“It is such a privilege to be able to say thank you to the 80 or so of you on the call, but through you and to the thousands upon thousands of extraordinary community leaders, teachers, doctors, health care workers, activists, business people and so many different things that contribute every day to making Canada even better and stronger,” as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked all the speakers and participants on the virtual Filipino community call.
Speakers from Winnipeg’s Filipino community included Perla Javate, President of the Philippine Heritage Council of Manitoba; Dale Voluntad, President of the Manitoba Filipino Business Council; Dan Buenaventura, outgoing President of the Philippine Nurses Association of Manitoba (PNAM); Genalyn Tan, President of the Manitoba Association of Filipino Teachers Inc. (MAFTI); Vizllamin Cabrera, Director of Development with ANAK and Joseph Orobia, Principal Architect, Architects at Play and VP and founding member of Kultivation Festival Inc. Each speaker discussed current issues related to COVID19 and how the pandemic has affected their organizations.
Joined by Manitoba Liberal MPs – The Hon. Jim Carr (Winnipeg South Centre), Terry Duguid (Winnipeg South), Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North) and The Hon. Dan Vandal (St. Boniface).
Perla Javate, President of the Philippine Heritage Council of Manitoba;
Spoke to the challenges being faced by families, with parents working from home and kids in remote learning. Due to technical difficulties, she was not able to raise the issue of Temporary Foreign workers and family reunification and a request to help diplomatically assist in having an Honourary Counsul in Manitoba.
Dale Voluntad, President of the Manitoba Filipino Business Council; posed two questions to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and both focused on on-going government support programs for small business such as Canada Employment Wage Subsidy (CEWS), and Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA). Dale’s second question focused his concern for non-profit and new immigrant settlement organizations for on-going operational support to help new Canadians.
Dan Buenaventura, outgoing President of the Philippine Nurses Association of Manitoba (PNAM) highlighted the current regulatory and licensing challenges being faced by internationally educated nurses arriving in Manitoba. While some EINs are allowed to practice in Manitoba, others with expired English language certifications are forced to work in other provinces such Nova Scotia and Ontario.
Genalyn Tan, President of the Manitoba Association of Filipino Teachers Inc. (MAFTI) mentioned that parents, teachers who run educational programs need support, resources and manpower. She also shared viewpoints of Filipino teachers in the province, especially one MAFTI member currently teaching on a reserve and the stark challenges in manpower, resources, disparity and technology accessibility. She also thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for Canada’s recent contribution to the typhoon relief efforts.
Vizllamin Cabrera, Director of Development with ANAK asked about accountability regarding the money given to the Manitoba Provincial government from the Federal government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explained an interesting dynamic between the Federal and Provincial governments, he was able to ease our concerns about accountability regarding the 2 billion dollars that was allocated for the reopening of schools.
Joseph Orobia, Principal Architect, Architects at Play and VP and founding member of Kultivation Festival Inc. proposed three key items for the Prime Minister to help deal with COVID19 support programs. Firstly, have Statistics Canada provide race-based data on Filipino community and use the data to provide relevant community support. The two other key items focus on COVID19, mental health support and programs and presented to our community in a way that we can understand. The other project asks for programming to support mental health through film, documentary, song or dance.
