Indonesian expats excited at getting chance to vote – Khaleej Times

2014/07/07 Leave a comment

For something different, an example of a country that does not allow dual nationality and the impact on mixed marriages:

Amelia Kusnindito, who has been a resident of Dubai for 14 years, expressed hoped that the next president would make changes in the country’s law on mixed marriages. “I am married to a British, but I can only carry an Indonesian passport. I have no chance to get a British passport because this is a law. I really hope in my heart that the president I choose in this election will espouse changes. So far, I have seen that this candidate I choose in my heart has been supporting the Indonesian diaspora, particularly those married to other nationalities outside my country.”

Indonesian expats excited at getting chance to vote – Khaleej Times.

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ICYMI: From Washington Redskins to queer culture, the uneasy evolution of the slur

2014/07/07 1 Comment

Neil Macdonald on the changing nature of slurs and how our perceptions of what is acceptable and what is not changes:

Personally, for the sake of consistency, I’ve begun to avoid using the word “Redskins” in news reports about the controversy surrounding the team’s name.

It goes against my grain to do so; I’m a speech libertarian, and I believe we should shrink from no word if it is relevant to the discourse at hand, which, in this city, Redskins most certainly is.

But I also try, at least, to avoid hypocrisy, and there’s plenty of that in the discussions of the controversy surrounding the team.

The word itself is a self-evidently racist, slangy, condescending term for Indians, as a U.S. government commission ruled just recently. And yet we in the news media still use it when describing the team, simply because the team’s owner refuses to consider changing the name.

Imagine for a moment someone naming a team the “Houston Wetbacks.” Or the “New York Coons.” Would we repeat those names in reports? To ask that question is to answer it.

Other slurs are so radioactive they cannot even be uttered in a hypothetical discussion, so I wont. Again, I don’t think any word should be off-limits to discussion, but like the comedian Louis CK, I despise the fig-leaf coyness of euphemisms like “the n-word.”

So why is it still acceptable to use the term Redskins?

Do we allow ourselves to use it because it’s the name of a major sports team? Or is it still the name of a major sports team because we allow ourselves to use it?

Some people say that not all Indians regard the word as necessarily racist. But pretty clearly a large number of them do. Indian groups have tried, and failed, to force a name change.

That leaves us with the ugly conclusion that native Americans simply don’t have the political clout in the U.S. that some other minority groups have acquired through vigorous activism.

From Washington Redskins to queer culture, the uneasy evolution of the slur – World – CBC News.

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Why is Canada the most tolerant country in the world? Luck – Ibbitson

2014/07/05 1 Comment

John Ibbitson nails it with respect to the culture of accommodation, brought on by our French and English heritage (and to some extent with aboriginal peoples given the Royal Proclamation of 1763 setting a different tone than south of the border):

We are as lucky in our cultural geography as we are in our physical. Canada was originally a union of French and English, who had been at war with each other in Europe for much of the past 800 years. The only way to make the dominion work was for each to give the other plenty of breathing room. That respectful distance made it impossible for Canada to gel as a nation, but it also prevented immigrants from feeling they were outsiders in some nationalist club. Multiculturalism is the greatest gift of our Constitution, even though the Fathers of Confederation hadn’t the faintest clue they were bequeathing it.

That same culture of accommodation makes it possible for sexual minorities in Canada to feel safe, even welcomed. There is not a city, town or village in Canada where my husband Grant and I would hesitate to live.

Of course, things are far from perfect. The legacy of intolerance and abuse by the Europeans toward the aboriginal community is Canada’s shame.

Why is Canada the most tolerant country in the world? Luck – The Globe and Mail.

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Federal government to appeal ruling reversing cruel cuts to refugee health

2014/07/05 1 Comment

No surprise that the Government intends to appeal, what is strong condemnation from the federal judge against the cuts to refugee claimant healthcare and a major victory for refugee advocates, if the decision is upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal and possibly Supreme Court:

Alexander said in a statement that the government “will vigorously defend the interests of taxpayers and … the integrity of our fair and generous refugee determination system.”

The court found the governments treatment of refugees is “cruel and unusual” because it jeopardizes their health and shocks the conscience of Canadians.

Judge Anne Mactavish ruled the federal cabinet has the power to make such changes and that the procedure was fair, but that the people affected by the changes are being subjected to “cruel and unusual” treatment.

“This is particularly, but not exclusively, so as it affects children who have been brought to this country by their parents,” Mactavish wrote in the 268-page decision.

“The 2012 modifications to the [Interim Federal Health Program] potentially jeopardize the health, the safety and indeed the very lives, of these innocent and vulnerable children in a manner that shocks the conscience and outrages Canadian standards of decency. “I have found as a fact that lives are being put at risk.”

Given refugee reform, particularly the safe country provisions, that have resulted in dramatic declines in numbers of refugee claimants (from 20,503 in 2012 to 10,372 in 2013 if my reading of the stats is correct).

Given this decline, and  consequent reductions in health costs, questionable whether the original rationale is as strong as before, Ministerial rhetoric notwithstanding.

Federal government to appeal ruling reversing cruel cuts to refugee health – Politics – CBC News.

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Asian British Columbians less likely to be organ donors

2014/07/05 1 Comment

Ongoing challenge with a number of communities given the need for donors. Similar pattern elsewhere in Canada and USA, although there are likely a few examples of successful campaigns within these communities:

BC Transplant doesn’t ask those who register as donors about their ethnic background. But it does record the ethnicity of actual donors.A University of B.C. study released last year found that the vast majority of organ donors in this province are white, despite the fact Asians make up a significant share of organ recipients.

The study looked at all deceased organ donations in B.C. from 2005 to 2009: a total of 182 donors and 765 recipients a single donor typically donates several organs.

Whites made up 89 per cent of donors but only 69 per cent of recipients.In contrast, East Asians Chinese, Japanese, Korean made up four per cent of donors and 12 per cent of recipients. And South Asians Indians, Pakistanis made up one per cent of donors and eight per cent of recipients.

Put another way, given their overall share of B.C.’s population, whites are three times more likely to be organ donors as East Asians and eight times as likely as South Asians.Last year’s study was a repeat of a similar study conducted in the 1990s, and showed little progress since then in organ donation by Asians, despite a concerted campaign by BC Transplant to reach out to them.

Possible reasons:

Yoshida has a few theories.

While no major religions prohibit organ donation, he said, some Asian families do place importance on the idea of burying their loved ones whole.

The language barrier between health professionals and a patient’s family may also play a role.

“When English is not a first language and you’re hearing things through a translator, maybe it doesn’t come out the way it should,” he said.

Gill said another factor may be immigrants’ level of trust in government.

“Organ donation is a tricky business,” he said. “There are myths that people are not going to have the best care because ‘the system wants to get their organs.’”

Asian British Columbians less likely to be organ donors with video.

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Toronto-area Muslims working to change religion’s public perception

2014/07/05 Leave a comment

Interesting approach:

While last year’s inaugural campaign saw 85 ads run inside TTC cars and platforms, and focused on messages of compassion, this year’s, on station platform posters, will focus on practical advice. “We want to show that Islam is not just a religion in a mosque. It’s a way of life.”

One of the posters quotes the Prophet Mohammed as saying “Do not waste water even if you are standing at the banks of a flowing river.” Others cover finances, relationships, community, and health.While some have questioned the allocation of such funds toward what essentially amounts to PR, rather than toward charity efforts in Syria, for example, Ms. Kamal defended their focus by saying other organizations do that and she contributes, but Muslims also need to spend money on building a better community where they live.

“I shouldn’t just be caring about back home and forget about the land I’m staying in,” she said.

Toronto-area Muslims working to change religion’s public perception – The Globe and Mail.

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British jihadist warns of black flag of Islam over Downing Street

2014/07/05 Leave a comment

More on jihadists raised in the West and travelling to Syria and Iraq, along with efforts by imams to counter the jihadist message:

An open letter signed by more than 100 imams from across major theological backgrounds and cultural groups has urged British Muslim communities “to continue the generous and tireless effort to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq”, but to do so from the UK “in a safe and responsible way”.

The letter comes during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, but against a backdrop of tensions between the Middle East and the west.

…. Concerns have also been raised about homegrown involvement in terrorism after Britons appeared in a propaganda video for insurgent group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Isis.

Among them was aspiring jihadist Aseel Muthana, who told the BBC he was fighting in Syria and had no intention of returning to the UK.

…. The man told interviewer Nicky Campbell: “I have no intention of coming back to Britain because I have come to revive the Islamic khilafah. I dont want to come back to what I have left behind. There is nothing in Britain – it is just pure evil.

“If and when I come back to Britain it will be when this khilafah – this Islamic state – comes to conquer Britain and I come to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben.”

…..”The imams open letter read: “As the crisis in Syria and Iraq deepens, we the under-signed have come together as a unified voice to urge the British Muslim communities not to fall prey to any form of sectarian divisions or social discord.

“Ramadan, the month of mercy, teaches us the value of unity and perseverance and we urge the British Muslim communities to continue the generous and tireless efforts to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq, but to do so from the UK in a safe and responsible way.”

British jihadist warns of black flag of Islam over Downing Street | UK news | theguardian.com.

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Stephen Harper’s Canada Day speech the latest volley in Ottawa’s pointless history wars – Coyne

2014/07/04 Leave a comment

Andrew Coyne on the history wars.

The Crown, likewise, is not some useless foreign ornament, as successive Liberal governments often seemed to imply: It is the very foundation of our constitutional order, as essential to our way of life as Parliament, the common law, and the rest of the British inheritance, and as quintessentially Canadian. To remain attached to these institutional underpinnings, to remind ourselves of their advantages, is not to retreat into the past. It is merely to decline to be cut off from it.

So, fine: thus far, the Tories could be said to be righting the balance. But true to the chips on their shoulders, they could not leave it at that. It was not enough to celebrate and affirm Conservative national icons: It was necessary to diminish and downplay Liberal ones. The 30th anniversary of patriation and the Charter of Rights, for example, came and went without any official celebration or even acknowledgment.

And so the history wars continue, pointlessly. Surely it is possible to honour both versions of our past, both sides of our selves, in a country so accustomed to duality — aboriginal and European, French and English, immigrant and native-born — in other respects. Surely we are both a constitutional monarchy and a rights-bearing democracy. Surely our history is distinguished both by war-making and by peacekeeping. Surely our national character is a result both of individual and collective enterprise.

When working on Discover Canada, we tried to make the same point in our “fearless advice” but the direction was more changing the narrative, as in so many other initiatives, than merely righting the balance.

Andrew Coyne: Stephen Harper’s Canada Day speech the latest volley in pointless history wars

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The Use and Abuse of Diversity in Canada’s Foreign Policy | CIPS

2014/07/04 Leave a comment

Natalie Brender on diaspora politics, the risks involved, and the current approach of the Government:

What is surprising, though, is that the Ottawa Forum speaker who most explicitly mentioned Canada’s diversity as a foreign policy asset to be exploited did so ambivalently. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark challenged policy thinkers to see that Canada’s most valuable assets in today’s global environment are the ‘soft power’ capacities of our people, which enable us to influence other countries through leadership and advocacy. This capacity should be deployed, he continued, by using diaspora members as informal ‘diplomats’ representing Canadian interests and values to their countries of origin.

On the other hand, Clark also called it “seductive but dangerous” for Canada’s government to involve diaspora communities in foreign policy. The reason for this seeming contradiction was his concern about what happens to Canada’s social fabric when government uses foreign policy as a political tool for targeting the votes of specific diaspora communities. In the context of highly divisive international disputes, a government’s packaging of foreign policy with partisan politics conveys to Canadian diaspora groups on the ‘non-favoured’ side of disputes that they are not part of the government’s calculated ‘base’ of voter support. Effectively, such groups become—and realize themselves to be—discounted from the democratic calculus.

It’s no reach to see the current government’s targeting of diaspora groups through Jason Kenney’s outreach and John Baird’s foreign policy at the heart of such a worry. The Conservatives’ political stance on Middle East and security issues has effectively discounted the votes and standing of most Muslim Canadians—and has amplified the views of some by no means all Canadian Jews. It’s a dangerous manoeuver in light of its potential impact on Canada’s social cohesion.

ICYMI, my Shopping for Votes Can Undermine Canada’s Fine Balance takes a somewhat softer approach but largely agrees on the risks of the Government’s current approach.

The Use and Abuse of Diversity in Canada’s Foreign Policy | CIPS.

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Manitoba’s foreign worker strategy called a model for other provinces – The Globe and Mail

2014/07/04 Leave a comment

The model for curbing abuse:

Manitoba’s system centres on the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act WRAPA, passed in 2009. Its most important component is also its most basic: Unlike most provinces, Manitoba knows where its temporary foreign workers are working. Businesses must register with the province to get a work permit for a TFW. That allows inspectors to check on their working conditions to make sure they meet employment standards and health and safety rules. It also allows the province to block anyone who breaks those rules from bringing in more workers. Advocates for TFWs complained for years that the system was open to exploitation, because a migrant worker’s right to be in Canada depends on a good relationship with the employer. As a result, TFWs are said to be less likely to complain of unfair treatment or unsafe working conditions.

“We know where the workers are and we put resources into going out and making sure those workers are being treated appropriately,” Mr. Short said. “We focus on the most vulnerable workers in Manitoba. That includes workers earning near the minimum wage, recent immigrants, young workers and temporary foreign workers.”

The legislation is a favourite among public-policy analysts. Reports for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Council for Refugees have all hailed it as the best of its kind in the country.

Manitoba’s foreign worker strategy called a model for other provinces – The Globe and Mail.

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