Un droit acquis élargi pour le port de signes religieux dans les écoles

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

Of note, even if small change. But the impact on a number of employees being let go is being reported on:

L’adoption du projet de loi 94 visant à renforcer la laïcité dans le réseau scolaire aura-t-elle fait plus de peur que de mal dans les écoles de la province ? Un récent élargissement de l’accès au droit acquis de porter un signe religieux dont bénéficient les employés embauchés avant le 20 mars 2025 a fait pousser un soupir de soulagement à plusieurs, a constaté Le Devoir. Des centaines de congédiements demeurent tout de même à prévoir dans la grande région de Montréal.

L’adoption du projet de loi 94, le 30 octobre dernier, a semé l’émoi dans le réseau scolaire en laissant présager, en particulier dans la région métropolitaine, une vague de congédiements d’employés refusant de retirer leur signe religieux pour pouvoir garder leur emploi. « Au moins 500 emplois » étaient menacés uniquement dans la métropole, affirmait ainsi en février dernier la présidente de l’Association montréalaise des directions d’établissement scolaire, Kathleen Legault.

Appréhendant des répercussions majeures sur les services offerts aux élèves, des centres de services scolaires (CSS) ont réclamé des précisions au ministère de l’Éducation sur le droit acquis accordé dans la loi aux employés embauchés avant le 20 mars 2025. La loi, telle qu’adoptée l’automne dernier, prévoyait que tout employé admissible à ce droit acquis perdrait celui-ci au moment où il changerait de fonction. Ce qui laissait présager d’importants départs d’employés, notamment parmi le personnel de soutien scolaire et professionnel.

Le 18 mars dernier, cependant, la sous-ministre de l’Éducation, Carole Arav, a fait parvenir aux directions générales des CSS de la province un document apportant des précisions sur l’application de la clause de droits acquis inscrite dans cette loi, qui est venue élargir l’interdiction du port de signes religieux à l’ensemble du personnel scolaire.

La lettre, que Le Devoir a pu consulter, mentionne ainsi qu’une « fonction » ne doit pas se limiter à une classification administrative rigide, mais plutôt être définie par les responsabilités d’un employé. Ce dernier conserve donc son droit acquis s’il change de poste ou obtient une promotion, dans la mesure où ses tâches sont « substantiellement similaires ou analogues » à celles qu’il occupait auparavant, indique le document.

Résultat : des CSS de la province ont défini des regroupements de fonctions assez vastes, qui permettent, par exemple, à une surveillante d’élèves devenue éducatrice en service de garde ou encore préposée aux élèves handicapés dans les derniers mois de conserver son signe religieux. L’effet de cette loi sur le départ de personnel sera donc « beaucoup moins grand » que prévu, soupire, soulagée, Kathleen Legault.

Source: Un droit acquis élargi pour le port de signes religieux dans les écoles

Will the passage of Bill 94 to strengthen secularism in the school network have caused more fear than harm in the schools of the province? A recent expansion of access to the acquired right to wear a religious sign enjoyed by employees hired before March 20, 2025 has caused many to breathe a sigh of relief, Le Devoir said. Hundreds of layoffs are still to be expected in the greater Montreal area.

The adoption of Bill 94, on October 30, sowed a stir in the school network by suggesting, especially in the metropolitan area, a wave of layoffs of employees refusing to withdraw their religious sign in order to keep their jobs. “At least 500 jobs” were threatened only in the metropolis, said last February the president of the Montreal Association of School Directors, Kathleen Legault.

Apprehensive of the major repercussions on the services offered to students, school service centres (SSCs) have requested clarification from the Ministry of Education on the acquired right granted in the law to employees hired before March 20, 2025. The law, as adopted last fall, provided that any employee eligible for this acquired right would lose the right when he changed his position. This suggested significant employee departures, especially among academic and professional support staff.

On March 18, however, the Deputy Minister of Education, Carole Arav, sent to the general directorates of the CSS of the province a document providing details on the application of the acquired rights clause inscribed in this law, which extended the ban on the wearing of religious signs to all school staff.

The letter, which Le Devoir was able to consult, thus mentions that a “function” should not be limited to a rigid administrative classification, but rather be defined by the responsibilities of an employee. The latter therefore retains his acquired right if he changes position or obtains a promotion, to the extent that his tasks are “substantially similar or analogous” to those he previously held, the document indicates.

Result: CSS in the province have defined fairly extensive groupings of functions, which allow, for example, a student supervisor who has become a daycare educator or a disabled student attendant in recent months to maintain her religious sign. The effect of this law on the departure of staff will therefore be “much smaller” than expected, sighs, relieved, Kathleen Legault.

Filed under Laïcité, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

CIMM Report 5: Canada’s Immigration System

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

Reasonable set of recommendations by CIMM:

Recommendation 1:Increase Cost-of-Living Threshold for International Students

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada further increase the cost-of-living threshold for international students beyond the annual updates to the low-income cut-off amount established by Statistics Canada.

Recommendation 2: Introduce Random Audits and Clear Penalties for Designated Learning Institutions

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduce random audits for Designated Learning Institutions and clear penalties for Designated Learning Institution issuing misleading documents.

Recommendation 3: Establish Caps on International Students from Countries with High Rates of Permit Overstays or Asylum Claims in Canada

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada establish caps on study permits and study permit extensions to those applying as nationals from countries with a high rate of permit overstays or asylum claims.

Recommendation 4: Stricter Monitoring of Language Proficiency Requirements

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada monitor language proficiency requirements more strictly for international students’ study permit issuance.

Recommendation 5: Draft Plain-language International Student Program Rules and Expectations

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, with the provinces and territories, publish clear plain-language program rules and expectations for prospective international students and Canadians, including integrity measures, housing and support expectations, and that immigration pathways are competitive and not guaranteed; and, that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada require designated learning institutions to inform prospective international students of the same.

Recommendation 6: Consult with Provinces and Territories about Long-Term Plans for the International Student Program

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada consult more extensively with the provinces and territories about long-term plans for the International Student Program.

Recommendation 7: Expedite Graduate Student Study Permit Renewals

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada expedite the processing of study permit renewals for graduate students.

Recommendation 8: Defer to Provinces and Territories about Labour Market Needs when Deciding Study Programs Eligible for Post-Graduation Work Permits

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada defer to provinces and territories about labour market needs when setting the list of study programs eligible for post-graduation work permits.

Recommendation 9: Fund Centre for Excellence for International Education

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada help fund a centre for excellence for international education that brings together relevant international student data from all levels of government and that promotes research and policy innovation among stakeholders and governments within international student education.

Recommendation 10: Instruct Parliamentary Budget Officer to Analyze International Student Program and Study Permit Application Caps

That the Parliamentary Budget Officer undertake a comprehensive analysis of the International Student Program, including costing the effects of the study permit application caps on enrollment, housing, research and regional and national economic growth.

Source: CIMM Report 5: Canada’s Immigration System

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Signal49 (former Conference Board): From Newcomers to Game Changers

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

Summary of the latest report on over-education/skills mismatch:

  • Overeducation is the most pronounced form of skill underutilization for both immigrants and Canadian-born citizens. However, immigrants face this type of skill mismatch at 1.8 times the rate seen for their Canadian-born counterparts.
  • Involuntary part-time work is the second most pronounced type of skill underutilization in Canada, but immigrants fare worse again: They are 1.7 times more likely to experience this type of skill wastage than their Canadian-born counterparts.
  • While temporary employment is not a common type of skill underutilization in Canada, groups experience it differently. Immigrants are more likely to work in term and contract jobs, while Canadian-born citizens are more likely to work in seasonal jobs.
  • From 2022 to 2024, municipal progress in immigrant skill utilization was mixed. Most municipalities remain mid-range performers, with improvements in some and declines in others. Increasing immigrant skill utilization across Canada will require targeted interventions in lower-scoring municipalities.

Source: From Newcomers to Game Changers

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U.S. leads spike in applications for Canadian citizenship by descent

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

As expected but still early to know whether PBO and IRCC estimates of about 20,000 annually are accurate or low:

Interest in Canadian citizenship by descent among citizens in a handful of countries — especially the United States — surged after the federal government passed a new law clarifying the rules.

C-3, which took effect on Dec. 15, 2025, allows someone born outside Canada to a Canadian parent who also was born outside Canada to file a citizenship claim — as long as the parent spent at least three years in Canada before their child’s birth or adoption.

The law was drafted and passed in response to a 2023 Ontario Superior Court order that found a law on citizenship by descent passed by Stephen Harper’s government was unconstitutional.

That Harper-era law said Canadians who were born abroad could only pass down their citizenship if their children were born in Canada.

The Liberal government under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, which did not appeal the 2023 ruling, faced a deadline to either pass legislation on new citizenship by descent rules or see the rules thrown out with no alternative.

Government officials, including then-immigration minister Marc Miller, told parliamentary committees studying the law that an unknown number of people would automatically become citizens without a legislated alternative in place.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reports receiving more than 12,000 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January.

While the December to January period saw a higher than normal number of applications, a department spokesperson said the government does not expect to see a “significant” uptick in applications.

The parliamentary budget officer estimated about 115,000 people would be eligible for citizenship under the bill.

The department approved almost 6,300 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January. Only 1,480 of them were approved under C-3; the remainder were approved through other laws.

U.S. citizens accounted for the largest national share of those applications. Nearly 2,500 Americans were approved in January alone.

Jacqueline Bart, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said there’s been a frenzy of interest among Americans looking to get a Canadian passport.

She said some of those applicants — including LGBTQ+ individuals and people with children requiring gender affirming medical care — are looking to move to Canada “right away.”

“It’s just been absolutely insane to the point where I can’t keep up with the work. I’m having to refer people to other lawyers,” Bart said. 

Bart said while most of the inquiries are coming from lawyers looking for access to a second passport, she is beginning to get more inquiries from non-lawyers in the U.S.

“I think some of our inquiries are kind of spilling over into a more general sphere,” she said. “But the overwhelming majority of my clients are American. I would say maybe five per cent come from other countries, at most.”

While January 2026 saw a higher-than-average number of American citizenship by descent approvals, it only ranked third in terms of U.S. approvals in a single month in the last year. March 2025 saw more than 2,800 approvals out of the United States, while May saw almost 2,700.

The number of approvals from the U.K. — the country with the second highest level of interest in Canadian citizenship by descent — was also above average in January, at 290.

People from France saw 140 approvals in January. Other countries in the top 10 for citizenship by descent approvals include China, Hong Kong, India, Australia, the Philippines, the U.A.E. and Germany — they ranged between 75 and 120 approvals in January.

The vast majority of countries outside the top 10 saw no significant shifts in approval numbers — with the exceptions of Mexico and Belize.

Mexico was the source of 235 approved applications for citizenship by descent in January 2026; Mexican citizens received 610 approvals in all of 2025. Ninety applications out of Mexico were approved in December 2025 — a notable jump over the 2025 monthly average of 50 citizenship approvals.

While Belize accounted for only 45 approvals throughout 2025, it registered 40 in January of this year alone.

The immigration department issued about 82,500 approvals for citizenship by descent throughout 2025, with the United States generating the most — about 24,500 approvals.

The other countries in the top 10 accounted for only a combined 11,600 approvals in 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026. 

Source: U.S. leads spike in applications for Canadian citizenship by descent

Filed under C-3, Citizenship Tagged with , , , ,

Jamie Sarkonak: The Liberal state always wins

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

Arguing for purges and inspired by Orban and Trump. Countering one set of excesses by a reverse set of excesses not helpful:

…It can be overcome, but that starts close to home, with provincial governments actively taking back what is rightfully theirs and installing onside allies — not thoughtless centrist donors who fear alienation from their Liberal-voting friends more than they want to win. It takes a careful and concerted effort to take back professional schools, not by defunding them, but by funding academic chairs to break the monoculture, provide role models to onside students, and provide alternative experts to lean on during contentious policy debates. The federal party can’t do much of this, but it can certainly build relationships with onside provinces to make it happen — or hammer them for failing to live up to their responsibility.

It means firing every activist and replacing every Liberal appointee at the top of any public department, every member of a public board, and abolishing those that exist only to prop up Liberal ideology. That means abandoning gender and anti-racism initiatives, something that even Alberta and Ontario struggle to do.

At this point, defund-everything libertarianism is a gambling strategy: it puts all the movement’s eggs into the basket that is the party’s election platform, and takes a crisis in the Liberal party to have any viability at all. In the off-chance it does result in victory, it is incapable of perpetuating itself.

Aimless tax and budget cuts don’t build movements or develop the careers of up-and-comers; they actually impede your future performance by depriving you of the necessary pipeline of manpower required to run complex institutions for years to come. “Just go to the private sector” doesn’t work, by the way, when the major corporations and companies have some kind of Liberal dependency, which is true for all the major consulting firms, law firms, pipeline companies and banks.

The wisdom that institutional control is the easy path to victory was internalized by the Liberals long ago. It’s time Conservatives started thinking the same way. It won’t deliver overnight, but that’s what it’s going to take to build a machine that can win in the absence of a catastrophic Liberal mistake. Anything less is just rolling the dice.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: The Liberal state always wins

The right should not shy away from doing this when they regain power, which is hopefully a matter of when, not if. A government that refuses to stack the deck with its own people is effectively subsidizing a sort of Viet Cong within the state it supposedly heads. As the Americans learned painfully in the Vietnam War, merely shrinking the size of the Viet Cong with napalm did not eliminate the threat. Familiar or friendly and trusted people can be empowered a great deal within the bounds of the law.

Allies should be rewarded, and parallel institutions should supplant or compete with those that already exist. For example, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper made the mistake of not doing more to support the Sun News Network, which might have blossomed into a true conservative institution in the private sector.

§source: Geoff Russ: Orbán gave Conservatives a blueprint for capturing institutions

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Job cuts at Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will cause asylum delays and backlogs, union charges

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

May well be true but cannot expect a union to argue otherwise:

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada is cutting 53 jobs as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push to reduce government spending, said the union representing the largest independent tribunal in the country.

The board, responsible for adjudicating asylum claims, finalized 79,462 such claims last year, and it currently has 295,522 outstanding cases in the system awaiting a decision. At this rate, it would take more than three and a half years just to clear the backlog.

These cuts — part of the federal “realignment and reallocation plan” — are happening despite significant delays in refugee and asylum claim processing times, and are going to make a bad situation worse, warned the Canada Employment and Immigration Union….

Source: Job cuts at Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will cause asylum delays and backlogs, union charges

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Montreal’s largest school service centre loses more than 100 support staff due to new secularism law

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

Not surprising:

Montreal’s largest school board has lost more than 100 support staff because they refused to remove religious symbols to comply with the province’s new secularism law. 

The law, known as Bill 94, expanded a ban on wearing religious symbols, like crosses and hijabs, to include support staff workers in schools — lunchroom monitors and special education technicians, for example. 

Several school service centres told Radio-Canada in February that dozens of staff had already been fired, suspended or decided to resign because of Bill 94. 

Now, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), says it, too, has had to let staff go. 

A spokesperson for the CSSDM told Radio-Canada that the service centre had recently informed staff members that they were at risk of losing their jobs if they didn’t remove a religious symbol to comply with the new law. 

Many decided to comply with the law, according to the spokesperson — meaning that they agreed to remove a religious symbol. 

But approximately 150 did not….

Source: Montreal’s largest school service centre loses more than 100 support staff due to new secularism law

Filed under Laïcité, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

2025 Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

Ironic timing, released at the same time as the Fox ethics scandal:

…Fairness

In 2025, more than three quarters (76%) of employees agreed that the process of selecting a person for a position is done fairly, consistent with 2023 (77%).

Employees who perceived the selection process as unfair were asked to describe how. The main reasons cited were a perception that appointments in their work unit are not transparent, that they are based on “who you know” and that some appointees have benefitted from nepotism or favoritism.

Expanding on the perceptions of fairness in staffing processes, a new question on non-advertised appointments was introduced in 2025. Overall, 71% of employees agreed that non-advertised appointments are done fairly. The main reasons cited by respondents who perceived non-advertised appointments as unfair were that non-advertised appointments depend on who you know (74%) and that they are not transparent (70%).

Statements related to fairness20232025
Process of selecting a person for a position is done fairly77%76%
Non-advertised appointments are done fairlyn/a71%
Reasons2025
Non-advertised appointments depend on who you know74%
Non-advertised appointments are not transparent70%
Non-advertised appointments are not based on merit48%
Non-advertised appointments are never fair30%
Non-advertised appointments are not inclusive28%
Other12%

Employment equity and equity-seeking groups’ perceptions on fairness

With the exception of women, all employment equity groups expressed less positive perceptions than their respective comparator groups.

Employees identifying as two-spirit and intersex had less positive perceptions of both statements related to fairness compared to all other identities

Employees identifying as another gender had the least positive perceptions of fairness in the staffing process of all groups

Members of visible minorities, Indigenous Peoples and persons with disabilities had less positive perceptions of fairness in the staffing process than their respective comparator groups

Members of religious communities had less positive perceptions of fairness in the staffing process compared with employees who are not members of religious communities

Employees who are separated, divorced or widowed had less positive perceptions of fairness in the staffing process compared with employees who are married, living common-law or single

Employees identifying as asexual and pansexual had less positive perceptions of fairness compared with all other sexual orientations

Source: 2025 Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey

Filed under DEI, Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Kay: The Tragedy of Murdered Indigenous Women is Real. So How Did Activists Turn It Into a Punch Line?

2026/04/17 Leave a comment

More on Gazan’s alphabet soup combining MMIWG and LGTBQ acronyms:

…And yet for all the report’s heft, its authors never got around to any systematic analysis of who was killing Indigenous women, possibly because the answer turned out to be off-message: A Statistics Canada analysis of court outcomes in homicides of Indigenous women and girls, from 2009 to 2021, determined that “most Indigenous women and girls were killed by someone that they knew (81%), including an intimate partner (35%), acquaintance (24%), or family member (22%).”

What’s more—and this was the disclosure that really made many Canadians wonder why we’d spent CA$53 million on the Inquiry—it turned out that in 86 percent of known cases, the person accused of the homicide was also Indigenous.

It goes without saying that a woman’s death is no less (or more) tragic when she shares the killer’s ethnic background. Moreover, even in cases where an Indigenous man kills an Indigenous woman, it is entirely possible that racism—and, yes, “colonialism”—are at play. Indigenous people have been treated in all sorts of appalling ways in Canada, and the dark legacy of past policies hangs heavily over the lives of many Indigenous communities. No reasonable person would dispute that such historical realities should be considered by any inquiry mandated to investigate the problem of MMIWG. But to pretend that Canada is prosecuting an ongoing nationwide “genocide” against its female Indigenous population is nonsensical.

But there’s more, unfortunately—and here we get to the reason why the tragedy of “MMIWG” recently became something of a punch line among non-Canadian meme merchants who have no idea what the letters even signify….

Source: Kay: The Tragedy of Murdered Indigenous Women is Real. So How Did Activists Turn It Into a Punch Line?

Source: The Tragedy of Murdered Indigenous Women is Real. So How Did Activists Turn It Into a Punch Line?

Filed under Aboriginal, LGBTQ Tagged with , ,

Yakabuski: A deputy minister’s ethics violation will further sap morale in the Canadian public service

2026/04/17 Leave a comment

Time to accept the inevitable. Hard to see how she can avoid resigning or retiring given the clear judgement, arrogance and obliviousness to MP concerns, impact on public service morale and overall credibility of deputies:

…Participants expressed that there appear to be few, if any, consequences for senior leaders who act in contravention of values and ethics, as compared to consequences imposed upon employees, particularly those who are members of racialized groups,” it found. 

To remedy the problem, the task team recommended that “deputy ministers ensure that obligations under the Values and Ethics Code, and departmental codes of conduct, are clear and are upheld with consequences for violations regardless of level or position.”

That recommendation has suddenly taken on new resonance in the wake of the federal Ethics Commissioner’s finding that Christiane Fox, one of the deputy ministers who made up the task team, violated the Conflict of Interest Act by using her position to influence a departmental decision to hire an acquaintance who was unqualified for the job.

In a 35-page report released last week, Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein concluded that as deputy minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in 2023, Ms. Fox used her authority to give an “old acquaintance” from university “preferential treatment, by ensuring he met with departmental officials quickly, seeking updates about his hiring, giving him internal information, and pushing for a higher job classification.”…

Merit-based hiring remains the bedrock of a professional public service. Ms. Fox appears to have lost sight of that principle. Her bosses must not. 

Source: A deputy minister’s ethics violation will further sap morale in the Canadian public service

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

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