Alberta’s anti-racism advisory council member speaks about racism in the province - Cantonese

RADIO - Fairchild Radio FM 94.7 Focus - Calgary, 11/05/2020 - COMMENTARY, Cantonese

Summary Translation: Teresa Woo-Paw and Forest - Teresa Woo-Paw, former MLA, active member of Alberta’s anti-racism advisory council and president of the Action Chinese Canadians Together Foundation, was invited to speak about the current racial discrimination behaviour in Alberta and Canada. The host, Forest, brought up that the recent Cargill plant outbreak caused the Filipino community to be discriminated against. Since the plant was mostly occupied by Filipino workers, the Alberta community blamed the outbreak on them. Woo-Paw said it is a growing phenomenon across Canada. Forest is wondering if Canada has any plans to address this situation. Woo-Paw’s foundation is currently working with the Chinese senior community to gather support and create education materials for Albertans. This will help Chinese Albertans know what resources they have if they are experiencing racism. Woo-Paw also wants to take this opportunity to engage Caucasian community members to teach them how to be allies of the Chinese when they see racist behaviour occur. With the provinces slowly reopening, Woo-Paw said they will continue monitoring the situation by seeing if companies will stop hiring racialized employees after the pandemic. She also said it is important to promote the mechanism of reporting a complaint. Most Chinese Canadians are afraid to report an incident because of the fear of retaliation by the abuser. Woo-Paw said the reporting mechanism is also critical to inform all levels of government on priorities of addressing racism in the province.