Immigration, intolerance and the ‘populist paradox’: Ibbitson on Banting

2017/06/20 Leave a comment

Good summary of Keith Banting’s talk at the recent Conference Board of Canada’s Immigration Summit (and his earlier talk on the Hill), although with more of a pessimistic spin than Banting:

We may think most Canadians support the federal government’s wide-open immigration policy, which has made Canada a beacon of tolerance in this increasingly intolerant world, but the reality is more worrying.

Support for immigration in Canada is soft and vulnerable. Governments must act to strengthen it, if this country is to avoid the polarization and conflict afflicting the United States and much of Europe.

These are the findings of Keith Banting, who researches public policy at Queen’s University. Prof. Banting and I each gave a talk on immigration policy at a recent gathering sponsored by the Conference Board of Canada. This column is based on his remarks, which were much more interesting than mine.

Six out of 10 Canadians support the federal government’s target of accepting 300,000 immigrants a year, the highest intake per capita of any country in the developed world, according to a 2016 Environics poll. But four in 10 do not, and almost six in 10 believe that “too many immigrants do not adopt Canadian values.” Support for both immigration and multiculturalism – which welcomes diverse cultures within the Canadian mosaic – is far from universal.

Canadians, Prof. Banting believes, are every bit as susceptible as Americans or Britons or Poles to a lethal combination of economic insecurity and cultural anxiety. Many of us fear we may lose our job to a machine or to a foreigner in an overseas factory, even as the 1 per cent accrue more and more of the common wealth.

And some descendants of Canada’s settler culture fear that their Christian, European heritage is being overwhelmed by new arrivals from developing countries.

Meanwhile, a string of terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere contributes to the fear that some newcomers or their descendants seek to do us harm.

Drawing on attitudinal research by former graduate students and the Queen’s University Multicultural Policy Index (http://www.queensu.ca/mcp), Prof. Banting paints a much more ambiguous picture of support for multiculturalism in Canada.

“The population could roughly be divided three ways,” he argues. “One third of Canadians really don’t support multiculturalism. One third are enthusiastic multiculturalists. And one third are what you could call ‘soft multiculturalists’: They support the current policies, but with reservations. And that support could change.”

Canadians living outside Quebec roughly correspond with Americans when asked whether they support such policies as allowing religious headgear for police officers and members of the military (about six in 10 oppose), requiring employers to make a special effort to hire minorities and immigrants (about four in 10 oppose), being allowed to wear a hijab (the Muslim head scarf) while walking down the street (about two in 10 oppose) and other markers of multicultural tolerance.

In responding to many of the questions, people in Quebec showed less multicultural tolerance than either Americans or Canadians outside Quebec.

Could such ambiguous support for multiculturalism lead to the creation of a populist, nationalist, anti-immigrant political party in Canada? Not immediately, Prof. Banting believes. For one thing, most Canadians who confess to economic insecurity do not blame immigrants for that insecurity. Eight Canadians in 10 agree with the statement: “The economic impact of immigrants is positive.”

As well, Prof. Banting refers to what has been called the “populist paradox.” There are so many immigrants and children of immigrants in Canada – 20 per cent of our population was not born in this country – that no political party can win government without their support.

These two factors make the rise of someone like a Donald Trump or a Marine Le Pen – the nativist French leader who came second in that country’s recent presidential election – less likely in Canada.

But the undercurrents of dissatisfaction are real. Canadian governments must repeatedly and convincingly demonstrate the importance of immigration to economic growth in this country. And they must confront the causes of income inequality and the fears fuelled by it.

Conservatives and progressives will address those priorities in different ways. But they must always keep them front and centre. Canada’s future depends on it.

Source: Immigration, intolerance and the ‘populist paradox’ – The Globe and Mail

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Politicians can’t let another year of hate crimes pass without action – Macleans.ca

2017/06/20 Leave a comment

Not really much insights in this column on the latest StatsCan hate crimes report, nor any particular startling or new recommendations. No real clarity of what government’s acting “forcefully” would entail beyond the Ontario government’s strategy and its emphasis on wider collection of race-based data to inform policy and programs.

The longer-term view shows no clear overall trend: a decline 2009-2011, an increase 2013-15. And no recognition that the recent increase may also reflect a greater willingness to report hate crimes as well as an actual increase.

While any hate crime or equivalent is an abomination, are the numbers really so high compared to the population? How do they compare to other countries?

When racial and religious groups insist discrimination is a hindrance to their success and well-being in Canada, governments must act forcefully to remove this barrier to demonstrate that mistreating someone based on their race or religion is unacceptable in contemporary Canadian society. This display of solidarity from politicians may act as a deterrent to future hate crimes and finally bring down the stubbornly high incidents of hate crimes towards Blacks and Jews, as well as the spike against Muslim Canadians.

Source: Politicians can’t let another year of hate crimes pass without action – Macleans.ca

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Why the Senate is unpredictable — and its independents not so independent: Éric Grenier

2017/06/20 Leave a comment

Good detailed analysis, including voting records of individual senators, by Grenier:

The Senate is gumming up the work of the Liberal government, slowing the process that turns bills into law because the government cannot reliably count on a majority of senators lining up behind it, according to an analysis of votes in the upper chamber.

But the numbers also show this isn’t due to the independent senators named to the Red Chamber by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In fact, these independent senators have voted closely with the government — more often than the “Senate Liberals” cut loose from the party in 2014.

The Senate is currently divided into three groupings: Conservatives, Liberals and an Independent Senators Group (ISG). There are also a few non-affiliated senators, including Peter Harder, the government representative responsible for guiding the government’s agenda through the Senate.

The Conservative senators form part of the party’s parliamentary caucus, along with Conservative MPs from the House of Commons. But the Liberal senators were ejected from that caucus in 2014 by Trudeau, a move aimed at reducing partisanship in the upper chamber.

Though they still caucus together in the Senate, they no longer co-ordinate with their colleagues in the House.

The ISG is formed of senators who left their former Conservative or Liberal caucuses, as well as those put in the Senate by Trudeau as part of the government’s pledge to appoint non-partisan senators nominated by an independent commission.

As the opposition in the Senate, the Conservatives have voted against the government’s position the most often, siding with Harder in just 25 per cent of all 48 recorded votes held since Harder took office. (This includes votes on both government and non-government bills and motions.)

But the swing votes in the Senate have not been the gaggle of independents, but rather the Senate Liberals, who have voted with Harder only 78.5 per cent of the time.

Votes in the Senate

The independents, by comparison, have been much more co-operative. Independents appointed by Trudeau’s predecessors voted with Harder 88 per cent of the time, while independents named by the prime minister have stood with Harder in 94.5 per cent of recorded votes.

This makes Trudeau’s independents — as a bloc — the most reliable votes that Harder can count upon in the Senate.

Senate Liberal swing votes

This bloc is not large enough for Harder to easily steer the government’s legislation through the Senate.

With 98 senators — excluding Speaker George Furey and Jacques Demers, who has been away due to poor health — Harder needs 49 votes to pass legislation when all senators are in the chamber.

In addition to himself, Harder can count on the support of his deputy, Diane Bellemare, and government liaison Grant Mitchell. The independents named by Trudeau increase his vote total to 29.

Adding the six independent senators appointed by past prime ministers who frequently vote with the government bumps that number to 35 — still short of a majority.

So in order to pass legislation, Harder needs most of the votes from the 18 Liberals, making them the Senate’s decisive swing votes.

Source: Why the Senate is unpredictable — and its independents not so independent – Politics – CBC News

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Australia: Dumped Abbott-era changes resurface in Turnbull government’s citizenship bill

2017/06/20 Leave a comment

I had always thought that Australia granted birthright citizenship but apparently it does not, with these further restrictions moving it more distinct than the Canadian approach. Also surprised that citizenship had been granted to children of diplomats – not the case in Canada:

A crackdown on citizenship rights for children of migrants and foreign diplomats is among a number of dumped Tony Abbott-era proposals to have resurfaced in the Turnbull government’s citizenship revamp.

The government says the restrictions are necessary to stop parents using their children’s citizenship “as an anchor for family migration” or to win sympathy in their own migration disputes.

Under the proposed changes, children will no longer become citizens on their 10th birthday if, at any point, they were present in Australia unlawfully or re-entered Australia without a valid visa.

The same will also apply if a child’s parent lacked a “substantive” visa at the time of the child’s birth and was present in Australia unlawfully prior to the birth. That means a child born to parents on bridging visas would not automatically acquire citizenship.

And children born to foreign diplomats will no longer gain Australian citizenship on their 10th birthday.

However, the immigration department confirmed to Fairfax Media that in each case, if one of the child’s parents was an Australian citizen or permanent resident, the child would acquire citizenship in the normal way.

Source: Dumped Abbott-era changes resurface in Turnbull government’s citizenship bill

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IRCC Datasets: What they say about government priorities

2017/06/19 Leave a comment

While preparing a presentation on how immigration, settlement, citizenship and multiculturalism worked together to facilitate integration, I accessed a broad range of the IRCC operational datasets on the government’s Open Data website. Intrigued by what was available and what was not, I reviewed all  227 unique datasets.

IRCC has, to its credit, invested considerable resources in these datasets for both internal and external use, having the fifth largest number of datasets on Open Data (excluding Statistics Canada). Moreover, these datasets are among the most widely used: 11 of the top 25 government datasets downloaded are from IRCC (April 2017).

IRCC demonstrated considerable flexibility and agility in the creation of datasets with respect to the recent wave of Syrian refugees, and the introduction of monthly operational statistics for key programs.

Part of my motivation was to assess the long-standing weaknesses in citizenship datasets, reflecting the relative lower priority of the citizenship program, and make recommendations for improvements.

Not surprisingly, the datasets reflect IRCC’s overall management emphasis on immigration as well as stakeholder demand: permanent and temporary resident datasets are 93.5 percent of the total. The datasets include:

  • Permanent residents (immigrants: economic, family and refugee classes): 110 datasets of 47.6 percent of the total.
  • Temporary residents (Temporary Foreign Worker Program: includes agricultural workers, live-in caregivers and others; International Mobility Program: includes those admitted under international services agreements like NAFTA, those under “Canadian Interests,” primarily under youth work exchange program and spousal employment; international students): 106 datasets or 45.9 percent.
  • Citizenship and passport: Six datasets or 2.6 percent.
  • Settlement services: Nine datasets or 3.9 percent.

IRCC datasets can be divided into four categories: ongoing and published on a regular basis (80.5 percent), archived or historical datasets (16.5 percent) and specialized datasets pertaining to international students (2.2 percent).

The majority are updated annually (54.1 percent), followed by the recent introduction of monthly reports (21.6 percent), quarterly (9.1 percent) and other (15.2 percent). Monthly and quarterly reports focus on operational data: the number of applications, approvals, approval rate and inventory.

Permanent and Temporary Residents

The comprehensive datasets for permanent and temporary residents include information regarding program and category, country of origin (whether processing source area, country of citizenship or country of birth), gender and age. Table 1 summarizes this information with most datasets having several variables (e.g., gender and age).Given the shared federal-provincial jurisdiction for immigration, and the increased and active role of the provinces in selection (i.e., the Provincial Nominee Program), it is no surprise that the majority of permanent resident datasets are broken down by province (52.7 percent), with 31.8 percent at the national level. To assist the planning and programmes of municipalities and service provider organizations for settlement services (integration), ten percent are at the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) level, with a further 4.5 percent at the Census District (CD) level.

In terms of immigration class, over one-quarter are for refugees (27.3 percent), 21.8 percent for economic class, and 1.8 percent for family class, with 49.1 pertaining to all classes.

For temporary residents, who cannot access settlement services, the majority (60.4 percent) are at the national level, 34 percent at the provincial level, and 4.7 percent at the CMA level.

By program, datasets for international students form 23.6 percent, IMP and TFWP each at 21.8 percent and other ten percent, with 22.7 percent pertaining to all programs.

By and large, these datasets are coherent and consistent, with any variation reflecting program needs and a balance between the overall picture and greater detail (e.g., top 10 for refugees, top 20 for IMP or top 50 for students or all (various) countries of birth or citizenship).

However, as shown in Table 2, the main difference concerns age data, with permanent residents focused more on younger immigrants, compared to temporary residents with a relatively greater focus on older workers. The difference in age cohorts between all permanent residents and those admitted under Express Entry likely has a policy justification. However, it is hard to understand the policy rationale for settlement services using the temporary resident breakdown given that only permanent residents can access these services. IRCC may wish to review whether there is a need for greater consistency and coherence regarding the age cohorts.

Citizenship, Passport and Settlement Services

There are only six datasets for citizenship (including one for passport) and nine for settlement services (three general, six for refugees). This reflects a number of reasons:

  • Citizenship has always been a secondary priority for IRCC at both the political and official levels. The program is under-funded and under-managed, as seen in the large and repeated fluctuations in the number of applications and new citizens, in sharp contrast to the number of new permanent residents which is more tightly managed to deliver on the annual levels plan (Chart 1);
  • The provinces have no role in citizenship and thus no data demands. Immigration stakeholders have limited interest in citizenship as they focus on immigration and refugee issues;
  • Passport is a new program to IRCC (previously was with Global Affairs Canada), with similarly low interest with outside stakeholders beyond basic operational data; and,
  • Service provider organizations (SPOs) and others that are interested is settlement services data have a wide range of useful permanent resident data that assists them in planning and operations. IRCC has responded to the needs of SPOs by providing general refugee settlement datasets as well as specific ones for Syrian refugees.

Table 3 lists these datasets:

Moreover, these are more limited than other datasets. Annual permanent and temporary resident provide ten year data, adequate to assess trends and changes. In contrast, annual citizenship data covers only five years, settlement services data only two years and passport processing data is not even presented on a full-year basis, making it impossible to assess trends and the impact of policy and program changes. Citizenship datasets are even more limited with no gender and age breakdowns.

They are also updated less frequently than other datasets. Monthly datasets for permanent and temporary residents and settlement services include April 2017 at the time of writing (14 June); citizenship only until February 2017, and passport until December 2016.

Concluding observations

As noted, IRCC has invested considerable resources in developing and maintaining these datasets. In doing so, it has naturally enough reinforced its main focus on immigration statistics, responding to overall stakeholder interests, with minimal attention to citizenship.

The datasets appear to have grown organically as program changes created needs for new datasets. There appears to be potential to review the number and type to see if some datasets are no longer needed or duplicative (e.g., the introduction of monthly datasets may make quarterly ones necessary, are csv versions needed in addition to xls?).

Another area for improvement with respect to provincial datasets is to ensure that these all include national totals by program, as there is currently some inconsistency (e.g., Transition from Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Status – Quarterly IRCC Updates tables versus the “Facts and Figures” series for both permanent and temporary residents).

Other areas for improvement at the Open Data level include, particularly those that are likely within IRCC control:

  • Order the dataset groupings alphabetically as it currently appears random, with related sets not grouped together;
  • Review grouping titles for clarity, particularly “Quarterly Updates” as the vast majority of datasets listed are a mix of annual and quarterly data;
  • Review all data set titles for consistency (e.g., temporary resident facts and figures are numbered, permanent residents are not; set a standard sequence: program/category then geography, then specific variables such as gender, age, education etc.; inclusion or not of ‘Canada’ in title; indicate specific immigration class if appropriate);
  • Advocate with other departments for a wider field for data set descriptions (appears to be only 37 characters) to make these more readable and shorten the wasted space of the titles for other fields (type, format, language, links);
  • Advocate for more than 10 dataset groupings per web page to minimize clicks.

My particular focus, however, is with respect to citizenship.

The lack of attention to citizenship, seen operationally in the wide swings of application and new citizens, requires greater management focus and attention. While IRCC has been very helpful in the provision of special runs, more comprehensive citizenship datasets on Open Data are needed. IRCC should ensure a minimum degree of consistency with permanent and temporary resident datasets that would help flag operational and policy concerns. For citizenship, passport, and settlement services, these would include:

  • 10-year time series data for citizenship and settlement services;
  • 1947-2016 long-term citizenship data (new citizens);
  • gender breakdown for citizenship (not just for adoptions), passport and settlement services (not just for refugees);
  • age breakdown for citizenship and passport, using the permanent resident age groups; and,
  • monthly citizenship applications by country of birth, not just monthly number of new citizens.

Should resources permit, a number of additional citizenship datasets should be considered to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how well the program is working with respect to integration and reinforcing the immigrant-to-citizen transition:

  • Annual data on the number and percentage of immigrants who have taken up citizenship within six years of landing in order to assess the recent naturalization rate, not the overall one that IRCC cites in its performance reports and elsewhere. While a target of 70 percent naturalization within six years of landing is proposed, more analysis might suggest a different target. Having this data collected and reported would inform the establishment of a meaningful performance standard; and,
  • Annual breakdown by immigration class of new citizens and approval rates by gender to assess the impact on each class of citizenship policies.

Given the importance of immigration, settlement, citizenship and multiculturalism to integration of newcomers and their children, good and comprehensive data is central to evidence-based policy making. IRCC has again commendably invested in such data with respect to immigration data but should address the above mentioned gaps in citizenship data to strengthen the management and oversight of the citizenship program.

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What ‘Little Mosque on the Prairie’ Would Be Like Today: Zarqa Nawaz

2017/06/17 Leave a comment

Interesting reflections:

In 2007, with Muslim-Canadians still coming to terms with the changing cultural landscape after 9/11, writer Zarqa Nawaz invited audiences to visit a little mosque on the prairie—and a decade later, the messages in the famed CBC show still ring true.

“The content of Little Mosque on the Prairie is just as relevant as it was 10 years ago,” says Nawaz. “It’s just if I was going to make a show today I would have to take into consideration everything that’s happened since then and I would definitely have a show with a different tone and sense of comedy.”

That change is directly connected to the shift in how Muslims are being treated in Canada. Statistics Canada recently released a study showing a dramatic rise in hate crimes, particularly those against Muslims. Between 2014 and 2015, police reported a 61-percent increase in crimes specifically targeting Muslims.

…Nawaz says that the anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and anti-Muslim sentiments were happening when Little Mosque on the Prairie was in production and became part of the show. For instance, in reaction to sports leagues banning hijabs from the soccer pitch, the show created an episode where one of the main characters is not allowed to participate in a curling match because of her headscarf.

“We were sort of mimicking what was happening around us at the time, like the fear of ‘The Other,’ and trying to break it down through story,” says Nawaz.

A picture of the Muslim crowd sitting on the ground at the mosque from Little Mosque on the Prairie

(PHOTO: CBC STILL PHOTO COLLECTION/WESTWIND PRODUCTIONS)

If Little Mosque aired today, she says the same approach would apply, but the overall feel would need to be different, largely because of the way social media has changed how people talk about and react to the news.

“Things are moving fast, people react faster, people get angrier faster and you would have to have sort of that pace and that tone and the energy in that show,” she says, adding that thanks to how connected the world has become, Little Mosque is still being discovered by new communities around the world and particularly by those in Muslim-majority countries.

One scene that Nawaz would’ve wanted to dig into if Little Mosque was still on the air would be, of course, the U.S. election. When Stephen Harper was campaigning for prime minister, Nawaz says she remembers seeing her community become far more politically active “because they realized that their survival was at stake and they couldn’t just sit back on the sidelines and be spectators, they had to become involved.” What that meant was engaging with other minority groups who had a stake in the election, such as First Nations communities. If she was to create an episode that dealt with the recent U.S. election of president Donald Trump, she says she would show a similar sense of different minority communities coming together. She would also add in new characters.

“I mean the show would be more about people who are politically engaged,” she says. “I think that those stories would probably dominate and the stories about the rise of these fascist, racist groups in Canada and the United States would have to be part of it, and maybe even a character who’s part of that.”

Nawaz says that she would also include scenes where in reaction to the growing Islamophobia, the mosque community would participate in more civic engagement. In her local community in Regina, Sask., she’s seen this in action and calls it the “silver lining” to a very dark cloud. For instance, in Ontario, Mississauga’s Muslim community recently invited the public to join them for Ramadan Iftar, the breaking of the sacred fast. This level of engagement in the local community and outreach is a new drive, according to Nawaz, in an effort to counter people’s misperceptions and fear of Muslims.

“I feel that there’s much more, we have to go out, we have to participate and we have to be seen as people who care,” she says.

If Little Mosque aired today, it would also require a shift from what Nawaz describes as a “gentle” comedy with no swearing or racy scenes to something a bit grittier because of the recent shooting at Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec, a tragedy she says shows that Canada is not immune to the repercussions of President Donald Trump and anti-Islam sentiments.

“If I was to do it again, it would have to be much more cutting, much more deliberate,” she says, adding that she would create episodes that deal with the anger on both sides of the divide. “I would have to deal with overt racism in a much more direct fashion because that’s what’s happened.”

However—though times have certainly changed—at its core, Nawaz says Little Mosque would remain a show less about religion and more about people. “I remember kind of realizing that after a while because I was struggling to find Muslim-related topics and it was getting harder and harder with every season cause you kind of exhaust all that and then you realize, it’s just a story about relationships between human beings who happen to be Muslim.”

Source: What ‘Little Mosque on the Prairie’ Would Be Like Today – FLARE

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Uber: Diversity Chief Bernard Coleman Speaks in Interview | Time.com

2017/06/17 Leave a comment

Not the easiest job in the world:

Bernard Coleman jokes that his first week on the job at Uber was all he got as a “honeymoon period.”

He had logged little time as the company’s new head of diversity this January — the same job he did for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — before the hashtag #DeleteUber began trending. But while that PR firestorm (related to Trump’s controversial immigration order) was the start of months of tumult for the company, it was also proof to Coleman that he had chosen the right gig following an intense election. “The only difference between Uber and a campaign is campaigns end,” he says.

TIME spoke to Coleman in late May for a feature on diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley, and while he declined to comment on the investigation into Uber’s workplace practices being carried out by former Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm, he did talk about his own assessments of the company. Though Uber has acknowledged, repeatedly, that parts of its culture are “broken,” Coleman says the culture isn’t as “toxic” as it often appears in the media: “I don’t think could get this big or survive if it were so toxic. It would destroy itself.”

…Do you think the amount of scrutiny that Uber has been getting for diversity issues is fair?

No. … On the campaign, we had to contend with [scrutiny]. As we’d scale, people would say, ‘Look at them, they didn’t move the needle at all.’ It’s like, if you look at how we’re scaling and how difficult it is to even maintain your diversity numbers, let alone increase them … It can be disingenuous, in terms of understanding.

So moving the percentages becomes difficult.

More and more difficult. I wish people would call that out. But I understand we should do better, and Silicon Valley has been known for not doing so well. Working here at Uber, I think we can do better.

The industry as a whole has gotten a lot of scrutiny on diversity and inclusion issues. Why do you think that is?

For one, you have these talented and smart people and they’re solving all these other things and creating these wonderful innovations, products. You would think they could solve for this, if they put some of their effort into it … And I really do think it’s about scale. You start off with a small thing where you’re working on a product and that’s where all your focus is … If we need to get this thing launched or hit this city, that’s the priority. If my thoughts are on that, those other things fall by the wayside … You think of it as — I’ll get to that, I’ll get to that. And next thing you know, it’s a much bigger thing than you could have anticipated. And I don’t think it’s unique to Uber or Silicon Valley. I think it’s a general problem.

….One thing some tech companies have struggled with is that, inadvertently or not, they’ve turned out to be places where young white males have a better chance of success. Has Uber’s culture been that way?

If it’s built that way, in the beginning, if you’re a venture capitalist, and you’re a small group, then you suffer from culture myopia. You can’t see it. [Unless] you expand your circles, you’re not going to understand or fully appreciate how that culture is impacting others … That is why Silicon Valley is structured that way, just because when it first starts, maybe that core group is not extremely diverse. So we’re all sharing the same world view, and I’m not going to see the issues a black person or a woman might encounter, because it’s just not my reality.

….In terms of Uber’s first diversity report, released in March, what did you see as the most promising numbers and the most troubling numbers?

I was surprised that our women levels were that high … It’s 36.1%. We’ve got 13.9% to get to at least parity. So obviously there’s way more to do, but that was a happy surprise. Then our diversity numbers were like 50% people of color. Even though it’s over-indexed in some areas, that still was very surprising. Another one was our African-American numbers were actually much higher than [other companies in the tech industry] … I would like to see more women and people of color in leadership. That’s one thing that’s critically important, trying to build leadership pipelines to help folks.

Based on your assessments so far, what are the biggest challenges for women working at Uber?

Just feeling safe and supported. You want to know there are opportunities. You want to know you’re going to invest in me. You want to make sure I’m advancing. It’s called promotional velocity, that I’m getting promoted at the same rate as others, so that when I look to my left and my right at my peers, we’re in the hunt. … I don’t think [it’s any different for women than for men]. I just think it’s different levels and intensity. People of color, same things. Everyone’s feeling the same things.

Source: Uber: Diversity Chief Bernard Coleman Speaks in Interview | Time.com

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Toronto: Gender, racial diversity part of city’s tech push

2017/06/17 Leave a comment

Interesting approach that sends a message:

Mayor John Tory says he and other Toronto city officials are less likely to attend tech and innovation events if they feature all-man panels and programming with little ethnic diversity.

Tory made the pledge Thursday at the “Women founders and leaders in technology” event, part of the #MoveTheDial initiative aimed at increasing female participation and leadership in Canadian tech.

“Our city is home to a diverse array of talent that must be represented in the events and programming we put on for each other and for the world. . . ,” Tory said. “Diversity and inclusion are a huge part of our value proposition and I will be supporting and championing those events that help build that reputation at home and globally.”

In written responses to the Star after the event, Tory said he, his “advocate for the innovation economy” Councillor Michelle Holland, economic development chair Councillor Michael Thompson and others at the city will “prioritize” the many events they attend based on the gender and ethnic balance of people being presented.

He said he came up with the idea himself after observing many such events and speaking with people including Jodi Kovitz, founder of #MoveTheDial who was part of his trade delegation last fall to Israel.

“Many rooms contain almost all men in large crowds,” Tory said. “We will try to look at diversity overall in our selection of events with an emphasis on gender since that seems to be the bigger challenge.

“By doing this we are asking everyone to be intentional about the public face we put on our events and our conversations about tech. Our city is diverse and that should be reflected.”

California’s Silicon Valley in particular has been criticized for a “tech bro” culture populated by male, mostly white coders who, when they strike it rich, invest in other startups run by people who look mostly like them.

Source: Gender, racial diversity part of city’s tech push | Toronto Star

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As homelands devastated, Indonesian tribe turns to Islam – The Jakarta Post

2017/06/17 Leave a comment

Parallels with Canadian Indigenous peoples and Christianity?

Indonesian tribesman Muhammad Yusuf believes his conversion from animism to Islam in a government-supported program will eventually make his life easier.

“Thank God, the government now pays attention to us; before our conversion they didn’t care,” says Yusuf, the Islamic name he has adopted.

Yusuf is a member of the “Orang Rimba” tribe. His small community now gathers around a stilt-mounted wooden hut, while children inside wearing Islamic skullcaps and hijabs enthusiastically recite the Koran.

Not far away, other members of the tribe who remain faithful to the old ways stalk through palm oil trees in a desperate hunt for prey in an area that was once lush Sumatran rainforest.

Stick-thin and wearing only loincloths over their weather-beaten skin, they brandish homemade rifles as they search for their next meal.

Yusuf’s group converted to Islam, the predominant faith in Indonesia, and gave up their nomadic ways in January in a bid to improve livelihoods that have been devastated by the expansion of palm oil plantations and coal mines into their forest homelands.

Authorities insist the move is positive but critics say it amounts to a last throw of the dice for indigenous groups driven to desperation by the government’s failure to properly defend their rights against rapid commercial expansion.

Indonesia is home to an estimated 70 million tribespeople, more than a quarter of the total 255-million population, from the heavily tattooed Dayaks of Borneo island to the Mentawai who are famed for sharpening their teeth as they believe it makes them more beautiful.

But as a nomadic group, the Orang Rimba — whose name translates as “jungle people” — are a rarity.

Source: As homelands devastated, Indonesian tribe turns to Islam – National – The Jakarta Post

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A whole lot of people owe Kellie Leitch an apology | Furey

2017/06/17 Leave a comment

Anthony Furey defends Kellie Leitch and wants her back in the limelight? Suspect most conservatives do not:

So keep an eye on Scheer’s secret agenda. Those are the pearls they’ve instructed us to clutch as we head out to the summer BBQ circuit. Good to know.

However, I can’t help but feel that one poor soul has been badly served by this shift in the liberal media narrative.

I mean, here’s Scheer getting front-page headlines as public enemy number one and, all of a sudden, former leadership candidate Kellie Leitch is persona non grata.

All during the leadership race, the Ontario MP and revered surgeon was getting constant attention from the media elites as a big threat to Canada, and now she’s not even worth a mention.

Last year, Leitch advocated screening prospective immigrants for “Canadian values”. She made clear from day one what she meant by this was that Canadian pluralism means respect for women’s rights, gay rights, ethnic and religious diversity and other such progressive notions.

Not a bad idea, I thought. A sizable majority of Canadians across the political spectrum liked it too, polls showed.

We welcome thousands of people to Canada every year that come from cultures that have very different social norms, such as the criminalizing of homosexuality.

It’s just common sense to tell them how things work here. Northern European countries already do this and Australia is expanding its own values test.

Yet somehow my colleagues in the liberal consensus media could see into Leitch’s soul and knew her true intentions were the exact opposite of her words.

Even though Leitch said, for example, that diversity was important, she actually meant, they assured us, the opposite.

Now I get that Leitch lost, but it’s still odd that she’s completely disappeared from the liberal media hit list and now the previously harmless Scheer has taken her spot as top ogre.

Maybe the liberal-friendly media never truly believed the, er, psychic insights they discerned about Leitch and spoon fed to their audience.

Maybe it was just because they always need to find a conservative to cast as an evil villain, regardless of the facts.

And if that’s true, a whole hell of a lot of people in the liberal media owe Kellie Leitch a very big apology for playing this dirty game on her.

Source: A whole lot of people owe Kellie Leitch an apology | FUREY | Columnists | Opinio

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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