Is This the End of Political Islam?

2026/06/16 Leave a comment

Good commentary. Delivery failures and corruption (not unique of course to Islamic governments):

…For now, many scholars doubt that political Islam will rise again soon. In a new book, “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam,” Faisal Devji, a historian at Oxford, compares political Islam to Communism, Baathism and other ideologies that sprang up during a specific historical moment and later lost their relevance. Terrorism tarnished the Islamist brand, too, Professor Devji told me. Most Muslims abhorred the cinematic violence of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. “With the emergence of Al Qaeda and ISIS, you had a massive rethinking of what a Muslim public life and politics should look like,” he said.

Of course, measuring what people want across an area as vast as the Middle East is difficult. A further tangle is how to define political Islam, which can encompass everything from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, an Islamist at the head of a constitutionally secular state, to radical jihadists who attack anyone who disagrees with them, including other Muslims.

To avoid such complications, Arab Barometer, a public opinion tracker, focuses on specifics, said Michael Robbins, the group’s director. Its surveys ask whether it is better for religious people to hold state positions, whether clerics should have sway over government decisions and whether religion should be private and separated from socio-economic life. It compares those indicators in six Arab countries — Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia.

Overall, its results suggested that only a minority was enthusiastic about political Islam. From 2012 to 2025, support for religious people in government ticked above 50 percent in just two of the countries, Jordan and Morocco. Support for clerical influence over state policy rose in five countries, but was above 40 percent only in Iraq, at 58 percent. (In the United States, by comparison, 43 percent of people say the government should promote Christian values, according to the Pew Research Center.) Solid majorities in four of the countries agreed that religious practice should be a private matter.

But public opinion holds limited sway in the Middle East. Polling in many countries is scant, and power is held mostly by autocrats who don’t have to worry about angry voters chucking them out in the next election….

Source: Is This the End of Political Islam?

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Desperate temporary residents in Canada are using this tactic to extend their stays. It may no longer work

2026/06/16 Leave a comment

Never underestimate the loopholes that people will explore:

Desperation is sparking a growing phenomenon among temporary residents that’s complicating Ottawa’s plan to cap their population and reduce Canada’s nagging immigration backlogs.

Stuck in the pipeline for permanent residence, some migrants are filing what are known as “dummy applications” to extend their stay in the country, knowing that the applications are baseless and would get refused. They know they can maintain their status while a decision is pending, and current lengthy application processing helps.

According to the Immigration Department, the number of extension applications for visitor status and work permits grew significantly in the last five years, from 167,955 to 275,905 and from 442,715 to 1,039,275, respectively. That’s not surprising, given the surge of international students and foreign workers admitted to Canada after COVID.

But new data also showed the refusal rates for visitor extensions have doubled from six per cent to 12.1 per cent, with work permit extension refusals up from 6.5 per cent to 10.1 per cent.

While it’s not known how many extension applications in the system are unfounded, experts believe the soaring refusal rates can be attributed in part to the rising number of dummy extensions and in part to the tightened scrutiny by immigration officials.

These applications, with little substance or chance to succeed, are contributing to the growing immigration queue. In the first quarter of this year, there were 2.15 million immigration applications to be processed in the system; 865,000 were for temporary residence, 38 per cent of which were deemed backlogged for exceeding the service standards.

Amid job cuts at the Immigration Department, these applications further strain processing times — 312 days for visitor and 201 days for work permit extensions as of the end of May — and provide more incentive for people to file one.  …

Source: Desperate temporary residents in Canada are using this tactic to extend their stays. It may no longer work

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Dotan Rousso: Canada must vet new immigrants for cultural compatibility 

2026/06/16 Leave a comment

Increased focus by right leaning media. Repeats earlier fears regarding earlier waves of immigrants:

…The most common objection to using culture as a selection criterion is that cultural compatibility cannot be measured. That is simply not true. Democracies already test for civic knowledge, constitutional understanding, and commitment to democratic institutions. Canada could place greater emphasis on civic integration requirements, stronger citizenship standards, constitutional literacy, and screening for support of extremist organizations and ideologies. It could also examine integration outcomes more carefully when determining immigration levels from particular regions.

A successful immigration policy does not merely ask whether an applicant can fill a job vacancy. It asks whether newcomers and the host society can realistically build a common future together.

Canada’s political leaders have spent decades insisting that culture is largely irrelevant to immigration. The evidence increasingly suggests otherwise. The real question is no longer whether culture matters. The real question is whether our leaders have the courage to admit it.

Source: Dotan Rousso: Canada must vet new immigrants for cultural compatibility 

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Why some say Quebec politicians helped fuel the racism they unanimously denounced

2026/06/16 Leave a comment

Valid critique:

Amid all the debates and disagreements leading up to the end of the short spring session at the National Assembly this week, there was one issue that recently united Quebec’s MNAs. 

In a rare move, four political parties tabled four separate motions last week denouncing a gathering in Shawinigan, Que., captured in a photo, during which more than a dozen masked white nationalists held a banner that read, “Je me souviens d’un Québec blanc,” French for “I remember a white Quebec.”

The motions — tabled by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), Québec Solidaire, the Quebec Liberal Party, and the Parti Québécois (PQ) — were passed unanimously. 

The condemnation was swift.

But observers — as well as some Quebec MNAs — have since pointed out that rhetoric from the province’s political class in recent years helped contribute to the behaviour it was denouncing.

“This is not something that [happened] in a vacuum,” said Frédéric Boisrond, a sociologist and author who follows Quebec politics. 

“This is something that has been growing like a tumour for years.”…

Source: Why some say Quebec politicians helped fuel the racism they unanimously denounced

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Lederman: Trump, the Tates and the sycophants that sustain them

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Good calling out of those complicit. Just doing their job is the modern equivalent of just following orders…:

…But here’s who does know: The people around them. The suck-ups and sycophants. Around the Tates – their security, business and legal advisers; the woman hired to handle their PR after their arrest in Romania. And in Washington, the President’s people – other elected Republicans who pretend their leader knows what he’s doing, his press secretaries who berate the media at his behest. Outsiders too, like the soccer organization that awarded him a peace prize. They know – and they stick around and cheerlead anyway. They aid and abet. They amplify, normalize. It’s a game for them – or a job, well-paid, while real people suffer. Monsters.

Source: Trump, the Tates and the sycophants that sustain them

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Critics say Canada’s new immigration and border law puts LGBTQ+ people in danger

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Of note:

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and MPs from other political parties came together to raise the Pride flag on Parliament Hill.

But an advocacy group that helps LGBTQ refugees come to Canada and the U.S says the federal government’s new border law is putting people at risk of being sent back to countries where they face persecution.

Devon Matthews, Rainbow Railroad’s chief program officer, said her organization is concerned about its working relationship with Ottawa as the federal government reduces the number of refugees it admits and cuts the organization’s funding.

She said it’s also alarmed by a new law requiring that refugee claims be made within a year of the claimant’s first arrival in Canada.

“It has nothing to do with the reasons why someone may have waited or why someone doesn’t meet the one-year bar,” Matthews told The Canadian Press…

Source: Critics say Canada’s new immigration and border law puts LGBTQ+ people in danger

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Communities report high demand for pilot offering permanent residency for rural jobs

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Of note. Will be interesting to see an eventual IRCC evaluation of the program covering retention issues:

A pilot immigration program to help rural communities find skilled workers for hard-to-fill jobs saw 800 people receive permanent residency in the first two months of this year — and hundreds of applications are streaming in for a limited number of available spaces.

The Rural Community Immigration Pilot, or RCIP, began in 2025. It allows 14 small communities across Canada to recommend people with skills and jobs in selected sectors for permanent residency.

Each community can select up to 25 fields as priority professions for their area — anything from health and manufacturing to skilled trades and transport….

Source: Communities report high demand for pilot offering permanent residency for rural jobs

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FIFA World Cup is drawing thousands of visa applications to Canada. Here are the countries with the highest refusals

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Ghana, whose national team will play at Toronto Stadium on Wednesday, topped the list of visa applicants, with 1,953 applications submitted between Nov. 14, 2025, when Ottawa first announced its special visa measures, and March 31, the latest data available. Ghana also had the most refusals.

The West African country was closely followed by the 1,793 applications received from Colombia, which is in the tourney but is not scheduled to play in Canada. India (1,393), Nigeria (1,293) and Pakistan (1,085) rounded out the top five source countries; none of these three qualified for the tournament.

Preliminary data from the Immigration Department suggested there were more visas refused than granted among applications with the “FIFA World Cup 26” flag. The countries with the highest refusal cases were: Ghana (1,423), Pakistan (797), India (687), Nigeria (557) and Colombia (461).

Concerns have swirled over travellers being scammed or taking advantage of the event to gain easy entry to Canada for asylum and work opportunities since social media posts emerged late last year, falsely advertising that visitors can work without work permits during the World Cup, and offering help with cover letters and coaching for visa applications to attend games.

Not only did Canadian officials step up their scrutiny, they also campaigned to combat misinformation and disinformation about Canada’s immigration system through public engagement and advisories.

Of the total 4,625 of visas approved, 1,076 were issued to Colombians, topping all countries. China, which did not qualify for the Cup, came a distant second, at 327. It’s followed by Ecuador (257), the U.S. (239) and India (188). (American citizens don’t need visas to come here, but U.S. permanent and temporary residents do.)…

Source: FIFA World Cup is drawing thousands of visa applications to Canada. Here are the countries with the highest refusals

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The world’s wealthy are migrating like never before

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Good survey from The Economist. No fan of these programs as generally minimal benefit to the host country:

….Yet the wealthy can find that a warm welcome sometimes goes cold. In January 2025 Spain, once a popular destination, cancelled its €500,000 ($577,000) residency programme in an effort to curb property speculation. In April the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that Malta’s scheme broke eu law because it “commercialised” citizenship (though the island’s “citizenship-by-merit” programme, which admits entrepreneurs, has since gained traction). In April this year Argentina cancelled a tender to set up an investment-migration programme, issued only in December, which had drawn interest from 11 firms. Last month Portugal extended most migrants’ waiting time for passports from five years to ten.

Many governments are facing pressure to increase the diligence of their citizenship and residency programmes, notes Mr Klasko. The big issue is: “Do you as a country know the background of people who you are giving passports to?” In other words, geopolitical uncertainty does not only trouble the rich. But plenty of countries will take them—and plenty of advisers are eager to help them choose. 

Source: The world’s wealthy are migrating like never before

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Anglin: What’s driving Alberta separatism? Don’t overlook immigration

2026/06/12 Leave a comment

While there is merit to some of his arguments with respect to “generation squeeze,” Anglin neglects to mention provincial complicity, save for Quebec, in supporting high levels of immigration. After all, prior to launching the immigration-related referendums, Alberta supported higher numbers of Provincial Nominee Program and did not oppose higher numbers of international students or temporary workers, reflecting the same pressures by interest groups across the country.

As to his “Canada is broken para,” suspect it is more on the basic economic impacts more than the “wokification” as the polling he cites indicate:

…What is the source of this desperation? The sheer quantity and poor quality of the Liberal migration boom is not the only reason for job scarcity and soaring housing prices, but it’s a big one. Young voters also connect the resulting complexity in Canadian society to the takeover of their schools, government programs, and private HR departments by DEI programs that pigeon-hole them as avatars of their race, and what appears to be an official decision not to enforce the law against jarring cultural practices and open hate in our streets.

When young Albertans look at the national institutions that are meant to bind us together, they see the progressive “wokification” of the Canadian Armed Forces, a politicised, scandal-plagued, and mostly incompetent RCMP, and two-tier justice and immigration-based sentencing from the courts. Add to this a broken public health-care system, a sclerotic national economy sustained by a migration Ponzi scheme, and the denigration of Canadian history, symbols, and traditions…

Source: What’s driving Alberta separatism? Don’t overlook immigration

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