Winnipeg Filipinos sympathize with Hutterites after facing discrimination at start of pandemic

Hearing about the stigma and prejudice Manitoba Hutterites say they've faced in recent days resonated immediately with Romilyn Lacap.

The Winnipeg woman said her Filipino community faced discrimination back in March when the pandemic first began and the government announced Manitoba's first COVID-19 case — a woman who had recently returned from the Philippines.

Although they were reluctant to speak out about it, Lacap says the stigma hit some members of her community hard. For instance, she heard through local Facebook groups about customers at a city Walmart swearing at Filipino workers.

Now she fears Manitoba Hutterites are having similar experiences.

"I felt really bad for them and it was very unfair," she said Thursday night.

The CanAm Hutterite Colony threatened Thursday to file a complaint with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission if the province continued to identify colonies that had COVID-19. The government agreed later in the day to stop the practice, unless there's a pressing health reason.

The colony said the province shouldn't be identifying the religious affiliation of individuals with COVID-19 and instead asked for geographical locations to be published.

The province first disclosed in a news release on July 17 that five new cases of COVID-19 were on a Hutterite colony in the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority.

The government, which has been criticized for not providing specific detailed information about cases, never revealed the name of a colony in the release but the Winnipeg Free Press, a day prior, named two different colonies with positive cases.

Paul Waldner, minister of the CanAm Hutterite Colony, said in a statement that in addition to experiencing cultural profiling at medical and dental offices, Hutterites have been refused service at physical and massage therapy clinics and retail stores.

Aera Ochoa said she also sympathizes with Hutterites. As a health care worker who wears a mask, she said she's been looked at differently since the early days of the pandemic.

"They kind of assume anyone who is Filipino who's in health care is a carrier, almost. That's the way it's coming off," she said.

Hutterites could sue for libel as group: lawyer

Toronto human rights lawyer Corey Shefman said there may be a particular part of Manitoba law that Hutterites could use to take legal action against the province.

The province's defamation act has a unique section that addresses libel against a race, religious creed or sexual orientation.

Shefman said to his knowledge Manitoba is the only jurisdiction that has this statute in a provincial defamation act. It lets a religious or ethnic group sue if they've been defamed.

He said he doesn't think it's been used before by a group and explained normally it's an individual person that sues for defamation.

"If Manitoba's Hutterites are facing discrimination because of a perception that they have COVID or that COVID is in their colonies then that's a real serious concern and … if the Manitoba government is facilitating that by identifying cases as being associated with those colonies, they need to do something about that."

Lacap said she hopes people will calm down and realize there's no specific person or group the contagious virus will hit.

"People should have an open mind, be kind to each other, to be honest. We're all in it together and we just have to be kind."