International Students Hold Militant Action for Rights and Status
A lively rally was organized by the Naujawan Support Network (NSN), a defence organization of international students, on September 8, close to a busy main street in Brampton. The rally brought together workers and youth from the surrounding area and several organizations including the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) to demand that the Trudeau government end its ongoing abuse and racist attacks on international students and migrants.
The rally was
held on the 10th day of an action organized by NSN to
inform and mobilize the local community. Students have
set up
tents,
big banners and signs at the entrance to a major shopping
centre
and
have invited people to come and visit them there. One of
the
organizers
explained that this
action was taken after many fruitless meetings with
Members of
Parliament and politicians of all the parties in
Parliament who
turned
a deaf ear to their concerns. Some actually "explained"
that
they are
preoccupied with the next federal election and getting
re-elected and
were aware of the
students' plight but cannot do anything to support them
because
it
could harm their political fortunes!
Speakers, many of them international students, described how they are enticed to come to Canada with the promise of future employment and citizenship, but find a different and brutal reality once they arrive. They find upon arrival – some with young families – after spending tens of thousands of dollars that the promise of citizenship is a cover for the exploitation, abuse, arbitrary treatment and corruption that students face. For example, over the last year the government has changed the eligibility criteria and closed pathways to Permanent Residency for students with one-to-three year post-graduate work permits, leaving tens of thousands of students facing deportation in the near future.
Students with expiring work permits have been told by government officials that they should seek a job offer for a closed work permit from an employer with a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program which itself is chaotic. What they are finding is that employers who hold an LMIA permit extort tens of thousands of dollars from the students for the "privilege" of a job offer.
Another pointed
out that thousands of migrant students and migrant
workers worked on the front lines during the COVID-19
pandemic,
putting
their health and lives on the line alongside others, and
are now
being
tossed aside like used tissues.
Speakers condemned online racist attacks on international students and denounced the lies perpetrated by the state that immigrants and international students in particular are the cause of the housing crisis in Canada and are overwhelming the health care system and other nonsense. The international student speakers were joined by speakers from other organizations including the Ontario Sikhs and Gurdwara Council, the Workers' Action Centre, CPC(M-L), the York-South Weston Tenants' Association and others.
The theme of many of the speeches was the unity of the people against state-organized racist attacks on any section of the people. The speaker from CPC(M-L) said that the students' fight today is part of the tradition of the Canadian working class and gave the example of the mobilization in the '70s to the government's racist Green Paper on Immigration to which the working class from coast to coast responded, denouncing the state and not the people as the source of racist attacks. She denounced the ongoing attacks on international students and migrant workers and reiterated that the Canadian working class is one and our security lies in the defence of the rights of all.
The actions of the Naujawan Support Network continue. On September 28, the organization held a rally to mark one month of their ongoing 24/7 protests to demand:
- extensions for work permits expiring in 2024-2025
- a fair pathway to permanent residency, as promised
- an end to LMIA-based exploitation
- five-year post-graduate work permits (presently permits are valid for between eight months to three years)
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 9 - September 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540098.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca