A top-ranking government official from the Philippines dodged Filipino-Canadian activists who staged a protest in front of an East Vancouver restaurant on January 29. A dinner was hosted there for the official by some members of the Filipino community.

The activists wanted to ask Labour Secretary Arturo Brion about the agreement he had signed earlier that day with Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen to speed up the process of hiring temporary contract workers from the Philippines.

“They’ve come together to figure out a way to send more Filipino workers here to B.C. to work in difficult, dangerous, and dirty jobs for variable wages,” activist May Farrales told the Straight. “They’re not making agreements with the community about what services these migrant workers need in order for them to have proper working conditions and access to social benefits and health care.”

Farrales, executive director of the Vancouver-based Philippine Women Centre of B.C., noted that the labour agreement was signed barely two days after the stabbing death of Filipino teenager Deward Ponte near an East Vancouver park. Ponte was the son of a former live-in caregiver, and he had been separated from his mother for years before he and his sister were finally able to join her in Canada.

“They’re not realizing that for 20 years now, Filipino women have been coming here as live-in caregivers doing that kind of work on a temporary basis,” Farrales said.

NDP labour critic Chuck Puchmayr joined the picketing activists in the freezing weather. Speaking with the Straight outside the restaurant, the MLA for New Westminster said that he’s “very suspicious” about moves to fast-track the hiring of temporary foreign workers.

“We have people that are waiting legitimately to come into this country, and become citizens and fill the job vacancies that exist,” Puchmayr said. “They want to get people on a temporary basis. They [workers] end up with no rights. They end up not even having the ability to vote against the government that is abusing them.”

In his speech at the dinner reception, Brion said that the Philippine government’s policy is to protect all Filipinos abroad, whether they’re temporary workers, permanent residents, or citizens of a new country.

We don’t distinguish,” he said. “We help all Filipino nationals.”