This forum is an invitation. Let’s start with a simple question: why are our systems failing us, and who benefits when workers are divided?
We know something is deeply wrong. For many of us, one job is not enough. Landlords raise the rent at will. We cannot get the healthcare or childcare we need, and public services are stretched to the breaking point. Instead of addressing these crises, governments are choosing war, austerity, and xenophobia.
Under Carney and Ford, money is being taken from refugee healthcare and settlement services handed to developers and corporations. Canada is deepening its integration with the US war machine and putting public dollars into weapons manufacturing. Beyond recent rule changes already pushing migrants out, the newly passed Bill C-12 denies rights to refugees and makes it easier to control, punish, and remove migrants.
The war abroad is tied to a war on migrants here at home. It is also a divide-and-rule strategy against all working-class people. Scapegoating migrants allows those in power to keep workers separated, blaming each other instead of uniting to fight for collective justice.
This year marks 60 years since Canada created the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. For six decades, Canada has expanded a system of tied and exclusionary permits designed to extract migrant labour while denying migrants rights, permanent status, and dignity.
But migrants have always fought back, and that resistance will grow.
Join migrant and undocumented people, community organizers, activists, and unionists on Saturday, April 25 to:
- Build a collective analysis of what is happening in Canada and around the world
- Name who benefits when workers are divided
- Dissect what Bill C-12 means and how we must resist it and
- Join migrant campaigns already pushing back
Through performances, panels, food, and conversation, we will share stories of struggle and resistance and build a people’s strategy to confront xenophobia, dispossession, and the war on migrants.
Organized by Migrant Rights Network – Ontario – see list of member organizations here.