Immigrant Families Cannot Afford a Return to Business-As-Usual
Recently, the Ford government announced that schools would remain closed until September. While we agree that the safety of our children must be paramount, the impacts of school closures are not borne equally by all families. Indeed, for immigrant families who were already suffering under the Ford government’s cuts prior to the pandemic, any return to “business-as-usual” would only increase suffering. Immigrant families have already been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and public health measures. In fact, a recent study in Toronto shows how racialized, low income and recent immigrant neighbourhoods had the highest cases of COVID-19, suggesting that the pandemic is intensifying pre-existing inequalities faced by marginalized groups. Recent research has shown that immigrant parents are at elevated risk of emotional problems compared with other immigrants who are not parents. Inequities in language instruction are one of the systemic issues that immigrant parents must cope with. I