“Good enough to work, good enough to stay!” Dozens of protesters and several organizations marched through Saint-Roch on Sunday afternoon to denounce racial profiling and unequal treatment of migrant workers as part of Action Week Against Racism.
“Remember your worst job ever […]. Imagine that you cannot give up this job for another, that your manager at the time is also the owner of your apartment […] and you had to ask him for a ride to go grocery shopping […]’ argued Center for Immigrant Workers (CTI) spokesman Raphaël Laflamme.
“For [les travailleurs migrants]it is in the hands of this manager who is dormant [leur] planning to come to Canada, for which they sacrificed their old lives,” he continued.
The CTI, the Réseau d’aide aux travailuses et travails maritimes du Québec (RATTMAQ) and protesters have called on the Canadian government to stop issuing closed work permits that leave temporary immigrants “at the mercy of their employers.”
“The abuses are documented and they are numerous,” explained RATTMAQ Quebec office coordinator Véronique Tessier, excited by the crowd. These people aren’t asking for all the gold in the world, they’re asking to change jobs. […] If we welcome someone into Canada who works and pays the same taxes as everyone else, that person should have the same rights.”
The two organizations, such as the Ligue des droits et libertés, Section Quebec, and the Collective for Fighting and Action Against Racism (CLAR) agree that with these discriminatory measures, “the Canadian government itself is attacking the very foundations of inequalities that are at the core source of racism”.
racial profiling
In addition to denouncing the inequalities faced by migrant workers, the demonstration also aimed to protest against the racial profiling carried out by the Quebec police forces, including the Service de Police de la Ville of Quebec, according to the organizations present .
“That brings us back to the indictment this year,” noted League of Rights and Freedoms Quebec Section coordinator Maxim Fortin. We are asking the City of Québec to conduct a quantitative survey, as it has done in Montreal and Repentigny in recent years, in relation to racial profiling.
The coordinator and his organization joined CLAR in demanding that the arbitrary arrests by patrol officers stop. The two groups have also returned to the accusation in connection with the eternal debate about the recognition of systemic racism by the Legault government.
Do you have any information about this story that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a scoop that might be of interest to our readers?
Write to us or call us directly at 1-800-63SCOOP.