Dear policymakers,

My name is Jela, and I am a Filipino youth activist member of Anakbayan Canada. We are directly connected to Anakbayan Philippines, an organization of Filipino youth that strives for genuine national sovereignty and a representative democracy in our homeland.

As a Filipino immigrant, my family and I experienced the social and economic cost of migrating to Canada. My mother was forced to work as a Live-In Caregiver in Montréal before reuniting with me and my family ten years later. Upon moving here, I also had to work in precarious conditions to support my family and contribute to our extended family back home through remittances, and I faced discrimination and struggles in family reunification.

Filipino youth come to Canada because of the economically and politically repressive situation in our homeland. Youth in the Philippines have an unemployment rate of 10.5% compared to the overall unemployment rate of 4.1%. Environmental degradation in the Philippines—including degradation caused by Canadian extraction—has compromised the productivity of our lands and pushed Indigenous peoples from their territories. Amnesty International reports that Filipino youth activists’ rights have been violated by the Philippine state through red-tagging, harassment, and extrajudicial killings.

Anakbayan Canada has organized Filipino youth on campuses, workplaces, and neighbourhoods to launch campaigns for our rights and welfare. We have heard stories of international students and temporary foreign workers who are tied to abusive employers and schools because of their precarious immigration status. Our experiences of racism and exploitation are not individual struggles, but are directly related to Canadian policy and Philippine society. In the context of Trudeau’s anti-immigrant policies, Canada’s strategic turn to the Indo-Pacific region, and the worsening environmental and sociopolitical situation in the Philippines, we call on the Canadian government to:

1. Reconsider Trudeau’s invitation to Philippine President Marcos Jr. for a state visit given his track record of human rights violations.
2. Withdraw or reconsider funding given under the Indo-Pacific Strategy’s “security” envelope to the Philippines, given the use of military training and resources against civilians in the country.
3. Implement policies in Canada that support the rights and welfare of immigrants, especially those that promote job security, family reunification, equitable healthcare, and workplace rights and dignity.
4. Reconsider foreign policy initiatives such as Canadian investment, labour recruitment, and infrastructure development in the Philippines, as these undermine the self-sufficiency of Philippine economic development.

Sincerely,

Jela Dela Pena, Executive Officer of Anakbayan Canada