The Healthcare Divide

Filipino migrants make up a critical portion of Canada’s healthcare workforce, as nurses and care aides. They also have one of the lowest average employment incomes among groups designated as visible minorities. Conditions such as low wages and precarious migrant status were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine what that crisis revealed about labour in Canada’s healthcare system. Voices in this episode: Dolie Anne Bulalakaw, assisted living worker Valerie Damasco, assistant professor of sociology at Trent University. Ethel Tungohan, associate professor of politics at York University

In the mid-twentieth century, Inuit diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) were taken from their communities and sent to sanitoriums in southern Canada. Many never returned, and their families never learned what happened to them. We explore this crisis and how this history has continued to affect those communities, and why even today, TB rates remain 300 times higher there than in the rest of Canada. Voices in this episode: Louassee Kuniliusee, tuberculosis survivor Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami Beatrice Ikkidlua, daughter of tuberculosis survivor

A decades-old decision created a system where Black Canadians need to be sicker than the rest of the population to qualify for a living kidney donor transplant. How did this happen? And why does it persist today if science doesn’t support it? Voices in this episode: Charles Cook, donor recipient Lydia-Joi Marshall, project lead at the Health Commons Solutions Lab and President of the Black Health Alliance Dr. Bourne Auguste, nephrologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre