Canada’s Filipino community hit hard by truck-ramming that killed 11 during cultural festival

VANCOUVER - The election eve

truck-ramming that killed 11 people

and injured dozens more in Vancouver sent waves of grief across Canada’s Filipino community, integral to Canada in part through many members’ roles as caregivers.

A man drove through a crowded pedestrian zone during a Filipino cultural festival on April 26. Officials have arrested a suspect they said had a significant history of mental health issues, and said there was no evidence of terrorism in the attack that struck just before the April 28 election to choose a prime minister.

The victims ranged in age from five to 65, officials said. Five-year-old Katie Le was killed with both her parents Richard Le, 47, and Linh Hoang, 30, according to a Go Fund Me page that raised US$250,000 (S$327,300) for the family. Also among the dead was teacher and counsellor Kira Salim at a middle and secondary school, education officials announced.

Nearly one million of Canada’s 40 million people identify as being of Filipino ethnic origin, and more than 172,000 Filipino Canadians are in British Columbia, according to the 2021 census.  

Their influence extends across Canada as caregivers. Many Filipinas have carved out their place in the country by raising other people’s children. Still others tend to the elderly, or have found careers as nurses or medical technicians.

“This is what we do best,” said Christina, 58, a Filipina who attended a candlelight vigil for the victims and asked not to be identified by her last name. “We’re just such a caring culture. We always say we’re willing to give.”

British Columbia Premier David Eby acknowledged their role in comments on Canadian television on April 27, when he pledged to support them “just like they support us”.

“It’s their turn to get care from us,” he said.

The provincial government has pledged that victims and their families will have access to support.

The truck-ramming came during a celebration honouring Datu Lapu-Lapu, the Filipino chieftain who defeated Spanish forces led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the Battle of Mactan in 1521 and became a national hero in the Philippines.

Filipino Canadians see the government of British Columbia’s 2023 official recognition of April 27’s Lapu-Lapu Day as acknowledgement of the cultural contributions of their community, one of the largest immigrant groups in the province.

“We’ve been here a really long time,” said Mr Jonathan Tee, 30, a second-generation Filipino born in Canada. “We don’t need to earn a place here. We are here.”

Some 75,000 people from the Philippines became permanent residents of Canada through the Live-in Caregiver Programme between 1992 and 2014. The programme offering a path to permanent residency has been modified since 2014.

Vulnerable to exploitation

Women fleeing poverty in the Philippines and living in the homes of their Canadian bosses needed to maintain employment in order to gain permanent residency, leaving them vulnerable to extreme working conditions and abuse.

“It was deeply exploitative because of the closed permit tied to a particular employer,” said Professor Geraldine Pratt at the University of British Columbia, whose studies on the subject underpinned the stage play Nanay, depicting the lives of live-in caregivers. “Most of us have some connection to the Filipino community. And it’s not just childcare. It’s care for seniors, it’s hospitals, when you go for a mammogram or to get your blood tested.”

Many immigrants from the Philippines are highly educated and overqualified for the jobs available to them, according to a 2023 Canadian census report. More than 40 per cent of Filipinos held a bachelor’s degree or higher, but were underrepresented in jobs requiring such a degree, it said.

The overqualification rate of 41.8 per cent was nearly double that of the Chinese population and nearly three times the rate of 15.5 per cent among the total population, the report added.

“One factor in overqualification and job mismatch was that over one-third (34 per cent) of Filipino immigrant women immigrated as principal applicants through the caregiver programme, which recruits them to work in personal care occupations,” it said.

About 36 per cent of Filipinas who earned nursing degrees back home instead worked as nurse aides, orderlies or patient service associates in Canada, while 13 per cent worked in sales or service jobs, the census report said.

Ms Maki Cairns, 26, who advocates for the rights of women in the Philippine diaspora as an activist with the group Gabriela BC, said many have chosen to remain silent in the face of abuse so that they can bring their own children to Canada.

“Why do they have to be separated from their families and raise children that are not their own?” Ms Cairns said. “They hardly ever get to see their children in the Philippines.” REUTERS