The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - How Ontario Youth Groups Are Changing the Narrative

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Canada has long celebrated its diversity and multiculturalism. But despite this being a well-admired aspect of Canadian society, racism still exists today. In response, organizations have been established across the country to support diaspora communities, and young people from those communities are also getting involved. Youth leader Ellie Leung and executive director Eleanor Yang of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter; and youth leader Aathini Parthiban and executive director Neethan Shan of Tamil Civic Action join Jeyan Jeganathan to discuss the anti-racism work they are doing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, OnPoly people, it's John Michael McGrath. Join Steve Paikin and I for a special live taping of the OnPoly podcast at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto on May 28th at 6.30 p.m. Visit onpoly-live.eventbrite.ca for tickets. Canada has long celebrated its diversity and multiculturalism, but despite this being a well-admired aspect of Canadian society, racism still exists today. In response, organizations have established across the country to support diaspora communities, and young people from those communities are also getting involved.

We are pleased to welcome people from two of those organizations who are part of that fight. They are Executive Director Eleanor Yang and Youth Leader Ellie Leong of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter and Youth Leader Adhaneet Parthapen and Executive Director Nathan Chan of Tamil Civic Action. Welcome to all four of you for joining us in studio. Eleanor, I'm going to come to you first. Help us understand what your organization does. Yeah, so at the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto

Chapter, a little bit of a mouthful, CCNCTO for short, we support low income working class Chinese Canadian immigrants, refugees, newcomers. So we do a lot of capacity building in the community, including with youth, including with seniors and workers. So they're the main demographic we serve. We're based in Scarborough, but we work across the GTA. All right, and Nia, Tamil Civic Action.

The Tamil Civic Action is an organization looking at social, political, economic, and cultural empowerment of Tamil Canadians, particularly by engaging the young people in supporting that work, particularly to remove the barriers that we experience in getting to that empowerment,

getting to the success and so on. All right, Eleanor, you had mentioned these youth workshops, working with youth. They're bringing different organizations together. Tell me, why did you feel that that's an important thing to do? Yeah, I think youth often feel a little powerless,

a little voiceless in a lot of civic engagement. And so a huge way we're able to support adults, workers, seniors is by using youth and using their advocacy, their leadership to bring other folks in. So we have a lot of seniors at CCN, CTO we work with who wouldn't otherwise feel that it's their place maybe to even address injustice or connect with community but youth are able to create such inclusive spaces

where when we work with homo civic action, we have interpretation, we have translated materials, we have youth who look like their grandchildren, supporting them and guiding them. And we see a lot of seniors that way feel more like they need to take more initiative to take change, create change. They can vote. They actually can create change in support of youth. So we see them as a key piece of that intergenerational aspect of learning culture from seniors, learning about experiences from seniors, but also teaching what they know and teaching values of multiculturalism, of diversity, of respect for folks we live with and of creating change in their community.

All right, well I think it's important that we talk to the youth. So that's why I'm going to come to you. Ellie, first, what grade are you in? I'm in grade 10. All right, what do you like to do? What are your interests? Well, in my free time, I really like reading. I like listening to music, just like all the other folks out there.

I'm really interested in any way of like law, international law, diplomacy. That's why I'm also working with CCNCTO. Okay. Aldenia, how about you? I'm in grade 10 as well. I go to high school in Oshawa and I also love reading. I love listening to music and I also like, I have a high interest in law as well and psychology and I also like writing and I say I like writing speeches as well. Okay, I think we're in good hands here.

It feels like, alright. Allie, I'm just curious, when did you get involved with the organizations? So I think I got involved around a year ago, and that was when I started grade nine year, and I thought that our school doesn't really have much about advocacy, so I should just reach out myself to try to be in touch with more of my community and also do more social work.

Was it a particular sort of thing that happened that you said, I want to get involved? Obviously you said there was nothing there, there was space for you to do some advocacy work, but was there a particular incident or something that happened that you're like, you know what, you need to do better? I think it was more an experience, I think, generally, because I'm also a Chinese immigrant, so I feel more connected to these issues. And I feel like if I'm not having too many problems, but I see them, my grandparents, my parents may be having problems, then what about the people who don't speak English? What about the people who don't have as many resources, not as technically able as us?

So I thought that it'd be a great way for me to help my community, help my people, and also try to connect with my culture more. Okay. Athani, how about you? When did you get involved with Tenness of Action? So I think it was in grade eight when I first was in tune with what was happening in my community and how people in my community were struggling from these barriers and racism in general. But I connected with Nathen Sean when I was about 2 and 1

1.5, I think. Oh, wow. OK. I was from my mom. My mom was, I think, a close friend of Nathen Sean. And then as I grew up, I was also like, I would help. During the election, when I was in middle school, I would help with data management and everything. And then I found out about TCA in grade 8, and then I went to workshops and I realized that was something I enjoyed.

And then in grade 9, I found out about ARH and TCA and how they were both combining. And I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to help my community, because I want to do that in the future. I want to be an ambassador for my Tamil community and other communities as well. Well, I was just curious. You had mentioned you attended these workshops, and now you're leading some of these workshops.

Tell me sort of what made you want to do that, and what's kind of the role that looks like? I've always had an interest in public speaking. I would do many speeches for mostly Nathan Sean. I guess now I've really wanted to do more of that because as elections pass you don't get that much opportunity to do public speaking. So now in these workshops, I get to educate people, actually. Instead of just speaking on a podium,

I get to collaborate with other people. And I get to put in my own creativity and my own ideas. And I really enjoy that. And I also always had an interest in racism. And I thought that I didn't understand it as much as I would in middle school. I always thought that I had this lack of understanding. And then now in grade nine, in high school, I learned more about it as I lead workshops. And I guess that's how, once I've developed this understanding, I've found that I could lead better.

Okay. I am curious if you can build on that. What does these workshops look like? If someone is attending this workshop, what is it that they're going to hear from you? They're going to hear also from the coordinators and youth, they're going to hear about we do activities, so these fun, engaging activities that also educate them about racism. And at the same time, we do case studies. So we incorporate real life scenarios that may take place in your daily life.

And then we give them discussion questions and incorporate group work as well with the audience. And it's really fun, in my opinion. And it's like, at the same same time the fact that we're like they're learning something new from how engaging this whole workshop is it's really fascinates me and every time I get to lead in these workshops it's like I was so used to only being like participating in these workshops but now as I lead them realize like how it is to be to put my to be in the shoes of those who lead.

And it's fun both ways. All right. I want to do a little bit of history lessons to better understand how the organizations came to be. So with the CCNCTO, what's the backstory of how the organization came to? Yeah. So we were founded in 1980 as a result of misinformation in media actually. It was CTVW5's campus giveaway episode, which talked about foreign students stealing spots

from Canadian students. And when they investigated this issue, they found that it was complete misinformation because these were actually Chinese-Canadian students. And so the Chinese-Canadian community came together across Canada to call this misinformation out, to address racism, and to spread public awareness that we are Canadian. In 1985 we became incorporated as a non-profit and since then we've been really focusing on Toronto local change and since then we've expanded to support more youth, really support not just capacity building but leadership,

engage folks in civic engagement. A lot of community members like youth can't vote and you know as Avani said elections roll around once every couple of years so to feel your voice is only heard every couple of years is very unfair especially for folks we represent a lot of folks with precarious immigration status so for folks with PR even where you can't vote we need to make our voices heard and we need to create local change that really you know supports the benefit of everyone. All right. Neelan, Tamil Civic Action. Look, three of us Tamils right here. We can talk about sort of the issues back home, but sort of how did the organization get kind of...

It's connected because Tamil youth have been facing quite a bit of challenges here in terms of discrimination, racial profiling, but despite many of those challenges, they've made it into many spaces. We see you here as hosting the show and anchoring it. But there's always been a bit of a two part to their lives. The organization that helped back home, quote unquote, back home, was separate from organization that were doing work for local issues here.

There was no space for us to connect how that connects to us here and to be able to do that work. So Tamil civic action came out of that need. You could actually be able to have a space where you are actually helping with the human rights situation and getting recognition for the genocide that took place and advocating for justice. But you can also be a youth worker or supporting seniors

here and not to differentiate. And then they were able to see how the struggles of diaspora around migration and racial profiling connects to indigenous struggles here and how it connects to anti-black racism and how to confront anti-black racism. And so this space was needed for us to kind of feel complete ourselves in that. So we have hundreds of volunteers like many others who have come in.

And now that we have a formal space, we've been doing it in ad hoc here and there, but this space actually opened up doors for many young professionals, young adults, but also multi-generational collaboration to address the issues. Because sometimes you're told, you are here, forget about what's happening in your homeland as if you could separate that. And sometimes the people who work here are not fully aware of what's going on. So it's that space that's made it successful. We've been operating since 2019, so it's been going really well.

All right. Eleanor, you had talked about headlines and I'm curious, you know, there's a long history of anti-Asian racism and it seems to rear its ugly head when there's something going on in the world. Obviously, you don't have to go that far with COVID. We saw this with SARS as well. Anytime there's something, there's some politically tense moments. How do you manage through these waves and how do you kind of work with members of your organization to kind of see the other side and also be hopeful and fight through it? I think that's the key of public education.

Throughout COVID-19, we did connect with folks who experienced racism, hate, discrimination. And a key thing that we found was that everyone wanted more public education. No one was calling for retribution. Folks were asking to educate our community members, let folks know we are Canadian. And part of that includes solidarity work, recognizing who lives in your community, connecting with those folks, seeing our shared experiences and working together to combat oppression, systemic oppression that harms both of us, maybe in different ways, but nonetheless harms both of us.

So public education has been a key way we've connected with folks and I think a lot of Chinese Canadians including folks like myself who grew up here, we don't always see progressive Chinese Canadian spaces where we can talk about those who experience the most precarity. We don't talk about low wage Chinese workers in factories or in restaurants and grocery stores. We don't necessarily see that representation. We also don't always see representation of solidarity work with you know Chinese community members unlearning biases right and so I

think that's a key space we're in and where we're able to engage youth in that work and then engage their parents, engage their family, have those conversations in different languages. I think we've been able to create a lot of change within our community as well to recognize that you know systemic anti-Asianian racism is a thing we're going to continue to see that and that's why we need to educate other folks But we also need to educate ourselves because systemic anti-asian racism is within the same, you know Branch of systemic racism that impacts, you know black folks indigenous folks Indian folks and now when we see rising xenophobia So I think that's a key key So I think that's a key realization for us. Okay, Ellie, the reality is that these organizations are still very much needed.

The work that Eleanor has talked about. Help me understand how do you define success? What is success for you when you are done a workshop or just having a conversation with family? How do you kind of measure success? Yeah, so we can't define success with comparisons, obviously. It's not about the numbers, not about how many people that we were able to affect, not about how many people we were able to educate, but about, I think, self-fulfillment, how we feel in this community.

And I think before there's this really big misconception that you have to create a significant amount of change for it to count as change, or for many people to maybe say their thanks to you for it to be some sort of social work. But I think through this work, I've recognized that it's more about how we treat each other. It's all about the person that we're helping

and them feeling that they are being helped. That is successful work for us. So we will try, obviously, to continue to foster those connections. And that is definitely how we define success. Is there a story that sits with you of someone that you've worked with or a story that you heard that you're like, you know, we've done something here, we've made some change? I think I've been through a lot of workshops.

I think it's been 30 and counting if I'm correct. So there's a lot of more individual stories about that. But I think one that stands out to me is more the historical part of it. Because right now we see so many social movements. We see like a specific month too, this month as Asian Awareness Month and all that. But people don't understand why things exist. People think that this is too much.

It's like, we don't know why we need an entire month to celebrate a heritage. But through very recent workshops, especially the ones where we discuss more about case studies, we were able to teach people the significance of the history of Chinese Canadians and how we've evolved from there and appreciating that history has been a really great success for all of us.

Athene, same question to you. In terms of success, how would you define success? I think also that numbers don't matter and all that matters is like it doesn't matter how many people you educate like Ellie said. It's more about how you feel after you've managed to educate like how many people it could have been even if it was one person like as long as you've that's a change you've caused is beneficial or if it's if it had a good impact on that person it for me that's like the biggest

success I could have I think like when I've been doing these workshops it's like after the workshops over it's usually like all of these people that have come to that workshop and the fact that they have been so intrigued while doing this workshop and how much we as youth like we're probably the same age as this audience and we've taught them so much it's like it's the best feeling ever, I think. And like, that's what I think. So, Kesta, it's to me.

Neethan, there are sometimes tensions within groups. You can look at the headlines over the last couple of years. We know, you know, with what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening at the borders of India and Pakistan. There are always politically tense subjects that you need to avoid to make sure everyone is working towards the common cause. How does one do that? Well, I think avoid is maybe a stronger term.

I would say, you know, there is sometimes we are forced to avoid certain things when we don't need to as well. Like, for example, we have fled a genocide, a Tamil community, and it's still happening. So if a school tells our young people, you know, you're here, avoid that conversation. For them, it feels like they're not being valued. Their full authentic self is not being brought

into the structure, right? So for them, because they're hearing it at home, their parents, grandparents might be still living in those situations, and the memorial, you know, Brampton opened a genocide memorial, a monument. So it is close to heart. So I think the important thing is to have the tools and the awareness as to how to have some of these conversations in a respectful way.

What are some guiding principles that guides this conversation? You know, are we talking about fairness? Are we talking about valuing different perspectives and so on? I do think that within some context, when we work as South Asian, Asian communities together, you know it is hundreds of different cultures and many hundreds of languages and so on. Sometimes we have to remind people what the root causes of some of our struggles are, whether it be colonialism, whether it be white supremacy, whether it be a discrimination workplace.

So sometimes we do tend to focus on this is the issue at hand, so let's focus on that. So it's prioritizing sometimes, but not necessarily to say you need to fully avoid it. I do think that a lot of us are not prepared. And sometimes when you're not fully prepared, it might make sense to avoid it until you're prepared but not avoid it all the time. When we talk about racism, one of the racism that we face as Asian communities is that there's a lot of erasure. We are not seen in the media, our stories are not covered,

our full picture is not being shared. We are often, you know, kind of pseudo-type to have quote-unquote model minority kind of things where our issues are not being discussed. And so I see that as also a part of avoidance in a way, right? So you're right, we need to be ready to have those conversations, but it's a part of the process that we need to commit. So I think we're making progress as an organization that has rooted history and fleeing a genocide. We want to make sure that our people around us see us for who we are, but they also see

our experience and understand our experience. All right, I'll get Eleanor to chime in. And I'm curious, are there any politically tense subjects that you need to avoid? I'm going to agree with Nathan. We don't necessarily avoid anything. I think something at CCNCTO we focus on is building folks' capacity to ask critical questions.

So when I can recognize racism that I've experienced, I'm able to then ask critical questions about racism other folks experience and think about what the underlying factors of that are. So we never necessarily avoid topics and I do know it can be hard to handle topics sometimes especially when folks come into a workshop for example with different levels of knowledge but I think that's where it's great to see folks who've been long-standing part of this work ask questions to other participants even when they're not facilitating a workshop. That's where key components of like case studies or group work can be really

helpful. I think we've taught our community members to really question what justice is, that the law is not always just and that's why laws change as well. And so I think when they can recognize global conflicts and recognize oppression globally they can also relate to that and we can fight you know underlying factors for all of that together. So like systemic racism, white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, all of that. I'll say one thing quickly. What we need to avoid is trying to find solutions right away or trying to solve things. You know we cannot pretend like we'll have solution in the same workshop for a conflict that has existed. So in order for us to avoid jumping to that step,

it's important for us to kind of say, you know, let the process continue, but are we learning better? Are we doing better in connecting with each other? All right, talking about that. No, go ahead. As well about that. Is that instead of avoiding, I think

that's where our space is very important, where folks can feel like they can learn, they can ask questions that may be incorrect, they can then be educated, they can then take materials away from these workshops and continue learning on their own time or educating their friends. I think there aren't many spaces where folks feel safe to make mistakes like that, especially safe to make mistakes with you know translated materials, interrotation available to you. So instead of avoiding things because we don't feel comfortable

or don't feel educated enough, we're never going to feel educated enough to speak about every single issue. That's where these spaces are very important. Okay. I wanted to pick up on that note of connection, Ellie. As young people, what are some of your biggest challenges in getting your peers involved? I think right now there's a rise in collectivism, especially with social media. So getting involved, yes, a lot of people are involved in a lot of different things,

but in what things specifically? I think right now we have a tendency to follow along to trends and not speak up against things, and it's really easy for us, especially people who are chronically unlike myself, to be really easily influenced by wrong ideas or by certain views that we might not agree with if we dive in a bit deeper.

So I think our biggest problem in terms of connecting people is having them have the courage to step outside of their safe zone and to connect with different sort of people instead of just staying to their own circles. All right. Adhaneet, same question. It seems like a like and a share is not going to do enough. It might do a little bit, but there's more work there. What are some of the challenges in getting your peers involved?

I feel like also social media has had a great influence on the community of the youth. And there's a lot of false information on social media as well and this can create false ideas for for the youth as well like Ellie said and I feel like the hardest part to get youth involved is not only that they don't have the courage to but maybe they think that these problems are like they don't need their voice to be like. Like it's already been taken care of. Or maybe there's other, like maybe organizations like ours, they're already doing their part and that they don't really need to, like they find probably no point in stepping up.

But we, like our job is to encourage people to do, like to have their voice be heard because maybe they don't understand how important this is and how like if there is hope to like decrease the impact of racism and I feel like social media has definitely been a barrier to this and maybe they think that they only can share their voice through social media and because there's a lot of people on social media and like it's probably one of a very large community and but as I said false information is always been is always spreading so I feel like yeah the hardest part is to make them understand how much their voice could be to have an impact. I am curious how has this experience you know attending the workshops but now kind

of running them, has sort of changed your view of the world? I feel like for me, with the like leading workshops has been an incredible experience. But it is definitely, like before I said that I've always, I've never like been in touch with the topic of racism in general and I've always thought that my lack of understanding would never lead me to where I am today, like leading these workshops. But as I've been going through, like collaborating with other people who have had the same experiences as me and learning from other people, like audience, who have have also had same experiences. I've definitely grown a larger perspective and as well as my parents who have also been through similar like experiences especially through immigration and

having trouble in back home countries and all that all the hardships they've been through. I've come to understand more of how much struggles they've had to go through to raise me and to lead me to where I am today and I've come to understand more of how much struggles they've had to go through to raise me and to lead me to where I am today. And I've also understood my other relatives and how they've come to this country and how the youth's voice could have such an impact on letting other youths know that our society and our families are going through these kinds of stuff. And I've understood this importance. Okay. Ellie, I'm curious, you talked about the history, which is a very important part of understanding

where to go forward. But how has this experience changed your view of the world? I think, admittedly, before I've been very ignorant about such issues because you don't really care about things until you're the minority of the issue and you're the victims of it. And so before I feel like I've been very blindsided by certain things, I feel like even though I see a lot of advertisements about anti-racism or maybe poverty or any other world's global issues, I think that there's always been a distance between me and the issue.

It doesn't concern me, so why would I care? But I think now, dipping my toes into social work, I don't think I can ever just not care anymore. Knowing about all this and being so close to it, I can't just ignore it anymore. Whether it is passively or actively donating or maybe actively doing such workshops, it's made me feel that our voice is really loud, actually.

And if more people were able to connect themselves on a more personal and emotional level, perhaps our issues wouldn't exist anymore. And Laura, you must be proud just hearing this like just to know that that we that the young people have this under control. Yeah. There's some hope there. I am curious though what would you like to tell others we're just learning about all of this for the first time. You don't know where they've been but this is this is the first time that they've you know are understanding sort of the

experiences whether you are from the Asian community or from other communities What do you where do you go? Yeah? I think for me I think it's important for folks to know that change comes from the bottom up So I think it can be easily you can easily feel helpless as one individual who cares about an issue or one Individual who feels voiceless because oh I can't vote in this next election But I think when people come together, when we unite, our power is so strong. I think when you talk about issues, we can create local change.

Local change snowballs into national change, into global change. And I think that's the key part. Any sort of change, starting on a small scale, impacting one person, changing one person's perspective, can have a butterfly effect and create so much positive benefit to everyone. All right. We have a couple of minutes left. I'm going to go around the table. As we mentioned, May is Asian Heritage Month.

What does it mean to you? Well, I think it means that we are being acknowledged, we are being valued, our contribution is being seen. And I want to say this, a lot of the times heritage months tend to be celebrated with food, dance, and music and so on. This should be a month where we actually look at social, political, cultural, and economic contribution, both in Canada, but also over centuries and over millenniums

to the world, because a lot of what we study in our schools come from Asian communities, but not often foot in order to say this is where it's coming from. So that acknowledgement needs to be there. It also should be a month where people focus to address from Asian communities but not often foot in order to say this is where it's coming from. So that acknowledgement needs to be there. It also should be a month where people focus to address barriers. Asian communities face barriers, so this month means committing to acknowledging racism exists, acknowledging that racism exists in multiple ways, including systemic racism, and committing

ourselves to say, you know, this month while we celebrate, we also want to make sure we commit to changing those situations around us and removing the barriers. All right. Anthony? I also think that Asian Heritage Month is mostly around dances and food and celebration. Celebratory.

Yeah. It's important to recognize the struggles that our Asians have been going through. I hope that people learn more about the contributions that Asians in general have contributed. For example, people like Nathan Chan and people like Eleanor who have done so much to have this impact on the society in general. And it's important to share these stories, especially during this month, even though I wish that we could be as much recognition we are getting during this month as I wish that we get throughout the year.

But having a month dedicated to the Asians, which is the umbrella term, but Asians in general is very heartwarming and I feel it's very important because we do have Tamil Genocide month as well but celebrating this whole community in one month and what they've been facing and what we can do to help like lift people up and to share experiences together. I feel like this is a very like this month is important for that and it's definitely a good cause.

All right. Ellie, what does it mean to you? I think more about what it means to me. It's like more about what I hope the legacy of it will be. Asian Heritage Month is obviously a month where we celebrate Asians and obviously as what previously mentioned as well. It's also about the social, political, and every other aspect of it. But I hope that it's more about bringing awareness to different households that, hey, look at your calendar. There's Asian Heritage Month. There are communities of Asian people around you.

And this awareness can bring them to do more work throughout the year and even years onward. All right. Eleanor, you get the last word. Yeah. I echo everyone. I think for Asian Heritage Month, it's important to think about those who we don't often think about. I think we can easily highlight influential figures who

everyone can recognize. But I think it's also important to think about folks who worked on the front lines during COVID-19. I think it's important to think about agricultural workers, personal support workers, nurses, things like that, where we may not recognize Asian labor there. I also think, you know, in addition to for Asian folks, we also need to educate ourselves about, again,

Asian is an umbrella term, other communities' experiences. So not necessarily just taking this month for ourselves and saying, oh, everyone's celebrating us, let's celebrate with food and culture, but also recognizing and unlearning biases we have in our communities as well, recognizing privilege where we have privilege, I think is very important. All right, we are gonna leave it there.

Ethan, Adhani, Eleanor, Ellie, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your work, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.