Rudy and McKinney: Making government information more accessible

2016/03/22 Leave a comment

Valid points and practical suggestions made by Bernard Rudny of Powered by Data, a project of Tides Canada, and James McKinney.

My experience is mixed with respect to data requests.

Some departments (CIC/IRCC) have established procedures and protocols to access data, and have been very forthcoming in my requests (apart from the Comms folks who refused to provide polling data in spreadsheet form!).

TBS was similarly forthcoming with respect to diversity among ADMs but PCO was not able (or unwilling) to provide the public information on the more than 1,300 GiC appointments in spreadsheet form (like any database, this should be easily exportable):

ATI is simultaneously an invaluable and cumbersome system. Any record that is requested must be manually reviewed, regardless of how innocuous it may be, which makes the process slow and inefficient.

Consider a common example: you request a spreadsheet from a federal department. Its contents are neither confidential nor controversial. Under the present system, that spreadsheet will be printed, reviewed, scanned, then mailed to you as a PDF file on a CD-ROM. The whole process takes weeks, months or even years. By the time it’s complete, any functionality the spreadsheet had as a digital document — like being able to search for text, or add up the numbers in a column — is gone. Instead, you’re dealing with a low-grade image of something that was once useful data that could be searched and sorted.

This is a 20th-century approach to information. It treats every “record” like a paper document. That’s appropriate in some cases, but in the era of the Internet and databases, it’s out of step with the times. The alternative is to release information pro-actively — not just in response to requests — and to use formats that preserve the value of digital data. True openness is about eliminating barriers to access and going out of your way to publish open data.

To be fair, there has been some good news on that front: the Treasury Board Secretariat has done a laudable job of creating an open data program and the 2014 Directive on Open Government included a commitment to being open by default.

If the federal government is going to become more open, it needs to be transparent about the progress it is making

So where do we go from here? How can the government build trust and make progress on this issue? The first step is to inventory all the information of value the federal government holds. Canada has already committed to creating that inventory under the open government directive, but it’s not required to happen before 2020. Speeding up the process is essential.

As we write this, more than 245,000 datasets are available through the government’s open data portal. That’s an impressive number, but it raises a question: how many are still closed? The number is likely in the millions, but ultimately unknown. Without it, there’s no meaningful way to measure the progress being made.

Moreover, some federal departments have been better about releasing information than others. Of the open datasets mentioned above, about 236,000 come from Natural Resources Canada. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, meanwhile, has released two datasets, Public Safety has released one. Inventories would help assess which departments need more help to open up their information.

Completing this inventory of information sooner rather than later would provide other benefits. Once the inventory is available, stakeholders — including researchers, communities, non-profit organizations and businesses — can provide informed input on what data to release first. That allows government departments to prioritize the opening of information that will enable positive social and economic impacts.

No one expects “open by default” to be implemented overnight. There are many steps to take — from reforming the ATI system to dealing with Crown copyright — and the road is long. Some information will also need to be kept within government for reasons of privacy and security.

Source: Rudny & McKinney: Making government information more accessible | National Post

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Blame politicians for Metro Vancouver’s housing price crisis

2016/03/22 1 Comment

More analysis by David Ley on the roots of Vancouver’s housing prices (likely some similarities in Toronto’s overheated housing market although the pressures likely come from a more diverse group):

Canadian politicians, keen to stimulate B.C.’s economy, are responsible for creating the conditions that created Metro Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis, according to a new study.

Politicians decided to “reboot a troubled regional economy through an infusion of activity from the growth region of the Asia Pacific,” UBC geographer David Ley says in a peer-reviewed paper published in The International Journal of Housing Policy.

Largely as a result of governments’ efforts to attract wealthy immigrants and investment from East Asia, “house prices have risen rapidly and the detached housing market is now unaffordable to most Vancouver residents,” writes Ley.

Given that federal, provincial and municipal governments have shown a “minimal response” to Metro residents’ housing difficulties, Ley concludes most politicians have accepted that astronomical prices and mortgage debt are just the “collateral damage” from expanding the B.C. economy.

One of the federal government’s key policy tools for attracting Asia-Pacific money to Metro Vancouver real estate was the business-immigration program, says Ley, a leading expert on how the world’s “gateway” cities are changing because of high in-migration.

The program, which gave preferential treatment to wealthy migrants, proved extremely popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s and in Mainland China since 2000.

More than four out of five of the affluent people who took advantage of Canada’s business-immigrant program have arrived from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Ley found.

And roughly 200,000 of them moved to Metro Vancouver, where they account for almost nine per cent of the population, Ley estimates in his study, titled “Global China and the making of Vancouver’s residential property market.”

Repeated government trade missions to Asia in recent decades also effectively generated East Asians’ desire to invest in Metro Vancouver real estate, where Ley says deregulation meant local citizens would have virtually no legal protections from runaway housing costs.

Vancouver’s Expo 86, which took shape during the 1980s’ recession as a transportation fair, was a key event in Canadian governments’ strategy to market the city to Asians, Ley maintains.

The fair’s promotional power for enticing Asian money to Vancouver real estate, Ley said, boosted even higher when B.C.’s Social Credit government sold much of the Expo lands, at a low cost, to Hong Kong’s richest man, billionaire Li Ka-shing, owner of developer Concord Pacific.

The huge volume of Mainland Chinese multimillionaires who are coming to Metro Vancouver to buy property is out of proportion to the city’s relatively small size, Ley says.

“Vancouver, the closest major city to East Asia and with a high quality of life, is the most popular destination, especially for the wealthiest investor newcomers,” the vast majority of whom concentrate on real estate.

Source: Blame politicians for Metro Vancouver’s housing price crisis

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Marine Le Pen the untouchable?

2016/03/22 Leave a comment

One of the better English summaries of her visit:

The proverbial 10-foot pole has become a popular approach for Quebec politicians in dealing with the leader of France’s far-right party, who arrived in Montreal on Friday.

Marine Le Pen may be among France’s most popular politicians — polls suggest she has enough support to make the run-off stage in the country’s next presidential election — but she has yet to secure a meeting with a mainstream political figure in Canada.

That hasn’t stopped her from wading into federal and provincial politics, sending politicians scurrying for cover.

Canada’s immigration policy an ‘error’

At a news conference in Quebec City on Sunday, Le Pen criticized Canada’s immigration policy, calling it an “error” to admit 25,000 Syrian refugees.

“A multicultural society is a conflicted society,” she said during the news conference.

Le Pen described the current situation in France as warning for Canadians.

“We put out a welcome sign, but what conditions await them? The slums of Calais? This is a policy that makes no sense and is dangerous,” she said referring to a large informal refugee camp near the tunnel underneath the English Channel.

Le Pen has had trouble finding a receptive audience since she arrived in Quebec. A small group of protesters disrupted her Sunday news conference, shouting and unfurling banners with anti-fascist messages.

“Away children, go back to bed,” she told the protesters, saying their behaviour was “unacceptable in a democracy.”

PKP ‘shocked’ at meeting

Le Pen did manage to meet with people claiming to be from the Parti Québécois on Saturday. She told Radio-Canada that she has supporters within the party.

“The PQ is diverse and vast,” Le Pen said. “It’s not monolithic.”

PQ’s leader Pierre Karl Péladeau quickly took to Facebook to dissociate himself from Le Pen, saying he was “shocked” that anyone from his party would meet with her.

The Front National’s values “are diametrically opposed to the values of the Parti Québécois,” Peladeau said.

Source: Marine Le Pen the untouchable? – Montreal – CBC News

My friend Arun shared this article about the coverage in France:

FIASCO – Imaginez le scénario. Vous traversez l’Atlantique, tout content de partir en voyage au Québec, espérant renforcer votre stature internationale et en pensant rencontrer des personnalités politiques locales de premier plan, la présidentielle de 2017 en tête. Vous communiquez même sur ce dernier point. Mais, à peine débarqué de votre avion, vous commencez à déchanter car personne ne veut vous voir. C’est ce qui se passe avec le voyage outre-Atlantique de Marine Le Pen.

D’après divers articles de la presse canadienne, la présidente du Front national, de passage au Canada pour six jours, le temps de passer par Québec et Montreal, n’est pas la bienvenue pour la classe politique locale. Pourtant, le FN avait fait savoir que la candidate à l’élection présidentielle de 2017 allait rencontrer des “politiciens fédéraux” sans plus de précision.

Sauf que Le Devoir a contacté la plupart des hommes et femmes politiques de premier plan et aucun ne veut rencontrer Marine Le Pen. “Tous les partis contactés vendredi, tant au niveau provincial que fédéral, ont indiqué qu’ils n’avaient pas prévu de rencontre avec la politicienne de 47 ans”, écrit de son côté La Presse le 19 mars.

“Au Québec, le porte-parole du premier ministre Philippe Couillard, Harold Fortin, a déclaré que personne au gouvernement n’a l’intention de rencontrer Marine Le Pen”, écrit encore le Devoir sur son site et qui détaille les réponses similaires de nombre d’autres partis. Et Antonine Yaccarini, la porte-parole de l’aile parlementaire du Parti québécois, de résumer le sentiment prédominant chez les politiques québécois :

Nous n’avons pas une minute à consacrer à cette personne-là.

Comme le note également le Devoir, un député a même conseillé sur Radio-Canada à Marine Le Pen de plier bagage et de rentrer en France. Sollicités, les parti “La Coalition avenir Québec” et “Québec solidaire” ont refusé de rencontrer la patronne du FN. Idem du côté du maire de Montréal. Un fiasco.

En déplacement au Québec, Marine Le Pen peine à rencontrer des élus canadiens

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‘Religious freedom is under attack’: How a Canadian agency [Office of Religious Freedom] teaches respect where it’s tough to find | National Post

2016/03/22 Leave a comment

While likely partly orchestrated to keep the Office of Religious Freedom in its current form (rather than programming being folded into the overall human rights organizational and programming structures, some of the examples are nevertheless compelling.

Ironically, had public servants under the previous government carried out similar activities (some did), they were accused of disloyalty and not ‘loyal implementation’:

It’s those deep-seated problems that the Office — amid speculation the new government will shutter its doors — tries to tackle, according to its ambassador, Andrew Bennett.

Courtesy of Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue

Courtesy of Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue Children and mothers take part in a nine-day camp on religious dialogue in Latakia, Syria, in January 2016, funded by Canada’’s Office for Religious Freedom. 

“We’re talking about long-term, multigenerational change. Nothing is going to change in this countries overnight,” Bennett says in an interview.

Bennett describes his office as an advocate both abroad and within the Foreign Affairs department, amid more immediate initiatives like refugee resettlement and aid.

“Within government, in a highly secular country like Canada, we tend not to be very comfortable talking about religion or religious faith,” he says.

“Part of our work is to educate and raise awareness about the role that religious faith plays in foreign policy, and more generally in how people see themselves.”

In one case, Bennett’s staff invited the Mennonite Central Committee, which already runs development projects in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, to submit a proposal in December 2014 — four months into Canada’s airstrikes in Iraq.

A Manitoba couple who oversees MCC’s regional work found groups in all three countries, and applied for $500,000 in funding. A fifth of that money supports the three Syrians’ projects, which teach youth to respect strangers. The couple helps the activists manage their budget, tallies their progress and offers moral support.

Laying a foundation for freedom

Though all three activists come from different religions, they all grew up with middle-class families and career goals. They’re now tackling the root of Syria’s conflict, and laying a foundation for when it finally ends.

Rami set up an interactive play that drew 1,200 people. The play starts with a Muslim and Christian neighbour who fall in love, and the end result is determined by the audience’s suggestions.

At one performance, a priest and a sheikh rose to give an impromptu speech on respecting others. At another, scores of displaced people who sleep in a nearby mosque talked about feeling alienated in their new city.

Despite sporadic water and electricity, for three days Rami got 400 people into the basement auditorium of a blown-out building last December.

Emma crisscrosses her country, including territory held by ISIL, to co-ordinate civil society groups.

“When the war ends, people will need to work together,” Emma says. “For peace to last, they have to trust each other.”

The 34-year-old trains groups in managing projects, securing foreign funding and evaluating whether participants are less likely to join terrorist groups. She’s abandoned her dreams of raising a family, and knows her work puts her life at risk.

Alex facilitated a nine-day choir camp in Latakia, one of Syria’s less dangerous cities, where many displaced people have settled.

His team taught 32 children and 22 mothers to respect people of different religions — almost all their fathers are on the frontlines — during the New Year break.

“At first it was difficult because they don’t have the concept of being together,” said the 28-year-old. “But at the end they were singing together.”

All three Syrians admit they won’t see any fruits of success for decades, but say they’re in it for the long haul.

The activists spoke with the Post during a recent regional conference in Beirut, which was funded by the grant. To get to there, each made dangerous taxi trips darting through rebel- and government-held territory toward the Lebanese border.

At the conference, the three learned from local activists who ran similar projects during the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war.

Looking at today’s Syria, Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour recalls Lebanon crumbling in 1975 because adherents to 18 different sects lived parallel lives, building resentment and suspicion among neighbours.

“It’s so good to have children learn about living with each other, respecting each other, before they grow up and have something build in their minds because of no education,” says Jarjour, who founded the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue.

He believes Canada was ahead of the curve in opening the Office of Religious Freedom three years ago, modelled on a U.S. position created in 1998.

Source: ‘Religious freedom is under attack’: How a Canadian agency teaches respect where it’s tough to find | National Post

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Unpacking conflict: “We don’t import conflict. But we do import trauma.”

2016/03/21 Leave a comment

Roma Berns-McGown, author of a Mosaic Institute on imported conflicts:

“What happens over time is that people come to re-understand the conflict. They re-frame it. People start to see that what they experienced was a function of an interest group or an ideology,” says Berns-McGown.

“It’s a revolutionary difference.”

It depends on how the conflict affected each person, says Berns-McGown. One interview subject said the conflict ‘was my childhood,’ she says. Others said they could see it still it being played out by their parents.

Berns-McGown then asked how they felt now. It opened the door to think about how they had changed.

“The most powerful thing was inclusion. If they really felt included, and they had a future and they belonged, that helped them to reframe the conflict,” she says. “The sense that they belong here, which they might not have felt at home. The more inclusion, the better.”

Berns-McGown’s own parents came to Canada from South Africa in the early 1960s because they opposed apartheid. In Canada, they did not associate with other South Africans. The major difference between her family story and the Syrian refugees, she says, was that her parents could choose to come to Canada on their own terms.

“This war in Syria is particularly complicated. You have a bunch of factions, all competing for power. We can view some of them as worse than others, but its not like there are good guys and bad guys. Everyone who is not an aggressor is a victim of that power struggle. Everyone is a victim. ”

Everyone who has come from Syria has experienced some form of trauma, she says.

“Moving to a place where there is no trauma doesn’t make it go away. We see it with military veterans and first responders,” she says.

“We don’t import conflict. We do import trauma.”

People have different ways of coping. Some choose to disassociate themselves. Others find solace in forming tight communities. Some find support in other people who have experienced similar trauma in a different context.

For young people in Toronto with roots in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, for example, the problem they perceive isn’t other black youths, it’s systemic racism, says Berns-McGown.

“They don’t see each other as the problem. One of the enormous advantages of Canada is that it helps them meet people from different parts of the world who have experienced similar conflict. It means they’re not alone.”

Source: Unpacking conflict: “We don’t import conflict. But we do import trauma.” | Ottawa Citizen

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Ottawa needs to build on recent immigration reforms

2016/03/21 Leave a comment

Michel Beine, Robin Boadway and Serge Coulombe, authors of the C.D. Howe Institute publication, Moving Parts: Immigration Policy, Internal Migration and Natural Resource Shocks, argue for a return to the human capital approach to immigration, as per the original policy rational behind IRPA in 2001:

Finally, the new permanent immigration policy prioritizes skills in demand. That preference may decrease the immigration of workers whose skills may be more important in the longer term. The government should address these potential negative consequences as it plans its reforms. Immigration Minister John McCallum recently said he will adjust the express-entry system to facilitate the entry of recent international graduates of Canadian universities into the permanent immigration system. This fixes one of the unintended consequences of the previous government’s reforms.

More consideration should be given to attract immigrants with skills the Canadian economy may need in future, while in less demand today. And the government should continue to promote economic opportunities for Canadian residents seeking employment in their own province or moving to other provinces in search of better opportunities. That could mean policies such as reforming EI to encourage workers to move where the jobs are, or introducing more competition in the airline market to ease travel within Canada.

Canada has historically had an immigration system driven by evidence, not political dogma. The new government should continue with that approach and build on its predecessor’s immigration reforms to help both existing Canadians and businesses that need workers.

Source: Ottawa needs to build on recent immigration reforms – The Globe and Mail

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Islam Makes Stronger Patriots, US Study – The Atlantic

2016/03/21 1 Comment

American_Faith_GroupsWorth noting:

Donald Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslim immigration and the closing of American mosques seem to reflect suspicion that Islam and American citizenship are incompatible. But religion and patriotism are not opposing forces for American Muslims; in fact, they’re strongly correlated.

That’s one of the key findings of a first-of-its kind poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a non-profit focused on studying this section of the American population. The poll compares Muslims to American Jews, Protestants, and Catholics with respect to their levels of religiosity, patriotism, activism, and general outlook on the state of the country and on their lives. “In this election cycle, specifically, Muslims have been a topic of debate but seldom participants in that discussion,” said Dalia Mogahed, ISPU’s research director.

“We found that there was no correlation between mosque attendance and support of violence,” Mogahed said. On the contrary, she suggested, the results indicate that mosques are ideal places where community organizers might start engaging people because those who attend regularly “are more receptive to a message of civic engagement.”

“The research shows that mosques are actually a force for moderation. Muslims frequent a religious service as much as Protestants, and those who do go more frequently are not in any way more likely to condone violence,” Mogahed said. Muslims who said they attend services more frequently were more likely not to condone violence, with 65 percent saying “it is never justified,” compared to 45 percent of similarly devout Jews, 43 percent of Catholics, and 40 percent of Protestants.

The survey also found that American Muslims were more likely than members of other faith communities to reject attacks on civilians by the military, and as likely as any other group to also reject attacks on civilians by an individual or a small group, Mogahed said. They are “at least as likely as other faith communities to reject violence unequivocally,” she said.

Source: Islam Makes Stronger Patriots – The Atlantic

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Marine Le Pen: l’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens est «une folie»

2016/03/21 Leave a comment

Marine Le Pen’s visit to Quebec and reactions:

L’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens par le gouvernement Trudeau est une « folie ». La classe politique d’ici subit une forme de « terrorisme intellectuel ». Les Québécois ne sont pas assez combatifs quand vient le temps de défendre leur langue. En visite au Québec, la présidente du Front national (FN), ce parti d’extrême droite de France, en a long à dire sur la politique canadienne et québécoise.

Marine Le Pen estime que son parti a des affinités avec le Parti québécois. Elle appuyait le projet de charte des valeurs, qui a soulevé une telle controverse. Elle croit que Pierre Karl Péladeau donnera un « nouveau souffle à la souveraineté ». La Presse l’a rencontrée.

Sa visite au Québec était à peine annoncée que tous les partis politiques provinciaux et fédéraux sont sortis sur la place publique pour déclarer qu’ils ne rencontreraient pas Marine Le Pen et qu’ils ne voulaient rien avoir à faire avec elle. À croire que la chef du FN est radioactive. Que pense-t-elle de ce traitement ?

« La classe politique québécoise semble vivre dans une forme de crainte. Et je trouve que quand il y a de la crainte dans une démocratie, c’est que la démocratie va mal. » Mme Le Pen, qui trouve la réaction des politiciens « puérile », affirme que des gens du milieu politique ont sollicité des rencontres avec elle, mais qu’ils ont eu « peur de le faire » ou qu’ils l’ont contactée « pour dire qu’ils [avaient] subi beaucoup de pression ». Elle refuse de divulguer leur nom ou leur allégeance.

« Il y a une forme de terrorisme intellectuel qui est très dommageable. Parce qu’une démocratie mature n’a pas peur du débat d’idées. Ça en dit long sur le poids du politiquement correct et de la pensée unique. Cela dit, ce n’est pas très grave. Je ne suis pas là pour faire la tournée des popotes politiques. Même s’il y a toujours intérêt, quand on est un responsable politique, à pouvoir échanger avec des gens qui peuvent sur certains sujets partager vos préoccupations. »

Source: Marine Le Pen: l’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens est «une folie» | Gabrielle Duchaine | Politique

And:

Le chef du Parti québécois, Pierre Karl Péladeau, a tenu à dissocier sa formation politique d’une rencontre qui aurait eu lieu entre des militants du PQ et la dirigeante du Front national, Marine Le Pen, en visite au Québec.

M. Péladeau a dit, samedi, sur sa page Facebook, avoir été «choqué» en apprenant que des personnes, «s’affichant comme des “jeunes du Parti québécois”», avaient rencontré Mme Le Pen.

«Au nom du Parti québécois, je tiens à dissocier formellement notre formation politique et ses instances de toute activité ou rencontre, issue d’initiative personnelle, avec des représentants de ce parti dont l’histoire, la doctrine et les propositions sont aux antipodes des valeurs du Parti québécois», a-t-il écrit.

Sébastien Chenu, conseiller régional de Picardie-Nord-Pas-de-Calais et se présentant comme délégué national du Rassemblement Bleu Marine – un mouvement rattaché au FN -, avait publié une photo de Mme Le Pen avec quatre hommes, écrivant: «MLP rencontre les jeunes militants du Parti québécois! Échange passionnant!!»

La dirigeante du Front national, parti français d’extrême droite, débarquait à Montréal vendredi. Mme Le Pen annonçait sur son site officiel un voyage en Amérique du Nord débutant ce week-end.

La politicienne ne met aucune rencontre officielle à son agenda.

À Ottawa, au Parti conservateur, on affirmait, vendredi, ne rien savoir de la visite de la dame et on ne prévoyait pas de rencontres entre elle et des élus conservateurs. Même commentaire chez les néo-démocrates, les bloquistes et au gouvernement de Justin Trudeau. À Québec non plus, personne ne se préparait à l’accueillir.

Le député du parti de gauche Québec solidaire Amir Khadir a dit à Radio-Canada être prêt à rencontrer la présidente du Front National, en dernier recours, «par humanisme». Il disait vouloir démontrer à Mme Le Pen «que le Québec n’est pas un terrain xénophobe».

La présidente du Front National a rétorqué, également en entrevue à la télévision publique, qu’elle avait à faire à «plein d’Amir Khadir» en France, des gens qui estiment «que lutter contre l’immigration est faire preuve de xénophobie».

Des péquistes rencontrent Marine Le Pen, Péladeau s’en dissocie

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Only Script In Shakespeare’s Handwriting Urges Compassion For Migrants : NPR

2016/03/21 Leave a comment

https://youtu.be/RFJaqVG_nMY

Worth watching, Ian McKellen’s reading of the speech (just before the 3 minute mark):

This week the world’s been treated to a commentary on immigration reform from a surprising source: William Shakespeare.

2016 being the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, many institutions are doing celebrations of one sort or another. The British Library, in hosting a major exhibition, has put online the only surviving scrap of a script in Shakespeare’s handwriting — a scene that finds eerily poignant echoes in today’s arguments about refugees and immigration on both sides of the Atlantic.

It’s a speech from a play, The Book of Sir Thomas More, that was not by Shakespeare. Nor was it produced in his lifetime, apparently for fear that it would incite unrest at a time of religious tensions that had created an unprecedented refugee crisis in Europe. The Bard and several other authors did rewrites, but while his own contribution was an impassioned plea for tolerance, the revisions weren’t enough to get the play produced, and its script languished for centuries.

When it was finally staged in London in 1964, a young Ian McKellen played Sir Thomas More (which has enabled him to joke in speaking engagements that he is “maybe the last actor who can say ‘I created a part written by William Shakespeare’.”)

A part only partly written by the Bard, but powerfully so. In the stirring speech penned in Shakespeare’s hand, it is More’s task to silence a mob that’s rioting about “strangers” in their midst. King Henry VIII had offered safe haven to too many refugees, scream the rioters. “They must be removed!”

More begins by pretending to agree, then points out that there’s a problem with mob rule when it denies clemency to the downtrodden. Though Shakespeare’s handwritten revisions to The Book of Sir Thomas More qualify as a rough first draft, they do not lack for eloquence in decrying the mob’s “mountainish inhumanity.”

You’ll put down strangers,/ 

Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,/ 

And lead the majesty of law in lyam/ 

To slip him like a hound. Alas, alas! Say now the King/ 

As he is clement if th’offender mourn,/ 

Should so much come too short of your great trespass/ 

As but to banish you: whither would you go?/

What country, by the nature of your error,/ 

Should give you harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,/

To any German province, Spain or Portugal,/ 

Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England:/ 

Why, you must needs be strangers.

Shakespeare’s original handwritten script is now on loan at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. It is one of more than 300 texts being digitized as part of the British Library exhibition, Shakespeare in Ten Acts, that opens April 15 in London.

Source: Only Script In Shakespeare’s Handwriting Urges Compassion For Migrants : The Two-Way : NPR

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Trudeau appoints seven new senators: Diversity and inclusion in this first batch

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

The first batch of Senate appointments provide initial confirmation of the Government’s intent to diversity and inclusion in appointments. The chart above contrasts appointments by previous Prime Ministers with those made Friday (former PM Martin made no appointments during his short tenure).

Prime Minister Harper made many visible minority Senate appointments, partially as part of its engagement strategy with new Canadian voters and to address representation gaps elsewhere.

In addition to the large share of women appointed, the presence of one visible minority, one Indigenous person, and one person with disability (although given her accomplishments, hard to consider Chantal Petitclerc as such), the regional balance of these initial appointments include three from Ontario and two each from Quebec and Manitoba.

The real challenge for the Government will be less with respect to these high profile announcements but the more mundane Governor-in-Council appointments that will be made over coming years (about 1,500 positions, currently just over 1,300 filled) and the range of judicial appointments that will emerge in coming years:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is appointing the head of his transition team and six other Canadians to the Senate in the first injection of fresh blood to the scandal-plagued institution in three years, sources said.

Mr. Trudeau is set to announce on Friday that he is calling on Peter Harder, a retired senior bureaucrat and high-level corporate adviser, to be the Liberal government’s leader in the Senate. In addition to Mr. Harder, the six new senators will be:

  • Raymonde Gagné, former president of Manitoba’s Université de Saint-Boniface;
  • Frances Lankin, a minister in the former Ontario NDP government and a national security expert;
  • Ratna Omidvar, an expert on migration and diversity, and executive director at Ryerson University’s Global Diversity Exchange;
  • Chantal Petitclerc, a champion Paralympic wheelchair racer and Team Canada chef de mission at the Rio Paralympic Games;
  • André Pratte, an award-winning editorial writer and federalist thinker from Quebec;
  • Murray Sinclair, a retired Manitoba judge and former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

Mr. Harder will face the tough task of moving government legislation through a fractious Senate in which the Liberal Party has no control over any other members. Still stinging from a recent spending scandal, the institution is also set to release on Monday a final report on the expenses claims of 14 senators who challenged the Auditor-General’s call for reimbursements.

Mr. Trudeau’s six other appointees will be expected to act as independent-minded legislators, as the Prime Minister aims to eliminate partisanship in the upper chamber and improve its reputation.

The Senate is currently composed of 42 Conservative senators, 26 Liberal senators (who are not part of the Liberal caucus of MPs) and 13 non-aligned senators.

Source: Trudeau set to appoint seven new senators – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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