 My name is Shannon, and I'm one of the staff at Kairos, so I want to welcome you to this Migrant Justice webinar. And with that, I think I'm going to turn it over to Connie to give us an overview of the situation at this point. Thank you very much, Shannon, and welcome everyone. My name is Connie Sorio, I am the coordinator of the Migrant Justice Program at Kairos. This is a series of webinars that we started towards the end of March, and so far this is the fourth. So for the new participants, I just want to give you a bit of a summary of, you know, what the three previous webinars were. The first two webinars we talk about, you know, the general situation of temporary foreign workers in Canada as they are impacted by, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them were losing jobs, and many of them were not able to access, or still not able to access, you know, EI and the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit. We, at the first two webinars, we invited speakers from the different provinces, so we had Anne Whitley from the Cooper Institute based in PEI. We had Tiwa Marsilino from Manitoba, who is with Migranti, Canada. And we also had with us Roland and Gina Moreno from New Brunswick. We had Santiago Escobar from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to give us, you know, and gave us an update on what's happening in their particular provinces as far as their work with temporary foreign workers, you know, were concerned. At the last, at the first two webinars, we, we heard about, you know, the situation of agricultural workers, those under the seasonal agricultural workers program, how we, we were very concerned about, you know, their situation, particularly their accommodation and access to health and safety tools, you know, in relation to the public health advisory. The third, also the second webinar, we had Claire Rook of the CCR, the Canadian Council on Refugees, spoke about, you know, the situation of refugee claimants and how they were impacted by, they're impacted by the pandemic. The third webinar, we had with us, you know, the third webinar was focused on personal support workers, health workers, and caregivers. And we had three caregivers who shared with us their experiences. I, well, one of the stories I want to lift, you know, is the story of Jassar. Jassar is an international student here in Canada, but he is a registered nurse in the Philippines and responding to the short page of, you know, workers in long-term health facilities. He responded and worked in one. And after a week of working there, he contracted the virus. And, unfortunately, he was not, you know, provided with any health support because his, his OHIP was not active at the time. And he has no, you know, he has no access to EI and CRB. And despite that fact, you know, how he felt not supported during the time that he has the virus, immediately after that he was, you know, he was declared safe. He went back to work to the long-term care facility again, responding, you know, to the need for workers. And I've spoken to Jassar. He's just happy to be able to do what he's supposed to do as a health care professional. So from the three webinars, you know, that we've had, um, workers, temporal workers and, you know, advocates shared the work that they're doing, their experiences and, you know, supported the Kairos advocacy call for, for the Canadian government to step up and really ensure that temporal workers have access to EI, the CERB, health care and other aid and benefit packages that, you know, we're supposed to get under this pandemic. So this fourth webinar, we'll be focusing on, you know, the advocacy side. The Kairos call for residency and we have, as Shannon, you know, mentioned earlier, we have with us, uh, uh, various speakers and also we have with us today, Jennifer Henry, our executive, I'll just give a bit of a background about Nemi. So I got a call this morning from a friend who asked me if it's okay for Nemi to call me or Marisa. And I said, yes. And then, you know, when I, when I first talked to Marisa, she was frantic. She was crying because, you know, the employer captain harassing her and threatening her to call the police on her. And, and she, you know, she, she didn't know what to do. And so I asked her to come down and I said that, you know, I'll try to find a labor lawyer who can help her and, you know, file a complaint with the Ministry of Labor. You know, she hasn't slept because, you know, the employer captain harassing her and, and she's, yeah, she told me she's not feeling very well and she was afraid at the beginning to join the webinar. But I told her that, you know, it might help her to just to be able to share her story and find support from the people who are here in the webinar. Thanks, Connie. I mean, we're in the, in the between, in between, right? In between trying to do one-to-one advocacy for people who are really struggling, of which there are many and Nemi is one, and to try to also push up to the bigger issues to hope to have some impact that might impact a larger group of people. And so, but your voice at the end of the phone is kind of both and, right? And so we appreciate your solidarity on all of our behalf. It's hard though. It's hard. No. I think I was supposed to speak a little about the campaign. And so maybe I will just do that. We're a little group, so I'll just share relatively informally. The way I have been thinking about these last weeks, I realize we're going into week 10 in my counting this, this week, is really that this very dislocated time and in very much we can characterize by the word crisis. This dislocated time gives us two opportunities. In one way, it's kind of x-ray vision on the injustices of the moment, right? We can see clearer perhaps than we ever have or clearer than we have in a long time where the vulnerabilities are, what communities aren't supported, where the injustices sit, and where the inequities can be so clearly documented. And in some ways, we have this kind of x-ray vision into what's important and what's not, right, in this context. So the importance of essential workers, the importance of health, the importance of housing or shelter, the importance of stable situations in terms of rights and protections and the capacity to access government services. So we have that on the one hand and that is the classic, you know, of that comes from crisis is that kind of clarity, that x-ray vision into the situation. But we also have this little tiny window that's the possibility side, the possibility that maybe, maybe in this moment when people have this kind of x-ray vision, we could generate collectively the empathy necessary to shift things for the future, right? And the dislocation is such that we could even dream of something bigger than maybe we've ever dreamt before of what could be possible in terms of change. I mean, we have changed so much in the last 10 weeks, changed in ways we couldn't have possibly believed to try and preserve people's health. And I think with some kind of commitment to the common good, not perfect, but some kind of commitment. So how else could we change for the future to really make a contribution to a different planet and a right relation with both peoples and the earth? So that's the context into which I think about this campaign. We're trying to, we know that people are looking at the issues affecting migrant workers because very, in practical terms, it's about their food supply, it's about their care, personal service workers, it's about the care of elderly, it's a caregivers. And so people are maybe empathetic in ways that they may have not been before, or at least they're aware. Awareness has the potential of generating empathy. And there is this openness, a possible openness to think about doing things differently. And we just have to walk through that door with as much strength as we can and really try to keep that door as wide open as we can. So I think that our dream is a path to permanent residency for every migrant worker who comes to Canada who is essential to who we are as a country and as a peoples. And so we want to hold out that commitment and we want to do that in the short term by asking for the government to provide permanent residency pathway, residency essentially right now and all of the benefits that come from that in ways that other places around the globe such as Portugal have done to deal with the crisis in this moment. So it's like we need to open the door for the really big vision but go through it as far as we can right now by getting a residency that would assist the needs of people in this time. And treat all folks who are doing the essential work that is required with the same rights and benefits in this moment. So I would say let's hold onto the big dream and work hard at the interim step towards that big dream and hope that by potentially inhabiting that place we can see how it's possible to change things on that large scale. So that's that's all I was going to say. We're also going to have a story from Reg McQuade and then later on there will be some time for questions and answers where we can have a bit more of a conversation among people. So Reg, I would invite you to unmute yourself and tell us your thoughts about migrant workers and your personal experience. My personal experience is one I live amongst 220 staff in a retirement residence. We have 400 residents of whom 20% are long-term care and there are 160 staff in the care section or caregivers and there's 60 workers in the food service and just you know from my observation I would say easily 90 to 95% of them were born outside the country and in fact shortly after Connie asked me this morning if I could say a few words there was a wrap on the door and this young woman was taking my temperature so I said do you mind if I ask you a personal question and she said no I said do you are you a permanent resident she said yes I have permanent residency so I said do you know Connie Sorio she said yes so I said when she said I said I'm going to be going to this webinar she said oh I'd like to go too but she had to run along the corridor and take other people's temperature but that is our experience here that we've been in lockdown for I think nine weeks and other than the past couple of weeks we've been allowed to go out to the for to have a walk in the neighborhood but other than that we are confined to our apartments and all our basic needs are cared for by people who come bring us food they do our laundry they take away the the garbage and anything else that we need they're there like angels of mercy so to speak these are the essential people so uh Jennifer was saying how the situation we're in lays bare the injustices the underlying injustices in our society which we have accepted too readily they got kind of lost because there are great injustices in many areas but the as it was mentioned the the agricultural workers and and food service workers and personal support workers caregivers these are what we need just to live and if these people if and yeah it's exploitation pure and simple we know well enough that the reason it's like this is because uh if people don't have permanent residency if they are temporary they are more easily exploitable they have fewer rights they have fewer recourse they can be sent home and all this and all that so it is an injustice and uh I'm reminded again by Jennifer's remarks about Naomi Klein's uh a book a shock doctrine where she was telling about 10 years or so a little where the the forces of the of darkness like to take make use of a shock situations to push through their agenda and kind of to install structures that we'll have to live under with negative consequences for decades so to speak but the other side of it is as Jennifer was alluding to uh it can be a time when things are like in a let's say a shock situation we're doing things a way that we never dreamed we could that we we can people can start thinking like what we've been doing is not acceptable we don't want to go back to to the to to normal we want to go back to a new way and uh here in uh Christie Gardens as I'm considering what I've heard and all that and and Jennifer's appeal that there are as I said 400 residents here uh many of them I would estimate at least half our university graduates about say maybe three quarters uh but uh if we could add our voices to the campaign that you're or if you're that you're uh uh launching here uh it will do help to do our small part as uh you may know that we have a very senior cabinet minister here as a member of parliament she drops by about three times a year and tells us what a wonderful things the government is doing so uh next time she shows her nose a reason before that uh she'll get a near full and uh just again talking of zoom just an hour ago I was on the zoom with a group of caregivers and so uh not caregivers yeah caregivers we are caregivers internal caregivers so to speak and uh I told them about this uh uh webinar and and what your campaign is and there was quite a bit of interest so anyhow I'll just leave it there and I must say about naming the case the young woman you know I think we should really stand by her whatever way we can and others like her so thank you for allowing me to share my small experience of this thank you so much reg it's really great to have that close-up perspective and and I would say reg has been you know and continues to be a huge supporter for caregivers and their call for permanent residency um reg has been telling me that you know uh many of the caregivers there although he he hasn't asked everyone but most of them on temporary on temporary status and and reg I would say 80% would know me not just yeah she has a story to read uh also an update from the previous you know uh caregiver who shared her story great so thank you all and thank you very much reg for that and it's good to see you by the way it's Cheryl hi um so I've been asked to um read the story of carol and we in the last webinar we did read her story but there is an update so I will for those of you who have not heard the story I will I will um give the account from last last time and this was um written at the end of March or around that time and then I will provide a very quick update to her situation my name is carol I am 45 years old separated with three children left in the care of my parents in the Philippines I was a public high school teacher in the Philippines but my salary was not enough to support my children and my aging parents I was forced to leave teaching and left the country as an overseas Filipino worker I worked in Saudi Arabia for eight years as a nanny and domestic helper the first couple of years of being separated from my children was very difficult it was heart-wrenching not to mention the way nannies and domestic workers are treated there what sustained me was the fact that I was able to send money home so my children can go to school have a decent and safe housing and food on the table I came to Canada in May 2018 as a temporary foreign worker under the care for the elderly pilot program I had to pay about eight thousand dollars to an agency who found me an employer and processed all my documents my job was to provide care for and companionship for an elderly person my dream is to finish the 24 months work requirement pass the language tests and be able to apply for permanent residency and reunite with my children we were doing really well my employer was very happy with my job and the way I looked after her there was only two of us in the house and on weekends during my days off I had to go out to do my groceries and errands the reliever came to look after her we were respectful of each other I learned to care for her like my mother this however abruptly disrupted when in mid-march the eldest daughter decided to bring her to a long-term care facility my employer and myself were both shocked and did not know how to react the day my employer was brought to the to the nursing home she asked me to accompany her I could not describe how I felt when we got to the nursing home and we're leaving her there on our way out we were advised by the in-house medical practitioner to follow the public health advisory to self-isolate for 14 days and physical distancing because the facility was dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak as soon as we reached home where I stayed with my employer the daughter told me to look for another employer and vacate the premises in three days I was shocked and devastated where would I go where would I find a new employer at this time of the pandemic I pleaded with her and explained that I did not have any relatives or anyone that could provide temporary accommodation but she did not relent on the third day the daughter phoned me and asked me if I was ready to leave and gave me instructions where to leave the house key pushed to the wall I told her I am not leaving I reminded her of the medical practitioner's advice to self-isolate for 14 days and the physical distancing I told her that if she forced me to leave I will report her to the authorities including the ministry of labor for violating my rights I think she was stunned she could not speak for almost a minute and then she said okay I felt really good to stand my rights for my rights right now I am still living in the same house and I was assured that the family would honor the remaining time of the two-year contract meantime my employer Nana I call her Nana for grandmother wants to come home she feels safer in the house with me caring for her than in the nursing home still fighting the virus outbreak so that was then she's given an update so she was terminated and asked to leave the premises on May 12th despite the employer's promise to keep me to honor the two-year contract I was also asked to return my salary from April 15th to the 30th and I was not paid for the two weeks work I did in May prior to my termination I did not say this before I did not make any complaints because I did not know how much the employers can legally deduct from salaries to cover for my food and accommodation the employer deducted $320 every two weeks for food and accommodation when the legalized amount is $83 per week I am temporarily staying with a friend and feeling stuck it is very hard to find a new employer at this moment and cannot apply for EI because my employer does not want to issue my record of employment that is her story certainly we're glad to still be in touch with Carol um but obviously an awful story Connie I want to know if you wanted to give an IRCC update before we go into question time so basically what have been you know uh experiencing and the stories we've been receiving from migrant workers not only in the GTA area but also outside of the country is the fact that despite you know the announcements of of these aid packages and emergency support temporary foreign workers continue to be excluded from accessing these benefits and many of them have had been terminated laid off from work with nowhere to go and no access to any assistance or emergency food aid they're living with you know friends and really wanting to um to reinstate their work so that they could provide uh continued support to their families back home and I'm not just talking about you know uh workers from the Philippines but workers from different countries outside of Canada so this continues to be a problem and recently IRCC or the immigration refugee and citizenship Canada have been announcing you know um um policy changes to ensure that those who are terminated from work are able to get new employer immediately and able to process and get their renewed or work permit uh new work permits but again uh on the ground uh workers are having difficulty being able to get employers employers who are willing to sponsor them and willing to stand and apply new work permits for this uh workers we are also receiving news that those who are who have applied for uh new work permits the applications were refused so it's really hide at the moment where the temporal workers can get support that they needed hence you know um the more it becomes urgent and important work our campaign calling for the Canadian government to provide residence status to all temporal workers who are here in Canada so that they would have access you know to all these benefits including uh emergency packages and access to healthcare um um we have some champions in the House of Commons in terms of you know providing assistance and calling on the different ministers to act on these issues but even them are finding some difficulty a lot of difficulty in fact in making sure that you know this immediate needs of the workers are responded to um caregivers who are almost finishing their 24 months to be able to become eligible to apply for permanent residency but because of the pandemic they you know they were terminated or laid off the clock you know the government has stopped the clock in terms of uh finishing the 24 months and we are arguing that they shouldn't be penalized you know for not finishing the 24 months because they were laid off so these are some of you know the some of the lived experiences that you're hearing from workers undocumented workers uh continue to to be very vulnerable and in precarious situation because again they're not able to access any support so the more it becomes urgent you know for us to to act on this as Jennifer mentioned in the beginning we have this uh short term period where we can really make a change in terms of urging the government to provide residency status to the workers who are here in Canada thanks Shannon. Alright so now is your moment folks both Connie and Jennifer and Reg are all still here who can speak to what they spoke about and so do folks have questions that you want to direct towards the speakers? I wondered Renaud if we could if we could hear anything about the particular situation in Quebec around migrant workers whether you have anything to share from how it's playing out there. If anyone else wants perhaps to add a comment or a question we'll watch for her typing in the chat so in case not everyone can see the chat Renaud has written she doesn't have a microphone but some people in Quebec have some concern about migrant workers but the situation is the same in Quebec as other parts of Canada. Well and Connie I was just thinking I understand New Brunswick is closed to migrant workers is that still the case? Yes the premier in New Brunswick closed the the province and did not allow especially the the seasonal immigrant workers to come and work for the season and this has created a lot of problems both for the employers and also for the workers who are almost on the plane to come to to New Brunswick so their higs you know volunteered to work in the fields. Because some of those workers would have been coming year after year and expected to come to work the season and going back to the same employer yeah and it's not like there aren't real needs to have things done like fish processing and issues in the plants right I saw an article yesterday that said that they were going to look to middle school and high school students to do the work and that just seems like you know to replace experienced workers with folks who with teenagers doesn't makes that great in a plant doesn't sound like a very good plant. That particular plant actually is based in Capilay and you know they were not they're very frustrated of the premier's decision not to allow or or to close you know the province from agricultural or seasonal workers coming in and and so his son who is in high school started to you know wanted to say started to work at the plant and his friends are coming in to help out right but you're right these are even if the government consider this as a low-skilled category but processing lobsters and seafoods is extremely a skilled work so Capilay no this this particular company actually in Capilay is planning to move to Nova Scotia because of the premier's decision to ban temporal workers to to come in I also heard from you know and to fish plants in PEI this is the south shore seafood seafood processing plant in PEI and also in Tignage PEI that they were expecting about 150 workers coming from overseas for the season and they were not allowed to come in well not that the province has made a position but because of travel ban and all of this they were not able to come in so the processing plants in PEI in New Brunswick and I would say the whole of my times is is in crisis at the moment in terms of you know workers being able to to come and so we'd like to encourage people to write letters to your government representatives and there are details on the website that can give you some idea of some wording and some ways to make as well as the particular addresses to write letters to letters or emails. Hi I'm Abigail I'm from Victoria DC I work for here magazine and I recently arrived in Canada in 2018 to take up my master's at Royal worlds so a lot of our membership in the magazine are international students and so their spouses are temporary foreign workers as well so we've faced a lot of difficulties in terms of accessing services as well because the recently unveiled CSB for students but that's that doesn't include international students so a lot of the students that were laid off also do not qualify for CERB and so the city now is offering some sort of gift cards for international students who don't qualify under this services and then of course there's some issue around the spouses who are in their home countries not being able to come here because it's not essential travel and so the mother for example is left with three other children who are also international students so they don't have the support network and they don't have access to services such as childcare because they're not PR they don't have that status so is there some sort of support that you also provide specifically for international students and we've been told you know that because we don't we can't vote yet we don't have a voice you know I've been webinars like that like you're in international you can't vote you don't have a voice you know so is there some sort of advice or like I know some international students have banded and did put out a petition also for ourselves here in DC but any advice to get you know response from the government um thank you very much Abigail for sharing that because you know that this CESB this Canadian emergency response for students at the beginning we thought that that is for international students oh you know sharing sharing with us today clarifies that this actually excludes international students and there has been a lot of you know announcements pronouncements by the government that international students are protected so if you can share with us the petition that you know you've started or some some of you have started we can we can amplify that and also in Victoria you can reach out to um Elizabeth Welch Elizabeth is a pastor or a priest uh at the Anglican church in Cadboro okay she she she joined uh the last webinar and would be very you know very much welcoming you know to her story and talk to you and lead you to you know the groups and agencies in Victoria who are providing this service and meantime we will amplify here uh at Cairo at the national level you know the situation of international workers sorry thank you thank you yeah thank you so much so I put Connie's email in the chat too so you can have see I mean in a certain way um international students are essential uh to actually the functioning of our universities right I mean the university's situation has restructured to depend on the presence of international students for the the working of the whole and so it's it is really critical and you're right I mean we've got global families we've got folks all over the globe and in the my sense is that in the proposal that uh was put forward in Portugal it would have swept in not just um migrant workers but migrants which would have captured international students as well uh is that right Connie is that yes yeah so it's it's basically saying that in this situation you need to shelter in the place where you are this is the place that you are and therefore you need the rights and benefits that are courted to this place because you you are not in your other place right and I think that that's really the message we keep having to say for the poor safety reasons you can't travel people can't travel so they need to be able to access the rights that are available in their particular and specific communities yeah and Avigale I would also suggest that you connect or a group of you connect with you know some members of the parliament there uh Randall Garrison is uh is he's a good guy yeah and um so you've heard him already yeah we know him we we've worked with him um but we've been trying to get our message across to MP Laurel Collins so but I don't know like even the messaging itself you know when the international students are always left out I think they have this impression that because we're international students we have a lot of money but that's not really the case a lot of us is struggling to just to pay our tuition just because we want a good education so yeah yeah and the fact that the Canadian government has issued you the permit you know as international student and also issued you a work permit you become a responsibility you become our responsibility to make sure that you know you get access to services um so again going back to what Jennifer has mentioned and our call for the Canadian government to provide residency status to all people who are here in Canada includes international students so you have to you have to ask your other you know your colleagues and friends to you know about this uh campaign and support so to everyone we do have just maybe two minutes here if there was a last question to Connie or one of the speakers and if not Connie I will give the last word um I'm wondering before we yeah we are trying wondering if you can hear from Anne Blanton I wonder if you can just you know briefly introduce yourself and yeah uh what is uh your interest you know um hi I didn't mean to be secretive I'm sorry on Martha Blanton I am with the Colombian action solidarity alliance and I've been interested on this topic because as you know the Colombian community living in Toronto is quite large and it's always important to be aware of what's going on that was pretty much my interest I don't really have much information to provide about how bad the situation is all I know is the Latino-American food bank has been very very busy providing food for our entire community so I can imagine the situation all across the province but definitely these um um virtual conferences are very important for all of us to keep updated please let us know ahead so then we can forward the information and include more participants in in these sessions they are very informative and very important thank you so much for giving me the chance to speak thank you so much Martha and you know if you know uh from your community who are on temporary status and are migrant workers and are facing you know challenges and difficulty you can you know you can ask them to reach out to to us and some other migrant workers organizations in the city so that their situation um we know about the situation and we can um respond um to to their needs um so just in closing uh carols we are very pleased you know for the interest and the engagement that uh participants in in in today's webinar and also in the previous webinars uh around uh situation of migrant workers and trying to find ways in being able to support these needs uh and not only in terms of material you know material needs but being able to to amplify their voices and their situation to the policy makers to the government so that uh they are able to respond uh and and be able to provide the support that these workers uh need so um thank you so much for participating at today's webinar and we will you know let you know when the next uh one would be and this this I would say uh before the summer just to provide again an update on on what's the situation on what is the government doing and how's our campaign in terms of you know um pushing for residency for all uh workers migrant workers including international students who are here in Canada today so a tentative date that we had talked about is June 16th which is again a uh Tuesday afternoon uh rather than three weeks apart that is four weeks because of another conflict but um so you can watch for uh notices about that and we would have it on this same type of channel and be putting out links for you to sign up yes and and meantime you know from now till June 16 uh keep keep on logging on to the Cairo's website because we would be posting updates and stories as you know we continue to hear from uh from the workers from the migrant workers so thank you so much and have a wonderful day