Australia: Matt Canavan quits cabinet over Italian dual citizenship | The Guardian

2017/07/26 Leave a comment

Yet another dual citizen discovered in Australia. Like the other cases, the member in question wasn’t aware of his other nationality.

It is another example of the problem with C-24’s revocation provision for dual nationals convicted of terrorism (repealed under C-6), as it would have also applied to those with no knowledge of their dual citizenship or their potential to acquire:

The resources minister Matt Canavan has quit the cabinet because he is is a dual citizen of Italy.

Canavan’s resignation on Tuesday night follows the recent resignation of two Greens senators, Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam, because of dual citizenships – a controversy that has triggered questions about the eligibility of many other Australian parliamentarians.

Canavan told reporters on Tuesday night his mother had applied for Italian citizenship on his behalf without his knowledge or consent when he was 25 years old, in January 2007.

He said he had “no suspicion” he was in possession of a dual citizenship until last week, when his mother “raised the possibility”. The Italian embassy subsequently confirmed he was a citizen of the country.

“I was not born in Italy, I have never been to Italy and to my knoweldge I have never set foot inside the Italian consulate or embassy,” Canavan said.

“I knew my mother had become an Australian citizen, but I had no knowledge that I myself had become an Italian citizen, nor did I request to become an Italian citizen”.

The attorney general, George Brandis, said preliminary legal advice to the commonwealth suggested there had been no breach of section 44 of the constitution in Canavan’s case.

Brandis told reporters given Canavan had no knowledge about his status as a dual citizen, and the “legal uncertainty” surrounding the issue, the government would refer the issue to the high court for deliberation.

Australia’s constitution bars dual citizens from eligibility for elected office, unless they can show they have taken reasonable steps to sever foreign ties.

Canavan said he was seeking advice about whether the registration of his Italian citizenship by his mother was valid under Italian law.

He said on the basis of the government’s legal advice, he would not quit politics or the parliament before the high court’s deliberations.

Source: Matt Canavan quits cabinet over Italian dual citizenship | Australia news | The Guardian

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History’s lessons on dealing with Canada’s neo-Nazi groups

2017/07/26 Leave a comment

Interesting bit of history regarding a number of anti-Nazi events: the 1965 Allen Gardens riot and the 1933 Christie Pitts clash, and less violent protests during Quebec neo-Nazi Adrien Arcand’s Toronto visit in 1938.

The recommendation not to give neo-Nazis publicity (oxygen), while sound, is unrealistic given competing passions, mainstream and social media coverage:

Beattie [leader of Allen Gardens neo-Nazis] didn’t turn out to be that person, however. Even though he continued to hold rallies in the park, his movement fizzled out, partially because he wasn’t actually all that dynamic or novel, and was—as historian Frank Bialystok points out—a terrible orator. The numbers he led were small, and the best publicity he got was the media coverage and public dismay that such horrific events could be happening in Toronto the Good. Judge Sydney Harris, notes Bialystok, said that if the Jewish community had ignored the neo-Nazis from the outset, the movement would have died.

There was some upside to the Allan Gardens riot; Bialystok argues that, even though the incident is rarely remembered as any kind of turning point, it actually marked the birth of a new collaboration between Jewish communities that were previously divided, roughly according to when they had immigrated—prior to, or after the war. But, today, whether we’re dealing with actual neo-Nazis or merely street-fighting western chauvinists, there are perhaps wiser lessons to be drawn from 100 years of dealing with extremist groups in Toronto. Four thousand people turning up at Allan Gardens in 1965 only amplified the neo-Nazis’ message; 12,000 people showing up at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1938 helped to drown out the hate being spewed at Massey Hall.

It’s not wrong to be concerned about the extremist movements cropping up. But we have to be careful not to give these attention-seekers the megaphone: they’ll only use conflict to amplify their message. The answer, instead, is to drown them out by making broad coalitions and working together towards education, truth and reconciliation, social equality and representative democracy. It worked in 1938—and it can work again.

Source: History’s lessons on dealing with Canada’s neo-Nazi groups – Macleans.ca

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From ISIS-Lands to the Netherlands: Jihadists Try to Get the Press to Help Them Come Home

2017/07/26 Leave a comment

Thoughtful discussion of some of the issues with respect to returning Daesh  and other fighters:

Now that the self-proclaimed caliphate of the so-called Islamic State is falling apart in Syria and Iraq, many European jihadists are looking for ways to come home—and some of the Dutch ones have been reaching out to the media, hoping it will save their lives.

Just last week two fighters contacted TV shows in the Netherlands to announce their return to Dutch soil, a third contacted the police.

The grim irony of such a ploy is obvious. Many would-be holy warriors from European backgrounds have been associated with organizations that took journalists hostage, ransomed some, tortured and beheaded others. When they thought their groups were on a roll, jihadists bragged to their Western enemies “we love death as you love life.” And all too many times in France, Britain, Belgium, and Germany they have slaughtered innocents by the score.

But the three from the Netherlands are part of a group of 10 presumed jihadists who have criminal court cases pending against them. Dutch public prosecutors believe most of them are still to be found in what’s left of ISIS-land. After a Rotterdam court recently decided they could be present at their hearing, their trial was postponed until January 2018, allowing them time to return.

A 22-year-old Dutch-Moroccan rapper known to the court as Marouane B. is one of the potential returnees. He says he is en route back to the Netherlands and a few days ago posted a rap about his intended return, singing, “I will come back one day, mama, don’t worry… I am fleeing.” (The video has since been taken down.)

In a phone call to Dutch News RTL, Marouane refused to say whether he is affiliated with ISIS or not. “I had expected to be a change factor in the civil war by fighting [Syrian dictator Bashar] Assad,” he said. “That didn’t succeed, because the world is siding with Assad, at least that’s what it looks like from here, and I always had the intention of returning after the war.”

In a similar interview, a Dutch postman turned Islamic convert turned Islamist, Victor Droste, spoke to the Dutch TV news program 1 Vandaag via Skype. Droste admitted he’d been at the front, but refused to say whether he had been fighting. He fervently denied being part of ISIS, but he looked the part, and had been publicly advocating his support for Sharia and Islamism in the year before he left the Netherlands in 2013.

The Dutch government made conscientious attempts to inform the alleged jihadists about the trial via social media like Facebook and through their relatives. The efforts didn’t fail, but they are just the beginning of awkward attempts to address what could be an enormous problem.

An estimated 300 Dutch men, women, and children are known to have traveled to the Middle East to join the ranks of various jihadist organizations, including ISIS.

European Union counterterrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove has warned that the EU as a whole will be hard-pressed to deal with some 1,500 to 2,000 fighters who may try to return as ISIS is driven out of its strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa (PDF).

Different countries are addressing the problem in different ways. According to French intelligence sources, Paris has deployed special operations forces on the ground in Syria to hunt down and kill French jihadists who could pose a threat if they return.

The latest figures from the National Dutch Terrorism Prevention Coordinator (NCTV) tell us that as of June this year, 190 who left the Netherlands managed to join ISIS, and 50 returned. Some, at least 45 jihadists, died. But most of the survivors find themselves now cornered in a flailing wannabe state, a far cry from the heroic caliphate they had been dreaming of, and death has proved less appealing when it becomes palpably real.

With the jihadists’ stories trickling in, the Dutch security services try to gauge the security risk involved if they return. Even if the men are found not guilty of participation in war crimes and/or membership of a terrorist organization, which is unlikely, they are still suffering from PTSD. Letting them loose on the society they rejected would be risky business, and not just for the Netherlands.

“We have a responsibility toward other countries, too,” says Daan Weggemans, a terrorism expert attached to Leiden University who also serves as an expert witness in terrorism court cases. “Our focus tends to be on Dutch returning jihadists, but security is all about the broader picture. The idea that Dutch jihadists would only return to the Netherlands is not right.”

Jihadists are rarely stopped by borders, and certainly not by the open frontiers on the European continent, where they can take advantage of lax security in one place to stage attacks in another.

Exchanging information among security services is crucial, says Weggemans, but there are holes. Libya, for instance, is a major route for people pouring into Europe, but hardly keeps track of who is who, and there is considerable traffic back and forth. The bomber who wrought such carnage at a teen concert in Manchester, U.K., earlier this year was a Briton with extensive ties to family—and to ISIS—in Libya.

Foreigners who would come to the Netherlands with a stream of refugees might be a risk, says Weggemans, but so are jihadists who are in touch with, say, the nephew of a friend, and end up virtually invisible to authorities in an apartment here. “Those are the returnees that I worry about,” he says.

Islamist men returning from war are a major security risk. But then what are we to do with returning wives and children? After a serious amount of brainwashing they are hardly reliable candidates for free-spirited, democratic society. Differently put, how is any person who has actively supported people who put severed heads on spikes in town squares or gays being thrown off tall buildings going to deal with, say, two men kissing in the street in Amsterdam? Or mini skirts, or the notion of equal rights for women, for that matter?

Making policy on returning children poses yet another challenge. An estimated 80 children with a Dutch background are in Syria and Iraq, with ISIS or other jihadist groups, according to the April report of the Dutch National Security Service. Fifty percent are 9 years old or older and half of them are boys.

“With the minors there is also a big element of concern,” Weggemans explains. “They could have seen or done terrible things and were possibly trained a certain way. We know quite a bit about it and such information is very important if you start to help these children… You know that some were too young to be involved, others were educated there, girls were veiled, boys in training camps. We have to think about what we do when kids come back.”

So far, the Netherlands has been spared terrorist attacks. That may in part be because of internal policy, our relative insignificance, or dumb luck. Nobody knows precisely why. But the quiet to date holds no promise for the future. As in every other country, an attack on Dutch soil could happen any moment.

“I know it’s been said many times before, but we have to acknowledge that we won’t be able to prevent all attacks.” Weggemans tells The Daily Beast. Even if you have very active security services, you simply can’t keep track of everyone.

But the challenge of the moment is what to do with those who identify themselves and ask to be treated with mercy in a liberal society after the failure of the fanatical caliphate they longed to establish.

Source: From ISIS-Lands to the Netherlands: Jihadists Try to Get the Press to Help Them Come Home

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Man tied to $1K reward for videos of Muslim students praying charged with hate crime

2017/07/26 Leave a comment

Valid charge:

Peel Regional Police have charged a Mississauga, Ont., man, who earlier this year posted a YouTube video offering a $1,000 reward for recordings of Muslim students during prayer, with a hate crime in connection with “numerous incidents reported to police.”

Kevin J. Johnston, 45, was arrested Monday and charged with one count of wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group under the Criminal Code Section 319 (2). The charge follows “concerns over information published on various social media sites,” police said.

The investigation took place over a five-month period, said Sgt. Josh Colley, and wasn’t tied to one specific incident but rather “multiple incidents that the investigators were looking at.”

“It’s not a private message that he was conveying, it was a public message … Anyone could hear, understand the messaging, so that’s where the communicating hateful messages comes into play,” Colley told CBC Toronto.

“The group that was targeted was the Muslim community,” he said, adding the incident “affects us all.”

Earlier this year, Johnston, who runs an online publication called Freedom Report, posted a YouTube video offering a $1,000 reward for recordings of Muslim students at Peel Region schools “spewing hate speech during Friday prayers.”

Spreading anxiety

The video sparked concern among Muslim families and led the Peel District School Board, which serves Mississauga, and the Peel Region communities of Brampton and Caledon, to issue a memo to its administrators, cautioning them to be “extra vigilant” and reminding them that personal recording devices can only be used in schools for educational purposes, as directed by staff.

Source: Man tied to $1K reward for videos of Muslim students praying charged with hate crime – Toronto – CBC News

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Put Muslim characters who don’t need to be ‘saved’ on school reading lists

2017/07/26 Leave a comment

Heba Elsherief on Muslim characters in children’s literature:

As the film industry begins to heed criticisms from places like the “Oscars So White” movement, the advocacy of groups like We Need Diverse Books, with its mission to offer children more books that reflect them and their lives, is making waves in publishing too.

Over the past year, books written by people of colour and featuring multicultural characters made the New York Times young adult best-sellers list.

My research into diversity and literature — specifically representations of Muslims therein — indicates that this isn’t a passing trend. Racialized writers are being charged with writing their own narratives and consumers are indicating their desire to read them.

In fact, education researchers have long touted the benefits of using culturally relevant materials and lesson plans in North American classrooms to reflect a real student body. Students are diverse: they come from different races and religions; their orientations and genders vary. Their reading materials should reflect such diversity.

Teachers hoping to foster inclusivity and equitable practices in their classrooms realize that when schooling speaks to all, it can lead to more democratic spaces and, by extension, a more just society.

But culturally relevant materials are hard to find — not only because culture itself is a complex and nuanced entity but also because the materials themselves don’t typically exist in white mainstream platforms.

Muslim characters often portrayed as victims

Children’s stories either written by Muslim writers or featuring Muslim main characters are typically nonexistent or problematic in their representations of Muslim experiences.

This becomes a problem when it comes to creating a school curriculum that truly reflects our society. Materials available to upper/middle grade and high school English teachers generally reinforce negative stereotypes.

Take, for instance, The Breadwinner (Ellis, 2000), about an Afghani girl under the Taliban who has to dress up as a boy to support her family. It is frequently found on book lists in Canadian classrooms in an attempt to be inclusive. Yet putting the book on such lists misses the mark.

An analysis of the novel reveals its focus as primarily on the real or imagined plight of “othered” females. That is, this novel, along with others like it, divides the world into a typical “us” and “them” model, as defined in 1978 by cultural critic Edward Said. The novel ends up reinforcing the stereotype of Muslim girls as needing to be saved. Therefore, this is not an empowering narrative for young girls.

Plight narratives, such as the one in The Breadwinner, are problematic because they enact a “care ethic” that has been central to the project and history of schooling in the West. It reinforces colonial relations between colonizer and the “inferior,” colonized “other.” In other words, novels written about a “far away victim” that Western readers need to “save” isn’t a very authentic character representation of the everyday experiences for most young North Americans.

In my research interviews, some students report enjoying such literature but feeling confused abut the terrible representations of themselves as Muslim women. These are high level and confusing problems for middle-school children who are still forming their identities. Research shows that young people need to see themselves positively reflected in the books they read.

As well, my research into the responses of young Muslim women to 1000 Splendid Suns (Hosseini, 2007) — another novel about Afghani women treated badly — reveals a troubling trend: Muslim girls reading this novel in Grade 8 classrooms were disturbed by the book.

For example, a student in a Toronto-area school told me that, as someone who wears the hijab, references to the burqa in the novel and the inhumane oppression of Muslim women had her non-Muslim classmates feeling either pity for her or ridiculing her culture. The sad part, she said, was that the book was not at all true to her own experiences as a young Muslim woman in Canada. Instead of enhancing her classmates’ understanding of her, she felt the book contributed to her feelings of alienation.

An exciting solution: Salaam Reads and Saints and Misfits

So, what’s a well-intentioned teacher looking to incorporate culturally relevant and sustaining materials in her classrooms to do? In a time when Islamophobic and racist sentiments abound, how might teachers help to counter the negative and harmful rhetoric and real-life harm that’s being done?

Simon and Shuster’s “Salaam Reads” imprint is an exciting solution. Founded in 2016, it “aims to introduce readers of all faiths and backgrounds to a wide variety of Muslim children and families and offer Muslim kids an opportunity to see themselves reflected positively in published works.”

Saints and Misfits is its first contemporary offering. Published this spring, and written by Toronto-based author S.K. Ali, it is a good fit for educators looking for recommendations on what would be a good book to put on their syllabuses.

The book features the nuanced life, struggles, and joys of a Muslim main character. The main character, Janna, is a 15 year-old who loves Flannery O’Connor, photography and her black pashmina hijabs because it’s her “feel-good colour.”

On a personal level, this book took me back to many of my own experiences as a young woman growing up in Winnipeg’s Muslim community. More importantly, my 13-year-old daughter told me she would love to share it with non-Muslim peers in her literature circles at school.

I don’t mean to imply that Saints and Misfits is the one representative work for the experiences of all young Muslim women. But the book is an excellent choice. And the “Salaam Reads” imprint plans to publish eight other books for young readers featuring Muslim characters. It is a hopeful solution for teachers who endeavour to bring culturally relevant books into their classrooms.

Source: Put Muslim characters who don’t need to be ‘saved’ on school reading lists

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Respecting Indigenous treaties is mandatory in draft rewrite of citizenship guide

2017/07/25 Leave a comment

Look forward to seeing the final version and doing a detailed comparison with previous study guides. Clear shift, as expected, from the current Discover Canada:

Respecting treaties with Indigenous Peoples, paying taxes and filling out the census are listed as mandatory obligations of Canadian citizenship in a draft version of a new study guide for the citizenship exam.

The working copy obtained by The Canadian Press suggests the federal government has completely overhauled the book used by prospective Canadians to prepare for the test.

The current “Discover Canada” guide dates back to 2011 when the previous Conservative government did its own overhaul designed to provide more information on Canadian values and history.

Some of the Conservatives’ insertions attracted controversy, including increased detail about the War of 1812 and a warning that certain “barbaric cultural practices,” such as honour killings and female genital mutilation, are crimes in Canada.

Getting rid of both those elements was what former Liberal Immigration Minister John McCallum had in mind when he said early in 2016 that the book was up for a rewrite. But although work has been underway for over a year, there’s no date set for publication of a final version.

In the draft version, the reference to barbaric cultural practices is gone, as is the inclusion of getting a job as one of the responsibilities of citizenship.

Instead, the proposed new guide breaks down the responsibilities of citizenship into two categories: voluntary and mandatory.

Voluntary responsibilities are listed as respecting the human rights of others, understanding official bilingualism and participating in the political process.

Obeying the law, serving on a jury, paying taxes, filling out the census and respecting treaties with Indigenous Peoples are mandatory.

“Today, Canadians, for example, can own their own homes and buy land thanks to treaties that the government negotiated,” the draft version says. “Every Canadian has responsibilities under those treaties as well. They are agreements of honour.”

The draft guide delves extensively into the history and present-day lives of Indigenous Peoples, including multiple references to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report on residential schools and a lengthy section on what happened at those schools. The current guide contains a single paragraph.

The draft also devotes substantive sections to sad chapters of Canadian history when the Chinese, South Asians, Jews and disabled Canadians were discriminated against, references that were absent or exceptionally limited previously.

The new version also documents the evolution of the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender groups, as well as other sexual minorities. Bureaucrats had sought to include similar themes in the 2011 book but were overruled by then-immigration minister Jason Kenney, with their efforts reduced to a single line on gay marriage.

There’s also an entirely new section called “Quality of Life in Canada” that delves into the education system — including a pitch for people to save money for their children’s schooling — the history of medicare, descriptions of family life, leisure time, effects of the environment on Canadian arts and culture and even a paragraph seeking to explain Canadian humour.

Canadians like to make fun of themselves, the book notes.

“Humour and satire about the experience of Indigenous, racialized, refugee and immigration peoples and their experiences is growing in popularity,” the section says.

The rewrite is part of a much broader renewal of citizenship laws and process that is underway. In June, legislation passed that changed the age for those who need to pass the knowledge test for citizenship, among other things.

Briefing notes obtained separately from the draft copy show nearly every government department is being consulted for input into the guide. But the team inside the Immigration Department didn’t just look there.

They were also taking cues from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, sharing copies of his remarks for themes to incorporate.

One of Trudeau’s often repeated mantras — “Canada has learned how to be strong not in spite of our differences, but because of them” — appears to be paraphrased directly in the opening section of the book: “Canadians have learned how to be strong because of our differences.”

The briefing notes say the guide is to be released to mark Canada’s 150th birthday but elsewhere note that production time is at least four months once a final version has been approved.

A spokesperson for the Immigration Department stressed the importance of the consultations that have gone into the new guide.

“While this may take more time, this broader approach will result in a final product that better reflects Canada’s diversity and Indigenous history, as recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Lindsay Wemp said in an email.

Source: Respecting Indigenous treaties is mandatory in draft rewrite of citizenship guide – The Globe and Mail

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Douglas Todd: Why Canadians need to debate immigration economics

2017/07/25 Leave a comment

A more nuanced critique of immigration levels and policies than most, raising some valid concerns regarding increased housing and congestion issues in our major cities, and the possible impact on per capita income:

Simon Fraser University political scientist Sanjay Jeram is bravely going where few Canadian scholars — and virtually no politicians — dare to go.

In the face of an unspoken taboo against seriously debating immigration policy in Canada, Jeram says the time has come for Canadians to start openly discussing the migration issues they’ve been avoiding.

Housing, employment, urban congestion, the welfare state and training are all affected by Canada’s immigration policies, says Jeram, who has a PhD from the University of Toronto, the city in which he was born and raised.

Instead of Canadians and the media getting worked up about race-related migration issues that Jeram thinks are largely irrelevant — such as the short-lived “barbaric cultural practices” hotline — he astutely urges discussion of the influence of immigration on economics.

‘’The hidden consensus in Canada is we don’t talk critically about immigration. The taboo against discussing it is very real,” said Jeram, who understandably believes Canadians are almost alone in this regard.

“(Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau campaigned on openness to immigrationwithout limits. I have never heard him talk about the potential consequences that immigration has for overcrowding, housing, opportunities for domestic workers or the welfare state.”

Housing is on the top of Jeram’s immigration-issues list, since Metro Vancouver, Toronto and other cities are experiencing an affordability crisis.

The rental and housing markets in Canada’s cities are increasingly shaped, he said, by federal immigration policies, which have tended to bring to Canada two financially opposite groups of newcomers: the wealthy and those with low incomes.

Strong offshore in-migration into Metro Vancouver, including an influx of international students, Jeram said, has “created competition for low-end rental spaces in the city,” which is struggling with a shortage and exorbitant fees.

“There is also pressure on the higher end of the housing market” because of the arrival of many well-off immigrants and foreign investors, he said. “Money from the outside has turned middle-income properties into high-end properties.”

As a result, said Jeram, most of Metro’s millennial generation is being required to financially “stretch beyond the breaking point.” Most do not have pockets deep enough to buy detached homes or even condominiums.

“As a country, we don’t want to discourage foreign investment, but foreign investment in housing is not going to be productive or benefit us in the long run.”

He recommended new housing policies that restrict the “amount of foreign income, which is not produced in Canada, that can be used to purchase properties” in the country.

Since more than four out of five immigrants to Canada move to its major cities, added pressure is not only on housing, but on infrastructure, traffic and transit.

It contravenes human rights law to restrict the mobility rights of anyone in Canada, so Jeram thinks politicians should follow the lead of European nations and create incentives for immigrants and others to settle outside the Toronto and Vancouver metropolitan areas.

The job market is also being affected by immigration, said Jeram, 35, who admires the work of noted Oxford migration economist Paul Collier, a leader in migration, refugee and developing world studies.

Even though a majority of Canadians tell pollsters “immigration is good for the economy,” Jeram said some don’t realize their per capita financial well-being may be shrinking as corporations bring in immigrants to make up for skill shortages.

“Instead of offering internship programs or on-the-job training, they just import new workers from elsewhere. That leads to a smaller piece of the economic pie for host-society workers.”

It should be no surprise, he said, that corporations advocate more immigrants and temporary foreign workers.

“They have no skin in the game in regards to income levels at the low end of the scale. High immigration has no negative impact on them. Only positive.”

Canada’s federal politicians have to be forced to think more carefully, he added, about whether immigration policies are reducing public support for the country’s social safety net.

“The welfare state requires we all pay into it. And some will be worse off to sustain it. There may come a time when the Canadian consensus to support a high-tax society will fray.”

Most Canadians tell pollsters that bringing in more young and middle-aged immigrants who pay taxes will advance the welfare state.

“But it just doesn’t add up, because a working immigrant comes with dependants. And with rising immigration rates, that can become expensive and unsustainable. It’s nothing to do with race. It’s just economics.”

Contrary to conventional North American wisdom, Jeram said, “bigger is not necessarily better” for creating equitable financial well-being. “Most wealthy societies are very small.”

Will Canadians ever again be able to have a fair debate about immigration policy?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Jeram says. “Politically it’s become too much of a hot potato.”

Canada is unusual in the way every major federal political party treads cautiously on immigration, Jeram said. All go out of their way to “placate” immigrant voters that dominate in many electoral ridings in major cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

But if Canadians don’t soon start having rational discussions about the economics of immigration, Jeram said, working-class nativist movements bent on opposing globalization and reducing immigrant flows could quickly rise to the surface, as they have in Europe and the U.S.

Source: Douglas Todd: Why Canadians need to debate immigration economics | Vancouver Sun

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Canada wasn’t — and isn’t — ready for an Indigenous governor general: Robert Jago

2017/07/25 Leave a comment

An overly negative take or a realistic one?

Did Indigenous-origin provincial lieutenant governors such as Ontario’s James Bartlemen make a difference or not?

Jago is correct to note the dangers of assuming that such an appointment signals the end of racism and discrimination, as in his citing of Obama. But do symbols have no value? Can they not contribute to greater awareness and thus lead to some measure of change, or help enable change?:

While it’s good to see these views present in the governing party, and good to see Indigenous MPs free to speak publicly in support of this position, their conclusion — that the appointment of an Indigenous governor general would be a positive symbol of a changing Canada — is wrong.

Sure, an Indigenous governor general would be a symbol, but primary one to non-Natives — to white Canada — and a dangerous one that could derail reconciliation, at that.

Canada might receive its first Indigenous governor general in much the same way that the U.S. received its first black president. When Barack Obama was elected back in 2008, the message to American people of colour was that change was possible and that we’re powerful enough to elect one of our own: a person who knows our struggles and our ambitions, and who can help to pave the way for others.

But while a symbol of hope and change to black America, Obama was also a symbol to many in white America that racism had been conquered. In a 2008 Forbes Magazine article entitled “Racism in America is Over,” Manhattan Institute fellow John McWhorter wrote: “Our proper concern is not whether racism still exists, but whether it remains a serious problem. The election of Obama proved, as nothing else could have, that it no longer does.”

In the same vein, I have no doubt whatsoever that had an Indigenous person been appointed as governor general, Canada’s mostly white commentariat would be falling over themselves to declare that racism in Canada is “over,” too. Especially since, even now, the idea that racism in Canada never really existed is mainstream enough to be given space in a newspaper. In the Vancouver Sun, for example, Douglas Todd recently wrote, “It’s hard to think of a more treacherous single story about B.C. than the one alleging racism is alive and well.”

Racism clearly exists in Canada today, and it is far from over. The week that Payette was named governor general was the same week that Barbara Kentner — a victim of what many Indigenous people see as a racially motivated murder — was buried. At the time of writing, Thunder Bay police has yet to file murder charges in her death (the only charges laid so far have been of aggravated assault).

And while many non-Natives work to downplay the existence of racism in Canada, Kentner’s death, along with that of Colten Boushie in Saskatchewan, and of Cindy Gladue in Alberta, are just a few recent examples of what Indigenous people see as racially motivated killings.

These acts of racism demand urgent action, and signalling to white Canada that the job of reconciliation is done, and racism is over, is not the urgent action required. Instead it is a window dressing: camouflage for a state of affairs that treats Indigenous lives cheaply, and one in which the change that Indigenous people need is no closer than it was under the Stephen Harper regime.

All of the symbolism, none of the power

Unlike in the case of the first black president, the first Indigenous governor general would have no power to make any changes whatsoever. True, some past governors general have been able to highlight or bring greater attention to certain issues, but they can’t direct funding, write policy or introduce new laws. He or she would have all of the symbolism with none of the power.

The Trudeau administration has burdened Indigenous peoples with one symbolic gesture after another. As with the failed inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, these symbolic gestures have stripped important issues of urgency in the imagination of the non-Native public. Changing the name of Langevin block does not restore clean drinking water to one First Nations home; seeing Justin Trudeau in his buckskin fringe acknowledging unceded Algonquin territory does not prevent one suicide. When it comes to “real change” on the ground, this government is short on results.

There will come a time when Canada is ready for an Indigenous governor general, but that appointment should be a capstone to mark real achievements toward equality; not just another symbolic gesture that gives the illusion of progress, while distracting people from the real work we all have to do.

Source: Canada wasn’t — and isn’t — ready for an Indigenous governor general – CBC News | Opinion

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Get ready — Toronto’s next wave of Black voices will be more urgent, strident and radical: James

2017/07/25 Leave a comment

More analysis of the Black Experience Project and potential implications:

Astonishingly, half of Black youths aged 16 to 24 identify racism as the greatest challenge facing the Black community. These are kids born here. In 2011, for the first time, the majority of young Black adults in the GTA were Canadian-born, outnumbering those born in the islands. But instead of building security on top of their parent’s angst, they report anxiety beyond that of their elders.

And still you wonder why Black Lives Matter has such resonance.

Hundreds filled the auditorium of the downtown Y on Wednesday night to receive the report, six years in the making. Black folk interviewed themselves, in depth, 250 questions over two or more hours, each posed to more than 1,500 respondents in the GTA, buttressed by the polling expertise of the Environics Institute.

Findings? No surprises here. The gathering had a vibe of self-prescribed group therapy where victims comfort each other with nodding heads and sighs that breathe, “the story of my life.”

Validation is good, one woman said, providing feedback. “Now I know it’s not just me; I’m not crazy,” she said.

Another summed up the daily toll of racism encountered in a society steeped in the ethos of colonized and colonizer. “It drains you,” she said.

Then she asked the tough question. “How are you getting this information in front of the people who need to hear — so it’s not just us talking to ourselves, telling us what we already know?”

Almost 40 years ago when I took pictures and wrote stories for Contrast Newspaper, the parade of headlines had a numbing sameness: Man beaten by police. Mother says school discriminates. Youth says racism kept him from job.

In the 1980s when I joined with Toronto Star colleague Leslie Papp to examine life in Metro Toronto for Black folk compared with whites, little had changed. In daily interactions large and small, Black folk endured the slings and arrows of outrageous racism.

In 2002 the Star unleashed its study on racial profiling, Black pain and suffering finally received an official stamp of institutional and scientific approval. No one who was serious could deny the reality anymore. Black people were being targeted, harassed, arrested, imprisoned and victimized at a rate three to four times their white neighbours — not because of wanton crimes but for the same misdemeanor and behavior that left white citizens free of censure.

When the Star verified in 2010 what Black youths complained about from my Contrast days — that they are systematically watched, targeted, surveilled, had their movements recorded and “carded” as a matter of police policy — one would have thought the jig was up.

But no, the racism deniers only got bolder and intransigent.

Police chiefs and mayors and citizens defended the most outrageous violation of the human and civil rights of its Black citizens — in the name of a safety no one could identify or specify.

I sat at a police services board meeting and watched my mayor support carding — immediately after Black and white citizens begged the board to please, stop, in the name of God or justice. Former metro councillor Bev Salmon was in tears. Former police board member Roy Williams was near depressed. Desmond Cole renounced his journalism credentials and attempted to shame the bastards into doing the right thing. And they sat there unmoved.

I wept that day — at police headquarters.

I wept many other nights that year as I watched the systematic de-humanization of Black people, across America and the globe.

Why do we matter so little?

Fowzia Duale Virtue, one of the presenters Wednesday night, in a moment of revelation, put her finger on the trigger:

“I’ve been Black in a lot of places in the world. I’ve lived on four continents, lived in 22 countries” and encountered racism “so overt that I didn’t want to spend another” dollar in that place. And she’s experienced the “refreshing welcome of humanity in places without the history of colonization.”

Right here, Black response evolved into Black Lives Matter (BLM) — young, accented in Canadian lilt and vocabulary. Where Dudley Laws and Charles Roach and Black Action Defence Committee (BAD-C) once roamed, BLM occupies. The youths seem more strident, more forceful, direct and impatient and radical.

And some GTA teacher posted or retweeted the sentiment that says BLM is our local terrorist group.

Dude! You should be ecstatic. The alternative will be unrecognizable — more combustible and radical and urgent and disruptive than the 2017 version of BLM.

Consider that the majority of young Black adults is now Canadian born. They have more white friends and connections than their immigrant parents. One might expect their reported experiences in Toronto society would leave them with a more hopeful, less victimized existence. Yet this latest report says:

“Young Black Canadian-born adults are more likely to identify racism as an obstacle they face; more likely to say they experience some forms of unfair treatment because they are Black; and more likely to be adversely affected by these experiences. It appears, therefore, that young Black adults are more impatient with the failure of Canadian society to deliver on the country’s promise of equality.”

That’s what should bother us. BAD-C leads to BLM. What will BLM morph into, if current conditions persist?

Carding had to go because it was just too odious. The disrespect so obvious that regular middle-class folk, Black and white, could see its devilish design. But the racism that’s part of our DNA is so much harder to erase.

Black people have shown they won’t stop pushing for equality. Toronto’s next wave of Black voices will be more urgent, strident, boisterous and radical. You can count on that.

Malcolm X talked about the ballot or the bullet, even as Martin Luther King marched in non-violent protest. One day, the idea of Black Lives Matter as an incendiary terrorist group will be as absurd as calling the Black Action Defense Committee dangerous. Current requests will pale in the face of future demands.

“We are just like everyone else,” Virtue said Wednesday, her form steady, poised, articulate and resolute. “We will fight and demand that our humanity is respected and honoured and received.”

We won’t be able to send these kids home — back to Africa or Jamaica. They are home. What too many of them are telling us — if we open our ears and hearts — is that our beloved Toronto doesn’t feel like home.

We have been warned.

Source: Get ready — Toronto’s next wave of Black voices will be more urgent, strident and radical: James | Toronto Star

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Federal government still battling chronic backlog of appointment vacancies

2017/07/25 Leave a comment

Slow progress. Latest numbers:

More than a year after the federal Liberals launched a new process meant to reduce patronage and increase the transparency of the government appointment process, a huge number of positions remain unfilled — affecting everything from refugee appeals to courtroom delays to the independent watchdogs of Parliament.

The new process, announced in February 2016, was meant to create a more arm’s-length method of filling the roughly 1500 positions to which the government appoints its preferred candidates — at federal agencies, on boards, commissions and administrative tribunals, as well as at the head of Crown corporations. Nearly every such position is now advertised online, and committees sort through applications and recommend applicants with a mandate to improve gender and ethnic diversity.

But the introducton of the revamped process caused appointments to virtually grind to a halt for a year. A CBC study in March found the number of vacancies and expired terms had ballooned to nearly 600 — roughly a third of all positions. Things only started moving again in June, when the government made more than 100 appointments. But a National Post evaluation this week found about 300 remaining vacancies and 150 instances where somebody continues to serve in a job beyond the expiration of their term, with hundreds more expiring this fall.

The effects reach far beyond Parliament Hill. In June, immigrations appeals in B.C. and Alberta had to be scaled back because of vacancies on the boards that conduct hearings. Today there are still 41 vacancies, accounting for almost half the appointed positions.

In May, the outgoing head of the Military Grievances External Review Committee complained it was severely restricted in its ability to review complaints from Canadian Forces members due to vacancies, saying “our men and women in uniform deserve better … I deeply regret that the committee could not do more this year.” Three of the four appointed positions remain empty.

The government brought the same new approach to appointing judges, but it took the better part of a year to staff up the judicial advisory committees that make recommendations. A Senate report in June slammed the government’s sluggish pace in appointing judges , saying it was contributing to the court delay crisis. As of July 1, there were still 49 vacancies across Canada .

Liberal officials have said it just takes time to find the right people, and that the delay is worth it in the long run — particularly when it comes to improving diversity. Statistics provided by the Prime Minister’s Office say that as of mid-June the government’s nominees have been 70 per cent women, 12 per cent visible minorities, and 10 per cent Indigenous.

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