PRINT - Probashi Kantho - Toronto, 23/05/2020 - NEWS, Bengali Image Source: Probashi Kantho website (photo: CBC) Summary Translation: No byline - A national-level survey of Canadian studies was released last Monday. The study is based on people's ability to pay rent, pay other bills and help their families financially. The survey was conducted among 3,700 people between March 26 and April 5. Among the six ethnic groups, the most economically vulnerable Canadians are South Asians. Then there are blacks, Arabs and Chinese. Caucasians will have the least problems. About 45 per cent of South Asians, blacks and Latin Americans say they will have trouble paying rent and mortgage instalments. In comparison, 20 per cent of whites will have such a crisis. Seventy per cent of blacks, Latin Americans, Arabs, and South Asians say it is now difficult to provide financial support for their family members. In comparison, 40 per cent of Chinese and Caucasians say they are in crisis.
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PRINT - Probashi Kantho - Toronto, 23/05/2020 - ARTICLE, Bengali Image Source: Probashi Kantho website (photo: Citynews-Winnipeg) Summary Translation: No byline - According to CBC News, people from specific socio-economic conditions or socio-economic communities in Toronto are being infected with the coronavirus to a greater extent than others. Toronto Medical Officer Eileen de Villa said. She told reporters that people in low-income areas of Toronto who are recent immigrants and people with high levels of unemployment are more likely to be affected by corona than others and have a higher rate of hospitalization. The same picture has been seen in Montreal. According to a report by CBC News, the worst affected areas are the poorer areas of Montreal. And most of the people living in these poor areas are from immigrant communities in Asia or Africa. They work mainly on the frontline and on low pay. Many of these health workers live in those poor areas. About half of Toronto's residents live in places where maintaining social distance is a really difficult task. If you need to get out of the apartment for an emergency, there is a chance that someone will come too close. And in that case, the level of risk also increases.
WEB - Canadian Filipino Net - Vancouver, 26/05/2020 - EDITORIAL, English Image Source: Canadian Filipino Net Summary: Maria Veronica Caparas - Many Filipino women who come to Canada to work as caregivers are highly educated in their native country. A number of Filipinos in Canada answer to the title of “caregivers” and/or “nannies” to the extent that long-time Canadian immigrants from Europe and England think that any highly skilled Filipinos move to Canada to work as nannies. Training in caregiving counts as one of the skillset programs that the Philippine government’s labour export policy made accessible to Filipinos in the early 2000s. Caregiving skills matched the needs of Canada’s graying population, and opened wide Canada’s gate to highly skilled Filipinos or those educated in professional degrees such as commerce, education, nursing, or physical therapy. Despite their home-earned professional degrees that Canada has yet to recognize, many Filipinos remain nannies for a number of reasons. First, Filipinos find it hard to start from scratch. Earning another degree, taking courses, or writing exams for better paying jobs requires a lot of time and money. Second, Filipinos take pride in their skills as caregivers. Such skills expand their social capital, i.e., they bring their families, relatives, and friends to Canada and establish a wide social-cum-political network for timely appropriations and interventions. This social capital likewise translates into financial capital not only for their next-of-kin but also for the Philippine coffers. It appears that Filipinos, consciously or unconsciously, are complicit in the making of abusive, exploitative, and unjust European-Canadian employers. It also appears that some European-Canadian employers milk their Filipino caregivers dry, silence them through exhaustion in manual labour, and perpetuate the colonizer stance toward the once colonized and subdued. This case extends to the larger political spaces where Canada and the Philippines wield their wares to the advantage of the powerful and the detriment of the powerless.
WEB - Canadian Filipino Net - Vancouver, 26/05/2020 - EDITORIAL, English Image Source: Canadian Filipino Net Summary: Carlo Javier - Capilano Courier, Capilano University’s campus newspaper, ran a feature detailing the event and its participants, particularly the union membership, the majority of which were of Filipino heritage. Filipinos in Canada have long been intrinsically linked to the Live-In Caregiver program, and that stereotype has expanded to custodianship. A quick look at the union’s posters and campaign flyers reinforced this case. The janitors at the Capilano University are predominantly Filipinos, exactly 22 of the 29 are. It is estimated that 60 per cent of cleaners in the Lower Mainland are Filipino. As a 24-year-old Filipino immigrant, a graduate of Capilano University’s Bachelor of Communication Studies program, and the outgoing editor-in-chief of the campus’ official newspaper, the writer has seen and experienced his fair share of racialization in his 12 years in Canada. Leo Alejandria of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2 worked for over 20 years as a cleaner in a host of Vancouver schools. These days, he works with the union and volunteers with the BC chapter of Migrante – an international advocacy group for migrant Filipinos. The numbers are shocking, but they made perfect sense to him. Many Filipinos can recall too many family members, friends, and acquaintances who have dabbled in the cleaning industry. It is an honest job and one that should really not be looked down on – but it does sting when you’re a college-educated immigrant who may have built an impressive professional career in the Philippines, only to find yourself cleaning toilets and tables at schools, offices, and malls. The feature's writer states that his story is about racialization and dehumanization. One that looked at how the caregiver stereotype has evolved into the cleaner stereotype, and just how venomous this assumption can be. Another Filipino worker, Eymard Caravana, spoke about maintaining the utmost level of professionalism in his job – no matter what his job is. If we were to take away some positives from all the racialized identities that have been built for Filipinos in Canada, the writer says, he would be happy with professionalism. Filipinos do indeed work well and hard – even if it’s a job they never thought they would end up with.
By Muskan Sandhu Image Source: http://www.mingshengbao.com/ “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest” --Benjamin Franklin It appears that Canada has shifted the burden of investing in knowledge, specifically in higher education, to international students. The first-world system of generating wealth by outsourcing its needs to other countries has been replicated in the Canadian education system as well. Except, in this case, wealth isn’t produced by extracting cheap labour but instead through an inverted model of providing exorbitant educational services to international students. With COVID-19 halting various forms of cross-border exchange, what exactly is at stake for the Canadian economy and education if international student enrollment falls sharply?
To put the potential outcome in perspective, various ethnic media outlets have taken to pointing out how international students contribute to Canada’s economy. Fairchild TV British Columbia, a Cantonese newscast from Vancouver, reported that according to government sources international students contributed an estimated $21.6 billion to Canada's GDP in 2018. In a Korean newspaper from Toronto, The Korea Times Daily, Universities Canada President Paul Davidson was quoted as saying that international students represent 50%, on average, of the total tuition revenue. Furthermore, Vansky, a Chinese web daily, pointed out that: “The contribution of these international students to the Canadian economy is not only tuition, but also rent, groceries, transportation, entertainment, and more. International students provided Canada with nearly 170,000 jobs...For the Canadian government, these people are a good source of high-consumption, are highly-skilled immigrants, and can make a beneficial contribution to the economy.” Commenting on the significance of these figures, CFC News, a Chinese newspaper from Ottawa wrote: “When the times are good, Chinese international students are considered "gold mines" for Canadian universities, but when disaster strikes, this dependency may result in the collapse of the financial systems of these universities.” Evidently, this observation is applicable in the case of not just Chinese but all international students. A decrease in enrolment seems to be taking effect already. Vansky reported that compared to the first quarter of the year 2019, the first quarter this year has seen a decline in the number of Chinese students who received student visas by 51%. The shift to online classes is also not proving to be helpful. In an interview on OMNI News: Punjabi Edition, a news channel aired from Toronto, representatives of the organization Team We Care said that they have launched a petition for a tuition fee refund from UBC because the international student fees are very high and the students feel that they are not receiving its full value anymore. Team We Care is a group dedicated to helping international students navigate their journey in Canada - the group currently has 6,000 members. Similarly, CFC News opined: “International students don't want to be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to be sitting at home looking at their professor on a computer screen. In addition, as racism increases, more and more Chinese international students and parents are starting to consider suspending their schooling, or even preparing to find alternative paths instead of going overseas.” All hope, however, does not seem to be lost for universities. The Toronto Spanish newspaper El Centro News referred to the IDP Connect poll to state that most aspiring international students say the COVID-19 pandemic is not stopping them from pursuing post-secondary education abroad. Regardless, uncertainty remains the mantra of the pandemic for everything, including higher education. WEB - Noticias Montreal - Montreal, 26/05/2020 - NEWS, Spanish Image Source: Noticias Montreal website Summary Translation: María Gabriela Aguzzi V. - The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that many of the workers in long-term senior care homes are asylum seekers with irregular status. Therefore, many people have been advocating in recent weeks for the government to allow the asylum seekers to stay in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he is not opposed to this option, recognizing that exceptional situations require exceptional measures. Trudeau said that the federal government could find a way to regularize the status of these people. Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino is already in charge of finding a way forward in accordance with what the prime minister said: "We are analyzing how we can recognize this work in order to be able to accelerate the process." Meanwhile, the Quebec government said that it expects to consider the applications of asylum seekers who work in care homes as a priority.
TV - OMNI 1 TV 8:00 PM Italian News - Toronto, 23/05/2020 - FEATURE, Italian Summary Translation: Valeria Lorenzetti - The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the situation for asylum seekers in Canada. A lot of asylum seekers work as front-line workers in Quebec. According to the Maison d'Haiti, at least 1,000 of the 5,000 Haitian asylum seekers who crossed at Roxham Road work in seniors' long-term care homes. One Nigerian lady who crossed at Roxham Road in 2018 with her husband and three children works in a long-term care home seven days a week. She has contracted COVID-19 due to a lack of personal protective equipment. She had wanted to leave the job because they were not given proper protective equipment, but she changed her mind because of the impact that would have on the seniors. Now that she is COVID-positive, she is home without any income and her employer does not return her calls. Refugee advocates including the Maison d'Haiti have presented a petition to the federal government to give status to asylum applicants who are front-line workers. Maison d'Haiti Director General Marjorie Villefranche said you are not going to say to all those people on the front line during this terrible situation, "Thank you very much, now go back to your country." Premier Legault's CAQ was the only party in Quebec to vote against a motion to ask the federal government to give preferential treatment to front-line workers who are asylum claimants.
WEB - Dushi.ca - Markham, 24/05/2020 - NEWS, Chinese Image Source: Dushi.ca Summary Translation: With women bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, federal officials are trying to figure out how recovery efforts can help get women back to work, earning more money and securing more stable jobs. Jennifer Robson, a social policy expert from Carleton University, says temporary layoffs and reduced hours could quickly turn into permanent layoffs if businesses are ready to reopen but parents who don't have child care can't go back. Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen has been leading an internal effort to determine how federal spending on child care can be better targeted. Experts and stakeholders have told him Ottawa can help provinces and territories address the patchwork of child-care options across the country.
RADIO - WTOR 770 AM Radio South Asian Pulse Prime Time - Mississauga, 25/05/2020 - COMMENTARY, Punjabi Summary Translation: Host Yudhvir Jaswal talked about the issue of women being harassed by Punjabi males. He said that it has become increasingly difficult for women and girls to do groceries at three strip malls in Brampton, including the famous Sheridan College plaza near McLauglin and Steels. The same situation is occurring at anther plaza located at Ray Lawson and McLaughlin. Jaswal said that women being harassed in these areas is not new. He has talked about it to the Peel Police. Jaswal said that he will share a report on the issue soon to tell what local authorities - Brampton MPs, MPPs, the mayor and councillors - are doing about this. Jaswal said that he doesn’t know whether the Mayor of Brampton is aware that Brampton has been included in the “Hall of Shame” and that women are scared of doing the groceries amid the COVID-19 crisis.
TV - OMNI 1 TV 8:00 PM Italian News - Toronto, 22/05/2020 - FEATURE, Italian Summary Translation: Canadian Medical Association's Dr. Sandy Buchman has warned that more needs to be done to prepare for a second wave of coronavirus infection as the country proceeds with the gradual opening up. He said unless we take additional precautions and gather more information, we won't be prepared for a second wave. For example, we need more PPE, a better understanding of the exposure of front-line health care workers and information on whether grocery clerks or transit drivers are becoming infected because they are exposed to large numbers of people. He also said testing and contact tracing needs to improve. In addition, he pointed out that doctors and other healthcare workers experience high levels of burn-out at the best of times. A survey 1 1/2 years ago showed that 80% of doctors reported high resilience, and yet about a third of them were experiencing significant burn-out. The first wave of the COVID-19 has been likened to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919. University of Ottawa Math Professor Robert Smith said with the Spanish Flu, the second wave was 45 times larger than the first wave, and the first wave for COVID-19 looks very similar to the first wave of the Spanish Flu. Dr. Doug Manuel of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute Clinical Epidemiology research program said people have a range in their optimism. When people said at first that 50-70% of people would get COVID, he didn't think that would happen because people were going to clamp down as the numbers increased. This is not destiny, it's in our hands, and we have successfully flattened the curve.
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