Carding across Canada: Data show practice of ‘street checks’ lacks mandated set of procedures

2015/08/19 Leave a comment

Police Street Checks Per CapitaGood comparative report from the Globe on street checks:

A Globe and Mail analysis found the practice lacks a mandated set of procedures after 21 Canadian police forces answered questions about interacting with community members in their respective jurisdictions. Most spoke willingly with The Globe, but some, including Winnipeg and Calgary, refused to respond to questions on the matter.

The practice typically involves an officer stopping a community member, questioning them and entering information into a computer database.

By speaking to forces around the country, The Globe found the following:

  • On average, in 2014 police forces that spoke with The Globe had stopped 0.86 per cent of their jurisdiction’s 2011 population.
  • The majority of police forces that disclosed to The Globe the length of time they keep records on community members who are stopped and questioned reported keeping records indefinitely.
  • All but two police forces interviewed by The Globe have no formal procedure in place to guide interactions between officers and community members who are stopped and questioned.
  • Most police forces in Canada call the practice a “street check.”
  • Most police forces in Canada use records management system Versaterm Inc.

The cities that did not respond to the survey (why?) include: Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Waterloo, Durham region, and Fredericton.

Carding across Canada: Data show practice of ‘street checks’ lacks mandated set of procedures – The Globe and Mail.

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A thorny history of race-based statistics: DiManno

2015/08/19 Leave a comment

On the risks of not collecting race-based statistics:

Now it matters in a reverse context: Blacks killed by Toronto cops. How many? Who? Why? And so it’s the cops who dread disclosure. Yet those are facts we damn well should know.

We’ve put ourselves into a moral and intellectual bind. The reason: We don’t trust facts. More crucially, we don’t trust how facts can be manipulated. Or we don’t trust the potential for what’s known in court as an adverse inference — the reason why judges often kick out evidence deemed highly prejudicial with little probative value.

Surely, in a matter of such gravity — minorities killed in interactions with police — we can discard the extremes of compulsory blinkering. I’d say drop them entirely and live with the consequences. Because we can’t control how information will be computed by another person’s brain — whether they’ll misunderstand, whether they’ll take offense where none was intended, whether they’ll hurl accusations of racism (or sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, etc.) — we tread delicately, self-censoriously. So we end up with this: institutional timidity.

Among the numerous task forces into Toronto police and race relations was an audit released way back in 1992, which included the following recommendation: That the Toronto Police Services Board “reconsider its policy as to maintaining statistics which identify race and consider a policy which permits the maintenance of such statistics for the purpose of measuring or evaluating police activity… A civilian function should be created to maintain, compile and analyze such data. Statistics should be kept at a level of detail which allows for valid statistical conclusion.’’

The board rejected it.

A further recommendation suggested a formula for addressing racial subtexts — in policing, not the criminal constituency: “A series of indicators be developed using a statistical base to evaluate the level of bias, if any, in policing activities for the Force as a whole as well as to provide internal comparisons within the Force between differing operating units.’’

In essence, the audit pleaded for profiling — of police.

But profiling is such a dirty word. Just like “race-based” statistics. Except when they’re not.

A thorny history of race-based statistics | Toronto Star.

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Our health needs a healthy civil service: Picard

2015/08/19 Leave a comment

André Picard on the importance of a strong regulatory capacity and public service. His comment on Blueprint 2020 (highlighted) is unfortunately all too true:

Among other things, we need drug regulators who can regulate rigorously, free of political and corporate pressures. More broadly, we need a public service that works, and is free to work, in the public interest.

It’s not enough to have laws – let’s not forget that drug regulations were similar in Canada and the U.S. at the time thalidomide came along – we need people who can give those laws life, to embrace the spirit and not just the letter of the law, especially when it comes to ensuring public safety.

In short, we need to foster a new generation of Dr. Kelseys.

Sadly, we are doing exactly the opposite.

We have a public service that is muzzled, emasculated, derided and decimated.

There are about a quarter-million federal public servants in Canada, a considerably lower figure than from a decade ago. They serve a broad variety of functions from, overseeing national parks to ensuring aviation safety, and everything in between.

It is in our best interest, economically as well as socially, that every one of those workers serves a useful function.

Yet consultations with the public servants show that they feel mired in red tape and frustrated by cumbersome processes that leave them unable to do their jobs. That’s why the Privy Council has undertaken an initiative to transform the public service, dubbed Blueprint 2020.

The plan features some lovely rhetoric, such as Conservative Leader Stephen Harper saying in the introduction: “An agile, efficient and effective Public Service is essential to the well-being of Canadians.” And it is chock-full of good intentions.

But Blueprint 2020 lacks of a clear philosophical bent and strong political commitment to an independent, empowered public service.

What is required, especially in these difficult economic times, is a scientific, non-partisan approach to drafting and implementing policy.

While it is fashionable to bad-mouth the bureaucracy and sing the praises of free market, public regulation plays an essential role as a ballast to corporate excesses driven by self-interest.

The role of government, duly elected, is to formulate legislation and other policies in what it believes is the best interests of citizens. But its role is not to micromanage and bark orders down the line. Rather, elected officials should depend on civil servants for thoughtful, independent advice, especially on scientific matters.

What we need today is evidence-based policy-making if, for no other reason than it produces better policy.

Public servants should not be toadies, singing the praises of ill-conceived or partisan initiatives. Nor should they be muzzled. They should be offering constructive criticism to ensure policies are workable and fair, and analysis and insight that helps avoid unintended consequences.

For this, we need to create an atmosphere where public servants can innovate, take risks, and, as Dr. Kelsey did, call B.S. when necessary.

If we want better government and more sensible public policies, we need to give public-sector employees autonomy, authority and responsibility.

That, rather than a celebration of individual heroics, should be Frances Kelsey’s legacy.

Our health needs a healthy civil service – The Globe and Mail.

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‘Disrupting’ Tech’s Diversity Problem With A Code Camp For Girls Of Color

2015/08/19 Leave a comment

More on efforts to increase diversity in hi-tech, highlighting some more grassroots efforts:

In addition to brainstorming and prototyping app ideas, the campers take field trips to leading tech companies.

“I like to point out to the girls, ‘Look around, do you see people who look like you here?’ ” says Lake Raymond, the summer camp and after-school coordinator for Black Girls CODE.

On a recent tour of Google, she says, many of the girls were taken aback. “They seemed a little shocked to actually be in a place where you don’t really see anyone who looks like you.”

What data companies have released show that the tech giants driving the American economy remain white and male-dominated. Outside of management, software developers and hardware engineers are often among the highest-paid jobs in the industry. Estimates are that fewer than 13 percent of computer engineers in the Valley are female. Far fewer are African-American women, it’s estimated, but few companies have released hard data breaking down the numbers by race and gender.

Twitter has. Reports show black or African-American women make up just 0.5 perfect of the microblogging site’s workforce. CEOs in the Valley say they’re working hard to boost diversity. But Apple recently reported only modest progress in improving the diversity of its overall workforce.

Other organizations working on the issue include the nonprofit group Hack The Hood, which is trying to widen the gateway to new tech jobs for minority and disadvantaged youth. There’s also the nonprofit Code2040, an internship program that aims to bring black and Latino engineering students into Silicon Valley. And in California’s Salinas Valley farm region, a program is targeting Latinos — a traditionally underrepresented group in tech — for computer science degrees.

Black Girls CODE’s Summer of Code included project-based camps in the Bay Area as well as Washington, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The group says camps offer a place where “girls of color can learn computer science and coding principles in the company of other girls like themselves and with mentorship from women they can see themselves becoming.” About half of the girls participating received a scholarship to attend.

For some girls of color the path to a tech career remains riddled with obstacles. In schools, as we’ve reported, girls of color in America are six times more likely to be suspended than white girls and are often are subject to harsher and more frequent discipline than their white peers.

‘Disrupting’ Tech’s Diversity Problem With A Code Camp For Girls Of Color : NPR Ed : NPR.

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Les conservateurs courtisent les communautés culturelles à Montréal | Le Devoir

2015/08/19 Leave a comment

Minister Kenney in action, trying to replicate his success in the GTA. Most of the polls I have seen show little traction (apart from the two ridings with large Jewish communities):

Après avoir fait main basse sur de nombreux sièges de la région du Grand Toronto grâce à l’appui des communautés culturelles au cours de la dernière décennie, les conservateurs tentent aujourd’hui d’appliquer cette stratégie gagnante à Montréal et à sa périphérie. Une tactique prometteuse pour cette formation traditionnellement impopulaire dans la métropole.

Le ministre de la Défense et du Multiculturalisme, Jason Kenney, est partout. Il était dans Ahuntsic il y a trois semaines pour accorder la citoyenneté canadienne à un populaire évêque de la communauté grecque-catholique libanaise. Le revoici à Montréal, lundi, cette fois dans la très multiculturelle circonscription d’Outremont, pour présenter le candidat conservateur Rodolphe Husny, un Canadien d’origine syrienne. Entre deux voyages éclairs à Montréal, on a pu le voir serrer des mains dans un temple hindou de Calgary, participer à des fêtes religieuses dans la région de Vancouver ou encore faire quelques passages remarqués dans les banlieues de la Ville Reine. Course folle pour séduire l’électorat ? En réalité, tout cela n’a rien d’inhabituel pour l’omniprésent ministre, en perpétuel démarchage auprès des différentes communautés immigrantes du pays, dont les Canadiens d’origines chinoise, indienne ou pakistanaise et de l’Asie du Sud-Est.

Devant les journalistes, convoqués au coeur de la circonscription de Thomas Mulcair, lundi, il s’est dit convaincu de l’impact des nouveaux Canadiens sur la bonne fortune du Parti conservateur. Il en sait quelque chose : aux dernières élections, pas moins de 42 % des néo-Canadiens (des électeurs non nés au pays) auraient donné leur appui au Parti conservateur, selon des données internes. Traditionnellement acquis aux libéraux, ce qu’on a longtemps appelé le « vote ethnique » change peu à peu de couleur politique, affirme avec raison le ministre Kenney.

« On est aujourd’hui le seul parti de centre droit dans le monde occidental à récolter plus de votes chez ces communautés que [chez] les personnes nées au pays, dit-il. C’est un reflet de notre approche pluraliste et d’intégration. Que ce soit la communauté juive, ou les autres, notre appui est diversifié. »

De l’avis du titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en études ethniques canadiennes de l’Université McGill, Morton Weinfeld, cet appui diversifié pourrait avoir un impact significatif dans des circonscriptions telles que Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount ou encore Mont-Royal, qui dispose d’une forte communauté juive et où le député libéral sortant Irwin Cotler, juif lui aussi, ne se représente pas. Les conservateurs ont fait fondre peu à peu la majorité de cet ex-ministre de la Justice, avocat de renommée internationale, si bien que l’anglophone Robert Libman dispose aujourd’hui de sérieuses chances de l’emporter dans ce fief libéral depuis 1940.

Les conservateurs courtisent les communautés culturelles à Montréal | Le Devoir.

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How do you spot the next terrorist? Doug Saunders

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Doug Saunders on the changing nature of counter-terrorism work:

A couple of years ago, those analysts began asking the question: What if we have it backward? Could it be that terrorists are not people with extreme ideas trying to build up the courage to turn them into murder, but rather violence-prone people hunting for some excuse to turn their proclivities into deeds?

This was in part because the old “violent extremism” approach was failing to produce results. Studies of thousands of known terrorists and killers have identified little that will predict violent behaviour. Religious upbringing doesn’t make people more likely to commit attacks. Nor does poverty. Nor does age, neighbourhood, ethnicity, social class, marital status, education level or immigration status. Even extremism itself: People who hold fundamentalist Islamic beliefs or racist right-wing beliefs are not hugely more likely than anyone else to commit an attack.

But a new type of analysis was producing results – one that started to attract the attention of Canadians in the wake of last fall’s Parliament Hill shootings and in other countries at around the same time or earlier.

Analysts began looking at the work of Paul Gill, a criminologist at the University College of London. In a highly influential 2014 paper titled “Bombing Alone: Tracing the Motivations and Antecedent Behaviours of Lone-Actor Terrorists,” Dr. Gill and his colleagues analyzed known terrorists not by what they thought or where they came from, but by what they did.

In the weeks before an attack, terrorists tend to change address (one in five) or adopt a new religion (40 per cent of Islamic terrorists and many right-wing terrorists did so). And they start talking about violence: 82 per cent told others about their grievance; almost seven in 10 told friends or family that they “intended to hurt others.”

A huge proportion had recently become unemployed, experienced a heightened level of stress or had family breakdowns. And most had done things that looked like planning – including contacting known violent groups.

In other words: People who commit violent terror attacks, it turns out, are not identifiable by the ideas they hold, but rather by the things that they do. The violence comes first, the thinking second.

Analysts in Canada and elsewhere came to realize this, from their own analyses, before they were aware of Dr. Gill’s work – and their findings matched his very precisely.

This new approach, which has come to be widely adopted within counterterrorism circles in Western countries during the past 24 months, has changed the intelligence-gathering needs of agencies: They aren’t so interested in trying to monitor and change people’s thoughts (which involved infiltrating communities, often with disruptive results). Instead, they want to hear about people who have suddenly changed, started talking of violence or dropped out of their usual social circles. It still isn’t precise or easy, but it involves less mass intrusion into the privacy and communications of citizens.

Unfortunately, governments, including Canada’s, are behind the curve: Just as their terrorism experts and security employees have abandoned policies which resemble the policing of thoughts, they’re passing disturbing laws to make such obsolete practices easier.

How do you spot the next terrorist? – The Globe and Mail.

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Counting foreigners in the housing market is one thing. Then?

2015/08/18 1 Comment

More on the PM’s stated intent to conduct research into the effect of foreign buyers on Canadian real estate prices and information on what the UK and Australia do to restrict foreign ownership:

But if the data does indeed confirm that foreigners are swamping the country’s major urban centres, the question about what Harper would do about it remains up in the air. Harper didn’t elaborate on what specific regulations, if any, he would implement to tame offshore buyers.  However a Conservative Party background document on the issue points to countries like the U.K. and Australia, which have adopted certain policies, without saying which ones are being considered here.

So what have other countries been doing? Earlier this year, Britain implemented a capital gains tax for non-residents selling property in the country, however it was a tax that already applied to British sellers. As of April foreign buyers must pay up to 28 per cent of the profits they earn when selling their homes, though it’s not yet clear whether the move has dampened enthusiasm for London properties among rich foreigners.

And what about down under? “Australia provides a fine example and some guidance,” says Wozny. “[Their regulations] are all fair and logical.” To combat rising house prices in Australia, often attributed to rich Chinese investors driving up the market, rules were put in place restricting foreigners from buying homes that were previously owned or occupied for longer than a year if they plan to use them as a rental property or vacation home. The move effectively limits foreign buyers to newly built properties. As for foreigners living in Australia temporarily—such as those buying a home for their child entering Australia for university—they are restricted to purchasing one property in the country as a primary residence, and must sell it when they leave.

Australia has other nuanced regulations for how quickly foreigners must build on vacant land, and others that limit foreign buyers from purchasing investment properties. Those who flout the rules in Australia can face stiff fines and even up to three years in prison. And yet, despite all the restrictions, home prices in Australia jumped by about 10 per cent over the last year.

So there are genuine questions as to whether targeting foreigners in Canada will make homes more affordable for Canadians. Some argue it may even do more harm than good. “Are you going to introduce some additional charges with non-residency ownership?” asks Richard Bell, a Vancouver-based real estate lawyer with Bell Alliance. “And what’s the impact on the market if you were to do that?”

Counting foreigners in the housing market is one thing. Then?.

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Un Montréalais à la rescousse des esclaves sexuelles de l’EI

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Good initiative:

Steve Maman, un homme d’affaires montréalais, a lancé une campagne de financement pour libérer des esclaves sexuelles des griffes du groupe armé État islamique (EI). Ce vendeur de voitures a été inspiré par Oskar Schindler, qui avait sauvé 1200 juifs pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, et dit avoir déjà réussi à libérer 128 enfants en huit mois.

C’est en cherchant à faire des affaires en Irak que le Montréalais dit avoir rencontré le révérend Canon Andrew White, qui vivait en Irak jusqu’en novembre dernier. Grâce aux contacts sur le terrain de son ami, il a eu l’idée de sauver des femmes et enfants kidnappés par l’EI. Celles-ci étaient vendues comme esclaves sexuelles.

«Nous avons commencé en janvier dernier en aidant à sortir trois familles chrétiennes d’Irak alors que Daesh [le groupe État islamique] se rapprochait dangereusement de leur village, explique M. Maman en entrevue avec La Presse. Ces familles ont été relocalisées à Ankara et nous tentons de les parrainer pour qu’ils viennent s’installer au Canada en tant que réfugiés.»

Ce Montréalais d’origine marocaine de confession juive séfarade dit avoir financé les premières opérations de sauvetage de sa poche. Les intermédiaires sur le terrain sont depuis parvenus à négocier pour libérer des enfants et des jeunes filles, principalement âgées de 17 à 22 ans, affirme M. Maman. «Selon un rapport des Nations unies, des enfants peuvent devenir esclaves sexuels dès l’âge de 8 ou 9 ans», précise-t-il avant d’ajouter qu’il en coûte entre 2000 et 3000$ pour libérer un enfant et le ramener dans sa famille.

Un Montréalais à la rescousse des esclaves sexuelles de l’EI | Annabelle Blais | Le groupe État islamique.

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Man’s immigration status wins him slightly shorter sentence

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Makes sense when someone has spent most of their life in Canada and thus their criminality was Canadian in origin:

In a recent judgment, Justice Fergus O’Donnell credited a Vietnamese man, Hoang Vu, for the equivalent of just under six months already served and gave him a suspended sentence with three years’ probation.

Considering the crime alone, O’Donnell said, an appropriate sentence would have been six to eight months. That would have made Vu unable to challenge a possible deportation order under the newly passed Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act.

“Mr. Vu left Vietnam as an 11-year-old boy. After two years in an Indonesian refugee camp he arrived in Canada as a 13-year-old boy. He is now a 43-year-old man,” O’Donnell wrote in the decision released this month. “At this point in his life, Vietnam is a foreign country to him.”

The Star was not able to reach O’Donnell or the Crown for comment over the weekend. Vu’s lawyer said he needed to confer with his client before commenting.

Vu, who has 11 prior convictions, had pleaded guilty to a single count of assault with a weapon, a charge to which the defence recommended a sentence of under six months in prison. The Crown had recommended 15 months.

Under the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, non-citizens sentenced to terms six months or longer cannot appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division if a decision is made to deport them. Before the new law came into effect this year, that threshold was two years.

Experts said judges do have the right to consider a convicted person’s status when sentencing — but with only a little discretion.

Man’s immigration status wins him slightly shorter sentence | Toronto Star.

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NCC had ‘no choice’ but to approve victims of communism site, Mills email asserts

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

More email disclosures that are embarrassing to the Government, this time with respect to the Victims of Communism Memorial:

“There was really no choice but to approve what had already been announced,” Mills says in the email to Kristmanson.

“If the NCC board had voted against the site, we would not only have been straying onto the turf of the Public Works department, we would have embarrassed the government in a significant way,” his email says.

While the National Capital Act says the NCC must approve changes to the use of public lands and new “buildings or other work” erected on them, it also gives the federal cabinet the power to give approval if the NCC balks.

Another email from Mills to Kristmanson, dated March 30, 2015, strongly suggests the NCC chair privately opposes the chosen memorial site.

Referring to a letter opposing the memorial’s location he received in March of this year, Mills told Kristmanson the letter writer “is someone whose opinion I respect,” adding: “This likely reflects the view of most thinking people in our community.”

In the letter to Mills, the writer, whose name has been withheld, says he is “deeply disturbed” by the plan to build the memorial near the Supreme Court and asks Mills to use his influence to reverse the decision.

“I know you well enough to know that you probably think this is a bad idea by any definition,” the letter writer tells Mills.

“It is the view of many that the prime minister has seized on this idea, not only to please his political base, but also to make a statement to the court with which he is in an adversarial relationship,” the writer continues.

Allowing the decision to stand, he says, “will lead to the conclusion that the NCC — intended to be a non-partisan agency — has become a willing agent of the governing party.”

Though Mills has not spoken out publicly against the memorial’s location, he was one of only three NCC board members in June to vote against allowing soil decontamination work to start on the site.

NCC had ‘no choice’ but to approve victims of communism site, Mills email asserts | Ottawa Citizen.

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