Nearly 50 people, representing 34 organizations and migrant justice networks from 13 cities, came together in Toronto last weekend to assess our struggles and determine steps to win migrant and racial justice in the year ahead.
These are our decisions, and we need your support. In 2020, together we will:
- Organize migrants and racialized people. We are only as powerful as the numbers of people with us. In 2020, we are expanding our membership at every level. If you are part of a migrant or racial justice organization – we want to hear from you right now! Email info@migrantrights.ca
- Take to the streets on June 14th! We are calling for actions for racial and migrant justice across the country on June 14th. Save the date!
- Fight for migrant & racial justice. We will be escalating our fight for migrant rights under this minority federal government. Campaigns and actions by care workers, farm workers, refugees, undocumented people, migrant students, and others will be launched throughout the year.
- Work with Indigenous, Climate & Labour Movements. We only win together. Our members across Canada will connect and collaborate with Indigenous, Climate and Labour movements. We will organize a migrant justice presence at actions such as Labour Day and Earth Day.
- Carry out mass political popular education. Changing the world requires understanding it. We will produce digital educational tools and organize trainings so that supporters can become migrant and racial justice champions.
Our convergence was entirely funded by donations from people like you! Make sure we can implement our 2020 plans by becoming a monthly sustainer. Click here to give a monthly contribution of as low as $2 per month.
Today, 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people. Power over the lives of the majority is concentrated in the hands of these very few. Our collapsing climate, the threat of yet another war, and worsening quality of life are a direct result of this concentration of power.
To continue their hold on our collective resources, the rich minority fuel racism, xenophobia and divisiveness. Today, at least 70.8 million people are displaced, another 258 million live and work away from their homes. Most migrants are low-waged, racialized people exploited in the countries where we try to build new lives.
Here in Canada, temporariness in the immigration system and in work is increasing. Government policies polarize and divide us. We are given different rights on the basis of the places of our birth, the colour of our skin, the accents we have, and the bodies we inhabit. We are denied labour protections, decent healthcare, the ability to change jobs, and to be with our families. We are divided, tricked into fighting each other instead of those responsible for our suffering.
We reject these categories of migrant, irregular, refugee, undocumented, citizen. We assert our humanity. We fight not just for ourselves, but for all of us, because we all deserve:
- Status for All: Permanent resident status and family unity for all migrants and refugees here, and landed status on arrival for those that arrive in the future. No detentions, no deportations!
- Decent Work: $15 minimum wage, full labour rights and no employer specific or time limited work permits, as well as democratic control over work.
- Universal Services: Full access to quality public services including healthcare, education, income security, childcare settlement services, pensions, and more for all residents.
- Justice for All: Indigenous self-determination, gender justice, and an end to racism, particularly anti-Black racism and Islamophobia, and specific policies to end social oppression.
- No Displacement: An end to practices that force people to migrate including climate change, wars, corporate impunity and capitalist economic exploitation.