The increase in visa approval for one immigration class and the decrease in another has been a regular practice at CIC in order to ensure that the numbers of immigrants coming into the country does not exceed their limit or quota for each year. Indeed, while Canada may appear to open its immigration doors for immigrant applicants in 2010, it simultaneously closes and slams any opportunity for immigrant families in Canada to genuinely settle and integrate by hindering their reunification with other members of their families, particularly with their parents and grandparents.

Minister Kenney’s honest admission at the House of Commons that “we need more newcomers working and paying taxes and contributing to our health-care system,” is a concrete revelation that Canada’s immigration policies are tailored to meet the labour demands of the country. Canada’s immigration doors is kept open only to those who will directly contribute to the country’s economic and social growth, keeping it consistent with its immigration history where immigrant and racialized communities remain welcome as long as they are deemed to be “economic assets,” and as long as they remain to be part of the country’s reserve army of cheap labour.

CIC’s statement that visa approval for family sponsorship, particularly for parents and grandparents of immigrant families, will be decreased in the coming years, is a clear message that, even though, Canada is in dire need of workers that will provide cheap and profitable labour, it will carefully select and deny applicants who pose to be a “burden” in the country’s economic and healthcare systems. Hence, despite the fact that the majority of immigrant and racialized families have relied on the help of parents and grandparents to provide childcare for their family members, and to some extent, to other members of the community, their contributions in Canadian society are not recognized as significant, painting them, simply, as a group that will “drain” the country’s resources.

With the population of Filipino Canadians close to over half a million, our community has contributed and continues to contribute to the economic and social growth of the country for nearly forty years. Bryan Taguba, a member of SIKLAB Canada, a Filipino Canadian worker’s organization, and the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC/FCYA), asserts that “our community’s struggles for economic survival have left both parents to work longer and to take on numerous jobs in order to make ends meet. As a result, our families have turned to our grandparents for help in providing childcare and in helping maintain the household.” Coming from the concrete experience of the Filipino Canadian community, CPFC strongly contends that when families are struggling economically, as most immigrant families are, putting kids in daycare centres has never been considered an option because of its high cost and also because most immigrant parents do not have the regular 8 am to 5 pm work shifts.

CPFC, further, asserts that CIC’s move to limit family sponsorship is another step in putting-up structural barriers in the settlement and integration of immigrant and racialized communities. Cecilia Diocson, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC), states that “it is a known fact that for the majority of newly-arrived families in Canada, both parents have to work. It is also a known fact that Canada does not have and refuses to implement a universal childcare program that will benefit all families in Canada. Therefore, the presence of parents and grandparents bring significant support and contributions to immigrant families – financially, culturally and socially. For CIC to deny these important contributions is a major blow to the future of all immigrant communities in this country.”

As such, contrary to CIC’s statement alluding that the approval of parents and grandparents of immigrant families will pose a burden to the economic and health-care systems of Canada, the move to increase the denial of family sponsorship applications is an outright attack to the efforts of these families to genuinely settle, integrate and fully participate into the Canadian society. CPFC maintains that the announcement that family sponsorship of parents and grandparents will not be in CIC’s priority list, unravels the hypocrisy of its own reunification program. Diocson contends that “it is hypocritical that the Conservative government talks about family values in its political platform, but when it concerns immigrant families, preserving family values and immigrants’ desire to reunite with immediate family members becomes of no importance.” Kenney’s mandate to cut-down visa approval of this particular group of people is a clear indication that CIC is not genuine in its efforts to implement its own program of family reunification. Instead, it serves as the very institution that promotes family separation, further perpetuating its negative impacts and leaving immigrant communities to deal with them.

Thus, as Canada, through CIC, continues to implement its neo-liberal agenda of privatization, liberalization and deregulation, we, at CPFC, will continue to expose the hypocrisy of the current Conservative government. We will remain steadfast in opposing the ongoing backlash on marginalized and racialized communities in Canada that strip us of our full participation and entitlement in Canadian society. We are also determined to remain vigilant against the implementation of neo-liberal policies that will, further, push the working-class people in Canada at the very end of the economic margin.

Expose and oppose Canada’s neoliberal agenda of globalization!
End the attacks on family reunification of immigrant and racialized communities in Canada!
Onward with the demand for genuine settlement and integration!

-30-

Organizations under CPFC:
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC)
SIKLAB Canada (Advance and Uphold the Struggle of Filipino Canadian Workers)
Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance – National
Sinag Bayan Arts Collective – National
Philippines Canada Task Force on Human Rights (PCTFHR)

For more information:
Contact Joy C. Sioson
www.magkaisacentre.org
pwc-on@magkaisacentre.org
416-519-2553