Immigrants Aren’t Taking Americans’ Jobs, New Study Finds – The New York Times

2016/09/23 Leave a comment

Worth noting, but unlikely to convince those who believe otherwise:

Do immigrants take jobs from Americans and lower their wages by working for less?

The answer, according to a report published on Wednesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is no, immigrants do not take American jobs — but with some caveats.

The question is at the heart of the furious debate over immigration that has divided the country and polarized the presidential race. Many American workers, struggling to recover from the recession, have said they feel squeezed out by immigrants.

Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, has called for a crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying they “compete directly against vulnerable American workers.” He promises to cut back legal immigration with new controls he says would “boost wages and ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.”

Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, takes an upbeat view, saying immigrants contribute to the economy whether they are here legally or not, by providing labor for American employers and opening businesses that create jobs for Americans rather than taking them.

The report assembles research from 14 leading economists, demographers and other scholars, including some, like Marta Tienda of Princeton, who write favorably about the impacts of immigration and others who are skeptical of its benefits, like George J. Borjas, a Harvard economist. Here’s what the report says:

• “We found little to no negative effects on overall wages and employment of native-born workers in the longer term,” said Francine D. Blau, an economics professor at Cornell University who led the group that produced the 550-page report.

• Some immigrants who arrived in earlier generations, but were still in the same low-wage labor markets as foreigners just coming to the country, earned less and had more trouble finding jobs because of the competition with newer arrivals.

• Teenagers who did not finish high school also saw their hours of work reduced by immigrants, although not their ability to find jobs. Professor Blau said economists had found many reasons that young people who drop out of high school struggle to find work. “There is no indication immigration is the major factor,” she said.

• High-skilled immigrants, especially in technology and science, who have come in larger numbers in recent years, had a significant “positive impact” on Americans with skills, and also on working-class Americans. They spurred innovation, helping to create jobs.

“The prospects for long-run economic growth in the United States would be considerably dimmed without the contributions of high-skilled immigrants,” the report said. It did not focus on American technology workers, many of whom have been displaced from their jobs in recent years by immigrants on temporary visas.

The report asked another question Americans are debating: Do immigrants burden government budgets?

That answer is “more mixed,” Professor Blau said.

• The first generation of newcomers generally cost governments more than they contribute in taxes, with most of the costs falling on state and local governments, mainly because of the expense of educating the children of immigrant families.

For those governments, total annual costs for first-generation immigrants are about $57 billion. But by the second generation in those families, immigrants, with improved education and taxpaying ability, become a benefit to government coffers, adding about $30 billion a year. By the third generation, immigrant families contribute about $223 billion a year to government finances.

• In the last two decades, the number of immigrants in the country increased 70 percent to about 43 million people; they are now 13 percent of the population. One in every four Americans is either an immigrant or the child of one. And since 2001, about one million immigrants have come legally to the United States each year.

The report called immigration “integral to the nation’s economic growth” because immigrants bring new ideas and add to an American labor force that would be shrinking without them, helping ensure continued growth into the future.

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Port de Montréal: la sécurité avant la liberté religieuse, tranche un juge

2016/09/23 Leave a comment

While decision is likely to be appealed, it is a good example of how reasonable accommodation is applied, including its limits:

Trois sikhs coiffés de turbans, qui estimaient être victimes de discrimination en raison de l’obligation de porter un casque de sécurité au port de Montréal, viennent de perdre leur bataille devant la Cour supérieure. Le juge André Prévost a donné son approbation aux règles qui prévalent sur les quais, jugeant que la sécurité des travailleurs devait ici supplanter leur liberté de religion. Julius Grey, qui défendait les travailleurs, évoque déjà un appel.

Qu’a décidé le juge Prévost ?

Dans une décision de 57 pages, datée d’hier, le magistrat a d’abord indiqué que le fait d’appliquer aux sikhs l’obligation de porter un casque viole leur liberté de religion prévue par la Charte canadienne des droits et constitue de la discrimination. Contrairement à leurs collègues chrétiens, musulmans ou juifs, « il leur est personnellement impossible de respecter l’obligation de porter le casque protecteur sans contrevenir à leurs croyances religieuses », reconnaît la décision.

Toutefois, cette violation est permise « en regard du bien-être général et de la sécurité des citoyens du Québec, vu les risques importants de blessures à la tête existant pour les camionneurs » circulant au port, a écrit le juge Prévost. En conséquence, il l’a approuvée.

Quelle situation a mené au conflit ?

Trois camionneurs de confession sikhe contestaient les règles de sécurité des entreprises portuaires qui gèrent les conteneurs destinés à prendre la mer. Les routiers se rendaient de temps à autre au port pour livrer de la marchandise. En 2005, à la suite d’un accident de travail, le port du casque est devenu obligatoire sur les quais. Les travailleurs sikhs voulaient être exemptés du port du casque. Selon eux, « aucune étude ne démontre un risque de blessure à la tête » pour les travailleurs dans leur situation.

Qu’en est-il des accommodements raisonnables ?

La décision d’hier rapporte qu’un accommodement raisonnable avait été mis en place entre 2005 et 2008 : les camionneurs sikhs demeuraient en tout temps dans l’habitacle de leur camion – échappant ainsi à l’obligation de porter le casque – et des employés venaient à leur rencontre. Mais l’accommodement fâchait à la fois les camionneurs et leurs clients.

« Au lieu de nous servir comme les autres camionneurs, on nous fait attendre pendant des heures sur certains terminaux. Et ça, c’est si on accepte de nous servir. C’est de la discrimination. On nous traite comme des citoyens de deuxième classe », a expliqué à l’époque Harvirender Singh Clair à La Presse. M. Singh Clair était l’un des demandeurs dans la cause. Du côté des entreprises, on évoquait sa « non-viabilité tant du point de vue organisationnel qu’économique », rapporte la décision de justice.

Source: Port de Montréal: la sécurité avant la liberté religieuse, tranche un juge | Philippe Teisceira-Lessard | Actualités judiciaires

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Australia finally ending long nightmare of peaceful multiculturalism

2016/09/23 Leave a comment

Andrew Street’s critical look at Australia’s language and actions with respect to immigrants and refugees:

And while we might differ over what constitutes a “generous humanitarian program” when taking 18,750 of the literal millions of people seeking asylum, the Prime Minister’s argument appears to run as follows: fierce border protection allows Australians to be generous and welcoming to those we invite to join in our proud multicultural success story.

If we’re not taking just anyone, in other words, we can afford to be generous with those we do take. And that would be awesome if it wasn’t also completely, laughably, insultingly false.

It can’t be lost on Malc that our increasing level of panic about The Boats hasn’t exactly been accompanied by a commensurate increase in tolerance and celebration of our nation’s cultural diversity. Isn’t that right, Muslim Australians?

In fact, you might say that all the evidence points in the oppositedirection – almost as though years of leaders making political mileage by demonising foreigners as at best greedy and at worst probably terrorists has encouraged the worst racist instincts of Australians.

Should this seem like an unfair assessment, a quick look at the current make up of the Senate might be instructive.

(And while everyone is apparently united in their anti-people smuggling rhetoric, is anyone else curious as to why people smugglers are clearly evil opportunists preying on the vulnerable when we’re talking about countries with less-white populations but they were brave freedom fighters snubbing their noses at repressive regimes when, say, smuggling economic migrants out of communist East Germany?)

Also, the PM might more easily highlight Australia’s gosh-darn generosity in resettling 12,000 Syrian refugees, if maybe more than a quarter of them had actually been resettled in the year since the promise was made, amid accusations that the government has been deliberately focussing on accepting non-Muslim refugees because… um, their suffering is more noble, presumably?

And sure, suggesting that harsh border policies somehow fosters greater generosity within Australia might be accurately perceived as being a new version of arguing that indefinite offshore detention under horrific circumstances is somehow “saving lives at sea”: a complete non-sequiter designed to deflect criticism with zero basis in fact.

But on the plus side, by dividing those fleeing violence, oppression and terror into the deserving and undeserving on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, the Turnbull government is helping to embed an outspokenly us-and-them spirit which puts Australian citizens at risk while encouraging racists to express their vile, hateful opinions in word and in deed to a degree that risks destroying this peaceful, stable, genuinely magnificent society we’ve built together.

And making Australia a more hateful, unstable, violent place to live is the plan, right? Because if so, it all appears to be going great.

That being said, I do think that support for immigration does correlate with confidence that inflows are controlled and managed, at least in the Canadian context.

Source: Australia finally ending long nightmare of peaceful multiculturalism

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The danger in Poland’s frontal attack on its Holocaust history: Jan Grabowski

2016/09/23 Leave a comment

Worrisome:

Last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Poland gave power to a right-wing, nationalistic and populist party, called Law and Justice. The ensuing changes on the political scene were nothing short of dramatic—and deeply troubling. Those who thought that the constitution was the supreme law of the land, were in for a nasty surprise: the new Polish government, with the help of the president, immediately started to dismantle and muzzle the Constitutional Court (an equivalent to the Canadian Supreme Court), the only remaining obstacle to its complete control of the state. The court is now paralyzed, and its most important verdicts are simply ignored by the authorities.

Elsewhere, the journalists of the state radio and television have been purged and those less sympathetic to the new regime were fired. Not surprisingly, the European Parliament took a dim view of the dismantling of democracy in one of its member states and repeatedly expressed its deep and growing concern over the situation in Poland.

However, the departure from democratic practices also goes hand in hand with a frontal attack on Polish history. “Who controls the present, controls the past,” wrote George Orwell, and the Polish authorities seem to have taken Orwell’s words to heart.

Earlier this month Zbigniew Ziobro, the Polish minister of justice, introduced new legislation intended to “defend the good name of the Polish nation.” The new set of laws, already approved by the cabinet, would impose prison terms of up to three years on people “who publicly and against the facts, accuse the Polish nation, or the Polish state, [of being] responsible or complicit in Nazi crimes committed by the III German Reich.” In the governmental narrative, the recently approved law is a penalty for those who talk about the “Polish death camps” of the Second World War. In reality, however, the new law, with its ambiguous and imprecise wording, is meant to freeze any debates which might be incompatible with the official, feel-good, version of the country’s own national past.

 This “feel good” narrative, which the new Polish authorities espouse, is, however, based on historical lies and revisionism masquerading as a defence of “the good name of the Polish nation.” Just a few weeks ago Anna Zalewska, the Polish minister of  education, declared herself unable to identify the perpetrators of the notorious 1946 Kielce pogrom. It is a matter of very public record that in 1946, in Kielce, in the center of Poland, one year after the end of the war, an enraged mob, incited by tales of blood libel, murdered close to 50 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust; women, men and children. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to admit that much. “Historians have to study the issue further,” she said, before finally declaring “it was perhaps anti-Semites.”

Her words were echoed Jaroslaw Szarek, the new chief of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state institution that aspires to be the guardian and custodian of Poland’s national memory. He flatly denied Polish involvement in, and responsibility for, the communal genocide in Jedwabne in 1941. Again, it is a matter of historical record that in July 1941 Polish citizens of Jedwabne herded hundreds of their Jewish neighbours into a barn and then set the barn on fire, burning their neighbours alive. The new law will, quite likely, make further debates surrounding these unpleasant events unlikely.

It so happens that the list of “unpleasant” historical themes, which could soon become a topic of interest to the police and to state prosecutors, is long. For instance, in the face of the new legislation, historians who argue that certain segments of Polish society were complicit in the extermination of their Jewish neighbours in the Second World War will now think twice before voicing their opinion. What about those who would like to study the phenomenon of blackmailing of the Jews, known in Polish as shmaltsovnitstvo? What about those who would like to talk about the role of the Polish “blue” police who collaborated with the Germans in the extermination of the Polish Jewry? What about those who want to shed light on the deadly actions of the Polish voluntary firefighters involved in the destruction of Jewish communities? Or on the involvement of so-called “bystanders,” who might have been much more involved in the German policies of extermination than had previously been thought?

Those are but a few of the who questions that have not yet been tackled by historians. Now, it’s the minister of justice and his prosecutors will probably decide what is a historical fact and what is not.

In the light of the clear message sent by the authorities, the new law, which should be adopted by the Polish parliament any day now, becomes a clear and present threat to the liberty of public and scholarly discussions. It is also a dramatic departure from the democratic principles and standards which govern the laws of other members of the European Union. Finally, introducing prison terms for people who dare to tackle some of the most difficult questions of the country’s past puts Poland right next to Turkey, infamous for its laws against “slandering of Turkish identity,” which is a code word for denying the Turkish responsibility for the Armenian genocide.

Unfortunately for Polish authorities—and fortunately for those involved in the study of the past—the history of the Holocaust, which is at stake here, is not the property of the Polish government. The history of the destruction of the European Jewry is, actually, the only universal part of the national history of Poland, one which resonates in the minds and hearts of people around the world. Any attempt to muzzle debate and to stifle academic research into the various aspects of the history of the Shoah can, should and, hopefully, will be seen as a form of Holocaust distortion, or Holocaust denial—something to be vigorously protested by the international community.

Source: The danger in Poland’s frontal attack on its Holocaust history – Macleans.ca

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust Tagged with ,

Liberal replacement for Conservatives’ Office of Religious Freedoms costs four times as much | National Post

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Irresponsible headline: the proper comparison would be with respect to the budget for the previous human rights division plus the Office of Religious Freedoms, which I suspect would show little to no change.

Comparing a basket of apples with one apple:

The overall budget for the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, which replaces the Conservative-era Office of Religious Freedoms, could exceed $18 million, according to foreign minister Stéphane Dion.

The office budget was stated at “up to $15 million” in a June press release from Global Affairs Canada. But that’s just the programming budget, according to the response — there’s anther $3.04 million allotted annually to operations and salaries.

That compares to $4.25 million and $720,386, respectively, under the Office of Religious Freedoms.

Since its creation four months ago, the office has been “working to identify programming opportunities,” Dion said in response to a Conservative question on the order paper.

The office is engaging with organizations that already received funding under the previous administration, Dion confirmed, but also “new stakeholders” looking at a broader range of issues including “peaceful pluralism, inclusion, diversity and democracy.”

 Those themes are divided into three divisions, with 36 full-time employees in total: human rights and indigenous affairs; inclusion and religious freedom; and democracy.

Only five people worked for the Office of Religious Freedoms, Dion said.

To focus on indigenous rights abroad could force the government to walk a tightrope, since some Canadian mining operations have been opposed by local populations in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Still, Dion told Postmedia in May he thought “the overwhelming majority of the mining industry of Canada will welcome this focus … they will be willing to work with this office, I’m sure.”

The buck doesn’t stop there for human rights promotion, with Dion explaining that heads of Canada’s diplomatic missions are now “empowered” to speak out about issues in their day-to-day responsibilities, and to media.

“Human rights promotion, including freedom of religious or belief, is now entrenched in our heads of missions’ core objectives and priorities and will be included in their annual performance commitments,” he said.

Source: Liberal replacement for Conservatives’ Office of Religious Freedoms costs four times as much | National Post

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Dual citizens given a break on new passport rules

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Sensible response. But of course, some will still miss news about the extension, no matter how much communications:

In the wake of a public outcry, Ottawa has extended the grace period of its new travel requirement for Canadian dual citizens.

The federal government was to demand all air travellers who are citizens of Canada and another country be required to carry a Canadian passport as of Sept. 30.

However, many travellers complained they were blindsided by the new measures and would not be able to acquire a Canadian passport in time for their immediate travels.

On Tuesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum announced the implementation date would be postponed until Nov. 10.

“In consultation with airline partners, we’re taking further steps to minimize any travel disruption,” said McCallum. “We’re extending the leniency period and doing another major information blitz in Canada and abroad to encourage affected travellers to plan ahead and get the necessary travel documents before they book a flight to Canada.”

Currently, Canadians with dual citizenship can use the passport of the other country to enter Canada by air if they can provide proof of residency in Canada, such as a driver’s licence or a Canadian citizenship card.

Ottawa rolled out the electronic travel authorization, or eTA, system last year, requiring air passengers — including all applicants for study and work permits, as well as those from countries that currently do not require a visa to come to Canada — to submit their biographic, passport and other personal information through the immigration department website for prescreening or face being denied entry.

Travellers with both Canadian and U.S. citizenship, however, are allowed to return to Canada with their American passports.

Immigration officials said almost 2 million eTAs have been issued to travellers to Canada since August 2015.

Source: Dual citizens given a break on new passport rules | Toronto Star

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Anti-Defamation League Creates Post To Combat Online Anti-Semitism – Forward.com

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Makes sense, with hopefully some broader lessons for combatting hate speech of all kinds on the Internet:

The Anti-Defamation League has created a position dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry on the internet.

The hiring of Brittan Heller, a lawyer who has prosecuted cyber crime at the U.S. Department of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, follows the ADL’s formation of a task force earlier this year to combat online harassment of Jewish journalists.

Heller will be the group’s first director of technology and society, the ADL announced Monday.

From her base in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, Heller will work to reduce hateful rhetoric on the internet in collaboration with technology companies and law enforcement.

Heller, a graduate of Yale Law School, has herself been a victim of cyber harassment. In 2009, she and a fellow Yale alumna settled a high-profile lawsuit against a group of online commenters who posted sexually explicit comments about them on an internet forum.

“As the use of social media and technology to marginalize Jews and other communities increases, Brittan’s new role is at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry,” ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt said of Heller’s position in a statement.

The ADL had created the task force to deal with anti-Semitic and racist harassment of journalists on social media platforms.

This election season has seen a number of high-profile cases of Jewish journalists being harassed by supporters of Donald Trump, notably in May, when reporter Julia Ioffe was flooded with anti-Semitic death threats after she wrote a critical profile of the Republican nominee’s wife, Melania.

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Feds expected to scrap controversial ‘safe-countries’ refugee system: insiders

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Interesting – this would mark one of the more significant reversals of the previous government’s immigration policies.

Having a safe-third countries list was one of the key ways to reduce refugee inflows from countries with comparable human rights laws, and thus at less risk, and I would have expected more adjustments than a wholesale abandonment:

A controversial so-called “safe-countries” system the Harper Conservatives brought in to speed up the processing time of the thousands of inland refugee claims in Canada annually is expected to be scrapped by the Liberal government, insiders say.

The contentious system came with a slew of other changes to the inland refugee system which were implemented in 2012 by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. The system puts certain countries on a “designated countries of origin” list in an attempt to speed up refugee claims from those countries that “do not normally produce refugees, but do respect human rights and offer state protection,” as stated on the government’s website.

Instead of the typical 60-day claim period, refugee claimants from any of the 42 countries are required by law to be processed in 30 to 45 days. Some say this puts refugee claimants from countries on the DCO, or so-called safe-countries list at a disadvantage by having to prove their case in half the time as a refugee from a non-DCO country.

Additionally, it makes scheduling within the IRB difficult. Even though decision-makers are legally obligated to process the claims of DCO refugees within 30 to 45 days, it does not always work out that way due to the scheduling conflicts that can arise when trying to juggle two timelines of refugee claims.

During the last election campaign, the Liberals made a commitment to create a panel to review the countries on the list, which currently includes Mexico, Romania, and South Korea.

In an interview with The Hill Times, Mario Dion, chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the tribunal responsible for processing inland refugee claims, said Immigration Minister John McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) is “considering abolishing the distinction, which would render the creation of the panel a moot requirement.”

“The minister is looking at this as we speak, and he’s said so publicly in several fora this summer,” Mr. Dion added.

The public fora included at least one roundtable discussion, according to former chairperson of the IRB and refugee law professor Peter Showler, who was present.

Mr. Showler said he expects the DCO system to be removed, despite not having direct assurance from the government at this point. “But, we’ve had public statements from the minister that he sees no merit to them. Their initial intention—it was always a false premise. I think the minister understands.”

Source: The Hill Times

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Leitch says Trudeau a ‘Canadian identity denier,’ but he’s pointed to ‘shared values, openness, respect’

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Leitch continues to play hard on identity politics and mischaracterizing PM Trudeau’s comments on identity, just as her source, Candice Malcolm, has (see my review of her most recent book, A response to Candice Malcolm’s Losing True North – Policy Options):

A New York Times Magazine story about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last December that prompted Conservative leadership contender Kellie Leitch to accuse Mr. Trudeau of practising “dangerous” politics and being a “Canadian identity denier” also contains references by the newly elected prime minister to values Canadians share, including “openness, respect, [and] compassion.”

Ms. Leitch surprised a handful of journalists as she was entering the House of Commons on Monday, into the first sitting of the Commons following a 12-week parliamentary recess, and took several minutes to criticize Mr. Trudeau for allegedly denying Canadians have a national identity.

A journalist noted it had been a “very, very big summer” for Ms. Leitch, following a controversy she stirred at the beginning of September by floating the possibility Canada should screen would-be immigrants for “anti-Canadian values,” and asked the leadership hopeful what “tone” she was expecting in the Commons.

“Look, you know, I had a great time and a great campaign, but I do have a concern today and my concern is that our prime minister has denied that we have a core Canadian identity. He’s a Canadian identity denier,” Ms. Leitch replied.

“I’m looking forward to the discussions in our party, but also in the House, over the course of the next number of weeks and months, you know, I think focusing on Canadian values is extremely important,” said Ms. Leitch (Simcoe Grey, Ont.).

“We as a people do have a core identity, we have Canadian values. And I think we’re very proud of them,” Ms. Leitch, who several times described Mr. Trudeau’s position as dangerous.

Asked what she meant, Ms. Leitch replied: “The prime minister of Canada is playing a dangerous game. He denies that we have a core Canadian identity. He’s a Canadian identity denier. I think that is dangerous politics because we as Canadians share a common set of values, and that’s made our country extremely strong.”

The journalists present were later perplexed over the cause of Ms. Leitch’s complaint against Mr. Trudeau, and The Hill Times found a column published in the Toronto Sun that had expressed similar sentiment.

The columnist, Candice Malcolm, weighing in on the critical comments Ms. Leitch experienced in response to a Sept. 1 news report of a survey in which she asked prospective leadership supporters whether Canada should screen refugees and potential immigrants for Canadian values, criticized Mr. Trudeau and briefly quoted a portion of comments Mr. Trudeau made to The New York Times late last year.

“There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Ms. Malcolm quoted Mr. Trudeau as saying in an interview with the newspaper, adding that Mr. Trudeau also said in the interview he sees Canada as “the first post-national state.” Ms. Malcolm was a press secretary to Conservative MP Jason Kenney (Calgary Midnapore, Alta.) when he was immigration minister.

A search on the New York Times newspaper website failed to find a report containing Mr. Trudeau’s comments, but the quotations appear in an article in the Dec. 13, 2015, edition of the weekly New York Times Magazine.

The Toronto Sun columnist, seemingly on whose description Ms. Leitch was depending, quoted only a small portion of the interview comments.

The journalist, who interviewed Mr. Trudeau following the election, in his lead-up to the contested comments noted how Mr. Trudeau and his party had campaigned on a promise to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada by the end of the year.

The journalist, Guy Lawson, also referred to the November 2015 terrorist attacks that had just rocked Paris.

“Trudeau said he wants Canada to be free from the politics of fear and division,” Mr. Lawson wrote.

“Countries with a strong national identity, linguistic, religious or cultural, are finding it a challenge to effectively integrate people from different backgrounds. In France, there is still a typical citizen and an atypical citizen. Canada doesn’t have that dynamic.”

Mr. Lawson described Mr. Trudeau’s “most radical argument” as his statement that “Canada is becoming a new kind of state, defined not by its European history but by the multiplicity of its identities from all over the world.”

Mr. Trudeau described a recent vandalism attack against a mosque in Cold Lake, Alta. and said “the entire town came out the next day to scrub the graffiti of the walls and help them fix the damage.”

‘‘Countries with a strong national identity—linguistic, religious, or cultural—are finding it a challenge to effectively integrate people from different backgrounds. In France, there is still a typical citizen and an atypical citizen. Canada doesn’t have that dynamic.’’ said Mr. Trudeau.

Mr. Lawson recalled how Mr. Trudeau’s father, former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, had argued against cultural and historical nationalism and its negative effect on Quebec prior to the 1960s social and political change in the province.

“There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Mr. Lawson quoted Mr. Trudeau as saying.

‘‘There are shared values—openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state,” Mr. Trudeau said, in remarkable similarity even to some of the values Ms. Leitch has mentioned in response to her critics.

Source: The Hill Times

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Law Society report proposes changes to combat systemic racism

2016/09/21 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether the report and its recommendations are fully or partially adopted, and the degree to which they are implemented.

But it all starts with data and pleased that one of the recommendations is for just that:

Law Society of Upper Canada working group is proposing that the regulatory body step in to ensure that law firms and other legal workplaces move to eradicate systemic racism in the legal profession, and to penalize those that fail.

The Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees Working Group spent the past four years studying the issue and holding consultations and will present its final report and recommendations Thursday to the Law Society’s benchers — its board of directors — for information purposes. A final vote is expected on Dec. 2.

“The challenges faced by racialized licensees are both longstanding and significant,” reads part of the report, obtained by the Star. “In our view, the Law Society must take a leadership role in giving legal workplaces reasonable deadlines to implement steps that are important to bring about lasting culture change.”

The report goes on to say: “It is clear from the working group’s engagement and consultation processes that discrimination based on race is a daily reality for many racialized licensees; however, many participants stated that they would not file a discrimination complaint with the Law Society for various reasons, including fear of losing their job, fear of being labeled as a troublemaker, and other reprisal-related concerns.”

Lawyer Paul Jonathan Saguil said it’s important that the public, as well as lawyers, see themselves reflected in the legal profession.

“What happens when you get to the pinnacle of the profession — people who are applying to the bench or to tribunals? As you go up the pipeline, you get people who are more and more removed from what is the true diversity of the Canadian population, and that has an impact,” he said. “For lawyers, too, it has a psychological impact when they don’t see themselves reflected at their firm, and wondering how they can succeed.”

Saguil, who is Filipino-Canadian, mentioned as his role model Superior Court Justice Steve Coroza, believed to be the first Filipino-Canadian appointed to a superior court.

“Once you see someone advance in that position, you start hoping that one day you can achieve even a modicum of that success,” Saguil said.

Major recommendations — most of which the working group envisions would be implemented over the next three years — include requiring legal workplaces of at least 10 licensees (which include lawyers and paralegals) to develop and implement a human rights/diversity policy, “addressing at the very least fair recruitment, retention and advancement.”

A representative of each of those workplaces would also have to complete an equality, diversity and inclusion self-assessment of their office every two years, according to one proposal.

Another recommendation proposes “progressive compliance measures” for workplaces that don’t implement a human rights/diversity policy, and/or workplaces “that are identified as having systemic barriers to diversity and inclusion.”

The 15-member working group, made up of benchers, proposes a “gradation of responses,” from meeting with representatives of legal workplaces to discuss concerns, “to disciplinary approaches if there is deliberate non-compliance with requirements, despite multiple warnings, or no efforts are made to address systemic barriers.”

Observers say change is needed now more than ever, as the number of racialized lawyers in Ontario has doubled — from 9 per cent of the profession in 2001, to 18 per cent in 2014. According to the 2011 census, 26 per cent of Ontarians identified as racialized.

“The overall goal is to change the culture of the legal profession,” said lawyer Raj Anand, co-chair of the working group.

“We had a very important issue that has not been addressed — certainly not to this extent by any law society in Canada . . . I don’t think there’s any law society that has gone to the point of mandatory measures in order to effect culture change.”

Anand said he hopes other law societies can use his working group’s report as a model to change the culture in other provinces.

“The issues are still serious ones, and enough time has passed. It’s time to put in place some base minimums. These are not radical recommendations.”

Progress would be measured by annually providing legal workplaces of 25 licensees or more with the self-identification data of their firm’s lawyers and paralegals. That information, compiled by the Law Society, would then allow the firm to compare its numbers with the profession as a whole.

Licensees would also be asked to answer questions about inclusion at their workplace every four years, and a summary would be given to the workplace.

The Law Society would also be required to publish an “inclusion index” every four years that would contain the legal workplace’s self-assessment information, demographic data and information collected from the inclusion questions.

The group also recommends mandatory training for every licensee on equality and inclusion, to be taken once every three years, as well as improvements for mentoring.

Source: Law Society report proposes changes to combat systemic racism | Toronto Star

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