http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/story.html?id=790e8230-88ea-4aae-b01e-8a97f60d8c76&k=47720

Not enough support for newcomers, says Vital Signs study
Valerie Fortney, Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, October 12, 2007
When Teresa Woo-Paw arrived in Calgary in 1972, she was a naive 15-year-old who could barely speak a word of English.

"I was hugely innocent," she says, her Cantonese accent still strong three decades after leaving Hong Kong. "I was so excited, but I didn't even consider the reality of my new situation."

That reality, she says, was not always pleasant. "You had the usual racial slurs in the schoolyard," she says. "There were very few Asians at my high school, let alone any other visible minorities."


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Teresa Woo-Paw remembers the problems she faced as an immigrant in Calgary, including racial slurs and isolation.
Dean Bicknell, Calgary Herald

Font:****Her family's experience of adjusting to life here spurred Woo-Paw to devote much of the past 20 years to advocating on behalf of our city's steadily growing immigrant population. Her many endeavours include founding the Calgary Chinese Community Service Association and Asia Heritage Foundation (Southern Alberta), along with sitting on the boards of such organizations as the Immigrant Sector Council of Calgary, the United Way and the Centre for Newcomers.

So it came as little surprise Thursday to find Woo-Paw holding court at the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre, in her latest incarnation as founding member and chair of the Ethno Cultural Council of Calgary to discuss the Vital Signs report released last week by the Calgary Foundation.

The immigrant experience received a shocking overall C-minus, with such areas as "diversity in positions of influence" and "support to the most vulnerable" getting a D-minus. It referred to an increase in hate/bias offences reported to the police as just one of many problems confronting immigrants.

Together with her fellow cultural council member Vettivelu Nallainayagam, an economics instructor at Mount Royal College, she has gathered us here to talk about the report and to announce a new initiative that will further explore the immigrant experience in our city.

For those of you who may have missed it, the Vital Signs report, based on a survey of 600 Calgarians and backed up by statistical data, gave our city dismally low marks in a wide variety of quality-of-life concerns.

The immigrant grades are even more unsettling in light of the most recent census figures showing that the bulk of our city's 13.4 per cent population increase from 2001 to 2006 was due to immigration and migration from other provinces; between 1996 and 2001, 41,000 immigrants came to Alberta, and 73,000 more have come since then.

Our city's demographic landscape, then, has changed radically.

But attitudes, says Woo-Paw, have not followed suit.

"The Vital Signs report paints a disturbing picture for immigrants coming to Calgary," says Woo-Paw. "The results surprised me a little, but they affirmed what I'm seeing out there."

According to Woo-Paw, who is also a social worker by profession, far too many immigrants are being left out of the Alberta Advantage. "Immigrants have the highest underemployment and unemployment rates compared to other Calgarians," she says. "It's tragic to see so much talent go to waste."

Discrimination and racial profiling continue to be hot- button issues.
"There is still racial profiling going on in Calgary clubs," says Nallainayagam. "We definitely have some work to do."

"We have people who are immigrants being yelled at, shouted at, told to go home," adds Woo-Paw, who gets emotional when she talks about such hateful comments. "And some of those people are third- and fourth-generation Canadians."

Using the Vital Signs report as a start to a much-needed dialogue, the Ethno Cultural Council of Calgary, with the assistance of several other local organizations, will conduct a survey entitled the 1,000 Voices Initiative, in which immigrants living in Calgary will provide their first-hand perceptions and experiences about life here. Woo-Paw says she hopes the information gleaned will help develop new approaches and policies.


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Font:****"We want to show that this is reality, not mere perception," says Woo-Paw, whose great-grandfather laid track on the Canadian Pacific Railway. "Listening is the first step, then we need to take action . . . to take those findings and make recommendations to the policy-makers."

Woo-Paw -- who promises results from the survey by February of 2008 -- knows some might be skeptical that changing policy will result in changing attitudes. But she's determined to keep doing the work to which she's devoted the better part of two decades.

"If we want this to be a great city," says Woo-Paw, "then it has to be a great city for everyone . . . listening to the people is the first step."