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.
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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 - Pride (web version) - Ajax, 12/05/2020 - COMMENTARY, English Black nurses meet a number of barriers in health-care practice. Photo credit: (c) Can Stock Photo / michaeljung Summary: Keisha Jefferies - During the coronavirus pandemic, nurses are among the nation’s front-line workers. Over the years and to this day, the contributions of Black nurses are hard-fought, unrecognized and under-appreciated. The year 2020 is the year of the nurse and midwife. Yet, Canada’s history of racism and segregation has contributed to residual anti-Black racism that remains present in Canadian nursing. Overall, Black nurses are largely absent from leadership positions and specialty practice areas such as intensive care. Instead, Black nurses are often streamlined into areas that are more physically demanding and strenuous. At the same time, Black people are concentrated in entry-level positions, non-specialty roles or in non-licensed clinical roles such as personal care workers. Beyond physical challenges and visibility, Black nurses are subjected to micro-agressions and racism from patients, colleagues and superiors. Men who enter nursing usually ride the glass escalator: leadership, higher wages and other substantial advantages. It’s a marked contrast to Black women who do not encounter a glass ceiling but rather they hit a concrete wall from simultaneous racism and sexism; their existence is invisible, yet their mistakes and flaws are amplified. Anti-Black racism in nursing is detrimental to Black nurses and to the health of all Canadians, especially since Black folks suffer from high rates of chronic illnesses including diabetes, high blood pressure and mental illness. Despite the persistence of anti-Blackness in society, nursing education and health care, Black nurses continue to provide care. Now, more than ever, we must recognize and celebrate their contributions.
By Muskan Sandhu Image Source: Philippine Canadian Inquirer COVID-19 has been hailed as the “great equalizer” by multiple influential entities including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s team, and American popstar Madonna. This statement presents only a part of the picture as the virus in itself may not be discriminatory, but its impact is mediated by a variety of pre-existing social identity markers, such as that of race, class, and gender, that often underlie discrimination. As racism rears its ugly head in Canada in the midst of a public health crisis, ethnic media reporting makes it amply clear that the virus’s repercussions are anything but a colour-blind phenomenon crashing through a vast expanse of a socially unmarked territory.
In the context of the Vancouver Police Department’s statement that it had “seen an uptick in the number of racially-motivated crimes,” the Filipino Post, a weekly Filipino newspaper from Vancouver, pointed out that “from Canada and the U.S. to Europe and across Asia, the global coronavirus pandemic has brought with it an increase in racist attacks and microaggressions against people of Asian descent.” The Punjabi BC Round Up on Zee TV Canada reported that in response to the increase in racist hate crimes, the BC government put together a committee to act against racism. Many Chinese media outlets in Canada denounced the role mainstream media reports may have played in fueling anti-Asian sentiment. The Global News piece on the alleged role of the United Front in exporting PPE from Canada to China was the focal point of these stories. BCbay, a Chinese newspaper from Vancouver, didn’t mince words in stating that “over the past 20 years, there have been too many mainstream articles smearing China and smearing the Chinese community in Canada.” Similarly, another Chinese newspaper from Vancouver, Van People, wrote that the “noble behaviour” of overseas Chinese people “rushing to send” PPE to China “was painted negatively by the story [in Global News], which misled and deepened the local community’s fear of Chinese Canadians, leading to racial discrimination against Chinese and Asian groups.” This Chinese media is also replete with discussions about whether Conservative MP Derek Sloan’s remarks questioning the loyalty of Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam were racist or not. The majority of Chinese outlets were quick to note that while Tam may warrant criticism, the allegations of her favouring China would not have been made if she were of a non-Chinese descent and thus were racist in nature. Chinese newspapers Sing Tao Calgary and the Dushi.ca Vancouver edition compared Sloan’s criticism of Tam with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s criticism to illustrate how one was racist and the other wasn’t. The Markham-based Iask website wrote: “Unfortunately, just like in the U.S., when a politician sees how a racist dog whistle can mobilize votes, especially votes from xenophobic groups of people, they're bound to learn from Trump and keep blowing the dog whistle. Conservative leadership candidate Derek Sloan is clearly such a politician.” Limited Chinese news outlets, however, sympathized with Sloan. Vansky, a Chinese newspaper from Vancouver, said that: “To determine whether Sloan is actually guilty of racial discrimination, we need to understand why he brought this topic up in the first place. Is it the expression of racial superiority? Or a political-ideological attack? If there is no evidence that Sloan said this out of racial superiority, he cannot be accused of racial discrimination, at most he can only be blamed for his indifference, misjudgment, or paranoia.” The racism brought about by the pandemic isn’t limited to just the Chinese community. The discrimination against Filipino workers at the Cargill meat plant, who contracted COVID-19, is an example of the inequality borne out of the intersection of race, class, and resident status in Canada. Philippine Canadian News, a Filipino newspaper, reported that “Many Filipino workers and residents sent a letter to the company asking that the plant be closed so that safety measures could be put in place, but no actions were taken.” This inaction eventually caused the largest coronavirus outbreak in Canada. Consequently, as reported by Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Filipino people were not allowed to enter grocery stores or banks, and worse, blamed for spreading the virus. On Red FM 106.7 The Evening Show, a Punjabi radio show from Calgary, the host commented that the poor economic standing of the migrant workers did not allow them the freedom of choice to quit their jobs because of dangerous working conditions. A guest doctor on the show added that since “companies want to make a profit and cut costs, they don’t care about how immigrants or temporary workers live,” that is, in group housing. Another host on the show noted that, “Since the workers at the plant are temporary foreign workers, they are afraid to speak up because it may cost them their job and consequently their permanent residence.” These factors coalesced together to lead to an unfair stigmatization of the Filipino community. The virus, if anything, has laid bare the deep inequalities present in our society and remains far from being the “great equalizer.” WEB - Chinese Readers - Vancouver, 08/05/2020 - COMMENTARY, Chinese Image Source: http://www.creaders.net/ Summary Description: RCI - The financial issue is more serious for colleges and universities that recruit more international students, and as a result, colleges and universities may have to reduce staffing. Universities Canada president Paul Davidson pointed out that foreign students not only pay tuition fees, but they also drive the Canadian economy through rent, transportation, etc. Davidson said that all Canadian universities want to get back to normal as soon as possible, but too many factors are out of their control. The industry is putting pressure on the federal and provincial governments and asking the two levels of government to help them get through the difficulties arising from the novel coronavirus outbreak. One internet user, aoyun2012niand, suggested layoffs. This internet user says the management of American and Canadian universities is too chaotic; there are more hands than needed; tuition fees increase every year.
RADIO - CIAO 530 AM - Toronto, 13/05/2020 - TALK SHOW, Punjabi Summary Translation: Host Gurdeep Sekhon talked about the impact of COVID-19 on immigration in Canada. Current affairs expert Amrit Grewal said that Australia’s policy to reduce visa issuance is benefitting Canada. Canada had planned to bring more than one million new immigrants to Canada in the next three years, which was good news. At the moment, we can question the need for new immigrants when the unemployment rate is high in Canada. However, the current situation is temporary. The economic situation will improve and immigration will be back on track. There are many jobs that depend on immigrants. International students play a significant role in contributing to the Canadian job market and economy.
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