He passed three extensive security checks in Canada. Now, a fourth has stalled his citizenship for 18 months

2026/09/04 Leave a comment

…Immigration security screening has garnered growing public attention in the last few years as the number of immigration applications skyrocketed after the pandemic, leading to an explosion of files flagged for inadmissibility and security concerns.

While critics question whether the process is rigorous enough, advocates complain that it takes too long and is holding back the lives of migrants, whether they are here for asylum, to study or work, or in the process of becoming permanent residents or citizens….

According to CSIS, the number of immigration security screening requests it receives increased from 356,200 in 2019 to a peak of 538,100 in 2024, before it dropped to 438,600 last year after Ottawa reduced immigration intakes. The border agency said its current caseload includes 69,800 applications for temporary residence, 31,300 for permanent residence and 73,400 for refugee claims.

The Immigration Department estimated that it would take 64.8 months to complete all security screenings for permanent residence and 30.3 months for temporary residence, based on output and the number of cases in the system as of the end of November.

Toronto immigration lawyer Max Berger said the stakes are high in citizenship applications because once a person becomes a citizen, it’s difficult to strip it. However, he said the screening process has been plagued by a lack of resources and transparency, causing extensive delays and leaving people in uncertainty.

He said multiple security screenings are not necessary unless new information emerges that suggests a person was involved in nefarious activities in their home country that officials weren’t aware of before….

Source: He passed three extensive security checks in Canada. Now, a fourth has stalled his citizenship for 18 months

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Key government jobs, such as safety inspectors and intelligence analysts, being prioritized by race

2026/09/04 Leave a comment

Aristotle Foundation continues its critique of Canadian DEI practices without acknowledging the need for government to be more broadly representative of the population it serves. Most recent data highlights increases of visible minorities in particular, reflecting both the EE Act reporting requirements as well as these preferences.

No solid evidence regarding whether quality has suffered or not:

Applicants to some of the most critical jobs in the Canadian federal government, including safety inspectors and intelligence agents, are now being explicitly told that they might be rejected if they don’t fit within an “equity-deserving” identity category.

And in some key federal government departments, 100 per cent of new hires are being screened based on race and identity.

This is all according to a new report by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

Report authors analyzed 301 government job openings advertised between February and July, 2026. Of those, 42 per cent were subject to “explicit or potential prioritization based on group identity.”

“These postings go beyond signalling an inclusive workplace culture or encouraging applications from particular communities,” it read. “They explicitly disclose that certain groups may or will receive priority consideration in the selection process.” …

According to the Aristotle report, “the expansion of identity-based selection practices risks undermining both the integrity and perceived legitimacy of the federal staffing system.”

The new report is very similar to a 2025 analysis by the Aristotle Foundation that examined hiring practices at Canadian universities.

In that instance, report authors examined 489 university job postings, and found only 12 that didn’t make explicit mention of how identity would be a factor in candidate selection.

“In other words, 98 per cent of academic postings … directly or indirectly discriminated against non-minorities,” it concluded.

While the Government of Canada has tried to encourage the recruitment of women and minority candidates since at least the 1980s, it’s only been within the past 10 years that this has taken the form of mandatory hiring quotas based on race, gender and other “identity” characteristics….

Source: Key government jobs, such as safety inspectors and intelligence analysts, being prioritized by race

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Trump shares Christian group’s proposal allowing Canadian Jews facing antisemitism to flee to the U.S.

2026/09/04 1 Comment

Much as he prioritized white South African “refugees” compared to other groups:

As he finds new ways to poke Canada amid an ugly trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump has amplified a Christian group’s proposal to create a legal pathway into the United States for Canadian Jews facing antisemitism.

He shared on social media a news report about a letter written by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL), which urges Trump to establish an expedited method of entry into the U.S. for Jewish Canadians “who are experiencing persecution or who credibly fear for their safety because they are Jewish.”

It points to “an alarming climate of harassment, intimidation, vandalism, threats, and violence” that Jewish Canadian families have faced since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, adding that “advocates working directly with these families report that more than 2,000 Jewish Canadians have expressed interest in relocating because of growing concerns for their safety.”

The letter continues: “Accordingly, we respectfully ask that you direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to identify and implement lawful, secure, and appropriately expedited pathways for eligible Jewish Canadian nationals and their immediate family members who face persecution.”

“NACL founder and president Jason Rapert signed the letter, alongside state representatives and religious leaders, and it was sent to the U.S. president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and several U.S. senators and representatives on Thursday.

Trump shared a link to the report on Truth Social on Sunday evening, but did not comment on the contents.”

Source: Trump shares Christian group’s proposal allowing Canadian Jews facing antisemitism to flee to the U.S.

Filed under Antisemitism, Trump administration Tagged with ,

The private school market serving international secondary students in Ontario has grown

2026/09/04 Leave a comment

Relatively understudied compared to post-secondary, with a range from “puppy mills” to more established:

The private secondary education market for international students in Ontario is growing quickly, yet a lack of regulation raises concern about quality as well as children’s safety.

The number of private schools for international students in Ontario has increased by more than 265 per cent since 2017. 

At that time, research found only 48 private schools for international students. Our 2025 research documented 174 schools explicitly targeting international students in a larger dataset of 370 private secondary schools in Toronto.

While government policy and media critique has focused on international university students in Canada, secondary schools have attracted far less attention. 

Our recent research has found that the private secondary education market for international schools in Ontario is concerning. 

Drawing on a “netnography” approach — a qualitative methodology for adapting ethnography for the online world — we analyzed the 174 school websites, examining and coding data about how they market themselves to families from the Global South. 

Among the larger number of secondary schools in our study, we identified 138 as “schools of concern,” with regard to four themes: exploiting the notion of western superiority; selling the Canadian advantage; potentially over-promising students’ safety and care; as well as dubious-quality offerings.

Source: The private school market serving international secondary students in Ontario has grown

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RBC – A Smarter Immigration Strategy: Five Questions that Could Help Shape Canada’s Future

2026/09/03 Leave a comment

Good diagnostic and reasonable recommentations:

Canada’s immigration strategy has lost its edge. Population shocks—including the admission of a decade’s worth of immigration in just three years—policy volatility, a diminished focus on skills and experience, and a lack of real time data andtransparency are to blame. The result: public sentiment has turned negative for the first time in more than 20 years.

Without immigration, Canada’s population will be cut in half by the turn of the century. Our population is aging, deaths are outpacing births, and workforce participation is shrinking at a time when international competition for highly skilled working-age talent is growing.

Express Entry is not working as intended The goal of the flagship system is to select applicants with the highest earning potential, and it has; 30% higher median earnings after 3 years than those coming through the Provincial Nominee Program (the next biggest economic stream)a. But sub-categories are now undermining the program, allowing lower scorers to leapfrog people ahead in line.

Categories need to be reined in and more closely aligned with regional talent shortages. Canada needs some immigration categories to address talent shortages (e.g., blue-collar workers), which vary by region. But 80 provincial streams and duplicative federal categories add unnecessary complexity to the system.

Temporary pathways prioritized volume over skill, undermining a core two-step advantage. The focus on attracting workers and students to fill low-wage labour gaps and prop up underfunded colleges undermined a strategy that had seen former temporary residents gain an earnings advantage over direct permanent residents for more than two decades.

Canada could restore its advantage in the global competition for talent by:

• Stabilizing with a population growth target (e.g., 1%)

• Restoring the points system; going back to basics and removing Express Entry sub-categories

• Concentrating most categories at the provincial and territorial level to address regional skills shortages

• Recovering the two-step strategy with highly skilled temporary admissions and Express Entry points for Canadian experience

• Closing the data gap with near real time and more complete information about outcomes, including exits and earnings…

Source: RBC – A Smarter Immigration Strategy: Five Questions that Could Help Shape Canada’s Future

Strategy

Five questions that could

help shape Canada’s future

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Chait: The Apocalyptic Style in Woke Thinking

2026/09/03 Leave a comment

Good nuanced commentary and the need to recognize moral ambiguity:

…In an atmosphere that permits deliberation, rage may give way to reason. Liberal supporters of Israel may concede to the Free Palestine movement that Israel’s current government has no strategy other than endless use of force, that it has willingly enabled settlers to terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank, and that American policy has done too little to alter these choices. The Palestine activists might be made to acknowledge that the carnage in Gaza would not have occurred but for Hamas’s desire to murder as many Israeli Jews as possible, and that the group deliberately maximizes deaths among Palestinian civilians by embedding their fighters in schools and hospitals.

In other words, the Middle East is complicated. Bringing the moralistic fervor of Western progressives entirely onto one side of a generations-long conflict between warring religious sects claiming mutually exclusive historical and divinely granted rights to control a sliver of land is unlikely to result in peaceful coexistence.

Pro-Palestinian activists are correct to argue that American support has enabled Israel to pursue a one-state solution and to rely on military force in place of diplomacy. What they have yet to grasp is that the Western left’s inability to repudiate Hamas has had a pernicious effect on the conflict: reinforcing a co-belligerent in a cycle of violence. The American civil-rights movement is not, in fact, the proper moral lens with which to understand a terrorist group that murders not only Jewish civilians but also dissident Palestinians, and whose objective is not the right to vote and sit at lunch counters but to impose sectarian theocracy. An effective and humane Western form of activism would recognize that disregard for Palestinian well-being is a trait shared by Hamas and Israel, and would challenge both accordingly.

The American influence on this intractable conflict can be exercised more constructively. What Middle East policy cannot accomplish—what no reforms in any policy domain can accomplish—is resolving the existential angst caused by a political style that cannot tolerate moral ambiguity.

Source: The Apocalyptic Style in Woke Thinking

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Quebec election: Cette école déborde-t-elle en raison d’un «trop grand nombre de nouveaux élèves» issus de l’immigration?

2026/09/03 Leave a comment

PQ can’t help itself:

Quand le chef du Parti québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a lié l’immigration et le manque d’espaces dans une école de la banlieue de Québec, samedi, il n’a fait pas de distinction entre les élèves tout juste arrivés au Québec et les immigrants de deuxième génération, qui sont nés ici.

« [Cette] école déborde en raison d’un trop grand nombre de nouveaux élèves qui viennent de l’immigration », a-t-il déclaré devant l’école secondaire Roger-Comtois, située dans le quartier Loretteville. Des propos qui ont fait sursauter plusieurs de ses adversaires politiques.

« Je trouve ça épouvantable », a lancé la solidaire Ruba Ghazal. « Ça manque de classe », a déclaré le libéral Charles Milliard.

Mais qu’en est-il vraiment ?

Située dans la circonscription de Chauveau, l’école secondaire Roger-Comtois a inauguré lundi son nouveau pavillon modulaire de 24 locaux. Destiné à accueillir « près de 500 élèves » et conçu pour demeurer en place « pour plusieurs années », il « vise à répondre à la croissance soutenue de la population scolaire de l’établissement », a expliqué par courriel le Centre de services scolaire de la Capitale (CSSC).

“Selon des données fournies par le CSS au Devoir, le nombre d’élèves immigrants fréquentant Roger-Comtois est passé de 83, en 2019, à 293, en 2026. Cela, sur un total de 2441 élèves pour l’année scolaire en cours. Les élèves immigrants constituent donc aujourd’hui 12 % de la population étudiante à Roger-Comtois.

Interrogé à ce sujet samedi, le Parti québécois (PQ) n’avait pas pu fournir de chiffres précis sur l’établissement de la Capitale-Nationale.

Citant des données du ministère, son équipe a tout de même souligné que le nombre d’élèves immigrants fréquentant des écoles du CSSC avait augmenté de deux fois et demie depuis l’année scolaire 2015-2016.

Le PQ n’a toutefois pas précisé qu’une partie de cette hausse (32 %) était liée à l’immigration « de deuxième génération », soit aux élèves nés au Québec d’au moins un parent né à l’étranger.

En élargissant la loupe à l’ensemble du Québec, il est possible d’observer que l’augmentation des élèves dans les écoles depuis 2015-2016 est davantage attribuable à l’immigration de deuxième génération (53 %) qu’à celle de première génération (47 %). En avril, le réseau scolaire québécois comptait donc, au total, 752 000 élèves « non issus de l’immigration », 265 000 immigrants de deuxième génération et 179 000 immigrants « nouveaux arrivants »….

Source: Cette école déborde-t-elle en raison d’un «trop grand nombre de nouveaux élèves» issus de l’immigration?

When the leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, linked immigration and the lack of space in a school in the suburbs of Quebec City on Saturday, he made no distinction between students who had just arrived in Quebec and second-generation immigrants, who were born here.

“[This] school is overflowing because of too many new students coming from immigration,” he said in front of Roger-Comtois High School, located in the Loretteville district. Words that startled many of his political opponents.

“I find it terrible,” said the solidarity Ruba Ghazal. “It lacks class,” said liberal Charles Milliard.

But what is it really?

Located in the district of Chauveau, Roger-Comtois secondary school inaugurated its new modular pavilion of 24 premises on Monday. Intended to accommodate “nearly 500 students” and designed to remain in place “for several years”, it “aims to respond to the sustained growth of the school population of the school,” explained by email the Centre de services scolaires de la Capitale (CSSC).

“According to data provided by the CSS au Devoir, the number of immigrant students attending Roger-Comtois increased from 83 in 2019 to 293 in 2026. This, out of a total of 2441 students for the current school year. Immigrant students now make up 12% of the student population in Roger-Comtois.

Asked about this on Saturday, the Parti Québécois (PQ) was unable to provide precise figures on the establishment of the Capitale-Nationale.

Citing data from the ministry, his team nevertheless pointed out that the number of immigrant students attending CSSC schools had increased two and a half times since the 2015-2016 school year.

However, the PQ did not specify that part of this increase (32%) was related to “second generation” immigration, i.e. students born in Quebec of at least one parent born abroad.

By extending the magnifying glass to the whole of Quebec, it is possible to observe that the increase in students in schools since 2015-2016 is more attributable to second-generation immigration (53%) than to first-generation immigration (47%). In April, the Quebec school network therefore had, in total, 752,000 “non-immigrant” students, 265,000 second-generation immigrants and 179,000 “newcomers”.

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Eric Kaufmann: It costs Canada millions to discriminate against white male academics

2026/09/03 2 Comments

Sensationalist, even if backed up by by available data using the h-index. But there was a need to improve the balance within academia as previous hiring reflected historical patterns and arguably biases, and again arguably going too far in doing so.

That being said, Kaufmann’s point of activist academics in the social sciences has merit:

…The systematic hiring of lower-achieving minorities and women affects the performance of organizations and programs. In order to assess this, we examined the prestigious federal Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program. This is the pinnacle of Canada’s research system, spending $300 million annually on renewable seven-year awards of between $100,000 and $200,000 per year.

Beginning in 2003, and accelerating after 2017, the CRC program implemented an aggressive regime of diversity targets in which institutions that did not meet their quotas for female, minority and Indigenous chairs were threatened with losing their chair allocations. Canada’s Constitution allows for race and sex discrimination, thus CRC openings routinely state that able-bodied straight white males need not apply.

The effects have been dramatic. In 2000, 80 per cent of CRCs were white men. By 2025, just 20 per cent were. Between 2017, when unvarnished EDI was implemented, and 2025, the female share doubled from 30 to 60 per cent while the Black and Indigenous component jumped from two per cent to between 10 and 15 per cent.

We measured the research productivity of Black, Indigenous and female scholars between 2016 and 2025 and discovered that whites and Asians averaged an h-index of 34, Blacks 23 and Indigenous scholars 15. Men averaged 38 to women’s 28. Blacks, First Nations and women are significantly less productive even after controlling for length of career, tier of chair, discipline and year of award. This echoes American results. Moving from a white or Asian chair to a Black or Indigenous chair, or from a male to a female, results in 12 to 15 per cent less research impact.

The effect on the CRC program has been severe. The Canadian government pays chairs to produce research, and — taking into account differences in citing practices by discipline — the h-index is the best unbiased indicator of its impact. Assigning a dollar value to each h-index point, we estimate that EDI hiring costs the CRC program $18 million a year, or six per cent of its budget….

We calculate that money diverted to scholar activism in the social sciences and humanities costs a further six per cent of the CRC budget — and this excludes the tab for administering EDI. This means that around 12 per cent — $36 million of the program’s $300 million annual budget — is wasted on equity and diversity. The EDI “tax” across the Tri-Council agencies’ entire budget of $4.5 billion, not to mention the wider higher education sector, is enormous….

Source: Eric Kaufmann: It costs Canada millions to discriminate against white male academics

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U.S. Sanctions Cut Off Aspiring Iranians From Tests Needed for Study Abroad

2026/09/03 1 Comment

Of note. Shooting themselves in the foot again:

President Trump’s latest sanctions against Iran have forced the cancellation of English proficiency and graduate exams that Iranians rely on to qualify for studying abroad, students and testing services say, penalizing Iranians who are eager to foster relationships with the outside world.

Among those organizations that canceled exams are the Educational Testing Service, which runs the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). They are two of the most widely used exams for students seeking admission to English-language graduate programs worldwide.

The Duolingo English Test, an online standardized exam increasingly used by students applying for undergraduate programs, has also suspended testing for anyone who is Iranian and cannot register as the citizen of another country.

Iranian students whose exams were canceled described a growing sense of despair. They said the sanctions were hurting the people who most want to pursue relations with an outside world so often closed off to them by Iran’s clerical rulers and decades of economic isolation….

Source: U.S. Sanctions Cut Off Aspiring Iranians From Tests Needed for Study Abroad

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LILLEY: Where was the outrage as Canadians renamed our own history?

2026/09/02 1 Comment

Although different in some ways when renaming comes from a foreign power, valid question nevertheless:

…My question for all the people screaming about the renaming of Lake Ontario is: where were they as we renamed schools, roads and more once named for Sir John A. Macdonald? Where were they as we removed our history by pulling down statues dedicated to our first prime minister?

Schools in Nova Scotia and Ontario had Sir John A.’s name dropped from them. Statues in Montreal, Kingston, Regina, Victoria and elsewhere were taken down.

In Saskatoon, John A. Macdonald Road was renamed miyo-wâhkôhtowin, a Cree word meaning “good relationships.” In Ottawa, a federally controlled road, the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, was renamed under the Trudeau government to Kichi Zībī Mīkan, an Algonquin phrase meaning Great River Road.

Where was the outrage over this by the people now furious about Donald Trump changing the name of Lake Ontario? Where was their national pride? Where was their demand that our history be respected?

What about when Egerton Ryerson had his statue torn down, his name taken off the university long associated with him over false claims of connections to residential schools?

Where was the outrage when Edward Cornwallis had his name and image stripped from our public spaces? When Justin Trudeau unilaterally took the name of Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation, off the building that housed the Prime Minister’s Office, why did these same people not step up and raise their voices?

Tearing down our own history

Here in Toronto, we recently renamed Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square on the false claim that Henry Dundas supported and extended slavery in the British Empire. Sankofa is a Ghanaian word, taken from the language of the people on the west coast of Africa who sold most of the slaves into the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

We have spent close to a decade stripping away our own history, being vandals to our own heritage, and most of the public has been silent….

Source: LILLEY: Where was the outrage as Canadians renamed our own history?

Filed under Multiculturalism, Trump administration Tagged with ,

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