Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2014/02/07 Leave a comment
Others may have other lists, and I confess to not having read most of the books on this list, but Victoria Ferauge has a good annotated reading list for those interested in these issues.
2014/02/06 Leave a comment
On the day of tabling of the revisions to The Citizenship Act, my article on finding the right balance is out in Inside Policy. I focus on four elements of balance:
Inside Policy – February 2014 (page 42)
2014/02/06 Leave a comment
Good overview on how well-connected and influential the Ukrainian Canadian community is, and the UCC in particular. Having worked with the community in the context of the Government’s Historical Recognition Program, I can attest to their effectiveness.
The community was instrumental in the development of Canadian multiculturalism, given its role, among others, in developing Western Canada just as French and British pioneers developed the East:
The UCC is an umbrella group that, through its member organizations, represents one of the larger diasporas in Canada. More than 1.2 million individuals identify themselves as Ukrainian-Canadian. However, the UCC manages to organize better than comparably sized diaspora groups, and punch above its weight in terms of lobbying the federal government, experts suggested, thanks largely to historical and political factors.
The UCC has been organizing members for more than 70 years. Ukrainian immigrants flooded to Canada over the past century fleeing poverty and oppression from Soviet and Nazi invaders, and those hardships kept the community together, said Yaroslav Baran, a political consultant at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and former chief of staff in the Harper government with roots in the Ukrainian community.
“With that kind of context and background, especially that post-World War II wave, they were very organized, very mobilized, preserved the language,” and became politically active in Canada, he said.
2014/02/06 Leave a comment
Sigh ….
Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad: Can you believe this reaction?.
And from Commentary, a reminder that American Conservatism need not be intolerant:
What a weird and disturbing reaction. The ad was hardly “in your face.” It was in fact an affirmation that people from different cultures and lands and tongues are drawn to America and can love her, not because it’s their native land but because it’s a special land. America is, in the words of Ben Wattenberg, the “first universal nation.” The Coke ad beautifully captures the spirit behind the phrase on the Seal of the United States: E pluribus unum, “Out of many, one.”
This is something that not all that long ago nearly all conservatives would have understood. Yet today the ad by Coke is interpreted by some figures on the right as divisive and offensive, a Trojan Horse for immigration reform, as part of the Culture War. And the unmistakable message being sent by these individuals is that people of other cultures are aliens and threats and are therefore unwelcome. “Keep your mouths shut when it comes to our patriotic songs” is the message Messrs. Beck and Bolling are sending. What a brilliant way to appeal to a nation that is becoming increasingly diverse and multicultural.
2014/02/06 Leave a comment
Good commentary by Steven Beller on antisemitism, and the need to view antisemitism in the overall context of hate, intolerance and fear of the other, not just as a Jewish issue:
The first sees antisemitism from the perspective of Jewish nationalism (Zionism), for which the answer to antisemitism is Israel, as the political expression of the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination. From this perspective attacks on Israel are against the national rights of the Jewish people and hence are antisemitic because anti-Zionist. This linking of antisemitism with anti-Zionism, conceptualized most recently in the theory of “the new antisemitism”, has garnered strong support in the world’s Jewish communities, and is also written into the European Union’s working definition of antisemitism. If we approach antisemitism as a Jewish problem alone, this has a certain sense. It makes little if any sense from the perspective of the second strategy, which sees antisemitism as the ultimate expression of the exclusionary logic of nationalism.
The Zionist perspective actually undermines the most powerful arguments of antisemitism’s main antidote: liberal pluralism. In this view, as Jean-Paul Sartre famously suggested, antisemitism is not a problem for Jews but rather for non-Jews, indeed for all of us. It is representative of a universal moral evil: the exclusion, fear and, ultimately, destruction of the other in society simply because of difference. “Never again” becomes a promise not about preventing Jewish genocide, but any genocide. It is the refusal or inability to accept and embrace difference within a society that is the root of the problem. The solution is to throw over the apparently modern, but actually primitive “either/or” logic of nationalism, and replace it with the more complex, but more supple, inclusionary “both/and” logic that underpins liberal pluralism, the ability “to agree to disagree”, to comprehend, and embrace difference.
2014/02/06 1 Comment
Following the accusation by the Prime Minister’s Office that the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), and its predecessor organization CAIR-Can, were associated with banned terrorist group (Hamas), the NCCM launched a lawsuit. Will be interesting to see how the lawsuit turns out.
Given the Conservative government’s strong support for Israel and its closer relationship with the Canadian Jewish community than with the Canadian Muslim community, no surprise with the following comment:
Prime Minister, the Canadian Muslim community is tired of being a political punching bag. And in case you have any doubt, we will neither be intimidated nor will we be silenced.
Canadian NGO: Why we are suing the Prime Minister’s Office | Toronto Star.
More nuanced commentary, but with the same fundamental message, is by Omer Aziz:
There is a broader issue here, and that is the sheer ease with which one can tarnish Muslims – not just foreign ones, but fellow citizens – and get away with it. Canadian society rightly isolates and condemns racists, homophobes and anti-Semites. The excommunication of racial supremacists has been so effective that even a false charge of racism or anti-Semitism can ruin a career or, if assiduously repudiated, discredit the mudslinger. Being called a terrorist-sympathizer, a Hamas supporter, an al-Qaeda apologist, or whatever potentially libelous charge someone throws at you to exploit your Islamic faith can also ruin your career, but comes at little cost for the alleged libeler if it is false.
During a brief stint as a Parliamentary intern I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Harper on a few occasions, and I do not think for a moment that he harbors an ill thought toward Muslims. He is doing what he thinks best for the country that elected his party three times to government. Whether he realizes it or not, however, his office has smeared a national organization established to represent Muslims, making mere punching bags out of citizens, dehumanizing them, and debasing the venerable Prime Minister’s Office. He owes the NCCM and all Muslims an apology.
Why Stephen Harper owes Canadian Muslims an apology – The Globe and Mail.
2014/02/05 Leave a comment
In anticipation of the tabling of the revisions to The Citizenship Act tomorrow, some significant improvements in number of applications processed this January:
Investments announced in Economic Action Plan 2013 have helped make the system more efficient and strengthened the integrity of Canada’s citizenship program. The immense popularity of Canadian citizenship, though, has hampered efforts to tackle long processing times.
The government will take additional steps in the coming days to reduce backlogs while further strengthening the value of Canadian citizenship. As announced in the October 2013 Speech from the Throne, these measures – taken together – will form the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation.
While welcome, understates just how bad both 2012 and 2013 were: 113,111 and 128,94 compared to the previous years which varied between 143,595 and 199,866. However, the trend line is improving, thanks to the temporary funding increase that should largely eliminate the backlog and improve processing times by 2015.
The longer term issue is to ensure a business process and ongoing funding that prevents future backlogs from emerging. CIC has traditionally underfunded citizenship (under current business processes), waiting until the backlog increases to unacceptable levels, and then finding temporary funding to address the backlog.
And citizenship applications, as they come from permanent residents, generally do not fluctuate that much year-to-year, and thus are easier to predict, and manage, than previous immigration regimes, where demand was always greater than CIC’s ability to manage (recent changes to Canadian immigration policy have a large “demand management” aspect).
2014/02/05 Leave a comment
Good commentary by Andrew Cohen, reminding us of the diversity of views among Canadian Jews, and how these are muffled by the larger Canadian Jewish organizations:
But many congregants [of Shaar Hashomayim] worry — more than this prime minister can understand — about the country’s future as a democracy, even a Jewish Homeland, if it does not address its settlements in the West Bank. Or if it thinks the solution to Iran is solely military. Many of us hoped this government would raise reservations, as friends do, and as Ari Shavlit does in “My Promised Land,” his ruthlessly honest book.
Bless Rabbi Scheier. But when he hails a prime minister for speaking “truth” but offering nothing but self-comforting notions, when he lavishes praise on a mission of missed opportunity, he should know that he does not speak for me.
What Jews badly need are not stale notions and soothing platitudes, but that refreshing “gale of conversation” which has not yet blown into Canada.
Column: Canada’s conversation about Israel brings shouts and insults.
2014/02/05 Leave a comment
Valid commentary on the tragic case of a women who died when her scarf became caught up in a Montreal metro escalator:
In the case of such a human tragedy, should we not put aside the petty political point-scoring, and the scarcely-veiled racism, for long enough to acknowledge that a woman died, a fact equally tragic no matter what religion she practiced? Ultimately, the responsibility was on the Journal’s editors to exercise restraint, rather than reach for the most inflammatory headline available to them. Instead, they emptied a jerry-can of gasoline all over the tinderbox that is Quebec today, and lit a match. (For those who’d suggest that a complaint to the Quebec Press Council may be in order, no such luck — Quebecor withdrew from that voluntary oversight mechanism several years ago.)
Comments on social media, such as one which celebrated the death and expressed hope it would lead Muslims to learn their lesson about not wearing the hijab in Quebec, are indicative of the prejudice stirred up by this case. Another said simply enough “one less terrorist in Quebec.”
It’s time to take a stand against the creeping scourge of Islamophobia, which is a problem not only in Quebec, where the odious tone of the debate regarding the so-called Charter of Values has put it under a spotlight, but across the country. Because at the end of the day, a scarf is just a scarf, and how it was worn should matter as little as its colour in responding to a tragic accident.
2014/02/05 Leave a comment
Hard not to agree with Page on accountability and transparency grounds. I recall working on implementation of the Conservative government’s Accountability Act, and particularly the role of Deputy Ministers, and it is hard to square that with the refusal to release information on spending plans (PBO should not have to file ATIP requests to get this info):
Page said the big problem is that the government hasn’t revealed its spending plans, including the nature of the cuts and their impact on service levels. While at the PBO, Page waged a public battle with Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters and deputy ministers over their refusal to turn over information on the government’s spending plans.
The closure of veterans’ offices and libraries — and the resulting political backlash — is what happens when departments live under steady cuts and everyone has been kept in the dark about their impact.
“You can look more productive … but we don’t know for the most part whether service levels are being maintained or the same quality of service is maintained because we don’t get that information from the government. They won’t allow the public servants to release it,” said Page.
“I would think if you asked public servants working at those regional veterans offices … if they were maintaining the same quality of service, I am pretty sure they would say ‘ no, we’re not but we are better off fiscally because we’re taking people out. So productivity gets a bit of boost but if service goes down and outputs go down, Canadians aren’t getting the same quality of services, and in the long run we are not better off.”
Former PBO Kevin Page says federal government should reveal plans for public service.
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Multicultural Meanderings 