Public service still shrinking, but signs show hiring picking up

2014/11/06 Leave a comment

PS_Hiring_2013-14Understandably, latest report focus on hiring after recent rounds of downsizing:

In its latest annual report, the Public Service Commission revealed signs the bureaucracy is coming out of a major downsizing and gearing up to hire. More jobs were advertised, more people applied and more were hired, moved and promoted within the bureaucracy than the year before.

“What we are now seeing in the data – and we started to see it turn around last year – is that the demand by departments for new hires is starting to go up. So we do anticipate that we will turn the corner on this and start to hire new graduates into permanent jobs in the coming year,” PSC president Anne-Marie Robinson recently told the Senate finance committee.

In fact, the commission has been active getting the message out that once the downsizing is completed, the government will recruit new talent.

Robinson said the public service is “changing” as it emerges smaller and leaner from the 2012 federal budget cuts, which reduced the number of employees by 10 per cent from March 2011.

But last year also saw the first increase in hiring and staffing, both of which had fallen every year for four years. Overall, hiring and staffing jumped 11.7 per cent over the previous year – a far cry from the hiring spree in the years before the Conservatives froze operating budgets and put the brakes on spending.

Relative little on employment equity, which awaits the more comprehensive Treasury Board report, but the above graph highlights the main trends for visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples.

For visible minorities, applicants are greater than labour market availability (LMA), appointments less. The report, unless I missed it, did not have any up-to-date figures on actual representation within the public service.

Public service still shrinking, but signs show hiring picking up | Ottawa Citizen.

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Legatum Prosperity Index

2014/11/06 Leave a comment

The_2014_Legatum_Prosperity_Index_-_HomeFor those who like indicators and graphics, The Legatum Prosperity Index of a UK-based think tank, provides both in spades, both in pdf forum and interactive web-graphics.

Legatum Prosperity Index (website)

Download The Legatum Prosperity IndexTM (for pdf)

A bit clunky to generate comparative tables, but from an immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism perspective, the two questions of interest and Canada’s score (one of the highest):

  • Good place to live for ethnic minorities: Canada 90.8 %
  • Good place to live for immigrants: Canada 88.8 %

For the policy wonks who are interested in detailed methodology, there is an extensive separate report. Suffice to say, that for those interested in the above two indicators, the source if the Gallop World Poll.

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Refugee health care temporarily restored in most categories

2014/11/06 2 Comments

Government partial compliance with the refugee claimant health care coverage:

“We are doing this because the court has ordered us to do it. We respect that decision while not agreeing with it,” Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said following question period on Tuesday.

The government had until the end of today to review a 2012 policy the Federal Court deemed unconstitutional, “cruel and unusual” last July.

The government had asked for a stay until an appeal is heard, but that request was rejected on Friday. A date for the appeal has not been set.

“Under the temporary measures, most beneficiaries are eligible to receive coverage for hospital, medical and laboratory services, including pre- and post-natal care as well as laboratory and diagnostic services,” the government said in a notice posted on the website of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration over an hour after the minister spoke.

Children under 19 years of age will receive full coverage, while pregnant women will be covered for all but supplemental health benefits.

Supplemental benefits include “limited dental and vision care, prosthetics and devices to assist mobility, home care and long-term care, psychological counselling provided by a registered clinical psychologist, and post-arrival health assessments.”

However, refugee claimants in seven of the 12 categories included in the governments chart will not be covered for drugs or supplemental health coverage.

….The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, one of the groups that took the government to court over the changes the Conservatives brought in back in 2012, says the temporary plan does not comply with the Federal Court ruling.

“The government is still being punitive, they’re being selective and the court told them to reinstate all benefits,” said Peter Showler, co-chair of the refugee lawyers’ group and a former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He is also an expert in refugee law at the University of Ottawa.

Showler was critical of the government’s decision to deprive certain refugee claimants of coverage for prescription medications.

“They are not in compliance with the decision based on the information that the government put out on its website today.”

Refugee health care temporarily restored in most categories – Politics – CBC News.

And the link to the table outlining what is covered and what is not:

Text of the government’s temporary plan for refugee health care

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How to prosecute radicalized Canadians a quandary, Senate group hears | Ottawa Citizen

2014/11/05 Leave a comment

The challenges of prosecuting radicalized Canadians and Government messaging of note from Senator Beyak:

“The legitimate investigation by the police of those individuals does not necessarily coincide at this moment in time to there being that many cases that are ready to go for charges.”

He and Saunders then detailed how seven Canadians, including five initial suspects in the Toronto-18 terror case, have been placed on peace bonds, court orders that restrict the movement of people not found guilty of an offence but deemed a risk to others. They also mean stiffer sentences for someone if later found guilty of a crime.

But even that power is limited, according to police. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, speaking before the committee last week, complained that the legal threshold for obtaining peace bonds needs to be lowered to a “reasonable suspicion.”

Saunders later added that gathering evidence against suspected Canadian overseas fighters who have returned to Canada is even more difficult.

“It’s a challenge the police face, to gather evidence for activities that people may have been engaged in while they’re overseas in countries where it’s difficult for our authorities to have access to,” he said.

He added: “We have to prove that somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that will not be changed.”

After more than an hour of committee questioning, Sen. Lynn Beyak’s frustrations boiled over.

Canadians “don’t want to hear us talk, they don’t want to hear 1,000 reasons why we can’t solve this problem,” she told the witnesses.

“They want us to put our collective heads together and find a way to protect the rights of 35 million Canadians instead of the rights of 90 or 93 or 130 individuals.

“There has to be a better way for Canadians then to just listen to us talk and the problem gets worse.”

Part of the trade-off with the rule-of-law that the Government so often cites as one of the key Canadian values along with freedom, democracy, and human rights.

How to prosecute radicalized Canadians a quandary, Senate group hears | Ottawa Citizen.

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Austria’s Muslims fear changes to historic Islam law

2014/11/05 Leave a comment

On foreign funding of mosques in Austria:

The draft law has also been criticised by constitutional experts, who say that some of its provisions fail to treat Muslims equally.

Professor Stefan Hammer from the University of Vienna says, while it is legitimate for the government to try and prevent misuse of donations from abroad, a blanket ban on foreign funding for the Islamic Community is constitutionally very problematic.

“Financing of religious communities is part of their internal affairs. This does not mean the state may not address any aspect of that, but it has to be proportional,” he says.

Other religious groups and churches receive external funding, notably the Russian Orthodox Church from Moscow, so differentiating between religions would clearly be excessive, he believes.

“It would be a clear breach of the principle of equal treatment.”Carla Amina Baghajati from the Islamic Community says the draft is infused with “a spirit of mistrust”, which she fears could play into the hands of the radicals.

“The radicals make use of the identity question, telling people: Look at the European societies, you wont ever be on the same level, you will always be an outsider. They wont accept you, so come and join us.

“This is very dangerous. We have to help young people to find their identity and the law is one of the important pieces in this identity building. It has helped in the past and we want it to help in the future.”

Seems like the solution could be a ban on any foreign funding for any religion to address the equal treatment issue.

BBC News – Austrias Muslims fear changes to historic Islam law.

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Citizenship in India not gender-neutral, Arizona State U professor asserts

2014/11/05 Leave a comment

Interesting article on the long-standing impact of “personal law” and group religious rights in India:

One aspect of Indian democracy that is unfamiliar to most Americans is the concept of personal law, a legacy of British colonial administration. Four religious communities – majority Hindu and minority Muslim, Christian and Parsi – have their own personal laws. Other religious groups, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain, are subsumed under Hindu personal law. No one may opt out of a religious identity, and therefore no one is exempt from personal law. Proponents of personal law claim that it secures religious difference, Behl said.

“Personal law associated with India’s religious communities shapes every aspect of a woman’s life – her status at birth; her capacity to own, inherit and manage property; her freedom to work, marry, divorce and remarry; and her relationship with her children,” she [Natasha Behl] said.

“Personal law effectively suspends Indian women’s most basic rights on behalf of group rights. The issue of personal law divides women on multiple fronts – between their respective religious communities, between civil rights and minority rights, and between gender equality and minority claims for recognition.”

The interviews Behl conducted for the “Situated citizenship” article document situations including a disconnect between property and inheritance rights for women, which in theory are legally protected, and the reality in the community. “Practically speaking, girls don’t receive any land from their parents, and they don’t receive any land from their in-laws,” one interviewee told her.

Deep multiculturalism focus on group rights rather than ‘shallow’ multiculturalism focussing on individual rights as in Canada, Australia etc.

Citizenship in India not gender-neutral, ASU professor asserts | ASU News.

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Toronto school fundraising raises questions about equity in public-education system

2014/11/04 1 Comment

Given that one of Canada’s strength in education, as measured by the OECD’s PISA studies, is with respect to equity in education, the funding disparity suggests that this may diminish over time:

Schools in Toronto’s most affluent neighbourhoods are fundraising 300 times more money per student than needier schools, using the cash for field trips and playground renovations and raising questions about equity in the public-education system.

Fundraising figures for elementary schools provided by the Toronto District School Board and analyzed by The Globe and Mail found that children in those affluent neighbourhoods are getting almost as much as $900 each in educational extras, from new playgrounds to Scientists in Schools. The money is raised through events such as fun fairs and pizza lunches. Some schools in lower-income neighbourhoods raise as little as $3 a student.

Canada’s largest school board provides special grants to schools in high-needs communities to help compensate for the vast differences.

But it still cannot catch up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars schools in the city’s richest neighbourhoods raise. Blythwood Junior Public School, situated around Mount Pleasant Road and Lawrence Avenue East, a wealthy neighbourhood, raised almost $700 a student in the 2012-13 academic year. Thorncliffe Park Public School, located in an area that serves as a landing pad for recent immigrants, raised about $45.

The board can’t afford to fully make up the differences, according to Carla Kisko, associate director of the TDSB. “It’s a serious concern because there are significant differences between communities,” she said.

Certainly nothing like the US system, where much of school funding is by neighbourhood in contrast to the block funding in Canada, but still something to watch.

Toronto school fundraising raises questions about equity in public-education system – The Globe and Mail.

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Deradicalization programs aim to get ahead of the curve in stopping extremists

2014/11/04 Leave a comment

Good overview on various deradicalization programs (and the absence of Canadian ones), and the challenge of measuring their effectiveness:

While there is greater interest in deradicalization programs, questions remain about their effectiveness.

McCants at the Brookings Institution acknowledges that the Saudi program has had some success in turning detainees into productive members of society, but “whether they’ve left the ideology behind is a harder question to answer.”

The Saudi government has acknowledged some of the graduates of its deradicalization program have returned to extremist activity, including one who became deputy commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Brian Jenkins, a counterterrorism expert at the Rand Corporation, says that while a lot of things are being tried, the success of deradicalization strategies is notoriously difficult to measure.

According to a story published in the Christian Science Monitor in July, Hayat Berlin had steered 20 individuals from fighting in Syria. But even if they had proceeded to the front lines, it doesn’t necessarily mean they would have returned to wage attacks at home.

“Is there some comparative statistic that says, does this particular technique work, did that particular technique work? I havent seen anything that tells me that,” says Jenkins. “The statistics aren’t there.”

Part of that may be deliberately hedging on the part of the governments involved, says Jenkins, but it also reflects the fact that while its easy to keep statistics on criminal incidents, “its hard to count things that don’t occur.”

Deradicalization programs aim to get ahead of the curve in stopping extremists – CBC News – Latest Canada, World, Entertainment and Business News.

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ICYMI: Lone wolves, police state – Gagnon

2014/11/04 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Lysiane Gagnon, detailing all the limits of current government soundings of proposals to reduce the risk of violent extremism, particularly for “lone wolves” like Couture-Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau.

She concludes with:

These are repugnant opinions [justifying terrorism], but even the most abhorrent ideas must be tolerated for freedom of speech to exist. This is what makes Canada a liberal democracy. Denying it would be granting a moral victory to the terrorists who are fighting against this country’s most fundamental values.

Lone wolves, police state – The Globe and Mail.

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Interview with Ratna Omidvar – Flight and Freedom

2014/11/03 Leave a comment

Good interview between Dana Wagner and Ratna Omidvar on their forthcoming book, Flight and Freedom, recounting the experiences and personal stories on refugees taking refuge in Canada:

Dana: You’re describing something that’s very intimate, because you and your husband fled Iran in 1981 as refugees. What do you want Canadians to know about the experience of flight?

Ratna: Yes, these stories are close to my heart. My husband and I made our own escape from Iran when it became clear our lives were not safe under Tehran’s new rulers. We couldn’t raise a family the way we wanted, and war with Iraq threatened to call my husband to the frontline. So we boarded a bus to Turkey with our young daughter, found our way to Germany, and ultimately decided on Canada. Our escape does not approach the danger and hardship so many others face fleeing countries worldwide including Iran. But a few of the most vivid moments of my life occurred on that journey. One was in a cold customs room at the border crossing with Turkey, when our future was uncertain. Forward, or back? What punishment would we face for attempted escape? The second was in a plane, over a vast land of forests broken by silver lakes. In Canadian skies, I began to breathe again.

This glimpse of the terror involved in escape, and the unparalleled exhilaration of freedom, does not fade fast. It’s in everything, a permanent imprint behind my eyelids. There has been a deep link for me between the personal and the professional from my family’s experience. I embraced this country, and because of what it gave me – its protection and opportunities – I will always strive to change it for the better. After a time, I gave myself license to start rearranging the furniture in my new home. The desire to thrive and to give back is palpable in refugees who come to Canada. We think of refugees taking and needing, but they enrich our communities in incredible ways.

Well worth reading the complete interview as well as checking out their site, Flight and Freedom.

Interview with Ratna Omidvar – Flight and Freedom.

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