National Post editorial board: When church and state collide

2014/12/06 Leave a comment

National Post on Alberta’s Bill 10 on allowing gay-straight student clubs and the broader issue of separation of church and state (no funding is the cleanest option):

Above all else, this situation is simply undesirable: Governments shouldn’t be telling churches how to worship, and churches shouldn’t be telling legislators how to govern. And the gap between acceptable religious and political opinion seems unlikely to shrink.

Eventually, Canadian governments may have to make a decision: Fund religious schools and other alternatives to the secular public system — directly or through a portable subsidy — and let them teach according to the tenets of their faith or ideology; or don’t fund them at all. It would cause serious political headaches in the short term, but save many more in the long term.

National Post editorial board: When church and state collide

And Don Braid’s harsh criticism of the Bill and the Alberta government’s handling of the issue:

Bill 10 began life by voicing support for formation of alliances, but then allowing schools or school boards to refuse them. This was “balancing” the rights of students with those of parents and elected trustees, the government said.

If the students still wanted their alliances, well, they could appeal to Court of Queen’s Bench.

From the heart of the legislature gasbag, the PCs were actually serious about making gay teenage children march into court like a pack of government lawyers.

Greeted by torrents of scorn, the government backed up — into further absurdity, unfortunately.

Kids would no longer need appeal to the courts. Instead, if a school board refused an alliance, the minister of education would simply approve it.

There was no longer any thought to the precious “right” of schools to refuse gay-straight alliances. Apparently it never meant much to begin with.

But schools could still say no, which seems absurd when the minister would then say yes. How would children feel about that? Worse, the amended bill gives no guarantee that after ministerial approval, kids would be able to meet on school property.

Further ridicule ensued. This sounded like segregation — “normal” kids are welcome to have their club meetings at school, but gay students have to go down the street.

This bill can’t be allowed to stand in modern Alberta — and the government may finally know it.

Don Braid: Alberta backs away from bullying bill that treats gay students as unequal

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Chris Selley: Release the video left behind by Parliament Hill shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau

2014/12/06 Leave a comment

Hard to disagree with Selley on this:

There is nothing implausible about Mr. Paulson’s account. But considering the RCMP’s record when it comes to described video, I think Mr. Harper’s trust is misplaced. Seven years ago, when the RCMP finally released Paul Pritchard’s footage of Robert Dziekanski’s fatal encounter with police at the Vancouver airport, it wasn’t just the officers’ clearly excessive force that made headlines. It was also impossible not to notice some, shall we say, significant discrepancies between the RCMP’s previous account of the video and what was actually on it.

The RCMP said the officers didn’t use pepper spray on Mr. Dziekanski because there were too many people around. In fact, they were alone behind Plexiglas. The RCMP said Mr. Dziekanski grabbed something from a desk before he was tasered. He didn’t. The RCMP said there were three officers involved. In fact there were four. The latter falsehood didn’t even seem to serve any purpose. It was as if making stuff up was just standard procedure.

It’s therefore entirely understandable that the missing video invites speculation. Some suspect the RCMP, the government or both want to promote the narrative Mr. Paulson described — a lucid, ideologically motivated gunman; i.e., a terrorist — the better to promote security legislation. Perhaps the video paints a more ambiguous picture. Perhaps it paints a totally different picture, the more conspiratorial will suggest — that of an unhinged, purposeless killer; i.e., not a terrorist.

It’s an infuriating debate, in many ways: Was Michael Zehaf-Bibeau a terrorist or not? Honestly, who cares? We know what he did. He seems to have left us video evidence of why he did it. Had he lived, he would be staring down a life sentence whether or not prosecutors managed to pin the T-word on him. And if there is an appropriate policy or legislative response, it ought to be a response to what he did and why he did it, regardless of whether his actions and motives tick enough boxes to invoke the big scary T-word.

The terrorist-or-not debate can be absurd enough when we have the facts. Without them, it’s even more so. We can’t trust the RCMP’s account of the video. We can’t trust parliamentarians to properly balance civil liberties and security even when the evidence before them is uncontested. There’s only one solution, and it’s an easy one: Release the damn video.

Chris Selley: Release the video left behind by Parliament Hill shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau

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Father Raymond J. de Souza: ‘Islamophobia’ is not the problem

2014/12/06 1 Comment

While his argument that criticizing Islamic extremism and violence is not Islamophobic is of course correct, de Souza appears to dismiss the possibility of Islamphobia (or anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination) as well as being silent on the language used (e.g., Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are prime examples of the use of intemperate and overly broad condemnation of all Muslims as potential or actual extremists):

On the weekend Pope Francis was in Turkey to visit the leader of world Orthodoxy, Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople. Like John Paul and Benedict before him, Francis went to show his esteem for the Orthodox Church and to foster the bonds of unity. But since Constantinople long ago fell to the Turks, this Christian meeting took place in a country that is 98% Muslim — and more to the point, in a country now led by an ambitious man, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is not above using Islamism to advance his desire to be the leader of global Islam, recapturing the influence of his Ottoman predecessors.

Erdoğan took advantage of the Holy Father’s visit to argue that Western leaders who seek his aid in combatting jihadism need to clean up their own house first. Erdoğan urged the Pope in his welcome address to combat the “the very serious and rapid trend of growth in racism, discrimination, and hatred of others, especially Islamophobia in the West.”

The point was further amplified by Mehmet Görmez, the minister of religious affairs. “We feel anxiety and concern for the future, that the Islamophobic paranoia that has already been spread among Western public opinion is being used as a pretext for massive pressures, intimidation, discrimination, alienation, and actual attacks against our Muslim brothers and sisters living in the West,” he said.

It is hardly phobic or paranoid for Christians on Turkey’s borders in Syria and Iraq to fear the jihadism that is slaughtering their communities

Like most countries that have government departments for religious affairs, Turkey does not permit full religious liberty. The Orthodox Patriarchate, present in Constantinople since before Islam existed, is being strangled by the state, with heavy restrictions placed on its institutions and freedom of governance. So it is a bit much to hear from Turkey about “Islamophobia” inflaming public opinion abroad when “Christophobia” is practiced by law at home. Moreover, it is hardly phobic or paranoid for Christians on Turkey’s borders in Syria and Iraq to fear the jihadism that is slaughtering their communities.

Erdoğan and his ministers were offering a sort of pact: We will combat jihadism in our backyard if you condemn “Islamophobia” in yours. It is an offer that merits firm rejection.

Drawing moral equivalence between lethal jihadism and people who say nasty things about the co-religionists of such jihadis is meant to be disabling, as was the case in the days of the anti-anti-communists. It sows confusion by suggesting that any challenge even to Muslim pathologies is ill-motivated and illegitimate.

The obligation of Turkey and other Muslim states to combat extremist violence in the name of Islam binds independent of what is being done elsewhere. Indeed, one might argue that reducing jihadist attacks would do more to reduce “Islamophobia” than any number of pieties about Islam being a religion of peace.

More outrageously, to juxtapose “Islamophobia” and Islamist violence ignores that the vast majority of victims of jihadism are Muslims themselves. For every Muslim in the West anxious about “Islamophobia,” there are far, far more within the house of Islam who fear for their lives.

Jihadism is a clear, present and lethal danger, for Muslims first, and it is waxing rather than waning. It is not “phobic” to condemn it.

Father Raymond J. de Souza: ‘Islamophobia’ is not the problem

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Cohen: The shrinking space for books | Ottawa Citizen

2014/12/06 2 Comments

Andrew Cohen on the challenges of being a writer today given the decline of bookstores:

Today entering most bookstores is a test of character for the writer. You might find your book amid the baubles; you might not. You might be asked to speak and sign; you might be ignored.

There are a few sanctuaries offering literary asylum: Munro’s in Victoria, Books on Beechwood in Ottawa, Ben McNally Books in Toronto. Books on Beechwood was saved by guardian angels and a passionate staff.

McNally has a rare, crazy commitment to books. He is wonderfully innovative as a seller and marketer – a gift to writers.

The disappearing bookstore reflects the ebbing stature of books in society. The public space for books is shrinking.

The author tour is passé. Twenty years ago a first-time author with a good book could expect to visit five cities or so, speaking, giving interviews. Few do that today.

Newspapers used to review books seriously. The Globe and Mail published a weekly, well-read tabloid on books. The Toronto Star and The National Post carried reviews. Regional papers did, too.

There are fewer reviews in newspapers today and fewer specialty publications on books. Those that survive, like The Literary Review of Canada – the nation’s literary salon – commission reviews often long and learned for which they pay little.

There remain excellent book shows on CBC Radio, like The Next Chapter with the spirited Shelagh Rogers, and unusual hosts on private radio, like Mark Sutcliffe on CFRA, who appreciate books. None has the impact of Peter Gzowski’s CBC’s Morningside, where an author’s appearance on national radio could make telephones ring in bookstores.

Cohen: The shrinking space for books | Ottawa Citizen.

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Senators challenge name, need for Conservatives’ forced marriage bill

2014/12/06 Leave a comment

Valid questions:

Senators are questioning both the need for and the name of a new Conservative bill aimed at barring polygamous and forced marriages.

Bill S-7, entitled the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, makes amendments to immigration and criminal laws.

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander has told a Senate committee studying the bill it is focused on providing added legislative power to stop violence against women.

But Conservative Senator Raynell Andreychuk says if that’s the goal of the bill, perhaps the word violence should have been in the title as too much focus is now on the word barbaric.

Liberal Senator Art Eggleton says that by using barbaric in the title the government is calling cultural communities barbarians, a politically loaded term.But Alexander says it’s the violence against women that is barbaric, not entire communities.

As I noted in an earlier post, a more accurate name would be: Craven Pandering to the Conservative Base and anti-Muslim Sentiment.

Senators challenge name, need for Conservatives’ forced marriage bill | Toronto Star.

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Research based on social media data can contain hidden biases that ‘misrepresent real world,’ critics say

2014/12/05 Leave a comment

Good article on some of the limits in using social media for research, as compared to IRL (In Real Life):

One is ensuring a representative sample, a problem that is sometimes, but not always, solved by ever greater numbers. Another is that few studies try to “disentangle the human from the platform,” to distinguish the user’s motives from what the media are enabling and encouraging him to do.

Another is that data can be distorted by processes not designed primarily for research. Google, for example, stores only the search terms used after auto-completion, not the text the user actually typed. Another is simply that many social media are largely populated by non-human robots, which mimic the behaviour of real people.

Even the cultural preference in academia for “positive results” can conceal the prevalence of null findings, the authors write.

“The biases and issues highlighted above will not affect all research in the same way,” the authors write. “[But] they share in common the need for increased awareness of what is actually being analyzed when working with social media data.”

Research based on social media data can contain hidden biases that ‘misrepresent real world,’ critics say

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Canadians Don’t Care About Multiculturalism

2014/12/05 Leave a comment

The marginal counter-narrative, selectively quoting from the CRRF poll (which on some of the questions related to multiculturalism is not supported by other polling):

Of great interest is that 64 percent agreed with the statement that “Canadian multiculturalism allows people to pursue certain cultural practices that are incompatible with Canadian laws and norms.” Translation: almost two-thirds of Canadians think that multiculturalism is a threat to Canadian society, with this high level of concern distributed evenly among all age groups and between the sexes.

In response to these concerns, only 6 percent thought we should “encourage multiculturalism” in order to address the problem—which placed multiculturalism in last place among all options. First place went to “enforce/impose laws on all Canadians/must abide by Canadian laws” by a large margin.

So when Anita Bromberg, the Executive Director of the CRRF, claims that “most Canadians agree that multiculturalism contributes to social cohesion, has a positive impact on ethnic and religious minorities, and makes it easier for newcomers to adapt to, and adopt shared Canadian values,” the CRRF’s own survey does not appear to support this interpretation. Quite the opposite.

The take home messages from this survey are undeniable, profound, and long overdue. Canadians do not value multiculturalism, and as such, the federal government should be moving to repeal the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Act 1991, defund the CRRF, and eliminate multiculturalism from its policy making efforts.

An example of the ‘last mile’ challenge highlighted by Doug Saunders in The last mile of equal rights is the hardest – The Globe and Mail.

Canadians Don’t Care About Multiculturalism.

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Outremont change son règlement sur la «Souccot» | Le Devoir

2014/12/05 Leave a comment

The ongoing debate in Outremont over Succoth cabins:

Bien trop peu, selon des citoyens, hassidiques ou non, qui ont souligné que l’an prochain, entre la semaine de travail, le sabbat le samedi et l’interdiction d’effectuer des travaux bruyants les dimanches à Outremont, il serait impossible pour la population hassidique de construire ces cabanes à temps tout en respectant le règlement.

Au long d’un débat houleux ponctué de témoignages poignants de citoyens, les élues en sont arrivées à un certain compromis : le règlement précise désormais que les résidents disposent de « trois jours ouvrables » pour ériger leurs cabanes. Ainsi, même si la fête de Souccot tombe un lundi l’an prochain, les familles pourront construire leur soucca dès le mercredi.

Pour Mindy Pollak, issue de la communauté juive hassidique, il n’en demeure pas moins que le règlement dans sa forme amendée pose problème. « Il n’y a aucune autre ville qui précise avec autant de détail les limites imposées. Cela devient beaucoup moins flexible pour les citoyens », a-t-elle fait valoir.

L’avocat Steven Slimovitch, anciennement président de la section québécoise de l’organisation juive B’Nai Brith, a aussi fait valoir devant l’assemblée que l’arrondissement s’exposait ainsi à des poursuites.

Les délais sont selon lui trop stricts et trop courts. « Quelques heures ne suffisent pas à construire un soucca. C’est une véritable construction : certaines peuvent accueillir vingt à trente personnes. Ça prend pratiquement des dessins d’architectes. On ne peut pas s’attendre à ce que les gens les construisent en deux ou trois heures. »

Outremont change son règlement sur la «Souccot» | Le Devoir.

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The last mile of equal rights is the hardest – Saunders

2014/12/04 Leave a comment

Doug Saunders on the challenges of reaching the last holdouts on equal rights:

Likewise, after several decades of extremely difficult activist struggles and hard-fought public-opinion victories, getting 80 or 90 per cent of the population to embrace the concepts of racial and sexual equality, and to stop tolerating discrimination and abuse, happened surprisingly quickly and easily. A generation came of age who were nearly unanimous in those beliefs.

But that last 5 or 10 per cent pose a set of very different challenges: These are the hard cases that actively defy majority opinion.

Economists Laurence Chandy and Homi Kharas noted recently that poverty is such a problem: Half as many people are in absolute poverty as 30 years ago, but halving the last bit will be much tougher: those “persistent pockets of poverty” are in economies and cultures far more resistant to change.

Their advice for poverty should be ours for equal rights: The last bit won’t take care of itself. New movements, and new and tougher government initiatives, will be needed. It’s time for a final civil-rights movement. The last mile is always the hardest, but it’s also the most important.

I suspect, however, the idea that we will attain 100 percent eradication of poverty, or 100 percent eradication of racism and sexism, is unrealistic.

Not an excuse not to try, but just to be realistic in expectations.

The last mile of equal rights is the hardest – The Globe and Mail.

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Joining ISIS has left them bored, disillusioned and afraid, French jihadists write in letters to home

2014/12/04 1 Comment

Not surprising that the reality provokes reflection and regret for some (and the trivial but nevertheless importance of an iPod and the music it represents):

Le Figaro reported Islamist commanders had noticed some of the French were beginning to want to leave. One Frenchman was rumoured to have been beheaded when he explained to his commander he wanted to follow his friend who had already left.

“Everyone knows that, the longer these people stay there, the worse it will be because having watched or committed atrocities, they become ticking time bombs,” said one lawyer, quoted in the newspaper.

“But, when it comes to having a discussion about whether France is ready to accept repentants, no politician is willing to take the risk. Imagine if one of these ex-jihadists is involved subsequently in an attack?”

‘I’m fed up. My iPod doesn’t work any more here’

A group of lawyers in France is acting on behalf of the families of the jihadists to try to persuade the state to allow them to return. They told the newspaper they were trying to make contact with anti-terrorist police, the directors of internal security and the office of the interior minister,

Bernard Cazeneuve.The lawyers said nothing was agreed in advance on behalf of the jihadists — and the advice was always: “Present yourself at the French consulate in Istanbul or Erbil [in Iraq]. And then we will see.”

Joining ISIS has left them bored, disillusioned and afraid, French jihadists write in letters to home

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