The Trouble With India’s New Citizenship Bill | The Diplomat

2017/03/13 Leave a comment

Look forward to some comments from those more familiar with India and Indian politics than I:

Granting citizenship to Hindu refugees and making India “a natural home for persecuted Hindus” were among the promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election manifesto. Modi, in a 2014 election rally, specifically promised citizenship to Hindu-Bangladeshis, saying that they would be removed from the migrant camps. Since then, the current government has taken many steps which may seem majoritarian and anti-Muslim.

Against this backdrop, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 seems to be aimed toward making India a haven for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from neighboring countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. A closer look at the provisions indicates that the current government is attempting to increase its Hindu voter count. The BJP government’s website about Hindutva ideology clearly draws from Israel’s law of return and aims to do the same for Hindus in India. This policy in the Indian context would be contrary to the ideals of secularism and pluralism and thus unconstitutional.

The provisions of the bill would affect over 200,000 Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh and their migration into the border states of India would change the voter demographics in the region. The BJP government came to power in Assam in 2016, for the first time in 15 years, by using the agenda of ending illegal migration from Bangladesh. According to the Census of India (2011), 34.2 percent of Assam’s population is Muslim and the census shows that there has been a 4 percent rise in Muslim population over the past five years. The BJP government used the data as the basis of their campaign to gain votes in the region. If the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed, in its current form, then the border regions would face an influx of Hindu migrants, which would change the voter demographics in the region.

The bill aims to save religious minorities from violence and blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The rationale for selecting just these three countries, which are Muslim-dominated countries, is a cause for concern. The bill at first glance seems like a humanitarian effort to help persecuted minorities but it only seeks to help Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from the neighboring Muslim countries. Muslim minority communities facing oppression in other countries have been completely ignored. If the bill was really an attempt to provide a safe haven for minorities facing violence in their countries then it should also offer the same provisions to the minority Muslim communities in China and Myanmar as well. The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims in China, and the Ahmaddiya Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh have been facing persecution for years. Further, Myanmar’s Hindus have also been ignored in the bill.

India is not a signatory of the United Nation Refugee Convention; therefore it is not required to provide safe haven to people seeking asylum from persecution in other countries. No attempts have been made by the government to debate the issue of joining the United Nation Refugee Convention. That would have been the natural step to take if the government was indeed interested in formulating a humanitarian refugee policy. Further, the provisions of refugee protection cater to all minorities fleeing countries due to a humanitarian crisis but, in this bill, India is offering citizenship based on religious predilections. The bill, if passed in its current form, seeks to give preference to Hindu refugees over Muslim refugees migrating to India, which is unconstitutional as, the preamble of the Constitution confirms India as a secular state.

The refugees who will actually benefit from this policy are living in abject poverty with no sanitation and infrastructure facilities. The government, instead of using a blanket refugee policy, has made this a communal issue with a veiled political agenda, which would be counterproductive to the seemingly humanitarian goal of the bill.

A member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, revealed in the National Assembly that around 5,000 Hindus migrate from Pakistan to India every year. In 2015, the BJP government approved citizenship for 4,230 Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and Afghanistan who sought refuge in India. The BJP had earlier claimed that they had granted Indian citizenship to 4,300 Pakistani nationals during 2014-15. However, a response to a query filed under the Right to Information by Seemant Lok Sanghthan showed that only 289 Pakistani Hindus were granted Indian citizenship in this period. This furthers the argument that the BJP’s political agenda supersedes its humanitarian goals.

It is also interesting to note that BJP’s stance on refugees has completely turned around in the last decade. In 2003 when 213 “Bangladeshi citizens” were stranded in the no man’s land between India and Bangladesh, neither country accepted them. Yet the BJP, in 2014, declared itself as a “natural home for persecuted Indians” and extended long-term visas in various states and provided citizenship to Hindus from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The constant emphasis on granting refuge on the basis of religion is in keeping with the Hindutva ideology popularly advocated by the current government.

The bill, if passed and made into an act, could be challenged and struck down by the judiciary later because of its unconstitutional nature — the provisions go against the secularism enshrined under the preamble. The government’s stance of helping refugees only if they fall under the category of persecuted religious minorities is heavily biased.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 may be presented as a move to protect the religious minorities in other countries from being persecuted but, the underlying issue clear: the bill is meant to address the BJP’s stated objective of making India the “Hindu Homeland.” The provisions blatantly ignore Muslims in the protection clauses and mention only religious minorities in Muslim-dominated countries. Further, the bill will change the demographics of the border states. The Bill adds to an ominous trend of a government which is not afraid of pushing a religious ideology, even when it is in contravention of the Constitution, in order to further its own political agenda.

Source: The Trouble With India’s New Citizenship Bill | The Diplomat

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Keeping K2 (European Human Rights Court Decision on Citizenship-Stripping) in Perspective | Just Security

2017/03/13 Leave a comment

Good analysis of the impact of the recent ruling:

Strasbourg rejected as inadmissible an application by K2, a terror suspect born in Sudan but who acquired British citizenship by naturalization. At first glance this admissibility decision might seem to be of general significance but it is actually highly fact-specific and does not substantively address the single material general issue of principle raised by the applicant, i.e. the potentially discriminatory effect of the relevant citizenship-stripping laws. This is unsurprising since admissibility decisions – initial decisions about whether an application satisfies the stringent admissibility criteria and should proceed to be considered on its merits – are rarely of general significance, and this is especially so when, as in this case, the application is deemed inadmissible. It would be odd, therefore, if, as opined by the Guardian, the decision “is likely to encourage Home Office ministers to make greater use of their power to exclude terror suspects even if they are British citizens.”

Article 8

K2 complained that the Home Secretary’s decision to deprive him of his British citizenship violated his Article 8, ECHR right to respect for family and private life. The decision to deprive him of his citizenship was taken pursuant to the statutory power in section 40 (2) of the British Nationality Act 1981.

The ECtHR assessed this complaint by reference to established principles: by asking whether the revocation was arbitrary (i.e. was it in accordance with the law, was it accompanied by necessary procedural safeguards and did the authorities act diligently and swiftly) and by considering the consequences for the applicant.

The ECtHR held that the revocation was not arbitrary. The principal issue that it considered in this regard was the adequacy of procedural safeguards on the facts of the applicant’s case. The ECtHR also held that the consequences for the applicant did not violate his Article 8 rights because, for example, he was not rendered stateless by the deprivation of British citizenship (see here and here my 2014 posts on statelessness and citizenship stripping) and because his wife and child could visit him in Sudan or relocate there. The Article 8 claim regarding the decision to deprive K2 of his British citizenship was, therefore, held to be manifestly ill-founded. 

Similarly, the Article 8 claim regarding the Home Secretary’s decision to exclude him from the UK was manifestly ill-founded.

Article 14

K2 also complained that there had been a violation of the prohibition of discrimination in Article 14 (read together with Article 8). The ECtHR rejected this claim too.

It rejected K2’s claim that he had been treated differently from a non-national resident because he was denied an in-country right of appeal: the ECtHR held that the reason he had been denied the right of appeal was not because he was a British citizen but because he had chosen, voluntarily, to leave the UK.

More significantly, the ECtHR also rejected K2’s complaint that he had been treated differently from a British citizen considered a threat to national security but who did not hold a second nationality. However, the Court did not substantively address this complaint – essentially the only part of the case that could have been of general significance. The ECtHR rejected this complaint on the technical ground that K2 had not raised it before the domestic, English courts and he had, therefore, failed to exhaust domestic remedies (a pre-condition for a claim to be admissible before the ECtHR). Thus, the only material principled point in the case was not substantively decided.

Source: Keeping K2 (European Human Rights Court Decision on Citizenship-Stripping) in Perspective | Just Security

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The Order of Canada and diversity

2017/03/11 Leave a comment

My latest, in Policy Options:

In Budget 2015, the then Conservative government announced additional funding of $13.4 million over five years and $2.8 million in ongoing funding for the Canadian Honours System. This aimed to “bring [honours] closer to all Canadians” by increasing the number of Order of Canada nominations from “under-represented sectors” (e.g. business) and regions (i.e. the West).

This was prompted by an Ottawa Citizen analysis that showed only 26 percent of recipients since the Order’s creation in 1967 came from the West, compared to the region’s 31 percent share of the population. In contrast, Atlantic Canada had 11 percent of recipients, about twice its share of the population. Moreover, the study showed an increasing percentage of awards had gone to those active in the arts while the share going to business people had declined.

Source: The Order of Canada and diversity (for complete article)

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Senate proposes major amendment to Liberal citizenship legislation [C-6] : ‘It goes a long way’

2017/03/11 Leave a comment

As indicated during committee hearings, the amendment to restore procedural protections to those accused of fraud or misrepresentation was tabled in the Senate March 9:

The Liberal government’s update to immigration law is poised to be changed by the Senate after a major amendment was introduced Thursday.

Elaine McCoy, who acts as a “facilitator” for a de facto caucus of independent senators, tabled the amendment during debate over the third reading of Bill C-6.

If someone is served notice their citizenship is being revoked due to fraud or misrepresentation, the amendment requires the immigration minister to inform them of their right to appeal that decision in Federal Court.

Under Conservative legislation that took effect in May 2015 (referred to as Bill C-24), the process for citizenship revocation was significantly streamlined, and revocation notices have since ramped up significantly. The National Post reported last month that at least 236 people were served notice since the Liberals took power in November 2015.

Under the new process, people can submit written arguments as to why their citizenship should not be revoked, but there’s no clear option to have these arguments assessed by an independent judge.

It’s a loophole that many committee witnesses, in both the House of Commons and the Senate, argued should be fixed with the Liberal update. In the House, New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan attempted to move amendments but they were ruled out of scope at committee stage.

It’s in the Senate that proponents hoped to see the fix. Previous immigration minister John McCallum told senators he would “welcome” such an amendment, but new minister Ahmed Hussen said in Senate committee last week he would have to see the amendment before promising the government would commit to it — although “we are committed to procedural fairness.”

McCoy said the amendment is designed to give people “due process.” It puts decision-making back in the hands of the elected and accountable minister, she said, and allows the independent judiciary to review those decisions.

Drawing laughter from fellow senators, McCoy gave an example of how anonymous the revocation system has become. A revocation notice letter she obtained was signed with a citizenship analyst’s number rather than their name — “D 1816,” she said.

“This amendment is not going to fix everything, but it goes a long way,” McCoy said.

It’s been a “labour of many, many months,” the bill’s sponsor, Ratna Omidvar, added Thursday. The amendment is four pages long and determines exactly how the process would work — the “bare bones of due process,” Omidvar said, including a 60-day deadline for people to decide whether or not to take their appeal to court.

André Pratte, rose to support McCoy’s amendment. It addresses a “serious shortcoming,” he said, and will make the entire citizenship revocation process “much fairer.”

“Some will wonder why are we doing favours to people who have cheated the system. I would argue those are not favours, but fundamental human rights,” Pratte said.

Conservative senator Yonah Martin indicated Thursday she was concerned about the amendment being out of scope, and wondered why it wasn’t moved in committee. But McCoy said she was trying to be transparent by sharing the amendment with senators ahead of time and allowing it to be brought to the wider chamber.

Another Conservative senator, Daniel Lang, said he is concerned that some people could drag out the process over “years and years and years without any definitive decision being made.” Omidvar responded that court isn’t automatic. The amendment requires people to specifically ask for a court appeal in order for that appeal to be heard. Imposing a deadline on the court might not be possible, she added.

Debate was adjourned Thursday and the Senate now enters a two-week break, meaning votes on the amendment and the bill can’t happen until at least the week of March 28. If the Senate passes an amended version, the House of Commons will have to decide whether or not to accept the amendment before the bill can become law.

Source: Senate proposes major amendment to Liberal citizenship legislation: ‘It goes a long way’ | National Post

The text of the amendment can be found here: Motion in Amendment

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Supreme Court judge [Justice Wagner] says Canadians shouldn’t worry about arrival of refugees, migrants 

2017/03/11 Leave a comment

Thoughtful and pertinent comments, particularly interesting his comments on identity:

Wagner said the notions of identity, human dignity and democratic values permeate the Charter and “lay the foundations for looking beyond our own borders.

“We can welcome refugees and migrants with the confidence that our society is able not only to manage our differences, but to thrive on them,” said Wagner.

Speaking to reporters later, Wagner acknowledged that, while his speech was delivered to a legal and academic audience, there was a message for Canadians concerned about the influx of refugees and migrants.

“We should, I think, welcome all those people and we should be willing to accommodate them and not change them,” he said.

“People should not be afraid of having migrants and refugees in their own countries. I think we’re strong enough and . . . we have strong moral values, and one of those values is the respect for human dignity. And, if we take our role seriously, we’ll look, we’ll adopt the perspective of the other, and it could only, I think, as far as I’m concerned, grow society much better in the future.”

Asked if that means there should be room for face veils and other individual expressions of religious identity, Wagner declined to answer, saying: “I don’t know if those cases will come before the court, so I don’t want to comment.”

Wagner holds one of the three high court seats reserved for Quebec. Quebec’s legislature is now studying a bill to require “religious neutrality” of those who deliver or receive public services, amid calls to ditch the bill in the wake of the slaying of six Muslims at a Quebec City mosque.

Wagner said judges have an “obligation” to try to understand the perspective of a person who says their equality rights are breached, but he added “that doesn’t mean that the claimant is right . . . that doesn’t mean that I would adopt his way, or his reasoning, or his opinion, or his end result.”

In his speech, Wagner admitted early approaches to how judges analyzed discrimination did not stand up to the task. He said Charter interpretation is still “a work in progress,” but, he added, over the past 150 years “the constitution has enabled us to navigate difficult questions of identity.

“Personal and group characteristics are the starting point of Charter equality jurisprudence, but identity is not about labels; it is a shorthand for how people see themselves, how others see them, and how those two things interact in people’s lives.”

Wagner said the Supreme Court looks to the context and experiences of a person claiming discrimination, and seeks to understand the person’s perspective, which is an especially important consideration in cases of aboriginal law or where there are overlapping characteristics of a person’s identity that influence how they experience discrimination.

Wagner said the experience of a woman who is part of a visible minority can be totally different from that of a young man who has the same characteristics. “If one of the two is not a citizen, or has a different sexual orientation, their experience could be even more different.”

“When the court eventually faces a question touching on trans-gender identity, these two propositions will provide essential frames of reference: that identity is not fixed, but changing, and that identity is not innate, but contextual,” he said.

Wagner predicted that, although the principle of “dignity” fell out of favour in judicial analyses of equality claims, it would find new traction in future Charter litigation. It is a crucial consideration when judges weigh whether a rights violation is reasonable and justified. “Equality infringements ought to be increasingly difficult to justify to the extent that it strikes at the heart of someone’s individual or group identity and, with it, their recognition as full participants in Canada’s ongoing democratic dialogue,” he said.

University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes said Wagner’s speech would please equality-seeking groups on the one hand, but he said Wagner also emphasized “democratic values” and “substantive” equality over any superficial concept of equality.

To Mendes, it was a signal from a judge who some suggest could one day become the chief justice of Canada, that the balance won’t always tip in favour of those who feel their rights are breached.

Source: Supreme Court judge says Canadians shouldn’t worry about arrival of refugees, migrants | Toronto Star

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Helping Immigrant Students Catch Up, Fast — It Takes A Whole School : NPR

2017/03/11 Leave a comment

US example of how schools facilitate the integration process:

For many immigrant students, the trauma of crossing the border follows them into the classroom — affecting their performance and ability to learn. And that’s where Michelle’s school comes in.

At Langley Park, in Prince George’s County, Md., 87 percent of students are Spanish-speaking. Out of 176 students, 24 countries are represented and 15 languages are spoken at home, not including English.

The school started last fall. So far, the school sits in temporary buildings, but the kids don’t mind it too much — unless it’s raining.
Her school is part of a larger network across the country called Internationals Network For Public Schools. It serves English language learners, or ELLs, and recent immigrants.

For students like Michelle, the problem is two-fold: Not only are they dealing with trauma, but they also belong to one of the most marginalized student populations.

According to a recent Stanford study, the achievement gap between ELL-Hispanic and white students is the largest in the context of race and ethnicity. And, the average high school graduation rate of ELLs is 19 percentage points lower than the national rate, 63 percent compared to 82.

In 1985, the network opened its first school to address that long-standing disparity. Since then, it has grown to 27 schools in seven states, including Washington, D.C.

And, it seems to be working. Last year, ELLs who attended the network’s high schools in New York City graduated at a rate 16 percentage points higher than ELL students in the city’s public schools, the nation’s largest school district.

As for Langley Park, it hasn’t had a graduating class, yet — it opened last fall — but results so far look promising. In the first class of students, 98 percent showed improvement in their English language skills.

Two talented young artists — Stefany Novoa (left), 16, and Frishta Wassl, 14 — work on self-portraits in Christine Wilkin’s art class.

LA Johnson/NPR

How does the network do it when so many other schools struggle to educate ELLs? It seems to boil down to three simple things:

Every teacher is a language teacher. Tammy Tatro, who teaches technology, says implementing English-language instruction into her class curriculum is “really hard.” But she does it by repeating herself and using visual aids to get concepts across to students.

Second, one of the network’s vital principles is collaboration. That’s why the classes are a mix of students with varying English language skills.

“They all want to lift each other up,” Tatro says. “When one fails, especially if they’re working on a team project, then they all kind of fail. So, they have to help each other.”

A third key principle, Principal Carlos Beato says: the school’s partnerships.

Christine Gilliard, a phys ed teacher, used to teach at a large high school where she had “a two-story gym and two storage closets.” Now she teaches out of a trailer-sized temporary building. “We may not have the best of everything, but we have each other,” she says.

LA Johnson/NPR

CASA de Maryland, a Latino advocacy organization, is one of Langley Park’s partners. The organization offers legal advice for students and their families. Students can also take a social justice class from CASA to learn about advocacy and their rights, depending on their immigration status.

Partnerships like this are crucial, given the extra challenges many of these students face — homelessness, separation from their parents and, of course, the language barrier. Without tending to all of their social and emotional needs, Beato explains, “we wouldn’t be getting any of the academics done.”

Most of the network’s schools employ a full-time social worker. At Langley Park, that’s Lesly Lemus. Her job is to support students any way she can as they cope with life outside school, whether it’s connecting them to community resources or just listening.

Source: Helping Immigrant Students Catch Up, Fast — It Takes A Whole School : NPR Ed : NPR

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ICYMI: 82 per cent of BC minorities have experienced racism, survey finds

2017/03/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising, and likely similar in other major centres. No gradation regarding the degree or seriousness of racism encountered. These regional studies, as useful as they are, suggest the need for a new Ethnic Diversity Survey (the last one was carried out in 2002):

As multicultural as Canada may be, it appears we are not immune to racism.

According to a new survey conducted in B.C., 82 per cent of visible minorities say they have experienced prejudice or some form of discrimination, while 56 per cent of all respondents reported having overheard racist comments.

Of those who identified themselves as visible minorities, 46 per cent said they believe they face social disadvantages because of their background, and 33 per cent said they have been a target of abuse. Another 29 per cent reported facing discrimination simply based on their name, while 10 per cent have dealt with disadvantages because of their religious beliefs.

And 11 per cent said their experiences with discrimination were traumatic enough to prompt thoughts of moving to a new location.

“The majority of British Columbians are welcoming and embrace multiculturalism. However, it’s clear that racism is alive and well in our communities and we need to call it out when we see it,” said Catherine Ludgate, a spokeswoman with Vancity. The report was commissioned by the credit union as part of its community investment efforts.

 Some 82 per cent of all those who responded said they felt multiculturalism has been “very good” or “good” for Canada, though three-quarters thought the population of immigrants should remain the same. Just over a quarter thought the population should increase.

…The numbers are from a new report released today, conducted in January by Insights West and is in anticipation of a community roundtable series to be launched by SUCCESS B.C., an immigrant assistance organization, and sponsored by Vancity.

Dates for the roundtable series have yet to be announced, but the series follows a forum on immigration hosted by SUCCESS in February.

Queenie Choo, CEO of SUCCESS BC. According to a new report conducted in B.C., 82 per cent of visible minorities have experienced prejudice or some form of discrimination, while 56 per cent of all respondents have overheard racist comments being made.“We didn’t want to host the forum and the forget about it,” said Queenie Choo, CEO of SUCCESS, who was quick to note that it’s important to continue discussing these issues lest history repeat itself.

Choo said the discussions would be a chance for immigrants to share their experiences with social groups and government, which in turn could help shape programs and policy. She also noted it’s important to ensure Canadians speak up for social justice in light of events taking place in the U.S.

“I truly believe that we (Canada and the U.S.) hold shared values of diversity and inclusion. If those are no longer our shared values, then there is a big question mark,” she said. “We need to make a stand. By not raising the issue and creating this opportunity (to discuss racism), it will signal to people that it’s acceptable.”

For every individual that joins Vancity between now and May 30 and sets up a pre-authorized payment or deposit, the credit union will donate $100 to the Vancity Humanitarian Fund to support refugee families. The donations are in addition to $100,000 already donated to the fund, part of which has already helped refugees settling in Victoria and Abbotsford.

Source: 82 per cent of BC minorities have experienced racism, survey finds | Vancouver Sun

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How America’s Idea Of Illegal Immigration Doesn’t Always Match Reality : NPR

2017/03/10 Leave a comment

A very good analysis with sound data that provide context to US immigration debates and policies:

When you think of illegal immigration in the U.S., do you picture a border crosser or a visa overstayer? A family or a single person? A farmworker or a waiter?

People living in the U.S. without legal status are frequently invoked in American politics — especially in recent months. But the conversation is often short on facts about the millions of people who fall into this category.

There are, however, outdated beliefs: A Pew Research Center survey in 2015 found that very few Americans are aware of recent changes in immigration patterns.

And, of course, there are stereotypes, which often don’t always match up with reality. Most people in the U.S. illegally have been here for years, for instance, and people working service jobs far outnumber migrant farm labor.

Here’s a look at the actual statistics about people living in the U.S. illegally.

We should note that there are a few caveats about this data. Different research groups use different methodologies, and in some cases, they rely on estimates. We’ve included links to all our data sources so you can read about their methods in more detail.

About 11 million people live in the U.S. without authorization

There are far more naturalized citizens than unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., and slightly more green card holders, according to the Pew Research Center.

The total number of people living in the country illegally — about 11 million — has made headlines recently, because immigration advocates suggest that under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, almost all of them could be targeted for deportation. (More than 700,000 “DREAMers” — immigrants who were brought into the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas as children — are still temporarily protected from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.)

Longtime residents outnumber new arrivals

A large majority of those people currently living in the U.S. illegally have been here for a decade or longer, which is a major shift from the situation at the turn of the millennium.

About two-thirds of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more, Pew says. Only 14 percent arrived within the past five years.

In the late 1990s, the number of new arrivals was far higher, and the share of longtime residents far lower.

Mexicans make up a dominant — but declining — share of this population

Mexico is “the leading nation of origin for U.S. unauthorized immigrants,” Pew writes, but the share of immigrants from Mexico is also declining.

That is to say, Mexican immigrants are a shrinking majority of the population living in the country through illegal immigration.

Of people living in the U.S. illegally, more than half are from Mexico. The population from that one country far outnumbers the population from entire continents. But there are fewer people of Mexican origin living in the U.S. now than there were a decade ago.

You can see the trend lines clearly if you look just at people arriving in the U.S. illegally, instead of the millions who live here. The percentage arriving from Mexico has dropped markedly, while more immigrants are coming from Africa, Central America and Asia.

The reasons for the shifting immigration patterns are complex. For Central American immigrants, conflicts in their home countries certainly play a role. The Migration Policy Institute suggests that there might be similar reasons for increased migration from Asia and Africa.

Source: How America’s Idea Of Illegal Immigration Doesn’t Always Match Reality : The Two-Way : NPR

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Ottawa’s gender-based analysis was predestined to fail : Lynda Gullason

2017/03/10 1 Comment

Hard hitting assessment (less of an issue with respect to employment equity in the public service, where regular tracking and data indicate overall progress, and more of an issue with policy and program design, where GBA – and broader diversity analysis – is rarely practiced):

But the gender-based analysis initiative is predestined – perhaps even predesigned – to fail.

Intended to assess the potential gender-specific impacts of policies, programs, legislation and services on women and men, its critical shortcomings severely limit its utility.

To start, there are no mandatory requirements for federal departments and agencies to conduct such analysis. Only 30 out of 110 departments are even signed on to the gender-based analysis action plan – 22 years after it was initially adopted.

There is no monitoring or evaluation or reporting of the implementation and outcomes by Status of Women Canada or by the departments and agencies themselves, although SWC was required to do so after the 2009 audit.

In fact, Status of Women Canada has no authority to enforce the application of gender-based analysis and there are no consequences for departments and agencies which do not conduct it.

There is no measurement of gender equity: no data collection to analyze and correct unfair practices and policies; no baselines or targets and no performance indicators to track progress.

Departments conducting gender-based analyses are required to, but do not, propose measures to address gender inequities. The Canadian Armed Forces, for example, which has set an employment target for women of 25 per cent, has developed no employment equity strategy to achieve that target, and its actual number remains unchanged at 14 per cent.

And so it follows, there are no consequences for departments and agencies which fail to ensure gender equity.

Auditor-General Michael Ferguson has expressed frustration with the federal government’s inability to address gender discrimination, which persists despite decades of audits. Fully half of the gender-based analyses conducted by the audited departments in his 2015 report were incomplete. Yet for the incomplete analyses, these departments “nevertheless concluded” that there were no gender-specific impacts, “and they provided these conclusions to decision-makers.” This is serious: because the conclusions were not supported by evidence, there is the question of “whether Cabinet had been adequately informed about existing and potential gender considerations.”

In response, Status of Women Canada has plans to “explore the development of gender equality indicators,” according to its statement to the Standing Committee on Status of Women last spring. “This is work that is just beginning in terms of how we are going to define success and how we are going to attract progress as we continue to monitor and report,” says Meena Ballantyne, the head of the agency, in her 2016 presentation to the Public Accounts Committee. Except that the agency neither monitors nor reports, and the work should not be “just beginning” some 20 years after the principle of gender-based analysis was first accepted.

When asked at a Status of Women committee meeting how gender-based analysis is measured and how we know whether it is actually implemented, the response of the agency’s gender-based analysis manager, Vaughn Charlton, was, astonishingly, “That is the million-dollar question.” Status of Women Canada, she said in a written reply to the same questions, “simply does not collect this type of information.”

Moreover, the agency’s plan to develop an evaluation strategy will actually measure and report on the agency’s progress in implementing gender-based analysis, rather than the progress made in correcting gender discrimination. And that evaluation of its own performance won’t even be completed until 2020, 25 years after such analysis was introduced.

The fundamental goal of gender-based analysis must actually be gender equity. And that is only achieved when discriminatory policies and practices are corrected.

Thirty-four years after Justice Rosalie Abella wrote in her 1984 Report of the Commission on Equality in Employment that, “Equality in employment will not happen unless we make it happen”; 22 years after gender-based analysis was first adopted by the Canadian government; eight years after the previous negative audit, and 18 months after the most recent one, there is, as the Auditor-General notes in his 2016 Fall Reports “no mandatory requirement subjecting policy, legislation and program decisions to gender-based analysis.”

A more ill-conceived approach to correcting gender discrimination is hard to imagine. No analysis, no monitoring, no evaluation, no enforcement, and no consequences: no surprise, really, that gender inequity will continue under the federal government’s gender-based analysis implementation plan.

Source: Ottawa’s gender-based analysis was predestined to fail – The Globe and Mail

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ICYMI: We’re giving our babies distinctly Canadian names and impact of diversity

2017/03/10 Leave a comment

Another measure of increased diversity is the presence of ethnic names (end of excerpt):

Every year, another snooze-worthy report is published of the country’s most popular baby names—for the past decade, a sea of Emmas, Bens, Liams and Sophias. But this year, to further distinguish ourselves from our American neighbours perhaps, the creative brains at Canadian data journalism site the 10 and 3 (their mission: “to tell compelling and unusual stories about Canada through maps, interactive charts and other interesting visualizations”) decided to look past the Ethans and Isabellas and crunch some distinctly Canadian numbers.

What exactly makes a name more Canadian? “Firstly, it has to be relatively popular in Canada,” explains Arik Motskin, data scientist and founder of the10and3.com, “but more importantly, it has to be much more popular than however popular it was in the United States.” Take the name “Brody:” in 1990, 0.1% of Canadian baby boys were given it, compared to 0.01% of American babies, giving Brody a “Canadian Factor”—as the site calls it—of 10. “That means you’re ten times as likely to meet a Brody in Calgary than you are in Kansas City,” says Motskin. And now with a handy new mode of measurement, plus a century’s worth of data to explore, here are a few things the Canadian Factor has taught us.

Surprise! We love hockey players

A modern-day name with a top Canadian Factor is Linden, who scored a 20 and currently sits atop the scale, for former Vancouver Canucks hockey star (and current exec) Trevor Linden. “There are other hockey names, like Duncan and Darcy, but the Linden thing came out of nowhere for us,” says Motskin. Fittingly, it’s not only Trevor’s Linden’s prodigious sports skills that made his name, but also that he’s so well loved in Vancouver for being a nice guy (how Canadian is that?).

Sorry Pierre and Jean-Paul, name stats are an imperfect science

Name data, though it might seem straightforward enough, is actually notoriously difficult to find. “In Canada, name statistics are [kept] at the provincial level, but beyond the top 10, most provinces don’t provide more details—both for privacy reasons and because they just don’t have the manpower.” The 10 and 3 mostly lucked out across the country, but no dice in Quebec, which presented two problems: “We weren’t able to get data from Quebec, but even if we did, we’d have to crunch the numbers differently,” says Motskin. When French Canadian names showed nation-wide popularity, their Canadian Factor automatically spiked off the scale—like Josée in 1970s with a massive top score of 634. “Maybe French names should be compared to France,” says Motskin.

So long, stereotypes

Co-authored by Zack Gallinger and Neil Oman, Motskin’s piece is titled “Gord, Sheila, Graham and Beverley? The Most Distinctively Canadian Names Are Not What You’d Expect.” While Gordon makes a lot of sense—Downie, Howe, Lightfoot come right to mind—the others are, admittedly, inventions of the authors to make a point. “Everyone has their stereotypes, and these were just ours,” says Motskin. While some stereotypically Canadian-sounding names (looking at you, Nate and Duncan) definitely appear on each decade’s Top 10 list, names like Mohammad and Syed, with a Canadian Factor of 8.7 and 10.3 respectively, measure up equally Canadian.

…Of all Motskin’s number- and name-crunching, the most fascinating was abrupt cultural changes that arrived in distinct waves. The 1930s and 40s saw distinctly Anglo-Saxon monikers like Archibald and Angus for men, Catherine and Doreen for women, he notes, but “by the mid 20th century, suddenly there were a lot of Italian names like Giuseppe and Antonietta.” Immigrants often name their children traditional names, who in turn grow up more assimilated in Canada and look right back to the top 10. “I suspect in 20 years, those kids will have a lot of Emmas and Liams—or whatever’s popular then.”

Source: We’re giving our babies distinctly Canadian names – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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