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403Spread
of Anti-Asian Racism: Prevention and Critical Race Analysis in Pandemic Planning
are forced to work in part-time positions in multiple facilities to sur-
vive economically. What is often overlooked, however, is that these
conditions are not those constructed by the migrant worker but by
the industry or employers paying low wages or ignoring basic liv-
ing, employment, and labour rights.45 Y. Y. Chen and Sarah Berger
Richardson in Chapters D-8 and E-5 of this volume write about how
working conditions for migrant workers make them vulnerable to
infection.
The pandemic has amplified the vulnerabilities of those with
temporary immigration status in Canada. While migrant workers
are among those exempted from the restrictions at the border, their
temporary immigration status is the very reason they may be seen as
carriers of COVID-19, even though the conditions that promote the
spread are not under their control. The precarity of migrant workers’
immigration status has contributed to the exploitative and abusive
conditions46 (including the inability to be physically distant, lack of
proper safety equipment, low pay, part-time nature of the job, and
fear of reprisals or loss of the job) which potentially allow the virus to
spread. Their experience during the pandemic raises questions about
why these workers don’t have immediate pathways to permanent
residence in Canada, especially because it is the temporality of their
immigration status that allows exploitative conditions to exist. The
fact that some of the migrant workers are racialized fuels public dis-
course that the spread of the virus at these workplaces is due to their
presence there, and not the conditions of their employment.
Including Race-Based Analysis in a Pandemic Plan
Policy-makers have many factors to consider. It is an unenviable posi-
tion to be dealing with a new, unknown, and unpredictable harm.
Public health officials should consider, when evaluating the need
to protect the public with restrictive practices, how those measures
affect racialized persons. There is emerging data showing racialized
persons, like Black, Latinx, and South Asian persons, are more likely
45. Ethel Tungohan, “Filipino Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 and the
Importance of Race-Based Analysis” (1 May 2020), online (blog): TheÂ
BroadbentÂ
BlogÂ
<www.broadbentinstitute.ca/filipino_healthcare_workers_during_covid19_
and_the_importance_of_race_based_analysis>.
46. Amrita Hari, “Temporariness, Rights and Citizenship: The Latest Chapter in
Canada’s Exclusionary Migration and Refugee History” (2014) 30:2 Refuge 35.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International