In British Columbia, a real-estate rage gets real

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

Understandable anger and fears.

The negligence of governments in not addressing the issue, starting with failing to address data gaps that leave space for anecdotes, along with a real estate industry  whose commission-based model only abets property flipping and escalating prices, it is no wonder that people are angry and fearful:

In the last six months, Eby, who unseated Premier Christy Clark in the last election—the kind of brass-knuckled political play rarely seen outside B.C.—has become B.C.’s most-watched opposition figure by skillfully assuming control of the housing debate.

Last November, the 38-year-old Vancouver-Point Grey MLA and former head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association helped a city researcher undertake a study showing that more than 70 per cent of homes sold in Vancouver’s West Side went to Mainland China buyers over a six-month period; remarkably, this was some of the first hard data illustrating the extent of foreign ownership in the local market.

For years, the debate relied mostly on anecdotal evidence. And anyone who dared suggest Chinese buyers were flooding the market was branded a racist—primarily by those with skin in the game, the city’s leading developers and condo marketers whose earnings soared as the market has climbed and climbed and climbed, unchecked. Screaming racism was an effective means to shutter the debate. Until now.

This could yet get ugly. Belcarra, and its “English-only” bylaw, is just the beginning. But in channeling rage over foreign buyers, wild speculative activity, shadow flipping, and realtor misconduct, Eby—rake-thin, young and passionate—has found a way to break the logjam, and tap into something deep and powerful in the psyche of residents of B.C.’s Lower Mainland, where the bulk of the province’s seats are found. There are few more powerful emotions in politics than anger. And for the first time in years, the NDP have found an issue with widespread appeal.

“People are really upset,” Eby said Wednesday night. “Their wages have no connection to the amount of money that is being charged for rent and for housing. People think their kids aren’t going to be able to afford to live here, they see the communities they love really no longer belonging to the community.”

“My younger child is sleeping in my bathroom,” said Jennifer Lloyd, a UBC researcher, who spoke after Eby. Lloyd and her husband, who both have PhDs and can only afford a tiny, rented condo for their family of four.

“This is not a generational issue, this is not a class issue,” said Lloyd. “I want to know that the virtues that I hold dear—hard work, educating ourselves, trying to better our lives—mean something in this city.”

It’s still far from clear that this surging anger risks unseating Clark, in an election slated for next spring. But right now, few are talking about the premier. And no one can seem to get enough of David Eby. One year before an expected election, that’s a dangerous place for the premier to be.

Source: In British Columbia, a real-estate rage gets real – Macleans.ca

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How a comedian, a rap group and a separatist critic are slaying a sacred cow: Quebec’s language rules

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

Graeme Hamilton on one of the latest twists in the Quebec culture debates:

In Mauvaise Langue, Cassivi mocks University of Ottawa language professor Jean Delisle for an article Delisle wrote complaining about the rampant English in Xavier Dolan’s film Mommy. In an interview, Delisle said he expects the acceptance of English preached by Cassivi will go the same way as the joual slang Quebec authors incorporated into their work in the 1970s.

“Nobody reads those novels any more,” he said. “So in a few years, the Dead Obies will really be dead. It’s a fad.”

The danger of English terms becoming fashionable among French-speakers is that over time the language becomes eroded, he said. “If it continues, if these anglicisms persist, the French words will be forgotten. That’s a step toward the hybridization of the language.”

Ruel has no time for doomsayers nostalgic for the days when Quebec chansonniers were a driving force behind the nationalist project. He sees the Quebec cultural establishment’s conservatism, which shuts Dead Obies out of grants and awards galas because they use too much English, as the biggest threat.

“Some kids are starting to get bored with Quebec, and that’s how you kill a culture,” he said. “If everything is safe and everything is whitewashed, then people will be bored.”

Instead of an attack on Quebec culture, why not view Dead Obies as saviours? “You can see the glass half full or half empty,” Ruel said.

“Is it English culture that is invading ours? Or is it French Quebecers who are weaving French into rap culture, and suddenly you have French rap that gets played in bars alongside Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West because it has that same feel and authenticity?”

Source: How a comedian, a rap group and a separatist critic are slaying a sacred cow: Quebec’s language rules | National Post

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Women to outnumber men on Ottawa’s influential council of economic advisers

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

Another sign of the Government’s commitment to diversity and inclusion:

Women will outnumber men on what could turn out to be the most influential group of people around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

The Canadian Press has learned that Morneau will unveil the federal government’s new advisory council Friday – a team that will help draw up a plan designed to get Canada’s economy out of a rut.

In total, the lineup of business and academic leaders will include eight women and six men.

The advisers, who will be paid a salary of $1, are responsible for helping the government prepare a long-term growth strategy that will be released by the end of the year.

The council members’ names are being made public just days before the release of the Liberal government’s first budget.

The budget, to be tabled next Tuesday, is expected to spell out much of Ottawa’s plans to spend billions of dollars on measures – such as infrastructure – aimed at boosting the country’s productivity and economic growth.

Last month, Morneau announced that the advisory council would be chaired by Dominic Barton, the global managing director of consulting giant McKinsey & Company.

At the time, Morneau said council members would meet with him regularly and provide advice “on concrete policy actions to help create the long-term conditions for economic growth focused on the middle class.”

The council will also include prominent business figures such as Canada Pension Plan Investment Board president and CEO Mark Wiseman and Michael Sabia, CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, the province’s largest pension fund manager.

Other council members:

  • Elyse Allen, president and CEO, General Electric Canada
  • Katherine Barr, general partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
  • Jennifer Blanke, chief economist, World Economic Forum
  • Kenneth Courtis, chairman, Starfort Investment Holdings
  • Brian Ferguson, president and CEO, Cenovus Energy Inc.
  • Suzanne Fortier, principal and vice-chancellor, McGill University
  • Carol Anne Hilton, CEO, Transformation
  • Carol Lee, CEO and co-founder, Linacare Cosmotherapy Inc.
  • Christopher Ragan, associate professor of economics at McGill University and chair of the Ecofiscal Commission
  • Angela Strange, partner, Andreessen Horowitz
  • Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District

“I look forward to working with the council members, whose diverse backgrounds and impressive expertise will inform our work as we develop and implement a strategy that will build on the foundation we will lay with budget 2016,” Morneau said in a statement.

One visible minority by my count.

Source: Women to outnumber men on Ottawa’s influential council of economic advisers – The Globe and Mail

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Jobseekers resort to ‘resumé whitening’ to get a foot in the door, study shows

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Further to earlier studies by Oreopoulos (How an ethnic-sounding name may affect the job hunt), additional confirmation of bias in resumé callbacks and the strategies being used by some visible minority applicants to improve their chances:

It’s a disturbing practice called “resumé whitening” and involves deleting telltale signs of race or ethnicity from a CV in the hopes of landing a job.

And it happens more often than you’d think.

According to a two-year study led by University of Toronto researchers, as many as 40 per cent of minority jobseekers “whiten” their resumés by adopting Anglicized names and downplaying experience with racial groups to bypass biased screeners and just get their foot in the door.

It’s when “Lamar J. Smith” becomes “L. James Smith” or “Lei Zhang” morphs to “Luke Zhang” — and the callback rates soar.

“It’s really a wake-up call for organizations to do something to address this problem. Discrimination is still a reality,” said Sonia Kang, lead author of “Whitened Resumés, Race and Self-Presentation in the Labour Market,” to be released in the Administrative Science Quarterly Journal Thursday.

“It shows us that racial minorities aren’t just passively receiving this discrimination. They are trying to do something about it.”

In the study, only 10 per cent of black job applicants — created by researchers based on real candidate profiles — received callbacks for job interviews if they stuck to their African names and experience with black organizations. However, the callback rate went up to 25.5 per cent if their names were “whitened” and their black experience was removed from their resumés.

In the case of the Asian applicants, only 11.5 per cent received callbacks if they used their Asian-sounding names and experience, compared to 21 per cent using whitened resumés.

When seeking jobs with employers known to have a pro-diversity image, minority job applicants were less likely to “whiten” their resumes, the study found.

But, perhaps most surprising, even with pro-diversity employers, the odds of getting called in for an interview were greater when a minority applicant took steps to hide their race, the research shows.

….In the third part of the research, 1,600 fictitious resumés — with no whitening, a whitened first name, whitened experience or a whitened first name and whitened experience — were sent in response to job ads.

In total, 267 or 16.7 per cent of the applications led to a job interview request. For black applicants, the callback gap between unwhitened resumés and those for which both the name and the experiences were whitened was 15.5 percentage points; for Asians, the gap was 9.5 percentage points.

Kang, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources management, said employers must go beyond the rhetoric of how they appreciate diversity in their workforce. “By creating a false sense of security, these (diversity) statements merely provide an illusion of diversity that might end up making things worse for minority applicants.”

How minority job applicants ‘whiten’ their resumés:

Unwhitened: Name of a black applicant on resumé appears as “Lamar J. Smith”;

Whitened: Changed to “L. James Smith”;

Unwhitened: Name of an Asian applicant on resumé appears as “Lei Zhang”;

Whitened: Changed it to “Luke Zhang”;

Unwhitened: Lists involvement as vice-president of Aspiring African American Business Leaders and peer counsellor of Black Students’ Association;

Whitened: Removes those organizations and replaces with causes such as “Give Kids a Smile Day” and first-year student orientation;

Unwhitened: Lists volunteer experience and interests that are exclusively within Korean community organizations;

Whitened: Removes them and replaces with hiking, snowboarding and activities common in Western culture;

Unwhitened: Being the political action chair of Black Students Association;

Whitened: Changes that to member of a generic minority business and entrepreneur group.

Source: Jobseekers resort to ‘resumé whitening’ to get a foot in the door, study shows | Toronto Star

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Trump Voters’ Aversion To Foreign-Sounding Names Cost Him Delegates | FiveThirtyEight

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the focus of his campaign and the demographics of those who support him:

If Donald Trump somehow falls three delegates short of reaching the magic 1,237 delegates needed for the Republican nomination, he may be haunted by an obscure outcome from the primary voting in Illinois on Tuesday. There’s clear evidence that Trump supporters in Illinois gave fewer votes to Trump-pledged delegate candidates who have minority or foreign-sounding names like “Sadiq,” “Fakroddin” and “Uribe,” potentially costing him three of the state’s 69 delegates.

This pattern appears to be a phenomenon unique to Trump’s supporters.

Illinois Republicans hold a convoluted “loophole” primary: The statewide primary winner earns 15 delegates, but the state’s other 54 delegates are elected directly on the ballot, with three at stake in each of the state’s 18 congressional districts. Each campaign files slates of relatively unknown supporters to run for delegate slots, and each would-be delegate’s presidential preference is listed beside his or her name. As a result, the top presidential candidate in each congressional district usually claims all three of the district’s delegates.

Except on Tuesday, a handful of congressional districts split their delegates in ways that cast doubt on voters’ racial motivations. Did voters have genuine personal preferences for the mostly anonymous individuals running for these slots, or was it a case of “what’s in a name?”

A FiveThirtyEight analysis of the dozen highest vote differentials within district-level Trump slates reveals a startling pattern: In all 12 cases, the highest vote-getting candidate had a common, Anglo-sounding name. But a majority of the trailing candidates had first or last names most commonly associated with Asian, Hispanic or African-American heritages. Of the 54 Trump delegate candidates in the state, two of the three worst-trailing candidates were the only two Trump candidates with Middle Eastern-sounding names.

Source: Trump Voters’ Aversion To Foreign-Sounding Names Cost Him Delegates | FiveThirtyEight

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Immigration: «Il faut faire les choses plus rapidement» | Interview with Minister McCallum

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Quebec__Ontario__Canada_Comparison_2015Not much new in Minister McCallum’s messaging but interesting the emphasis on regionalization and his response.

Above chart highlights the ongoing employment challenges for immigrants in Quebec compared to Ontario and Canada in 2015 (Quebec government statistics. It was also one of more striking findings in Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote):

Encourager les immigrants à demeurer en région, loin des grands centres comme Montréal et Toronto, est un important défi, reconnaît le ministre McCallum. Il note que de nombreux immigrants qui s’étaient d’abord installés en région finissent par s’établir dans les grands centres après quelques années seulement, une situation qu’il attribue aux difficultés à trouver du travail. «Oui, les logements sont abordables [en région]. Oui, les gens sont accueillants. Mais est-ce qu’il y a de l’emploi? Des services linguistiques?»

Intégration plus longue

Constatant que les immigrés affichent de plus hauts taux de chômage que les personnes nées au Canada, particulièrement au Québec, John McCallum croit que le pays intègre moins bien les immigrants que par le passé. «Le taux de chômage est plus élevé pour les immigrants que pour les Canadiens. Ça veut dire qu’on ne fait pas aussi bien aujourd’hui que dans le passé afin d’intégrer ces nouveaux immigrants», dit le ministre. Il ajoute que les immigrés trouvant du travail mettent des années à voir leurs revenus se rapprocher de ceux des personnes nées au Canada.

Source: Immigration: «Il faut faire les choses plus rapidement» | Pierre-André Normandin | Politique canadienne

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Ottawa allows seasonal exemption to temporary foreign worker rules

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the regional politics:

The Liberal government has quietly approved changes aimed at helping Atlantic Canadian seafood processors that will allow them to bring in unlimited numbers of low-skilled temporary foreign workers to fill seasonal jobs this year.

Ottawa approved the foreign-worker exemption in response to lobbying from Atlantic seafood processors and Liberal MPs, who warned that recent restrictions to the temporary foreign worker program were hampering business. New Brunswick Fisheries Minister Rick Doucet recently said the labour shortage in his province is so bad that some lobster processing plants have had to throw lobsters in the trash.

The Liberals – who swept all 32 ridings in Atlantic Canada in last year’s federal election – are justifying the exemption as a short-term measure to buy time until a full review of the foreign worker program can be conducted later this year.

Other industry groups – such as Restaurants Canada – are questioning why exemptions are being allowed for some sectors and not others, and why they were never told of the change.

The House of Commons finance committee recently heard from a wide range of industry associations, including the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, that requested a loosening of restrictions to the program.

The temporary exemption comes as Finance Minister Bill Morneau prepares to deliver a budget on Tuesday that will outline the federal government’s response to rising unemployment caused by the decline in Canada’s energy sector in Western Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador, which has long been a source of work for thousands of Atlantic Canadians.

Source: Ottawa allows seasonal exemption to temporary foreign worker rules – The Globe and Mail

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Religious freedom envoy joins think tank ahead of Liberals’ decision on office – iPolitics

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Suggests that the decision to fold the religious freedom office back into the human rights division has been taken:

Religious freedoms ambassador Andrew Bennett has joined conservative think tank Cardus amid uncertainty over the future of his office under the Liberal government.

The Canadian Press has learned that Bennett has become a senior fellow at Cardus and chair of the group’s Faith in Canada 150 program, effective immediately, while he serves out the balance of his term as ambassador.

“I look forward very much to working with Cardus, the think tank best placed in my view to reaffirm the essential and foundational role of faith in our common life as Canadians,” Bennett said in a statement to The Canadian Press.

The Tories set up the Office of Religious Freedom in 2013, and appointed Bennett, a former public servant and Christian theologian, as its first ambassador.

Source: Religious freedom envoy joins think tank ahead of Liberals’ decision on office – iPolitics

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Ethnic Media – a missed topic of the Metropolis Conference 2016 – MIREMS

2016/03/17 Leave a comment

Metropolis 2016.001Not the only topic under-represented (see my summary chart above) but raises valid points:

Integration and inclusion, also part of the ethnic media’s role, were some of the most discussed issues that day, with Yolande James, former Minister of Immigration and Cultural Communities of the Government of Quebec, summarizing it with a statement that “governments must create an engaging environment where immigrants can reach their full potential”. The common agreement among the presenters though was that governments have not yet done enough to establish the level of support that would allow immigrants feel fully accepted and integrate easily into Canadian society.

In addition, Canadian Refugee and Immigration Lawyer El-Farouk Khaki noted that the second and third generations of racialized immigrants generally tend to be closer to their ethnic groups than the first generation. “The more discrimination people face, the closer they feel to their ethnic groups.”

However, despite a common understanding of increasing immigration trends and the impact of ethnic communities on newcomers’ integration experience, surprisingly no presentations or workshops mentioned the role of the ethnic, multilingual media in new immigrants’ lives.

As part of a team of ethnic media consultants, I see stories on immigration, integration, education and legal issues, labour, health and safety, immigrant challenges and struggles every day, and yet ethnic media seems not to be on the radar of policy makers and service providers as one of the most valuable resources on immigration they can find.

Following the ethnic media would seem to be a significant part of the outreach equation of what Ryerson University Professor April Lindgren calls “A Settlement Service in Disguise” in her pioneer case study on the City of Brampton’s municipal communication strategies and ethnic media (2015, Global Media Journal — Canadian Edition Volume 8, Issue 2, pp. 49-71.)

When asked about it, government officials acknowledge the importance of ethnic media, but admit that it’s not being used to its full potential. There is still separation between mainstream media and ethnic media press conferences, message and language specifics.

But does there have to be? Shouldn’t ethnic media be an integral part of the communication mix, a two way channel for an open dialogue between governments, service providers and immigrant communities?
After all, with growing immigration and yet-to-be-improved integration processes, ethnic media will continue to grow and be a viable component of immigrant life in Canada. So why not make it a powerful tool in creating an engaging society where everyone can reach their full potential?

Metropolis 2016, while having presented lots of valuable information and opinions, left these questions unanswered for me right now.

Source: Ethnic Media – a missed topic of the Metropolis Conference 2016 – MIREMS

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Non-partisan to partisan: Federal politicians pluck their staff from the civil service

2016/03/17 Leave a comment

Growth in political staffers 2000-15.001Some useful Treasury Board stats subject of the article below by David Akin, captured in the chart above, showing a correlation in the earlier years of the Conservative government between growth in staffers and growth in the public service (see my earlier article Diversity in political backrooms still lacking):

To fill as many as 500 partisan political jobs on Parliament Hill, the Justin Trudeau government has been dipping into the non-partisan civil service — just like the Stephen Harper government before it and the Paul Martin and Jean Chretien governments before that.

Though Harper did make a rule change about this revolving door, the system continues to be set up in a way that helps those who jump to partisan jobs go back to the civil service if the government of the day changes.

Those scooping up jobs as chiefs of staff, press secretaries, or policy advisors in ministers’ office can request an unpaid leave-of-absence, a request that is usually granted. It may not guarantee their old job if they leave politics, but it usually guarantees an equivalent job.

It also counts just as much towards a pension as the non-partisan service.

Plus the new jobs in politics usually come with a big raise.

A minister’s chief of staff can earn up to $180,000 a year. A press secretary can earn up to about $108,000.

There were 559 of these partisan staff in the last year of the Harper government.

While Conservatives are just as likely to use this revolving door as Liberals, Harper said in the 2006 election campaign that a “Liberal” civil service would act as a check on any Conservative government if only because Liberals have, since the Second World War, been in office more than the Tories.

The civil service, naturally, objects to that observation.

“It is an overarching and utmost priority of the Government of Canada to manage the public service with integrity and in accordance with existing polices and collective agreements,” said Kelly James, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board, the federal department that manages human resources policies.

The last time the Liberals were in charge, Liberal political staff had an inside track on non-partisan civil servant jobs. So long as they met the basic requirements for an open civil service position, they got the job — along with the employment security and pension opportunities.

Harper changed that, eliminating the preferential treatment.

There’s no data tracking the partisan/non-partisan revolving door, though long-time Parliament Hill watchers have seen at least a handful of Martin/Chretien era partisan staffers back in that role after spending the Harper decade in a civil servant jobs.

Source: Non-partisan to partisan: Federal politicians pluck their staff from the civil service

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