CSIS tracking 80 Canadians who came home after going abroad for ‘terrorist purposes’

2014/03/25 Leave a comment

CSIS doing its job:

But the speaking notes provided to the CSIS director acknowledge that the intelligence community faces challenges identifying and tracking the movements of such individuals, and bringing charges against them.

The number of individuals overseas is constantly in flux and their motivations are not always easy to discern, according to the notes. Their destinations are often in active conflict zones or failed states, meaning cooperation with foreign partners — and getting sound intelligence — can be difficult.

Further, those engaged in terrorist activities often travel on falsified documents and “Canada has not, to date, systematically collected exit information that could be used to reliably confirm an individual’s departure,” the notes state.

“Despite our best efforts it is highly likely there are Canadians we do not know of who are travelling overseas to engage in terrorist activities.”

CSIS tracking 80 Canadians who came home after going abroad for ‘terrorist purposes’.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization, Religion Tagged with , ,

Toronto

2014/03/25 Leave a comment

Nice piece from the NY Times on Toronto and its diversity and neighbourhoods.

It’s a great walking town, and part of what makes it so much fun to explore is the range and variety of the neighborhoods in which the city takes pride, and which have resisted the homogenization that has occurred throughout so much of New York City — from Yorkville, with its fashionable shops and department stores, to Old Town, where you can find the St. Lawrence Market, an immense covered structure offering a huge selection of foods and crafts, and where, on Saturdays, local farmers sell their produce. Some of the neighborhoods are known for their architectural beauty: the charming Victorian houses along the tree-lined streets of Cabbagetown, originally a working-class Irish enclave; the equally attractive brick mansions and neo-Gothic cottages of the Annex, a district of artists, professors and students who attend the nearby University of Toronto; the brick rowhouses and manicured lawns of Roncesvalles and the mansions of Forest Hill.

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Sheryl Saperia: The case for revoking citizenship

2014/03/25 2 Comments

The alternate view to that expressed by Chris Selley a number of weeks ago (Actually, my citizenship is a right | National Post)  by Sheryl Saperia is Director of Policy for Canada at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)

Bill C-24 makes ordinary Canadians safer by adding a new layer of deterrence against engaging in terrorism, treason and armed conflict with Canada; facilitating the removal of people who pose a threat not only to Canada, but to the vulnerable individuals in our society susceptible to radicalization; and removing the coveted Canadian passport from those who would use it as a tool to support or carry out terrorist attacks.

Sheryl Saperia: The case for revoking citizenship | National Post.

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Diaspora Politics and PM Trip to Ukraine – My CBC Interview

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

In case interested, my short TV interview on how diaspora politics is a factor in Canada’s response to the crisis in Ukraine and the PM’s trip.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2443812861/

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Margaret MacMillan: How today is like the period before the First World War

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

Good interview with Margaret MacMillan with some interesting reflections:

Do you not see any developments in modern diplomacy that keep countries away from the precipice?

We have better international institutions and more of them. And we do have the capacity now to talk quickly to each other. But what we don’t have are the experienced diplomats who used to really know a country. There’s been a tendency in most countries to downplay the role of the diplomatic corps and to say, ‘do we really need diplomats?’ You’ve got it in the Harper government: ‘Do we really need all these people? They just hang out and go to cocktail parties.’

By the same token, diplomats did not prevent the First World War.

No, they didn’t. But they did actually deal with quite a few crises before World War One. You could argue that they had shown their value. I think good diplomatic services are very very useful. It’s also worrying to me what’s happening to newspapers. The media generally are closing down their overseas bureaux because they’re too expensive. What that means is we’re getting huge amounts of information but we’re not really getting the analysis and expertise that we all need.

We mistake being able to get lots of information from everywhere very quickly with actually getting knowledge.

Margaret MacMillan: How today is like the period before the First World War – The Globe and Mail.

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Islamic law to be enshrined in British law as solicitors get guidelines on ‘Sharia compliant’ wills

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

Some were not thinking about how Islamic principles list can be reconciled with a human rights and equality perspective. Sad.

Under guidance produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to compose Islamic wills that refuse women an equal share of inheritances and discount non-believers entirely, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The recommendations can also prevent illegitimate children, as well as those who have been adopted, from being included in an inheritance.

Nicholas Fluck, president of The Law Society told the newspaper that the document, which would be recognised by Britain’s courts, would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.

But some lawyers have described the recommendations as “astonishing” and campaigners have warned that the move marks a step towards a “parallel legal system” for Britain’s Muslim communities.

Islamic law to be enshrined in British law as solicitors get guidelines on ‘Sharia compliant’ wills – Home News – UK – The Independent.

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The Lords must vote against Theresa May’s plan to strip Britons of their citizenship

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

More on the debate within the UK on citizenship revocation in cases of terrorist or equivalent activity, and lack of due process (proposed Canadian equivalent has greater due process protections given role of Federal Court and not leaving it to Ministerial discretion):

“[U]se of denationalisation as a punishment [means] the total destruction of the individual’s status in organised society. It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture …”

So ruled the US supreme court in 1958 on the practice of stripping people of their citizenship and leaving them stateless. It is a measure of how far Britain has sunk in the legal and ethical mire of the “war on terror” that the government is now attempting to introduce powers similar to those rejected by the US courts as “cruel and unusual” more than half a century ago.

On Monday, the House of Lords votes on plans that would give Theresa May the power to strip Britons of their citizenship without due process, even if doing so would leave them stateless – deprived of any nationality or the protections it carries.

It is a power that, before this government came into office, had been relatively narrow in scope and little-used. Even during the second world war, Oxford academic Matthew Gibeny notes, “only four people were stripped of citizenship.” Already, he says, “Theresa May has denaturalised more than four times that number”.

The Lords must vote against Theresa May’s plan to strip Britons of their citizenship | Clare Algar | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

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Paul Wells: How to get inside Harper’s head – The Globe and Mail

2014/03/22 Leave a comment

I found Well’s book, The Longer I’m Prime Minister, a compelling and informative read. He really does try to understand the philosophical and ideological foundations, with empathy, not just dismissing them. The section on the census – which apparently Well’s editors wanted shortened – is one of the better sections, as is some of the background of thinkers like Brimelow that have been influential:

It’s the empathy thing again. I was actually preparing to deliver a sustained critique of the census changes. But there were a lot of people telling you why it was a bad idea, and not an awful lot of people telling you why he would have thought it was a good idea. And the answer is because there’s this rich intellectual heritage in Western conservative circles of mistrusting the census man. When Jed Clampett, at the beginning of the Beverly Hillbillies, takes a shot and hits oil, he thinks he’s shooting at a revenuer. That persists in our culture, and I wanted to trace that at some length so that people would see that where Harper comes from has been there along – and has been ignored by a lot of people who now suddenly can’t ignore it because he’s running the joint.

A great para on Jason Kenney:

Jason Kenney’s a spectacular exception to that. Jason Kenney says what he wants. His staff say what they want. The autonomy of being a junior staffer in Jason Kenney’s office is greater than the autonomy that most cabinet ministers enjoy. And the answer is because Harper knows, or believes, that Kenney would never turn that fire-hose on him. James Moore is another good example. We draw these facile distinctions between loyalists and a strong personality with something to say. But of course there are all kinds of examples of loyalists who have a strong personality. And as long as you’re a loyalist first, Harper’s happy to let you stay around.

Paul Wells: How to get inside Harper’s head – The Globe and Mail.

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Evidence vs Anecdote, Trust and Distrust

2014/03/22 Leave a comment

Some good pieces in The Citizen picking up on some of the these in my book, Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism,

Starting with Stewart Prest, who goes too far in praising the neutrality and impartiality of public servants, neglecting that we public servants also have our own perspectives, bias and ideologies that we need to be more aware about to provide our best and most neutral advice:

However, in modern democratic states one of the most important sources for non-partisan information and expertise is the government itself. Government bureaucracies are the only institutions in the world today with the access, the resources, and the motivation to systematically monitor and study the entirety of a country’s population and the extent of its human and natural environment.

Examples are legion, from statisticians to health officials to diplomats to environmental scientists. They exist throughout the much maligned but nonetheless vital bureaucracy of the country. Crucially, their professional incentives push them to resist conclusions that may even be perceived as partisan. After all, a long-serving civil servant will work under different parties and political masters. Their professional success comes from striving to provide politically neutral advice and support for political decision-making, and engaging in equally neutral policy implementation. Though part of the machinery of the state, these experts are — or ought to be — distinct and largely independent from the particular partisan interests of the government of the day.

Such bureaucrats are, among other things, keepers of tradition: a reservoir of knowledge about how Canadians have governed themselves over previous years and decades. They know and can speak to what works, and what does not. In this regard, theirs is a deeply conservative (small-c) form of expertise, one that has played no small part in whatever good government Canadians have enjoyed since confederation.

That is not to say that his overall message of suppressing speech, undermining data, eroding science, and increased partisanship has more than an element of truth.

Op-Ed: The war on experts

The Public Policy Forum in its recent study, Flat, Flexible and Forward-Thinking, focusses on declining levels of trust in the public service:

Mitchell said part of the problem is that some public servants have taken the traditional principles of a neutral and non-partisan public service too far.

“I think we prided our public service on being politically neutral and non-partisan to a fault because it has persuaded some to think they cannot even engage in meaningful dialogue with elected representatives or their staff.  That is an extreme view but I think it may have been taken to the extreme and we have to build stronger understanding and more trust.”

But Mitchell said rebuilding trust will take more than the effort of public servants. He said the government will have to be “political champions” for this change as well as for other sweeping reforms of the public service.

I think the trust issue goes deeper than that on both sides. Public servants may have viewed the new government as “barbarians at the gate” given how different public service and political perspectives were, and similarly the government viewed many public servants as “hopelessly compromised liberals.”

‘Trust gap’ a growing problem for public servants and politicians, think-tank warns

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‘Self-censorship’ in discussion of multiculturalism, says London’s deputy mayor

2014/03/22 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion with Munira Mirza, deputy mayor of London, on multiculturalism, with particular reference to academic circles. Her point on the mistake of treating Muslims as “a homogenous group” particularly relevant (a lesson that can likely be applied to any community engagement strategy):

While at Policy Exchange, Mirza was lead author of a 2007 report, Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism, that claimed that “Government policies to improve engagement with Muslims make things worse. By treating Muslims as a homogeneous group, the Government fails to see the diversity of opinions amongst Muslims, so they feel more ignored and excluded.”

This argument was obviously controversial, but Mirza reports a “quite vicious” response from academics who focused on “quibbling with the technicalities of the research”. There was also “an assumption that, because it was published by a thinktank, it was therefore driven by ideological motives and there was nothing in it that was substantial, whereas we in the universities are much more objective”.

It is here that Mirza detects “a kind of coercive consensus around some of the debates in higher education around issues such as multiculturalism.

“There isn’t much appetite to criticise it as a policy or to entertain the notion that some of these ideas have had damaging effects. I think there’s a degree of self-censorship. I don’t think you get the critical level of discussion and debate [about multiculturalism] in the university sector that you do in the press and media. I think there’s more intelligent public conversation outside than there is inside.”

‘Self-censorship’ in discussion of multiculturalism, says London’s deputy mayor | News | Times Higher Education.

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