The danger of politicizing race relations: CRRF Chair

2017/08/29 Leave a comment

A somewhat unclear piece by the Chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Albert Lo.

Hard to know if written as a general piece in terms of how to have respectful dialogue, a post-Charlottesville commentary or recent Canadian protests and demonstrations, or a defence for the Board membership of  Christine Douglass-Williams  (see Federal appointee to race relations board under scrutiny for writings on Islam) given its timing and the tenor of the last few paragraphs.

My take on how to have respectful and reasoned debates on immigration and related issues will be coming out shortly in IRPP:

The purpose of the CRRF, as provided in the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Act, is to facilitate throughout Canada the development, sharing and application of knowledge and expertise in order to contribute to the elimination of racism and all forms of racial discrimination in Canadian society.

CRRF’s work, in essence, is to encourage Canadians, irrespective of their racial background or ethnicity, to uphold and honor the human dignity of all our fellow citizens.  Indeed, inherent human dignity is the very central pillar of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We all treasure our rights and freedoms as enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.  Where these rights and freedoms are abridged or encroached upon, even in favour of one right over another, or where the same are subjugated or circumvented for the sake of expediency, convenience or gain, whether financial, sectoral, political or otherwise, all will be worse off in the end, if not immediately. Rights subverted become a precedent for future action, especially politically, so that a retaliatory psyche can well become ingrained into the human rights system.

As individuals and as a society, we need to recognize that human dignity, and the rights that emanate from it, are a sacrosanct principle that ought to transcend politics across the entire political spectrum and we need to ensure that the instruments related to enforcement or promotion of rights remain free of political taint.

As Canadians, we have a shared responsibility to support and respect the rights and freedoms of one another.  To ensure a healthy Canadian society where diversity and inclusion truly flourishes, it behooves all of us to resist the temptation of politicizing the human rights arena for self-serving considerations.

History tells us that when government machinery is exploited or co-opted as a blunt instrument to silence dissent, to advance the rights or benefits of some at the expense of some others or someone, society suffers monumentally for generations to come. Witness the sensationalism, bogus narratives, demonization and hatemongering leading up to and surrounding the Indian Residential Schools, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Komagata Maru incidence, the St. Louis Ship travesty and the Japanese Canadian internment… The list goes on.  History can repeat itself if we ignore the lessons.

Exactly because of their motivation to prevent history from repeating on anyone else in Canada, the NAJC (National Association of Japanese Canadians) negotiated for the creation of the CRRF (Canadian Race Relations Foundation).  They also committed $12 million from their redress settlement, matched equally by the Government of Canada, toward an endowment for the Foundation, not for any self-indulgent purpose, which they are rightly entitled to in the circumstance, but instead for the betterment of all Canadians.

To delineate and ensure its function as an arms-length voice of reason and conscience, the NAJC negotiated for CRRF’s status as a non-agent Crown corporation, of which the Chairperson, directors, Executive Director, officers, employees and agents are not part of the federal public administration.

Human dignity and human rights can only thrive in a society where freedom and democracy is robust and healthy, where freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, etc., is defended and respected for everyone.

In a free and democratic society, no one has a monopoly on the public square.  Every citizen has a right to their opinions, no matter how disagreeable, controversial, unorthodox or offensive others may think, save and except for illegal or violent acts.  Demonization, character assassination and smear campaigns are a direct threat to the sanctity of civil discourse. Self-righteousness does not lessen these dangers but can increase them.

In these challenging times, citizens and government alike must take extra caution and vigilance against the dangers of faulty logic or superficial and simplistic examinations, or giving in to the effects of mass hysteria.

Just because East Asians eat rice, and many North Americans also eat rice, does not make those North Americans all East Asians.  To conclude otherwise is simple fallacy.  But that is exactly what many have witnessed in society today, where conflation of issues is rampant, and imputing motives or guilt by association seems to be the order of the day.

There are various views on difficult ethical and social issues and extremist and special interest groups may try to appropriate them or associate themselves with one perspective. These situations are particularly dangerous to the well-being of civil society where open and objective discussion becomes destroyed by ideologies or political movements seeking gain, turning debate into labelling and name calling. The challenge for all of us is to maintain a space where reason and compromise can still operate without politicization or unhelpful rhetoric.

As an organization dedicated to preserving NAJC’s generous legacy and the Government’s commitment to honoring the redress agreement, we invite you to join us in promoting and growing that legacy as an effective antidote to the many issues revolving around racism and racial discrimination.

Source: The danger of politicizing race relations

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Acknowledging that Canada’s hate groups exist

2017/08/29 Leave a comment

Good assessment and commentary on Canada’s right-wing hate groups by Amarnath Amarasingam and Ryan Scrivens:

The results of a three-year national study published last year — involving interviews with Canadian law enforcement officials, community activists and current and former right-wing adherents, triangulated with analyses of open source intelligence — suggested that the foundations of hatred are complex and multifaceted, grounded in both individual and social conditions that strengthen and weaken the movement. Understanding these conditions, from a policy perspective, will provide us with a starting point to counter right-wing extremism in Canada.

Some of the factors that strengthen the hate movement include: Canada’s history of racism; a political climate of intolerance that arises from time to time (for example, during Quebec’s Charter of Values debate); media (mis)representations of particular minority groups (for example, Muslims depicted as terrorists after 9/11); and a weak law enforcement response to hate groups. In many respects, it is Canada’s national political and social climate that enables bigotry and hatred to exist in the country, a climate that provides right-wing extremists with a backdrop against which they can recruit new members and spread their radical beliefs.

On the other hand, factors that weaken or destabilize this already unstable movement include a general lack of ideological commitment in hate groups and infighting and transiency within them, as well as strong and visible law enforcement response in certain localities, resilient communities and the presence of an antiracist movement. In other words, hate groups in Canada are generally unorganized and lack the ability to strategize and sustain themselves, and law enforcement officials who put pressure on these groups are generally successful at dismantling them. This is particularly the case when antiracist movements and communities work closely with law enforcement and share intelligence on hate groups or their adherents.

It is difficult to know exactly what the policy response in Canada should be to right-wing extremism, but, in general terms, we need to acknowledge that hate groups do exist in Canada and that they do pose a threat to the safety and security of our communities. Coming to terms with this is a first step in developing policy initiatives to resist the radical right. Discussions about counterterrorism or counterextremism policy cannot focus solely on jihadism. The Trump administration has rightly come under criticism for its decision to cut federal funding for organizations that are fighting right-wing violence, such as Life After Hate.

Second, we must directly exploit the strengths and weaknesses that are inherent in hate groups and their environments in order to disrupt their growth and sustainability, through an approach that includes individuals from different sectors of society. In other words, policy initiatives must include the voices of key stakeholders who have unique insight into right-wing extremism, including law enforcement officials, community activists and former right-wing extremists.

Information about Canadian hate groups is fragmented. Law enforcement officials, for example, may have one important piece of information about a particular hate group while community activists or former extremists may have another. Policy initiatives must bring these stakeholders together to develop effective responses to the threat from the radical right in Canada. We mustn’t look at the violence in Europe and the United States and complacently conclude that we are somehow immune. We are not.

Source: Acknowledging that Canada’s hate groups exist

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Douglas Todd: Chinese languages gain ground in Metro Vancouver

2017/08/29 Leave a comment

Further to the StatsCan release (see An increasingly diverse linguistic profile: Corrected data from the 2016 Census Text), Todd delves more deeply into Vancouver data and issues (the Canadian approach has been based upon integration, rather than assimilation, enunciated as early as 1959 – maintaining mother tongues, while knowing one of the official languages, reflects that approach):

Chinese languages are becoming more predominant in Metro Vancouver and across Canada, according to newly released 2016 census figures.

The proportion of Metro Vancouver residents who speak Chinese dialects continues to rise and is now more than double those who speak Punjabi.

With almost one third of new arrivals to Metro Vancouver since 2011 speaking a Chinese language, the total number of residents who have Mandarin or Cantonese as their mother tongue has swelled to 373,000.

That dwarfs the 163,000 residents whose mother tongue is Punjabi, which Statistics Canada says is the second largest “immigrant language” in Metro Vancouver.

An analysis of data released last week from the 2016 Canadian census shows the country’s major cities are developing different characters based on languages spoken — Arabic is the leading immigrant language in Montreal, Tagalog (Filipino) leads in Calgary, and Chinese leads in Toronto and Metro Vancouver.

Of Canada’s major cities, Metro Vancouver has the biggest proportion of residents — 25 per cent — who speak neither English nor French in their homes, with the largest group of them speaking a Chinese “immigrant language,” a term that Statistics Canada uses to distinguishes them from English or French, the languages of the early settlers who established Canada’s public institutions.

Across Canada more than 1.2 million people have either Mandarin or Cantonese as their mother tongue (an increase of 18 per cent in five years), while 543,000 have Punjabi, 510,000 have Tagalog, 495,000 have Spanish and 486,000 have Arabic.

The 13 per cent overall increase in the use of immigrant languages across Canada — to the point where 7.7 million people (22 per cent) speak a language other than English or French in their homes — illustrates how public officials are moving away from expecting immigrants to “assimilate,” says Vancouver statistician Jens Von Bergmann.

“Parents are being encouraged to pass on their mother tongue to their children. Generally, it’s considered great to have a language other than English or French,” said Von Bergmann, who speaks to his young child in his native tongue of German, while his wife talks with their son in her native Mandarin.

Von Bergmann, who has created interactive online maps based on census language data, says that immigrants are more likely to hold onto their mother tongues if they live in places such as Vancouver or Toronto, where large numbers of people speak the same language.

The 2016 census data shows that 1.1 million out of Metro Vancouver’s population of 2.44 million (44 per cent) have a mother tongue other than English or French, though most are able to communicate in English.

However, Metro Vancouver also has the highest proportion of residents who acknowledge they cannot carry on a conversation in either English or French (5.6 per cent of the region’s population, or 138,000 people).

The proportion who can’t speak English or French rises to 11.2 per cent in the City of Richmond, which is the highest ratio of any municipality in the country.

Richmond has for years been the centre of controversy over the expansion of Chinese-language signs, as well as over Chinese-language condo meetings.

While University of B.C. linguist Bonny Norton says Canadians value multilingualism, she cautions that people who do not learn one of Canada’s two official languages are unable to take part in important public “conversations.”

In addition, studies by Canada’s immigration department found that newcomers who cannot speak English or French struggle, with one-third lower earnings than other Canadians.

A Statistics Canada study by Edward Ng also discovered that immigrants with poor skills in English or French are three times more likely to report poor health.

Source: Douglas Todd: Chinese languages gain ground in Metro Vancouver | Vancouver Sun

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In Silicon Valley, data trumps opinion — even with gender parity – Recode

2017/08/29 Leave a comment

Jewelle Bickford, Ellen Kullman and Sandra Beach Lin of Paradigm for Parity make the diversity case:

In Silicon Valley — and in corporate America generally — data trumps opinion, making gender diversity a no-brainer. As the controversy at Google illustrates, turning diversity goals into positive business realities is hard — but it isn’t as hard as one would think, even in Silicon Valley. As with any initiative that improves the bottom line, paying lip service to diversity isn’t enough. You need a plan.

Despite the fact that the tech industry remains overwhelmingly male, Silicon Valley is actually uniquely suited to transform rhetoric into results. For instance, Silicon Valley companies understand that happy employees deliver better business results — and are willing to make the necessary investments. These companies have free food prepared by nutritionists and famous chefs, wellness centers offering employee massages, and even employee housing. Why not add free child care to the nearly endless menu of benefits? When women have support from employers in the form of affordable child care, they are more likely to stay in the workforce and progress to senior leadership roles.

Additionally, engineering is actually a field that is particularly well-suited for women. Engineers often function independently and they are able to do their jobs successfully in or out of the office. The flexibility that engineers get is exactly the type of flexibility that allows women to rise up and reach the highest levels of corporate America — and reach them more frequently.

When we started the Paradigm for Paritycoalition in 2016, we recognized the need for undeniable, measurable results and for clear, implementable steps to get there. While many organizations support gender equality and call for enhanced diversity in the workplace, the Paradigm for Parity coalition is unique in that it outlines a specific set of concurrent actions a company can take to achieve gender parity across all levels of corporate leadership by 2030, including measuring targets and maintaining accountability by providing regular progress reports. Today, we represent 56 member companies with approximately five million employees in every corner of the U.S. and around the world.

Quantitative evidence shows us why diversity is imperative: You can’t have economic growth unless everyone is included. We must work with clearly defined quantitative targets, like those outlined by the Paradigm for Parity coalition, to make diversity in business a statistical reality. In more ways than one, Silicon Valley has succeeded in making the world a better place, and we are confident it can succeed in making it a more equal one too.

Source: In Silicon Valley, data trumps opinion — even with gender parity – Recode

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The bridges Canada must build, right here at home: John Ralston Saul

2017/08/28 Leave a comment

Nice long read on the links between Indigenous peoples and immigration:

To the extent that the Canadian system works, it is on one side thanks to a policy, a department, an expert civil service; and on the other side to tens of thousands of engaged citizens, many of them involved in volunteer organizations. Without one half or the other, the whole system would collapse. Our system has given itself one important psychological advantage – a clear understanding that the primary purpose of immigration is to become a citizen, as fast as possible. The sooner immigrants are citizens, the sooner they can help carry the burden of making society function.

Yet, no matter how successful the Canadian system, it cannot work in the long run if it – we – function in denial of reality. For half a millennium, immigration to Canada has been intimately tied to the Indigenous peoples. They welcomed newcomers for hundreds of years. Their welcome and openness, their support and sharing, shaped what our immigration policy would come to look like at its best. They were betrayed, particularly from the 1860s on. That is why there is growing debate over how to handle the role of historic Canadian leaders in this wrongdoing. One thing is clear, after a long struggle: Indigenous peoples are on their way back to a position of great influence.

We all agree that our system of immigration and citizenship is not perfect. I would argue that its fragility lies in our denial of the central role of Indigenous peoples. That is the original Canadian conversation – between those who were here and those who came. Deep within our reality, it is still the essential Canadian conversation. To deny this is to deny our history, but also our structures of injustice.

We now all know that the bricks and mortar of that injustice is underfunded and below-standard schooling, a dearth of Indigenous-language programs, social programs, medical services, clean drinking water, housing. And much more. We know changes are coming. But too slowly.

We know that evil was done through state schools, the public administration system, policing and the courts. And all of this was enabled by our parliament and provincial legislatures. Apologies have been made. But apologies are neither actions, nor money, nor programs. We talk endlessly about reconciliation. But reconciliation is nothing without restitution.

All these elements represent the as-yet unbuilt bridges necessary for respectful human relationships.

Some Indigenous people do not see themselves as Canadians. Some do. Some see themselves as both Indigenous and Canadian. That is their business. And that is a reminder of how clearly we must reject the Westphalian model, its monolithic mythologies and its 19th-century pastiche imitations of what makes a proper nation-state. So when we talk about diversity or multiculturalism or interculturalism we are talking about an important philosophical difference with standard Western ideas of how societies function. These are not just words or conveniences. They are ideas which can reshape human relationships.

That is why the concept of rivers as the bridges of this place is so important. It is a very different idea of human relationships, which is not based on fear of the other or on the exclusive ideas of difference, or on equally exclusive ideas of oneness. All of this is carefully laid out in Indigenous philosophies, which embrace complexity as central to how human beings embrace their differences and their relationships with each other.

This involves concepts of how humans relate to place, concepts that take us off our controlling pedestal and make us part of the place, with responsibilities rather than ownership as the key factor. Richard Atleo. Read Leroy Little Bear. Read Jean Teillet. Read Taiaiake Alfred. Read Lee Maracle. Read Niigaan Sinclair. Read dozens of other Indigenous thinkers. You will see what I mean. More important, you will see what they mean.

I have written before that the only roots I can find for the degree of comfort in our attitudes toward immigration and diversity are Indigenous. We owe a debt of gratitude for this. And for our comfort with complexity we owe a deep debt of gratitude, in particular to the example set by the Métis Nation and its people. They demonstrated that, with complexity, you can build a civilization.

It is curious. Most of us will agree that great evil has been done; that our apologies were right and necessary. Most of us will agree that the resulting injustices must be faced and dealt with, whatever the cost. More and more we understand that our governments must stop fighting in the courts against justice for Indigenous peoples. And that treaty negotiations must be dealt with expeditiously, and not as if our negotiators were divorce lawyers.

But it doesn’t seem to occur to us that when you owe a great debt of gratitude, one of the first things you do is show respect by saying thank you. That is how bridges begin to be built.

Source: The bridges Canada must build, right here at home – The Globe and Mail

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Coyne: Blame Trudeau? Blame Trump? Truth is there are no easy answers to asylum-seekers

2017/08/28 Leave a comment

One of the better and realistic commentaries on the current influx:

If you are on the right, the sudden flood of asylum-seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border is easily explicable as the inevitable consequence of Justin Trudeau’s online recklessness.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war,” the Hippie King advised his followers in January, “Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.”

Tory immigration critic Michelle Rempel was explicit this week that blame for the border “crisis” “lies solely at the feet” of the prime minister, whose “irresponsible” tweet had given “false hope” to asylum seekers in the U.S.

If you are on the left, the situation is just as easy to explain. It is all on account of Donald Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric has left refugee claimants in the United States in terror that they will be sent back to their countries of origin. The Charlottesville rally of white supremacists, NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan wrote in a letter to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, “further challenges simplistic notions that the United States remains a safe destination for asylum seekers.”

There’s some truth in both notions. Each leader has in his own way signalled a differing level of receptivity to refugee claims. And yet in substantive terms, neither country’s policies have changed much in the interim.

Trump may have imposed, or attempted to impose, a temporary ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, but as the prime minister himself has said, the U.S. domestic asylum system remains “safe, has due process, has appeal rights.”

Of course, if Trudeau believes that, it makes it odd that he should have so ostentatiously contrasted Canada’s “welcome” with Trump’s approach. Especially since it isn’t particularly true. Canada has not thrown open its borders. The rules are unchanged. Asylum seekers are promptly detained by the RCMP on entry; their claims are subject to the usual assessment process, with deportation awaiting those found to be without basis.

Indeed, if either explanation holds, it makes it odd that the “crisis” took so long to develop. You’ll recall when the first asylum-seekers started sneaking across the border in the dead of winter, at great risk to life and health, many people (including me) were concerned that this presaged an enormous, unmanageable surge once the temperatures began to rise. Yet it wasn’t until late summer that the asylum-seekers became a story again. As of June 30, only about 3,000 asylum-seeker had entered Canada from the U.S., not far off usual numbers.

Almost all of the roughly 7,000 asylum-seekers to have arrived since then are from one country: Haiti. The reason for this is quite clear. Allowed to remain in the U.S. on “temporary protected status” in the wake of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, they face probable deportation once the program expires next January.

That’s not unusual: Canada’s own program expired last August. Those who have not applied for permanent residency status have been deported by the hundreds; of those who have claimed asylum, the government reports, one-half to two-thirds have been rejected.

It may fairly be charged, however, that the Trudeau government has not done enough to advertise this to the Haitian community in the U.S., an error the government is belatedly and wobbily seeking to repair. Too late — the Haitians have adopted the same strategy followed by earlier asylum-seekers: crossing the border on foot, rather than by air or sea, and over open country, rather than the usual crossing points.

The explanation for this is by now familiar: were they to cross by the normal routes, they would be promptly returned to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country (STC) agreement between our two countries, which stipulates that refugee claimants must apply in the first country they enter. But that agreement only applies at the official entry points. By crossing irregularly — or illegally, if you prefer — they instead become subject to the usual strictures of Canadian refugee law, under which they cannot be deported without having their claim heard.

This confounding dilemma has prompted its own search for easy answers, none offering the promised escape. On the right, initial demands for the government to “enforce the law” (it is), or to physically stop them from crossing (an impossibility), or “send them back” (the U.S. won’t take them), have subsided into calls for the STC to be expanded, if not to the whole of the border, then to more entry points. But the U.S. would have to agree to that, and so far shows no sign of being amenable.

The left shows no more signs of realism. The primary proposal is for the STC to be suspended, so as to remove the incentive for border crossers to evade the official entry points. But suspending the STC would amount to an open invitation to try your luck on the Canadian refugee process. At worst, you’d spend a few months in the resulting backlog, with the right to work and obtain social benefits in the meantime. And the longer the backlog, the greater the incentive to jump in the hopper.

I don’t want to minimize the situation: there are other groups in the U.S. whose visas will also soon expire, meaning potentially thousands more asylum-seekers crossing the border in the months to come.

At the same time, we should not overstate matters. The country is not being overrun. Those entering are being screened. We can afford to put up a few thousand asylum-seekers until their claims are heard. And even if that sticks in your craw, there isn’t much we can do about it — not unless we are prepared to suspend our own constitutional protections, at risk of sending legitimate refugees to their deaths.

This is difficult to admit: those of us in politics and the media are in the easy answers business. But some problems cannot be solved. They can only be managed.

Andrew Coyne: Blame Trudeau? Blame Trump? Truth is there are no easy answers to asylum-seekers

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Ethnic Outbidding for White People: A Story About Populism in Canada Versus the United States – NYTimes

2017/08/28 Leave a comment

http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/2017/08/23/the-interpreter?nlid=5411894

Not much new but good overview and reminder to NYTimes readers that we too have our dark side:

Breitbart News, the online news site often associated with the alt-right, has grown so powerful that when its former editor, Stephen K. Bannon, lost his White House job last week, it was widely assumed that Breitbart’s influence would only grow.

As this was happening, across the border in Canada, another right-wing media organization known as Rebel Media, which is often compared to Breitbart News, was imploding so severely it was seen as potentially auguring the implosion of Canadian right-wing populism itself.

The shift in Canada reveal something important about one of the biggest stories of the last year, events initially described as a “global populist wave.” Though the wave was later qualified down to just right-wing populism and just in Western countries, it increasingly looks even narrower than that.

The decline of Rebel Media, contrasted with the success of Breitbart, exemplifies something we’ve been saying for a while. The “populist wave” is actually quite specific to individual countries. And, most important, in each Western country where it appears, right-wing populism enjoys support among only about 15 to 25 percent of the population. (Those numbers are based vaguely on a 2016 study by the political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris.)

Whether that fractional support becomes an isolated fringe or a major political power comes down not to anything as fuzzy as culture or values, but to nuts-and-bolts political institutions.

It’s worth running through the sordid details of Rebel Media’s bad week. Faith Goldy, a correspondent, praised Charlottesville’s white nationalist marchers in a live video from the scene. Her video referenced “white racial consciousness” and the “JQ,” shorthand for the “Jewish question.”

A national backlash eventually led the site’s founder, Ezra Levant, to fire Ms. Goldy. But something had changed, maybe for good, with Rebel Media’s place in Canadian politics.

Conservative politicians openly denounced the organization. Andrew Scheer, the leader of the Conservative party, said he wouldn’t give Rebel Media any more interviews until it changed its “editorial direction.”

High-profile staffers and contributors quit. One, Caolan Robertson, released a video accusing Rebel Media of exploiting its supporters for donations it didn’t need. Mr. Robertson also accused Mr. Levant of offering him money to keep quiet. (Mr. Levant has accused Mr. Robertson of attempted blackmail.)

But Canadian journalists see broader forces at work. Jonathan Kay, in an article for The Walrus, wrote that Rebel Media failed in its mission to become the American Fox News or Breitbart because, in Canada, “structural barriers make the creation of this kind of conservative ecosystem impossible.”

Americans generally understand that politics work a bit differently in Canada, but wrongly assume Canadians are simply predisposed to be more liberal. In fact, those “structural barriers” against right-wing populism are more technical, and less particular to Canada, than you might think.

Amanda explained those structural barriers in an in-depth article this summer. The short version: Canadian politicians and civil society groups spent two generations engineering their political system to be highly tolerant of diversity and highly intolerant of something called ethnic outbidding.

Stephen Saideman, a political scientist and friend of the column, has defined ethnic outbidding as “when politicians compete for the support of a particular ethnic group, leading to ever greater demands to protect that group at the expense of others.”

This process can turn politics into a zero-sum competition between ethnic groups who come to see one another as threats. Right-wing populism, in the West, can often function as a kind of ethnic outbidding for white people.

If you want to know how Canada did this and why so many other diverse countries have failed, read Amanda’s story. Of course, we’re not denying that racism and right-wing populist politicians exist in Canada. Rob Ford became Toronto’s mayor after running on a populist platform. But, compared to the rest of the West, the country stands out for its resistance to populism. (And even Mr. Ford cultivated a multi-ethnic voter base.)

That resistance happens through institutions, and you see them working, for example, in Mr. Scheer’s disavowal of Rebel Media. Before any liberal readers rush to award Mr. Scheer a medal of courage, you should know that he was acting within his immediate political interests.

Political norms in Canada are unusually intolerant of overt white nationalism, which has strong and increasingly open support in the United States and much of Europe. The country’s electoral and legislative systems make it very difficult for a party to win power without heavy support from racial minorities.

And Rebel Media’s power, even before this week, was waning. This spring, when some politicians embraced Rebel Media, seeking to reproduce populists’ successes elsewhere, those candidates instead found defeat.

This summer, when reporting for Amanda’s story, we visited a Rebel Media conference in Toronto. Though we had only stopped by for the day, it was clear that this was a movement on the decline.

In a long and thoughtful article on Rebel Media, Richard Warnica of The National Post wrote that Mr. Levant, intentionally or not, is “forcing people to pick a side.”“

Nothing The Rebel did this week, as Conservatives and contributors edged away, was substantially different from what it had done two months ago, or six months ago or last year,” Mr. Warnica added.

What changed is Canada’s conservative establishment, which rejected Rebel Media. That is a marked difference from the conservative establishment in Britain, which embraced populism, or the conservative establishments in the United States and France, which tried to reject populism but instead were overcome by it.

The story of Rebel Media is of course a story of personalities and what unfolded between them. But it is also, like just about every major news story from the last year, a story about institutions.

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Muslims assimilate well in Germany, even though many Germans don’t like them: study

2017/08/28 Leave a comment

Interesting contrasts between Germany and Britain and France:

Muslim immigrants in Germany have an easier time finding a job and building a community than those in Switzerland, Austria, France and Britain.

That’s according to a new study from the Bertelsmann Foundation. The researchers spoke to more than 10,000 Muslims who were either born in Europe or arrived before 2010, which means they did not interview the millions who travelled to Europe from Syria and the Middle East during the recent refugee crisis. In 2015, Germany took in nearly a million migrants and asylum seekers.

There are 4.7 million Muslims in Germany. According to researchers, 96 percent said they felt connected to the country.

About 60 per cent now hold a full-time job, and an additional 20 per cent are employed part time. These rates are similar to those for ethnic Germans, and higher than Muslim employment rates in the other western European countries studied. It’s probably thanks to Germany’s booming economy. “The international comparison shows that it is not religious affiliation that determines the success of opportunities for integration, but the state and the economic framework,” Stephan Vopel, an expert on social cohesion at the Bertelsmann Foundation, told German broadcaster DW.

Muslim migrants do lag, however, when it comes to finding good jobs – they make less money than their German peers. And the most religious Muslims, who often dress differently and require time to worship during work hours, struggle to find employment in Germany. Devout Muslims had an easier time finding employment in the United Kingdom. Bertelsmann Foundation researchers suggested that that was because Britain has done a better job of levelling the playing field for pious Muslims, allowing female police officers, for example, to wear headscarves.

Critics say that the most recent data from Germany’s Federal Agency for Labor paints a less rosy picture. About half of the able-bodied employees without work right now are migrants.

The report also found that 73 per cent of the children born in Germany to Muslim immigrants now speak German as a first language. (Those numbers are high in France, too, as many Muslims came from countries that used to be French colonies.) And 93 per cent of German-born Muslims said they spent free time with Muslims and non-Muslims.

On education, things don’t look quite as good: 36 per cent of Muslim youths leave Germany without having completed any degree. (That number is much lower – about 11 per cent – in France.)

Although Muslims feel welcome in Germany, Germans aren’t always so eager to have them – about 19 per cent of non-Muslims in Germany said they don’t want Muslim neighbours. Those rates were high across Europe – more people said Muslims were their least preferred neighbours than any other demographic category, including foreigners, gays, Jews, people of colour, atheists, Christians and big families. (One exception: In the U.K., those surveyed preferred Muslim neighbours to big families.)

“When it comes to participation of Muslims in society, [it] isn’t as bleak as it is often presented in the media,” Ayse Demir, spokeswoman for the Berlin-based Turkish community organization TBB, told DW. “It shows that a lot of Muslims feel integrated, but there is a lack of acceptance – and that’s also our perception. Participation isn’t a one-way street: It needs to come from both sides.”

Source: National Post

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EU applications for UK citizenship up 80% since Brexit – BBC News

2017/08/28 Leave a comment

Insurance policy – not cheap at £1,282:

Nearly 30,000 EU nationals applied to become British citizens in the 12 months after last summer’s Brexit vote – almost double the number of the previous year.

Home Office statistics show 28,502 such applications between July 2016 and June 2017, up 80% from 15,871 in 2015-16.

The total number of applications, from all nationalities, fell by 8%.

The rise comes as ONS figures showed a fall in net migration – partly due to a rise in EU nationals leaving the UK.

Jonathan Portes, a professor at King’s College London, said: “Historically, immigrants from outside the EU have been much more likely than EU migrants to apply for UK citizenship.”

But the uncertainty over EU citizens’ rights in the UK after Brexit means “many EU citizens living here are seeking UK citizenship, at least as an insurance policy”, he added.

One of the most noticeable changes was among Germans, with applications almost tripling.

Applications from nationals of eight eastern European countries which joined the EU in 2004 rose by 45% to 9,841 – Poland had the highest with 6,179.

EU countries with most applications 2016-17 (% increase from 2015-16): Home Office statistics

  • 1. Poland 6,179 (+43.9%)
  • 2. Italy 2,950 (+166%)
  • 3. Romania 2,713 (+40%)
  • 4. France 2,508 (+168.5%)
  • 5. Germany 2,338 (+193.4%)
  • 6. Bulgaria 1,697 (+43.8%)

The Home Office report said increases in applications from EU nationals in recent years are “likely to reflect immigration in earlier years while the most recent rise may be partly due to the impact of rule changes and recent events”.

The rights of the three million EU citizens living in the UK following Brexit is one of the key issues in the UK government’s negotiations with Brussels.

While there has been a rise in applications from EU nationals, the number from the rest of the world has fallen by 18% in the last 12 months – from 131,266 to 107,410.

Meanwhile, ONS figures released on Thursday showed net migration – the difference between those entering and leaving the UK – fell 81,000 to 246,000 in the year to March 2017.

That was partly because the number of EU citizens who decided to leave the UK increased by 33,000 year-on-year to 122,000 – the highest departure number for nearly a decade.

Source: EU applications for UK citizenship up 80% since Brexit – BBC News

Filed under Multiculturalism

How underprivilege made me a better doctor: Zhou

2017/08/26 Leave a comment

Interesting and pertinent account by Stephanie Y. Zhou of another aspect of diversity: social class in medical school and among doctors:

My family was supported by a homeless shelter before we moved into subsidized housing — the attic near the hospital. Food came from the food bank or soup kitchens. Clothing was second hand from the church donation bins. My parents did not have a university education, but they found jobs as factory workers and on most days, we seemed to have enough to get by.

To me, these were all part of a mundane, normal life, but in the context of privilege, these aspects suddenly became salient as a mark of “underprivilege.” Placed at a school attended by mostly middle-class students, this underprivileged experience became part of my identity, and to be different was incredibly isolating.

This identity of subordinance provided the impetus for me to pursue higher education. To be told that fields such as medicine or law were not in the realm of my socioeconomic class, that they carried an enormous financial investment with uncertain admission, made me resent my underprivileged identity even more. I wanted to be able to give my family the privileges we didn’t have and to break away from a cycle of poverty.

I studied hard and worked two part-time jobs during university to fund my medical school applications, but throughout the whole process, it was clear that one had to come from privilege to easily apply and assimilate into the medical culture.

In fact, not only are a disproportionate number of students from families of higher socioeconomic class, they come prepared with the social and cultural capital to navigate the medical school environment. Upon acceptance, I became a part of this new culture. Not wanting to be different, I hid my identity to feel included.

It wasn’t until I left the classroom that these sentiments began to change. I remember the single mother, with limited time to take off work, miss her own appointments to attend her daughter’s appointments instead. I saw patients who did not take their medications because they were too expensive. Patients with a language barrier who incorrectly interpreted their treatment plan because they didn’t understand. I saw myself and the experiences of my family in the lives of these patients, and I realized that I did fit into medicine — I fit in with my patients.

Although I initially tried to distance myself from my identity, I now acknowledge that it is a part of me I shouldn’t erase. To come from this background grants a different, more subtle form of privilege beyond that of wealth and social networks. I call it an “empathic privilege” that allows one to be more cognizant of the social determinants of health that patients often leave unspoken when seeking medical care.

In another sense, I also feel comfort in the presence of patients with lower socioeconomic status, whereas others might feel unease and frustration, because working with these patients helps close the gap between my identities.

I share my story because those with the underprivileged identity do exist in medicine, but they are a silent minority. Race and gender are easy to see, but low socioeconomic status may not be visible. Speaking about underprivilege may seem out of place, when now, as a result of luck and circumstance, you land among the most privileged.

Medical schools continue moving toward making the admissions process more equitable and diverse. However, measures to maintain and support diversity beyond the intake stage are often not in place. Students are then put in the position of negotiating a dual identity — one consistent with the medical culture, the other staying true to their social and cultural origins.

Medical schools should look one step back and one step forward in the admissions process. Before students from under-represented backgrounds can begin to use application subsidies or affirmative action initiatives, getting them to contemplate medicine in the first place requires an alignment between their identity and the identity associated with this vocation.

I encourage medical students and practicing physicians to be open about their stories, to humanize the identity of medicine so it doesn’t seem so lofty to those at a lower starting line — to show that a lived experience in poverty is valued by medical schools as much as, if not more than, having volunteered at a homeless shelter.

Looking forward, schools should continue diversity initiatives postadmission, whereby physicians from under-represented backgrounds support a culture of mentorship for like students, to facilitate development of their identity and strengths.

I am grateful to have lived in the dual worlds of underprivilege and privilege. I know what it feels like to not have choice, to have external factors, such as money and other people, dictate the path of my life. For many patients, it may feel the same — when their bodies and their lives are now in the hands of others.

Underprivilege has also taught me the importance of valuing chances, to hold on to them, offering my wholehearted effort toward these opportunities, because they were the threads of luck that helped pull me to the side of privilege. These experiences have taught me more about empathy and hard work than any medical school class could, and for that, to have been underprivileged is perhaps the greatest privilege in medicine.

Source: How underprivilege made me a better doctor | Toronto Star

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