Paying failed refugee claimants to leave Canada didn’t work: Review

2015/01/24 Leave a comment

Classic case of anecdote driving assumptions, assumptions not validated prior to launch. It would be interesting to know what was CBSA and CIC advice to the political level on the design of this program: was it ‘fearless’ or going along with the flow?

And an interesting reference to “like many aspects of the refugee reform,” suggesting other aspects were similarly driven more by anecdote than evidence:

But an evaluation by Canada Border Services Agency found that’s not what happened.

“The need for the AVRR as currently designed is questionable in that removals take longer and cost more compared to other low-risk removals since the refugee reform came into effect,” the evaluation found.

The controversial program was part of the Conservative government’s overhaul of the refugee system, launched in a bid to crack down on people making unfounded refugee claims and tying up government resources.

Critics said the changes were made without considering the implications, a point echoed by the government’s own evaluation of the return project.

“Like many aspects of the refugee reform, the pilot program was designed based on a set of assumptions that could not be validated prior to launch, some of which proved not to be accurate,” the evaluation said.

Among them: the idea that giving people money to help them resettle in their home countries would convince them to stop trying to appeal negative decisions.

“Since the assistance received decreases with each additional appeal made, it was expected that more failed refugee claimants would choose to leave instead of filing an appeal,” the evaluation report said.

“The assistance paid so far shows this was not the case as more participants made two appeals in 2013-2014 than in 2012-2013.”

Those making claims from so-called safe countries, known as DCOs, were offered $500 and those from elsewhere were eligible for up to $2,000.

That didn’t work as planned either.

“The Immigration and Refugee Board databases did not initially include a marker to indicate which failed refugee claimants were from a DCO,” the report said.

However, the evaluation process worked, and it was a pilot program. Sometimes you have to try things to see if they will work, but better testing and challenge of assumptions would help reduce risk of failure.

Paying failed refugee claimants to leave Canada didn’t work: Review.

Link to evaluation here.

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France: «une politique du peuplement» contre les ghettos

2015/01/24 Leave a comment

Direct words by French PM Valls on the lack of integration (not no-go-zones, but nevertheless highly problematic no (or limited) public service zones):

Le premier ministre a également justifié sa dénonciation deux jours plus tôt d’un «apartheid territorial, social, ethnique» qui se serait «imposé» en France: «L’erreur, la faute, c’est de ne pas avoir le courage de désigner cette situation, peu importe les mots».

Dix ans après les émeutes urbaines de 2005, le soutien dans certaines banlieues aux trois jihadistes français auteurs des attentats qui ont fait 17 morts du 7 au 9 janvier à Paris, a rappelé à la France la désespérance de ses quartiers populaires paupérisés.

Mais le chef du gouvernement socialiste, ovationné debout pour sa fermeté face à la menace terroriste dans une scène historique d’unanimité à l’Assemblée nationale le 13 janvier, essuie désormais les foudres de l’opposition de droite.

«Comparer la République à l’apartheid est une faute», a accusé mercredi soir l’ancien président Nicolas Sarkozy, patron du parti conservateur UMP. D’autres élus de son camp ont dénoncé une «insulte» au pays.

«Il ne faut pas penser à je ne sais quelle échéance», a rétorqué jeudi Manuel Valls, dans une pique à l’ambition de l’ex-chef de l’État (2007-2012) de regagner l’Élysée à la prochaine présidentielle de 2017.

Le premier ministre a reproché à l’ex-chef d’État de vouloir «briser l’esprit du 11 janvier», date de la marche monstre à Paris contre le terrorisme. «Moi, j’ai utilisé toujours les mêmes mots depuis dix ans, parce qu’ils disent la réalité», a-t-il ajouté.

«Ne plus faire semblant»

Longtemps élu d’Evry, banlieue populaire au sud de Paris, Manuel Valls avait déclenché une vive polémique en 2009 lorsque, filmé dans une brocante de la ville, il avait demandé en souriant qu’on y ajoute «quelques blancs, quelques white, quelques blancos».

«Arrêtons la langue de bois, arrêtons le politiquement correct, assumons la réalité», s’était-il défendu à l’époque en revendiquant déjà vouloir «casser» les «ghettos», «émanciper ces quartiers qui méritent de représenter demain l’avenir de ce pays».

Classé à la droite du Parti socialiste au pouvoir, le premier ministre a reçu jeudi le soutien d’un élu de banlieue parisienne issu de la gauche du parti Razzy Hamadi, souvent critique à son égard. Selon lui, M. Valls a employé le «mot fort» d’apartheid «parce que la situation est forte».

«Ca veut dire qu’il y a une ségrégation, ça veut dire qu’il y a une séparation, ça veut dire qu’il y a des quartiers où il n’y a pas la culture, où il n’y a pas le service public, plus la police (…) On ne peut plus faire semblant de ne pas voir le problème», a-t-il résumé.

France: «une politique du peuplement» contre les ghettos | Bertrand PINON, Marianne BARRIAUX | Europe.

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Débat sur la laïcité: Charles Taylor redoute de nouvelles divisions sociales

2015/01/24 Leave a comment

As always, sensible commentary by Charles Taylor:

«Puisqu’il y a des gens qui veulent surfer là-dessus pour faire avancer leur projet de laïcité, là, c’est dangereux parce que se sont deux questions complètement différentes. Si on commence le débat en pointant du doigt une partie de la population comme étant des terroristes en puissance, on ne pourra jamais régler ce problème, le problème de diversité», a déclaré M. Taylor.

Selon le professeur émérite, laïcité et lutte au terrorisme sont deux choses différentes et tracer un lien entre les deux thèmes risque de mener le Québec tout droit vers de nouveaux déchirements.

«Ce serait une erreur monumentale de mélanger les questions de terrorisme et les questions du vivre-ensemble dans la diversité dans une société comme la nôtre. Du moment où on fait un amalgame comme ça, on est tout droit sur le chemin de la division sociale. Si les gens croient que le moment est propice à cause des événements de Paris, ils ont grandement tort», a-t-il dit.

Sans détour, M. Taylor a exprimé sa méfiance envers le député péquiste et candidat à la direction du Parti québécois Bernard Drainville, revenu à la charge il y a une semaine avec une nouvelle mouture – moins restrictive – de son projet de charte des valeurs.

Le philosophe estime que le député de Marie-Victorin est «un mauvais porteur de ballon» dans ce dossier à cause de son passé marqué par la confusion entre la diversité religieuse et l’intégrisme.

Durant le débat sur la première version de la charte en 2013-2014, M. Drainville, alors ministre responsable, «a constamment fait l’amalgame», a soutenu M. Taylor.

«Il entretenait un contexte flou d’intégrisme religieux qui voulait dire à la fois se pencher sur la violence et interdire les signes ostentatoires. Quelqu’un qui croit que les gens qui portent des signes ostentatoires sont des terroristes en puissance ignore tout de la vie religieuse très diverse de notre pays, de notre société. Il agite des slogans très dangereux», a-t-il soulevé.

Le professeur est d’avis que les Français ont fait preuve de plus de sagesse à la suite de l’attentat perpétré contre l’hebdomadaire satirique en rejetant les amalgames et en prenant soin de ne pas montrer du doigt leurs concitoyens de confession musulmane.

Bien au contraire, «ils se sont tous dits: on est tous ensemble, toutes les religions, ne faisons pas d’amalgame, ne blâmons pas les musulmans pour ce qui s’est passé», a-t-il relaté.

Débat sur la laïcité: Charles Taylor redoute de nouvelles divisions sociales | Martin Ouellet | National.

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Radicalization a growing risk in Canadian prisons, experts warn

2015/01/24 Leave a comment

Not an easy issue to address. Comments by former prison chaplam Imam Dwyer worth noting:

Imam Yasin Dwyer worked as a chaplain in federal prisons for 11 years, but left his formal role after CSC moved to a privatized model for chaplaincy services. Dwyer says the chaplains had proven successful in building trust relationships with inmates, and the change severed critical ties to community.

“If the community is not speaking with authority about what religion is, in our case about what Islam is — especially in a correctional context — if the community doesn’t have that authority, then perhaps that authority may fall to voices that have not been granted that authority by the faith community,” he warned.

While most Muslims behind bars use faith to find meaning and guide them through incarceration, some are dealing with issues that make them vulnerable to radicalization.

Dwyer, who provided pastoral services to six of the Toronto 18 terror cell members, says he had success despite a lack of government support.

“It’s not even a matter of doing enough — it’s are we doing anything at all?” he says. “As the Muslim chaplain, I was looked upon to deal with these particular offenders, minus the resources to do it effectively.”

Dwyer says he does not want to contribute to fear-mongering, but wants to raise a red flag.

“Prisoners are in a very adversarial environment. It is a potentially violent environment where people are quite jaded and there is a real absence of consistent light. So in that situation, in that state of anger and isolation, you may have the potential of those falling into some sort of alternative dysfunctional narrative of what Islam is. That’s the flag that I would put out.”

Last month, CSC hosted an international roundtable and symposium on managing radical offenders that brought in experts from the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, Israel, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

While there are publicly available statistics on aboriginal prisoners, have not seen statistics broken down by visible minority or religion.

Radicalization a growing risk in Canadian prisons, experts warn – Politics – CBC News.

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Winnipeg rises to a challenge – Macleans – Wells

2015/01/24 1 Comment

Aboriginal - Black comparisonPaul Wells on the impressive open response to the Macleans story on racism in Winnipeg. All too rare in Canadian politics:

“Ignorance, hatred, intolerance, racism exists everywhere,” Bowman said. “Winnipeg has a responsibility right now to turn this ship around and change the way we all relate: Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, Canadians alike, from coast to coast to coast.”

Already this was surprising. Bowman was not demanding Maclean’s apologize, or indeed anyone. “We are here together to face this head-on as one community,” he said.  He was careful to note what nobody would deny: that racism exists everywhere, not only in Winnipeg, and that the city is full of people who work hard to combat racism and its effects. But neither he nor the other speakers sought any bogus refuge in the fact that Maclean’s isn’t published locally or that it used nasty words in its article.

Mercredi also emphasized that racism is a big problem that ignores municipal borders, but added: “I want to thank Maclean’s magazine for the story that they did. And to challenge them to follow up with other stories of where individuals and groups have combatted racism in their particular communities and cities and have made a difference in race relations in their communities.”

I suspect we’ll be taking up Mercredi’s challenge over the next few weeks. It was, on the whole, an inspiring and morally serious response from officials who know very well that slogans won’t begin to heal the wounds Nancy Macdonald and Scott Gilmore document this week.

It’s so common to find public officials shifting blame instead of lifting burdens. That’s not the path Brian Bowman and his colleagues chose today. It was heartening.

Winnipeg rises to a challenge – Macleans.ca.

And the report of the press conference:

Winnipeg leaders vow to face racism head-on In response to this week’s Maclean’s cover, Brian Bowman, backed by indigenous leaders, promised to change Winnipeg’s reputation

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Refugee health-care advocates criticize government inaction

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

The risks of trying to be too clever in  implementing partially a Federal Court ruling. Will see the Court rules on the motion:

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, however, say the government re-repealed that measure on Nov. 6, 2014, only two days after it was supposed to restore the health coverage.

The advocates first pointed out the return to the repealed measure in December, but the Canadian Medical Association Journal drew attention to it in an article published Wednesday.

Waldman said the Federal Court was clear the government was supposed to restore the pre-2012 coverage. He’s filed a motion to the court asking for a finding that the government has breached the court order.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Alexander declined an interview request and responded by email. He called the court ruling “flawed.”

“Our government is defending the interests of Canadian taxpayers as well as the integrity of our refugee determination system,” Kevin Menard wrote.

“We have implemented temporary health-care measures as per the Federal Court’s ruling on Nov. 5. Regrettably, the Federal Court’s ruling is costing taxpayers an extra $4 million a year.”

Dr. Philip Berger, one of the founders of Canadian Doctors for Refugee Health, says the government showed contempt for refugee claimants and doctors and is now extending that contempt to the Federal Court.

“There’s nothing the federal government says about refugee health that can be believed,” he said.

“The costs have simply been downloaded to the provinces and to hospitals who must see people in emergency departments and doctors who are prepared to provide coverage for free.”

Refugee health-care advocates criticize government inaction – Politics – CBC News.

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The Origins of Fox’s Favorite Muslim No-Go-Zone Myth – The Atlantic

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

Good take down of the ‘no-go-zone’ myth, with the following conclusion (and for those who know French, this parody on Le Petit Journal is both amusing and effective):

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28b_1421201170:

Meanwhile, the meme can be seen extending to the United States. Truth Uncensored reports, incorrectly, that there are no-go zones stateside, including in places like Dearborn, Michigan, a Detroit suburb with a large Muslim population. Conservative Tribune even posts a map that allegedly shows no-go zones controlled by Islamists across the United States. I can’t tell where the map originally came from, but it cites data from Steven Emerson, the Fox expert who apologized for his no-go-zone comments. And the map is posted elsewhere on the Internet, labeled as everything from a map of terrorist camps (apparently al-Qaeda is big in Boca Raton—alert your grandparents!) to areas with concentrated Muslim populations.

Erroneous beliefs such as these concentrate along partisan axes, and once an idea has taken seed it’s difficult to root out.

Bottom line: You don’t need to worry about Muslim no-go zones if you live in the United States. And if you’re planning a tourist expedition to Europe, it’s a good idea to avoid high-crime areas, regardless of their demographics. But why, if there’s no evidence for no-go zones and some of the highest-profile propagators of the idea have repudiated it, do such myths survive and thrive?

It probably has a lot to do with the conservative media ecosystem. Erroneous beliefs such as these tend to concentrate along people’s partisan or ideological axes. (The same is true of liberal media, though not in this particular case.) And once an idea has taken seed, it’s extremely difficult to root out. As political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler have shown, corrections can actually backfire, increasing holders’ faith in their incorrect beliefs.

Unfortunately, even reporting on these misconceptions can worsen the problem, so I am part of the problem. But it seems important to note that Jindal is plainly wrong. These sorts of distortions and exaggerations don’t help to fight the very real threat of Islamist terror. They don’t serve the cause of creating an informed, reasoned democratic society. And they don’t help the political prospects of guys like Jindal, who has previously demanded that his GOP stop being “the stupid party.” Maybe this meme is the real no-go zone.

The Origins of Fox’s Favorite Muslim No-Go-Zone Myth – The Atlantic.

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Judging The Beards Of Believers – SCOTUS decision

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

The latest US SC ruling on religious freedom, this time with respect to beards. Similar to Canadian approach. Commentary below by Carrie Severino:

[This ruling] emphasizes that it is the religiously-motivated view of an action, not the unbelieving bystander’s judgment of its importance, that determines whether a burden is substantial. That is particularly important where, as here, courts are dealing with a minority or unpopular religion.

The Court also clarified some key points respecting substantial burdens. First, it noted that permission to engage in many other aspects of religions exercise – here, praying daily, keeping a prayer rug, corresponding with religious advisors, keeping a halal diet, and observing religious holidays – does not cancel out the effect of denying Holt the ability to carry out his simultaneous religious obligation to grow a beard. Additionally, the Court corrected a misunderstanding below that only “compelled” religious practices could be substantially burdened or that disagreements within the Muslim community about the necessity of growing a beard meant curtailing that ability was not a substantial burden. After all, courts have no business making a judgment call about the fundamentally theological questions of how much religious practice is “enough” or which view of a certain religion is correct.

Judging The Beards Of Believers « The Dish.

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Laïcité: un éventuel projet de loi d’ici juin

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

More on the debate over the Liberal government’s plans for a charter, and Premier Couillard’s cautious approach:

Le premier ministre a également balayé d’un revers de main les critiques du Parti québécois (PQ) et de la Coalition avenir Québec, qui l’accusent d’avoir profité des attentats de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu ainsi que ceux survenus en France pour repousser le débat entourant la neutralité de l’État.

«Il faut s’avoir s’ajuster aux circonstances, a répliqué M. Couillard. Les événements (…) montrent clairement que les esprits sont tournés vers cette question et que l’on peut facilement glisser vers la stigmatisation.»

Le premier ministre ne croit pas avoir créé des attentes trop élevées en affirmant, en campagne électorale, vouloir agir «rapidement» dans les dossiers de la neutralité de l’État et de la lutte contre l’intégrisme.

«On ne va pas présenter un projet inconstitutionnel comme au PQ, a affirmé M. Couillard. Ils (les péquistes) ont agi de manière imprudente et négative pour la société en proposant dans le passé des politiques sur la discrimination à l’emploi.»

Laïcité: un éventuel projet de loi d’ici juin | Julien Arsenault | Politique québécoise.

And the likely next leader of the PQ, Pierre Karl Péladeau, reverts back to Bouchard-Taylor’s approach, laïcisme ouvert, along with the latest poll:

Dans son rapport de 2008, les commissaires préconisaient l’interdiction du port de signes religieux ostensibles chez les juges, les procureurs de la Couronne, les policiers et les gardiens de prison. «Tout le détail je ne peux pas vous dire, mais tout ce qui est en autorité, c’est quelque chose d’important», a dit le magnat des médias à l’entrée du caucus présessionnel de son parti à Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.  Il pense qu’«une pièce législative» sur la question des valeurs et l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes doit être adoptée par le gouvernement.

…Un sondage SOM-Cogeco Nouvelles publié ce matin indique que 68% des Québécois – après répartition – seraient en faveur de la création d’une charte de la laïcité. Les résultats montrent aussi que 16% des Québécois affirment que leur perception des immigrants et des musulmans a changé négativement depuis les évènements de Paris.

Péladeau en faveur des recommandations de Bouchard-Taylor

But Le Devoir, indicates it is actually Bouchard-Taylor plus, given that Péladeau also supports banning religious symbols and headgear on teachers:

Puis, à la question «Le port de signes religieux par les enseignants?», le député de Saint-Jérôme a répondu du tac au tac: «Moi, j’ai une opinion là-dessus. Je pense que ça ne devrait pas avoir lieu. Mais, encore là, ça va être une question qui va être débattue.»

PKP opte pour la neutralité

Filed under Charte de la laïcité, Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others – NYTimes.com

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

More evidence that of the importance of diversity and emotional intelligence in improving the performance of teams:

We next tried to define what characteristics distinguished the smarter teams from the rest, and we were a bit surprised by the answers we got. We gave each volunteer an individual I.Q. test, but teams with higher average I.Q.s didn’t score much higher on our collective intelligence tasks than did teams with lower average I.Q.s. Nor did teams with more extroverted people, or teams whose members reported feeling more motivated to contribute to their group’s success.

Instead, the smartest teams were distinguished by three characteristics.

First, their members contributed more equally to the team’s discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group.

Second, their members scored higher on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from images of faces with only the eyes visible.

Finally, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. Indeed, it appeared that it was not “diversity” (having equal numbers of men and women) that mattered for a team’s intelligence, but simply having more women. This last effect, however, was partly explained by the fact that women, on average, were better at “mindreading” than men.

Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others – NYTimes.com.

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