The tears Rechie Valdez shed as she took the oath as minister of small business in this week’s federal cabinet shuffle marked a breakthrough for her — and for the Filipino community she represents.
“It was a profound moment for me to know that I was representing the close to one million Filipinos now here in Canada,” she told CBC News on Friday.
Filipinos are arguably the most politically underrepresented group in Canadian federal politics.
A community that, according to the latest census, has 960,000 members has not had a single Filipino-Canadian representative in Parliament since 2004 other than Valdez, who was elected in 2021. Rey Pagtakhan became the first Filipino-born Canadian to be elected to the House of Commons in 1988 and served in the Liberal government’s cabinet.
By comparison, Canada’s 770,000 Sikhs were represented by four out of 40 ministers in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first cabinet. Prominent Sikhs outside the government include NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Conservative finance critic Jasraj Singh Hallan.
Rechie Valdez has experience in small business, having run her own bakery. She said she takes seriously her opportunity to serve as a voice for a community that is underrepresented.
“I can tell the community across Canada I’ll definitely be advocating on your behalf and I will continue to listen to your needs and bring it up to cabinet,” she said.
Census data shows Filipino-Canadians have a unique demographic profile, said analyst André Bernard of Statistics Canada.
“The Filipino population have lower unemployment rates and lower poverty rates than the general population,” he said.
Fewer than five per cent of Filipino-Canadians fell below the poverty line in 2020, compared to over eight per cent of the general population.
“But they also have lower wages,” said Bernard. “They have lower employment income.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau poses for a photograph with a family during a visit to a Filipino restaurant in Surrey, B.C, on May 19, 2017. A Statistics Canada study found Filipinos have higher rates of employment than people who are Canadian-born. (Darry Dyck/Canadian Press)
Filipino wage-earners average $26.59 per hour, as opposed to a national average of $33.22 per hour and $31.23 per hour for all racialized groups.
Filipinos “tend to be over-represented in certain industries and occupations,” Bernard said. “For example, over a quarter of women are working in health occupations. That’s much more than for the general population.
“As well, men are more likely to work in manufacturing and utilities than the general population.”
Filipino immigrants have historically shown a willingness to move to where the jobs are, creating communities such as those that serve the meatpacking industry on the Prairies. The way that Filipinos have entered Canada also has shaped the community, said Bernard.
“Over a third of Filipino immigrants who arrived since 1980 were admitted under the caregiving program in Canada … compared to three or four per cent for all immigrants,” he said.
Low representation in the business world
The 2016 and 2021 census revealed that Filipinos ranked lower than any other Canadian ethnic group in rates of self-employment in both the male and female rankings.
In June of this year, just 4.9 per cent of Filipino workers were self-employed, compared to 13 per cent of the general population.
(Self-employment does not map precisely onto business ownership — but it does overlap fairly closely. Entrepreneurs are by definition self-employed, and any self-employed person making revenue over about $30,000 a year typically has to register a business.)
Jackie Wild owns Tito Boy restaurant in Winnipeg’s south end. She said Filipinos don’t lack the entrepreneurial bug.
“Back home, entrepreneurism, being a business owner, is very, very commonplace,” she said. “Whether you’re a small business owner, maybe you’re a farmer, maybe you are like a side hustler doing things on top of your day job.
“Being a business owner myself, and having witnessed a lot of the obstacles that folks from our community face, it’s not easy to start up a business coming from an immigrant community, whether you’re a newcomer or even a subsequent generation. Because a lot of our family members … my family included, when they come to a country like Canada, they are in survival mode. They are simply trying to just make ends meet and to be able to pave the right path and future for their children and for their grandchildren.
Jackie Wild, owner of the Tito Boy restaurant in Winnipeg, said Filipino-Canadian entrepreneurs face many obstacles. (CBC News)
“There is a growing number of Philippine business owners in our community. However, a lot of them are just humbly doing the work. They have their heads down. They’re just trying to again survive day-to-day and pay the bills and feed their families. So we don’t often hear from them.”
Wild said it’s hard to break into the business world without intergenerational wealth or contacts.
“If they don’t know the communities that they can reach out to, they don’t know the resources that exist for them,” she said. “It really does discourage them from even taking that first step.”
The Trudeau government hasn’t hesitated to implement ethnicity-specific programs to help members of other communities overcome such barriers and break into the business world.
Indigenous-owned businesses also have access to startup loans of up to $500,000 and special access when bidding for government business.
No such programs or preferences exist for Filipino-Canadians trying to make it as entrepreneurs.
Greater needs, fewer benefits
“I think in terms of priorities, it was really important for us to ensure that we were starting off with marginalized communities like the Black entrepreneurs, Black women, [the] LGBTQ plus community,” said Valdez.
It’s far from clear from the statistics why the Filipino community would be denied access to the kinds of programs that were extended to communities with higher rates of business ownership.
It was the Trudeau government that insisted on restoring the long-form census when it came to power after the 2015 election, arguing that an “evidence-based” government needed good data to make good policy.
The very next census produced detailed data on the ethnic breakdown of self-employment in Canada.
The census results showed that both Black Canadians and members of First Nations were more than twice as likely to report self-employment as Filipino-Canadians.
Some segments of the Black population were well above the national average. Ethiopian-Canadian men had a self-employment rate of 14.9 per cent — higher than men who reported their ethnic backgrounds as English, French, Scottish, Irish or German.
No scholarships
Help in starting businesses is not the only area where Filipinos have been overlooked compared to other groups.
Student Karla Atanacio chairs Pinoys of Parliament, the largest Filipino-Canadian youth leadership conference. It brings some 250 Filipino youth to Ottawa every year.
She said access to higher education is also an issue.
“Tuition is getting a lot more difficult to fund, and students like me often have to find part-time jobs in order to sustain our education,” she said. “And that results in staying in school for longer and not being able to afford it, and sometimes running out of tuition money to actually help us to go through university.
“And if we’re talking about economic stability, if we’re talking about lifting a lot of people out of poverty, I think that should be a priority for the government as well.”
While there are numerous scholarship funds reserved for Indigenous Canadians and BlackCanadians, neither government nor the private sector has shown much interest in creating such funds for Filipino-Canadians.
“We’re welcoming a lot more immigrants and refugees, but is there really room for a lot of us?” said Atanacio. “There’s a rental crisis going on. And so if we really want Canada to be as welcoming as we say it is, then we have to work together with our small businesses, with our housing people who are knowledgeable in housing in order to solve this problem.”
While the government has set aside $40 million to help Black Canadians find housing, there has been no such program for Filipinos.
A community closing the gap
Despite the lack of political representation, the lack of government assistance and the relative lack of private-sector philanthropy, the Filipino-Canadian community is closing the income gap with the rest of the population and raising its profile in the business world.
Atanacio said the Filipino-Canadian community is undergoing “reinvigoration” and welcomes having a minister in cabinet.
“We’re the fastest growing ethnic group now in Canada,” she said. “But in terms of mobilization, I think it was only in the last few years that we looked around and were like, wait, we are just as capable and … our stories are worth telling, that we really came together and decided that this is the time for us to step up.”
She said the community has high hopes for its first cabinet insider.
“It’s different when you actually have your own person representing yourself up there,” she said.
Valdez said she knows there are many expectations focused on her new role.
“My hope is that now that I am here,” she said, “I’ll be able to put forward my ideas and recommendations that can better further support the Filipino community.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
