27 November 2013 – Philippine Ambassador to Canada Leslie B. Gatan called on the Honorable Kathleen Wynne, Premiere of Ontario on November 18 in Toronto, and received assurances from the Premiere of a shared and keen interest with the Ambassador in improving and enhancing employment protection for foreign nationals in Ontario, including Filipino workers coming to the province.

Ambassador Gatan led a delegation of Team Philippines in Canada comprised of Consul General Junever Mahilum-West in Toronto, Minister, Consul General Eric Gerardo Tamayo in Ottawa and Consul J. Susan Paez and Labor Attaché Leonida Romulo of the Philippine Consulate General in Toronto.

Ontario is front and center of the growing Filipino diaspora in Canada.  The City of Toronto alons is home to the biggest concentration of Filipino in Canada – their numbers increasing by over 40% since the last household census.  Filipinos, both migrants and temporary foreign workers in Ontario number over 272,000 as of the household census – comprising over a third of all Filipinos in Canada.

Filipinos are the fastest growing ethnic minority in Toronto and recently joined the ranks of the Big Three ehtnic minorities in Canada, together with migrants from China and South Asia.  By 2030, one out of every three Canadians would be coming from these ethnic communities and countries.

The welfare of workers is very close to the heart of Premiere Wynne. In 2009, working then as the Minister of Education of Ontario, Premiere Wynne facilitated the enactment of the Employment Protection for Foreign Nationals Act (EPFNA) of Ontario as part of a series of concrete reform measures benefitting all foreign workers, in general, and Filipino foreign workers in particular.

For its part, the Ambassador invited the Premiere to consider measures to enhance the EPFNA in terms of facillitating credential recognition, addressing related social costs and settlement problems and averting possible human trafficking and labor problems.

Premiere Wynne welcomed the proposed enhancements and assured the Ambassador that her office will study the proposals and align them as much as possible to current related proposed improvements in the EPFNA.  Premiere Wynne indicated that she was also receptive to the idea of having a labor cooperation agreement with the Philippines.  Her office will work with the Philippine Consulate General to pursue possible joint initiatives.

Meanwhile, it was also revealed that Ontario is also the biggest market for Philippine merchandise exports in Canada.  Well over CA$275 million worth of merchandise goods landed in Toronto as of the middle of 2013 – representing a 10% increase from the previous year’s totals to date.  END