Kelly McParland: Trudeau’s first senate appointees are exactly the sort of people you’d expect Liberals to appoint

2016/03/24 Leave a comment

Valid points by McParland but one can have general values and experience ‘alignment’ while also having a measure of independence. And notably, he criticizes the general orientation of the appointees rather than taking issue with their individual qualifications.

But the degree with which they may or may not exercise their independence may be seen not just in their review of Government legislation but on the nature and tone of debates in the Senate and its committees:

Still, you’d think there would be at least a smidgen of curiosity about the latest appointees. They’re the first by the new prime minister, the first in three years (since former prime minister Harper gave up in disgust and quit appointing anyone at all), the first under the Liberals’ heralded new arm’s-length advisory council, the first to be appointed entirely as independents, and the opening wave in the Liberals’ proclaimed plan to de-partisan the benighted second chamber.

Surveying the names on the Liberal list of appointees, two thoughts spring to mind. 1. The Liberals appear to have concluded that the best way to escape the sort of Senate controversy that engulfed the Tories is to make the process as boring as humanly possible. 2. Having achieved that, they’ve used public ennui to appoint exactly the sort of people you’d expect Liberals to appoint.

To get the apathy ball rolling, Trudeau’s government announced in January it had appointed a three-member committee to advise it on potential appointees. It had three permanent members: a federal bureaucrat and two academics, plus “ad hoc” members from provinces with vacancies. The first ad hoc advisers included another bureaucrat, the head of a native women’s group, the head of a Quebec doctor’s organization, an athlete, a singer and the head of a charity.

It duly sent some names to Ottawa, from which Trudeau picked his chosen seven: the head of his transition team, a former Ontario NDP cabinet minister, an academic, an “expert on migration and diversity”, a Paralympic athlete, a federalist journalist from Quebec and the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

Since the Liberals claim all new senators have to be non-partisan, we’ll have to assume all these people assured the prime minister of their independence, though, looking at the list, it’s not hard to guess they skew pretty much to the left. Not a lot of closet Tories in that group. As my colleague John Robson put it, the list is so predictable of a Liberal government it might have been selected by an affirmative action random-elite-candidate-generator.

And what else would you expect? Examine the membership of the advisory committee and you notice it’s heavy with people paid from the public purse, or dependent on government for grace and favour. Who else would they put forward but Canadians who reflect their own background: public servants, academics, friendly faces, administrators, reliable interest groups and members of other Liberal-friendly operations. They don’t reflect Canada so much as they reflect the Liberals’ view of Canada: people like them; people you see in the salons of Ottawa, people who will be sympathetic to Liberal aspirations and the Liberal way of doing things. Even if, under Trudeau’s directive, they have to promise not to call themselves Liberals.

Source: Kelly McParland: Trudeau’s first senate appointees are exactly the sort of people you’d expect Liberals to appoint

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Learning — And Unlearning — To Be An ‘Ambassador’ For Islam : NPR

2016/03/24 Leave a comment

Beenish Ahmed on the challenges of being Muslim in America:

After years of these kinds of interactions, I no longer have illusions about combatting anti-Muslim sentiments, not least because I’ve come to understand that the flames of Islamophobia are systematically fanned. Since 9/11, reports a study from the Center for American Progress (the parent organization of ThinkProgress, a news site where I work), a number of well-endowed organizations have spent over $40 million spreading fear against a “manufactured threat” — the notion that Islamist groups are working to make sharia the law of the land in America and turn the country into an Islamic state.

Thanks in part to such campaigns, even if someone like me can hardly recognize their faith in the hate espoused by terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al-Qaida, we are seen to belong more to those groups than to our own communities. That’s why hardly anyone is ever satisfied when I say that I’m from the Midwest. In their minds, I’ll always be all tied up with the Middle East and their perceptions of its mayhem.

And so, I will always say please and thank you when I order my coffee. I will smile at you on the bus if you happen to make eye contact with me. I’ll do so despite myself. And even if these habits result from my Ohioan upbringing as much as the traits imparted by my anxious, insecure, and yet incessantly good-willed immigrant parents, I know that I do these things because a part of me still can’t believe that I actually belong here. Still, I refuse to be an ambassador in the country of my birth.

Source: Learning — And Unlearning — To Be An ‘Ambassador’ For Islam : Code Switch : NPR

Filed under Multiculturalism

Belgium’s big problem with radical Islam – The Washington Post

2016/03/24 Leave a comment

One of the better pieces I have seen, although over-mechanically emphasizes some of the causes of radicalization:

Of all the countries in the West, Belgium has produced the greatest number of foreign jihadists per capita who are fighting in Syria. The actual figure, according to researchers, is variously estimated at 470 to 553. Roughly a third of those who left to fight in Iraq and Syria have returned; many have not faced prosecution, with authorities struggling to prove that the fighters joined violent organizations such as the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

According to an analysis by the Royal Institute for International Relations, or Egmont, a Brussels-based think tank, the majority of Belgian jihadists are young (ages 20 to 24), have lower-than-average education levels and are mostly of Moroccan heritage.

The prevalence of Islamist extremism in Belgium predates the incidents of the past year, as well as the advent of the Islamic State. And this is not the first time an Islamic State proxy has struck on Belgian soil: In May 2014, a gun-wielding French national who had spent time in Syria killed four people in the Jewish Museum of Brussels.

The root causes of radicalization are largely familiar: high unemployment, marginalization, discrimination and a sense of alienation from the wider society.

BuzzFeed’s Joshua Hersh spent time in Molenbeek and came away with this picture of a downtrodden, disgruntled community:

“Unlike the infamous banlieues of Paris — the rundown high-rise suburbs that symbolize France’s failure to integrate its own Muslim immigrant residents — Molenbeek is practically in the middle of Brussels; it’s just two metro stops west of the central train station. Still, Molenbeek can feel deeply isolated. The immigrants of Brussels, most of them Muslim and of North African descent, are highly concentrated there — the schools they attend, shunned by white Belgian families, are disparagingly referred to as “concentration schools,” after the high percentage of immigrants enrolled, and the poor conditions. “I didn’t believe it was this bad when I first started,” said a teacher who works at a mostly immigrant school near Molenbeek. “The schools, all they do is accentuate the problems the students face in their daily lives.””

Moreover, as my colleague Michael Birnbaum reported, Belgium’s pronounced linguistic divisions between Dutch-speaking Flanders, the largely French-speaking city of Brussels and the region of Wallonia to the south have made it difficult for some immigrant groups to assimilate. This is particularly true of those living in Flanders, where far-right Flemish nationalist parties hold real sway and inveigh against the dangers of Islam.

“The Islamic State is giving them what the Belgian government can’t give them — identity, structure,” Montasser AlDe’emeh of the University of Antwerp told Birnbaum. “They don’t feel Moroccan or Belgian. They don’t feel part of either society.”

According to the Egmont report, the current crop of Belgian extremists are significantly younger than earlier generations, which went off to join the ranks of al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups. That radicalization is driven less by religious fervor than by more local factors, and it is shaped also by ties to gangs and other criminal activity:

“Their acquaintance with religious thought is undoubtedly more shallow and superficial than their predecessors’, as is their acquaintance with international politics. Geopolitics is less important to them than it once was to their predecessors, who felt motivated by the struggle against the superpowers. Injustice was often a starting point with their predecessors’ journey towards extremism and terrorism. This has now largely been overshadowed by personal estrangement and motives as the primary engines of their journey.”

Source: Belgium’s big problem with radical Islam – The Washington Post

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ICYMI: Liberals cheapen citizenship | Chong

2016/03/24 1 Comment

Gordon Chong, former Toronto municipal councillor, criticizes most aspects of the changes to the Citizenship Act announced by Minister McCallum (like all such critiques, ignores that McCallum maintained and added to integrity measures introduced by the Conservatives):

But this new soft-headed federal government wants to demonstrate its soft-heartedness by easing the rules to obtain our most treasured commodity, citizenship.

But should newcomers self-segregate and be functionally illiterate in English and French?

Should we establish a multitude of solitudes in addition to our “two solitudes”?

Should we discourage newcomers from “throwing their lot in with us”, as former federal court judge Francis Muldoon described unconditional commitment to Canada?

We need Canadians of conviction, not Canadians of convenience!

If citizenship is to be made irrevocable, a true “until death do us part” contract — unlike the Order of Canada, or an Olympic medal — then we should make the requirements reflect the unalterable nature of that contract.

Serious standards should be de rigueur.

When Paul Martin Sr. brought in Canada’s first Citizenship Act in 1947, he did not do so lightly.

He had visited the battlefields of Europe and solemnly recognized the contributions of French Canadians and others, including Japanese Canadians, Chinese Canadians, Italian Canadians and German Canadians, even though some were not recognized as “Canadians” in the same way as those of British descent.

Martin Sr. corrected that glaring oversight because so many had volunteered to fight for Canada — some on the battlefields, others in intelligence gathering — in World War II.

By 1947, Chinese inhabitants of Canada could finally vote.

In my family, there had been a dichotomy before that.

My British mother could vote, but my Chinese father could not!

The then Liberal government thought Canadian citizenship sufficiently precious that five years of residency was required prior to applying — with no flexible interpretations of “residency”.

In the 1960s, the residency requirements were shortened to three years with a looser interpretation of “residency”, to accommodate the business interests of those with international ties.

As their families were settling in, the business class immigrant (usually the husband] could leave the country and still be considered a “resident” because he had established a residence in Canada.

Our new-age Liberals are now proposing a change in the requirements for someone to be physically present in Canada from four out of six years to three out of five.

Why? The present rules are hardly onerous when granting something so valuable.

How much is Canadian citizenship worth? How much are we willing to devalue it? How soft-headed are we going to be?

Admittedly, revoking citizenship is challenging.

However, if the federal government is determined to keep dual citizenship, then those convicted of terrorism or other treasonous crimes against Canada should face the death penalty.

One way of extracting a seed of good from the psychotic nihilism that permeates terrorism would be to harvest the organs of convicted terrorists sentenced to death for transplantation and medical research.

Some faint-hearted souls may think this extreme. Many Canadians will not.

Serious, hard-headed, utilitarian leadership is the sine qua non for this debate. Who will lead it?

If patriotic Canadians willingly sacrifice their lives fighting terrorism, should traitorous Canadians not have to sacrifice theirs?

Then our policy will truly be once a Canadian, always a Canadian, irrevocably, right up to, “until death do us part!”

Source: Liberals cheapen citizenship | Chong | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun

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The Daily — Study: Immigration, business ownership and employment in Canada, 2001 to 2010

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Another interesting and useful study (see the earlier Immigrants took the brunt of recession-year turn toward self-employment):

Immigrants who have been in Canada for more than 10 years have higher rates of private incorporated business ownership than individuals born in Canada. However, the types of businesses owned by immigrants tend to employ fewer paid workers than those owned by individuals born in Canada, according to a new study.

Rates of business ownership are relatively low among immigrants during their initial years in Canada, but, over time, these rates surpass those for individuals born in Canada.

Among immigrant taxfilers who had been in Canada for 10 to 30 years in 2010, about 6% were owners of private incorporated businesses that employed paid workers. This compares with about 5% of Canadian-born taxfilers. But, while immigrant-owned private incorporated businesses employed, on average, about four paid workers, those owned by Canadian-born individuals had about seven paid workers.

Of all immigrant-owned private incorporated businesses, 45% were located in four industries: professional, scientific and technical services; retail trade; accommodation and food services; and transportation and warehousing. One-third of private incorporated businesses owned by Canadian-born individuals were in these four industries.

The rate of unincorporated self-employment was also higher among longer-term immigrants (22%) than among individuals born in Canada (16%). When restricted to individuals who received at least one-half of their total earnings from unincorporated self-employment—defined as primary unincorporated self-employment—these rates were 12% for the longer-term immigrants and 8% for individuals born in Canada.

Immigrants who were principal applicants in the business class had the highest incidence of incorporated business ownership or primary unincorporated self-employment, with a combined rate of 40%. Among principal applicants in the economic class, the combined rate was 17%, while among both family-class immigrants and refugees, it was 15%.

Source: The Daily — Study: Immigration, business ownership and employment in Canada, 2001 to 2010

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Grassroots coding, gaming groups tackle tech’s diversity crisis

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Striking – but not surprising given Toronto’s (and Canada’s) diversity – the confluence between minority and women diversity:

Hina Mir sees a future for herself in technology. She’s only 16, so it’s not entirely clear what that future will look like. But one thing is almost certain: she’ll be coding.

The Toronto high school student already knows elements of multiple programming languages and has studied with experts working for some of the biggest names in the tech sector.

“With all the things I’ve learned with coding, as well as on the engineering and business sides of technology, there’s so much that I think I could do,” Hina said.

She’s part of an up-and-coming generation of potential programmers, software engineers, developers, designers and entrepreneurs who could help the tech world face down an uncomfortable reality: it is very white and very male.

Companies from across the industry have acknowledged the problems: specifically, that there is both a considerable disparity between the sexes and a troubling lack of diversity in the workforce.

The response from Silicon Valley has been to raise a small army of “diversity consultants” and use more inclusive recruiting and hiring strategies.

Iqra Alam, Tajmim Ahmed, Mariam Sayed Girls Crack the Code diversity

The group has members as young as six and as old as 16. International studies have found that starting to teach coding as early as kindergarten is the most effective way to ensure young people stick with it. (Lucas Powers/CBC)

“But it’s not enough to rely only on what big companies are doing if we’re going to create a tech world that reflects the society we live in,” said Ashley Jane Lewis.

A tech workforce that reflects society

The 26-year-old is a mentor with Girls Crack the Code, the community organization where Mir got her start in coding.

The Toronto-based group, which is funded by its organizers and the local school board, helps girls and young women of colour get a head start in tech, and not just with coding classes. In the four years it has existed, Girls Crack the Code has grown into an advocacy network that connects members with all kinds of tech-related opportunities, such as scholarships and workshops.

Ashley Jane Lewis, right, is a mentor with Girls Crack the Code. ‘I think in 10 years, when a younger generation looks to the tech world and sees women of colour who learned in communities like this, working in the field, they’ll see a trail that has been blazed for them,’ she said. (Lucas Powers/CBC)

“I’ve already been to Google, Twitter, Salesforce and coding camp, and I’m in a technology program at school,” Hina said.

Critically, Girls Crack the Code works out of Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Regent Park, one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the city and home to Canada’s largest social housing development. Bengali, Mandarin, Urdu, Somali and Swahili are just some of the languages spoken there.

The neighbourhood is undergoing a billion-dollar “revitalization” ultimately aimed at creating a community with housing for families of different socioeconomic levels.

Khadija was one of about 30 girls who visited Twitter Canada’s headquarters earlier this month. (Lucas Powers/CBC)

In many ways, Girls Crack the Code is trying to build a tech industry informed by all of the voices, perspectives and experiences found in a place like Regent Park.

It’s part of a growing grassroots movement to cultivate talent in places where diversity is woven into the fabric of everyday life.

A ‘powerful’ message

Earlier this month, 30 girls from the group visited Twitter Canada’s trendy downtown office to listen to a talk by Helen Zeng, a 25-year-old software engineer who grew up in Windsor, Ont., and now codes for the tech giant in San Francisco.

Zeng says that while many companies are trying to hire more women and people of colour into tech jobs, there is a “very loud” effort to push back against built-in biases and attitudes that can’t be undone with corporate policy alone.

Source: Grassroots coding, gaming groups tackle tech’s diversity crisis – Technology & Science – CBC News

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Hoping to escape stigma, mother of Islamic State militant leaves Canada

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Sad, given her courage in going public to encourage more open discussion on the radicalization process and related efforts to help reduce the risks (see Mother of fallen Canadian jihadi launches de-radicalization effort):

A Calgary woman whose son was killed while fighting for the Islamic State in Syria has left Canada, saying she was labelled “the mother of a terrorist” and unable to find full-time work.

Christianne Boudreau said she moved to France two months ago, hoping to escape what she called the stigma linked to the activities of her oldest son, Damian Clairmont, 22. His reported death in January, 2014, prompted Ms. Boudreau to ask questions in hopes of understanding his slow slide into extremism. She has done multiple media interviews and spoken with researchers delving into radicalization.

She also needs to work again to pay the bills that piled up during her bereavement. In search of a full-time job, Ms. Boudreau said she was met with a recurring theme: She would call for an interview and leave her name, only to be told there was nothing available – a possibility given Alberta’s slumping economy. But when she did secure an interview, she was told hours later that the company had changed its mind.

Ms. Boudreau hired a headhunter to find her work in Calgary and elsewhere across the country, but the results were no better.

“The headhunter told me it was because I was seen as the mother of a terrorist. [Companies] would say, ‘Something’s come up. We’ll call you back later.’ They’d be, ‘Yes, we know who you are. We’ve heard you on the radio,’” Ms. Boudreau said. “I never went through anger with that. I think it was more fear and frustration, not knowing where to turn next.”

What did happen was most unexpected. Ms. Boudreau was contacted by Eileen Thalenberg, a writer/director at Stormy Nights Productions in Toronto. She was looking to do a documentary on how young Canadians were being recruited to renounce their heritage and take up arms with the Islamic State or other smaller militant groups. In the pursuit of her story, Ms. Thalenberg looked to the families for answers. The only person who would talk was Ms. Boudreau, who is a central figure in an upcoming television documentary called A Jihadi in the Family. It airs Thursday night on CBC’s Firsthand.

“I started looking at questions: How vulnerable are we? What are we talking about, the number of kids going over there?” Ms. Thalenberg said. “And I went and looked at who I could speak to in terms of families, and nobody would speak to me, except Christianne. She is the only Canadian from the families who has spoken out about their kids going overseas.”

Source: Hoping to escape stigma, mother of Islamic State militant leaves Canada – The Globe and Mail

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McCallum n’est pas surpris de l’accueil réservé à Le Pen

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Reinforcing the message:

Le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, John McCallum, croit qu’en refusant de rencontrer Marine Le Pen lors de son passage au Canada, les politiciens ont fait comprendre à la chef du Front national « qu’au Canada, on n’est pas d’accord avec elle ». Concernant l’accueil des 25 000 réfugiés syriens au pays — « de la folie », selon Mme Le Pen —, le ministre McCallum estime que le message est tout aussi clair. « Il y a un bon consensus parmi la classe politique au Québec et au Canada en faveur de ces réfugiés. Donc le fait que les politiciens ne veulent pas lui parler ne me surprend pas », a-t-il affirmé lundi.

De passage à Saguenay, le premier ministre Philippe Couillard a pour sa part rappelé que Mme Le Pen n’occupe aucune fonction au sein du gouvernement français et qu’il n’a pas l’intention d’entamer un débat avec elle.

Source: McCallum n’est pas surpris de l’accueil réservé à Le Pen | Le Devoir

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To have meaning, ‘genocide’ must be protected from political exploitation: Erna Paris

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Edna Paris on some of the cynicism involved with the use of ‘genocide’ in describing the war crimes of the Islamic State:

In his formal remarks, Mr. Kerry seemed notably vague on the subject. He spoke about threats to Christians, about crimes against humanity and war crimes – all indisputable facts, but unlikely to meet the threshold of genocide. He spoke of his belief that if IS were ever to create its hoped-for caliphate, “it would seek to destroy what remains of the ethnic and religious mosaic once thriving in the territory.” Tellingly, he distanced himself by saying he was “neither judge nor prosecutor nor jury,” and that potential charges against the extremists must result from an independent international investigation.

That, as Mr. Kerry certainly knew, was the crux of the matter. Genocide is the worst crime ever to be codified into law; as human beings we had to invent the category to contain the terrifying contents of the Nazi assault on the Jews of Europe during the Second World War. Mr. Kerry’s charge of genocide against Christians, made under heavy political pressure, with sparse evidence, degraded the crucial concept we must rely upon to punish the most vicious crimes.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron bluntly labelled attempts to classify IS crimes as genocide, “politicization.” “These decisions must be based on credible judicial processes,” he said, lending credence to Mr. Kerry’s own words about the need for independent investigation. The government of Canada (typically more polite) also declined to join the United States, stating that it would stick with the designation of war crimes.

It’s hard to predict where the Kerry declaration will lead. What the Secretary of State did offer was refuge for Christian and other minority victims of IS brutality; however, many of those other victims are Muslims – and in the harsh world of Donald Trump, Muslims are less than welcome in America.

What matters most is the cynicism with which the singular term “genocide,” with its real and symbolic import, has been abused. If it is to continue to have purpose and meaning, the charge of genocide must be protected from political exploitation.

 Source: To have meaning, ‘genocide’ must be protected from political exploitation – The Globe and Mail

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Diversity and Inclusion Agenda: Impact on the Public Service, Setting the baseline

2016/03/22 1 Comment

My article in The Hill Times, slightly updated:

The Liberal government included in its mandate letters to all ministers a “commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that Indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership.”

While the focus is clearly with respect to political appointments, this commitment will likely extend to the senior ranks of the public service in a renewed emphasis on diversity. Deputy minister appointments are made by the Prime Minister upon the recommendation of the Clerk of the Privy Council. While the Foreign Affairs Minister recommends  ambassadorial appointments or equivalent, largely reflecting public service recommendations, the Prime Minister approves. The PM also has the power to select candidates for high-profile positions. ADM appointments in Canada, on the other hand, are by the public service only. All positions at this level are bilingual.

With this in mind, I have established the baseline for the current representation of women and visible minorities that will allow tracking of progress over time.

Overall, the Public Service is reasonably diverse with respect to women (54.1 percent), visible minorities (13.2 percent compared to the 15 percent who are Canadian citizens) and Indigenous Canadians (5.1 percent). For the executive ranks, women are almost at parity (46.1 percent) but visible minorities are under-represented (8.5 percent) as are Indigenous Canadians (3.7 percent). All figures are from the Treasury Board Secretariat report, Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada 2013–14.

To determine representativeness, the government applies a labour market availability (LMA) benchmark (i.e., “the share of designated group members in the workforce from which the employers could hire”).  For ADMs and other members of the EX category,  the respective LMA is 45 percent for women, 7.5 percent for visible minorities and 4.5 percent for Indigenous Canadians.

Arguably, a more appropriate measure of inclusion is derived from comparison to the overall share of the population (or, in the case of visible minorities, the percentage of those who are also Canadian citizens – 15 percent).

However, these aggregate numbers — both actual and LMA — do not give a detailed sense of diversity within the senior ranks of the public service, defined as deputy and assistant deputy ministers (DM and ADM or equivalent).

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries are relatively diverse (41 percent women, 21 percent visible minority men or women).  The question is how diverse are those public servants at senior levels, with whom they work.

My information sources are reasonably accurate. For the 85 Deputies, their Associates and equivalents, public sources such as GEDS (the government electronic contact database), the Parliamentary website, cross-checked with PCO Deputy Committee lists, were used for both Deputies and Associate Deputies. This data does not include any of the recent changes announced by the Prime Minister.

For ADMs, Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) provided official statistics for the 282 officials at the EX-4 or 5 rank for the 2013-14 year in the core public administration (77 organizations),  along with estimated labour market availability.

For senior heads of Mission (HoM), Global Affairs Canada provided a list of the 16 missions whose Ambassadorial and High Commissioner positions are currently classified at the EX4-5 level (these are a subset of the overall ADM numbers).

Some of these positions are over-filled by people at the DM level (e.g.,  Jon Fried at the WTO) or former politicians (e.g., Lawrence Cannon in Paris, Gordon Campbell in London, and Gary Doer in Washington). This data predates the announcement of the two Ambassador-designates in Washington and the UN (New York), both men replacing men.

While the data for gender is reliable, data for visible minorities is less so, given that official reports rely on self-reporting and that there are limits to using names and photos to identify visible minority status. However, this methodology is also used with respect to MP diversity.

Election 2015 and Beyond- Implementation Diversity and Inclusion.001What does the data show? As seen in the chart above, representation of women is relatively close to gender parity, save for Ambassadors and their equivalents (Heads of Mission and other ADM-equivalent officials abroad).

However, visible minorities are less than half of the percentage of those that are Canadian citizens (15 percent) or in the House of Commons (14 percent).

The ‘all EX’ category has more junior executive positions (EX1-3) and thus the greater diversity in these feeder groups suggests that over time, diversity  at more senior levels should naturally increase.

The public service may feel compelled to take a more active approach given the Government’s commitment.

Likely early tests of the Government’s commitment to increased diversity will occur as deputy ministers retire and are replaced along with changes to Heads of Mission over the course of the year.

13 new Deputies have been named to date by the Prime Minister including 6 women (46 percent, reflecting in part the four women: appointed on International Women’s Day!) and one visible minority (8 percent). Future appointments will indicate whether this portends a trend.

By tracking this on an annual basis, along with changes to ADM ranks, progress can be assessed.

Diversity and inclusion agenda: impact on the public service

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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