Rosalie Abella: An attack on the independence of a court anywhere is an attack on all courts

2018/10/29 Leave a comment

As one would expect, eloquent and pertinent, including her comments on the Canadian approach to integration:

It was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 that brought the Supreme Court of Canada – and judicial independence – to the public’s attention, and introduced it to a uniquely Canadian justice vision, a vision that took the status quo as the beginning of the conversation, not the answer. The Charter both represented and created shared and unifying national values. The judges on the Supreme Court of Canada in the eighties, when the Charter was first enacted were bold and fearless. So much so that as a result of their leadership, one of Canada’s leading exports today is her justice system, its rights jurisprudence and the independent stature of its judiciary.

Not surprisingly, our constitutionalization of rights was not without controversy. If, as Isaiah Berlin once observed, there’s no pearl without some irritation in the oyster, by the nineties there were those who saw the Charter as a whole pearl necklace. As for the judges, they understood that controversy was inevitable, but they also understood that one person’s controversy may be another person’s remedy. So they embraced controversy and forged ahead.

And out of the ashes of controversy, the Supreme Court developed a robust new justice consensus for Canada. Where for others pluralism and diversity are fragmenting magnets, for Canada they are unifying. Where for others assimilation is the social goal, for us it represents the inequitable obliteration of the identities that define us. Where for others treating everyone the same is the dominant governing principle, for us it takes its place alongside the principle that treating everyone the same can result in ignoring the differences that need to be respected if we are to be a truly inclusive society.

Integration based on difference, equality based on inclusion despite difference and compassion based on respect and fairness: These are the principles that now form the moral core of Canadian national values, the values that have made us the most successful practitioners of multiculturalism in the world, and the values that make our national justice context democratically vibrant and principled.

All this came from the Supreme Court, all this came to be understood by the public as being properly within the domain of the Supreme Court and, most notably, all this was, on the whole, respected and accepted by the legislatures. Criticisms and questions were of course raised, but usually with civility. And the Court’s integrity was never seriously publicly questioned. We have, in other words, been very lucky … so far.

What have I learned about judicial independence from Canada’s experience? I learned that democracy is strengthened in direct proportion to the strength of rights protection and an independent judiciary, and that injustice is strengthened in direct proportion to their absence. A Supreme Court must be independent because it is the final adjudicator of which contested values in a society should triumph. In a polarized society, it is especially crucial to have an institution whose only mandate is to protect the rule of law.

It is the media’s job to gather and disseminate the information we need to participate in the public conversations that lead to deciding whom to elect – or defeat; it is the legislature’s job to take the public’s pulse and decide which of its opinions to implement as public policy; and it is the Court’s job to decide how best to protect democracy’s core values, regardless of public opinion. Only Courts are not entitled to abandon their commitment to those core values – human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and protection of woman and minorities, among others. Those are the values a Supreme Court has in its tool kit, and those are the values it must protect as it grapples with some of society’s most complex issues, such as the relationship between state power, rights and public safety; the relationship between minority rights and majoritarian expectations; or the relationship between religious demands and secular beliefs. These are the kinds of challenges that attract intense public scrutiny, and they are the kinds of issues that cannot be decided – or be seen to be decided – without a fiercely independent judiciary. They are also the kinds of decisions that define a nation’s values and, in defining its values, define not only its identity, but also its soul.

Many countries around the world are having existential crises over their national identities. They have made Faustian bargains, selling their democratic souls in exchange for populist approval. Their humanity has been the victim. So have their minorities. So have human rights. This, to me, is unconscionable.

I was born in 1946 in a German displaced-person’s camp to Holocaust survivors right after the Second World War. That was the devastating war that inspired the nations of the world to unite in democratic solidarity and commit themselves to the promotion and protection of values designed to prevent a repetition of the war’s unimaginable human-rights abuses. That’s why we had the Nuremberg Trials, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Yet here we are in 2018, seven decades later, watching that wonderful democratic consensus fragment all over the world, shattered by polarizing insensitivity; an unhealthy tolerance for intolerance; a cavalier indifference to equality; a deliberate amnesia about the instruments and values of democracy that are no less crucial than elections; and a shocking disrespect for the borders between power and its independent adjudicators, like the courts, who are made to choose between independence, ideological compliance, and survival.

Israel is having its own existential crisis and, with respect, the humanity of its soul is at risk unless the country understands that it cannot survive as the vibrant and complicated democracy that bloomed out of the desert 70 years ago without fiercely protecting the independence of its 70-year-old Supreme Court.

What is putting this at risk? The deliberate attempts to undermine public confidence in the Court’s integrity; the unforgivable sacrificing of the Court’s international reputation on the altar of partisanship; the hyperbolic rhetoric of hate that greets unpopular decisions; the menacing volley of simplistic pejorative labels, like “unpatriotic,” that too often replace mature debate; the demeaning of human rights by trivializing it as a weakness of the “left,” whatever that means, instead of recognizing that human rights is essential to the health of the whole political spectrum. All this is corrosive not only of the Israeli judiciary’s independence, but of Israel’s democracy.

Why is this any of my business? Because an attack on the independence of a court anywhere is an attack on all courts. It is not only my business as a judge, it is my business as a citizen of the world, a world I grew up thinking would be based on a commitment to human rights. But I am not the judge who matters. Israel’s most important judge is history, and history’s judgment is based not only on a country’s survival, but on its character and the values it represents and promotes.

The Israeli Supreme Court is the most precious jewel in the democratic crown Israel put on in 1948. Tampering with its independence and legitimacy is tampering with its integrity, and tampering with its integrity is tampering with Israel’s soul. That would break the hearts not only of judges all over the world who have looked to the Israeli Supreme Court for guidance and inspiration for the last 70 years, but the hearts of everyone all over the world who cherishes democracy.

Source: Rosalie Abella: An attack on the independence of a court anywhere is an attack on all courts

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Trump, the Jews and anti-Semitism: A Dangerous Double Game

2018/10/29 Leave a comment

Good summary:

U.S. President Donald Trump has long been dogged by accusations that he stokes anti-Semitism both by the language and references he uses and by hiring and embracing figures who actively promote a hyper-nationalist, racist and discriminatory agenda for the United States. This accusation took on a whole new relevance in the wake of the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, in which a white nationalist killed 11 congregants during a baby naming ceremony.

Trump closed his winning 2016 presidential campaign with an ad that many observers slammed as blatantly anti-Semitic. In his first month in office Trump again sparked scandal when the White House left out any mention of Jews while marking Holocuast Remembrance Day. After topping off a campaign littered with dozens of such incidents, the accusations surrounding Trump and anti-Semitism reached a boiling point at his first solo press conference in February 2017, where, responding to a question about recent threats to Jewish centers across the country and rising anti-Semitism, Trump declared, “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

The day before that press conference, Trump hosted a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he was also pressed to address rising anti-Semitism in America. Trump answered, “As far as people – Jewish people – so many friends, a daughter, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren. I think that you’re going to see a lot different United States of America over the next three, four, or eight years. I think a lot of good things are happening, and you’re going to see a lot of love. You’re going to see a lot of love. OK? Thank you.”

After Trump responded, Netanyahu came to his aide saying,“I think we can put that to rest,” despite the fact that Trump never used the word “anti-Semitism.” Trump’s daughter Ivanka is a convert to Judaism and married into an Orthodox Jewish family.

In the campaign ad that Trump released back on November 5th, 2016, four villains are blamed for the problems the everyday American is facing – which Trump promised to fix as apart of his “make America great again” pitch for the presidency. Those villains were Hillary Clinton, George Soros (financier and philanthropist), Janet Yellen (then Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs CEO). Three out of the four are Jewish.

As Soros and Yellen come onto the screen in the ad, the narrator says, “The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests. They partner with these people who don’t have your good in mind.”

In August 2017, Trump stunned the nation when he declared that “both sides” were culpable for violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which claimed the life of a counterprotester. A torchlit march that preceded the day of violence featured white supremacists chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

Trump later clarified his original remarks and openly condemned the white nationalists. However, veteran journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his recent book “Fear,” that Trump felt, “That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made. You never make those concessions. You never apologize. I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. Why look weak?”

The book put Bob Woodward in the Trump family’s crosshairs and resulted in an additional anti-Semitism scandal for the Trump clan when Eric Trump, the president’s youngest son, said of some of the claims in the book, that “It’ll mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels.” Using the word “shekel” is a long-standing anti-Semitic trope going back to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus in the New Testament.

Jewish journalist Julia Ioffe’s April 27 profile of Melania Trump in GQ irked the first lady enough that she tweeted criticism of it calling it, “another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting” and that Ioffe had “provoked” the deluge of anti-Semitic hate online that followed the publication of the profile, including from the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which urged its followers to “go ahead and send her [Ioffe] a tweet and let her know what you think of her dirty kike trickery.”

Jews funding immigration

Last week both Soros and Clinton were sent bombs in the mail by a Trump supporter who targeted almost a dozen Democrats and CNN – the news network Trump often singles out as “fake news” and as an “enemy of the people.”

Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who invited a Holocaust denier to this year’s State of the Union address, posted a video on Twitter this month which shows people in Guatemala being handed money. Gaetz, without citing evidence, suggested in the Tweet that Soros was funding a migrant caravan headed towards the U.S. He wrote on Twitter, “BREAKING: Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source!”

Trump tweeted the exact same video a day later, writing, “Can you believe this, and what Democrats are allowing to be done to our Country?”

The gunman in Pittsburgh, Robert Bowers, who yelled “All Jews must die” before opening fire, made anti-Semitic comments online and expressed anger at a Jewish group which helped refugees.

Bowers wrote on an alt-right social media platform, that “HIAS likes to bring invaders that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in.”

HIAS is an American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees.  Another post from Bowers that apparently referred to HIAS read, “Open you Eyes! It’s the filthy evil jews Bringing the Filthy evil Muslims into the Country!!” Bower’s massacre of worshippers is the deadliest attack on a Jewish community in American history and his motive as of now appears to be a white supremacist driven hate of Jews and his belief that the Jewish community aids refugees and immigrants entering the U.S.

Bower’s summed this up in post he made weeks before the shooting, “There is no #maga as long as there is a kike infestation.”

Ungrateful

In December 2015, Trump again waded into anti-Semitic waters when he said in a speech addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” adding, “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals? Probably more than any room I’ve ever spoken.”

However, despite his claim at the RJC that he is above transactional politics, Trump in September of this year seemed to complain that the U.S. Jewish community was not more grateful after Trump moved the U.S. Embassy, in a ceremony which included Pastor Robert Jeffress who believes “Jews are going to hell,”  from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May.

A report from the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, in September quoted a White House official who claimed the move should have generated praise from within the Jewish community, but that Trump is treated unfairly.

“We can take justified criticism, but if Obama had transferred the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the American Jewish community would have been united in applauding him!” the official said.

Earlier this month, Mark Mellman, who once ran Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid campaign in 2015, published a poll with the Jewish Electorate Institute that found roughly seventy-five percent of Jewish Americans plan to vote for the Democrats in the midterm elections, with only a quarter voting Republican.

Additionally, Fifty-six percent polled said they disapprove of the embassy move, while only 44 percent said they approved.

Growing anti-Semitism

A new report released Friday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found far-right extremists have increased an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others public figures of next month’s U.S. midterm elections.

ADL researchers analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter messages from Aug. 31 to Sept. 17 and found nearly 30 percent of the accounts repeatedly tweeting derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated “bots.”

The study also found a “surprising” abundance of tweets referencing “QAnon,” a right-wing conspiracy theory that started on an online message board and has been spread by Trump supporters.

“There are strong anti-Semitic undertones, as followers decry George Soros and the Rothschild family as puppeteers,” researchers wrote.

Trump, who has been pushing his “America first,” anti-globalist message since announcing his campaign in 2015, took the unprecedented step last Monday of outright declaring, “I am a nationalist.”

“A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much. And you know what? We can’t have that,” Trump said at a rally in Houston.

“You know, they have a word – it’s sort of became old-fashioned – it’s called a nationalist. And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, okay? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist. Nothing wrong. Use that word. Use that word.”

Trump’s rhetoric helped him win in 2016 by whipping up his base and energizing voters. His rallies have become a central feature of his presidency and while he may say he is “the least anti-Semitic” and “least racist person” ever – his rhetoric has reshaped the Republican Party and deeply divided Americans.

From Virginia to California, the Republican Party has an unprecedented amount of white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on the ballot this year. The GOP has actively worked to both distance and remove some of these candidates off the ballot in some cases, while unhappily accepting them in others.

In Virginia, Republican Corey Stewart is running for the U.S. Senate as a self-described neo-Confederate, championing a “take back our heritage” platform. In Illinois, Arthur Jones, a candidate for the state’s 3rd Congressional district boasts of his membership in the American Nazi Party. Anti-Semitic GOP candidate, John Fitzgerald, made it through his open primary and will appear on the ballot in California’s 11th Congressional District. Fitzgerald’s campaign has urged to “end the Jewish takeover of America.”

Source: Trump, the Jews and anti-Semitism: A Dangerous Double Game

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Chris Selley: Ontario’s no-health care-for-terrorists bill is nonsense at its best

2018/10/29 Leave a comment

Another good column by Selley on the Ontario Conservatives virtue signalling:

The Ontario government wants to make convicted terrorists ineligible for licences to drive, hunt and fish, for public health insurance, for housing and income assistance, for student loans, and to parent their own children. It wants to do this because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is soft on terrorism — specifically on the question of Canadians returning home after fighting for ISIL.

“I am disgusted that the federal government is not dealing with this,” Progressive Conservative MPP Dave Smith told reporters this week. “What we’re doing is we are taking away privileges from criminals.”

“If you leave Canada to go fight for ISIS, you should not be welcomed back with open arms,” Premier Doug Ford tweeted. “Since Justin Trudeau doesn’t seem to take this seriously, (Smith) is taking action to send a message that there are consequences for leaving Ontario to commit indefensible crimes.”

Sometimes governments come up with laws that they think will make their jurisdiction a better place, and they advance them in their legislature and in the media in good faith. And sometimes they come up with laws the primary purpose of which is to generate opposition to those laws, which they can then use to attack the opponents. The federal Conservatives’ Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, and the accompanying “snitch line” announced during the 2015 election campaign, was a good example of the latter. To question its necessity or wisdom or choice of wording was to be accused of sanctioning everything from child marriage to polygamy to female genital mutilation.

The Ontario Tories’ Bill 46, more soberly titled the Terrorist Activities Sanctions Act, certainly has great potential as the second kind of legislation: Have fun out there arguing on behalf of a terrorist’s right to health care or a hunting licence or to raise his kids unmolested. (Bill 46 would deem any such children in need of protection under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act.) But let’s give Smith and Ford the benefit of the doubt and assume they also think this is good public policy.

Attorney General Caroline Mulroney, or any other lawyer, could tell them that their public policy is almost certain to be torn to shreds in the courts, at great and pointless public expense. As it stands even the most vile criminals, if released, are entitled to public health insurance; denying it to one class of criminals as explicit punishment for violating a section of the Criminal Code would attract no end of legal opposition. It could be found to violate the Constitution, which unambiguously makes criminal law the federal government’s jurisdiction. It could be found to violate Section 7 of the Charter, which enshrines the “right to life, liberty and security of the person”; or Section 12, the protection against cruel and unusual punishment; or even Section 6, which guarantees the right “to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province,” and which isn’t vulnerable to the notwithstanding clause. Legal arguments aside, the federal government could simply withhold transfers until Ontario started providing health care to all its citizens again.

Howard Anglin, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, doesn’t buy all the legal arguments being made against Bill 46. But he thinks Canadian courts might well buy many of them. “I would bet pretty heavily that the Canadian courts would find that the province is violating a right to health care for these individuals,” he says. “The health care component is probably dead in the water.” As, he argues, is the bit about taking away people’s kids. “That’s not going to fly,” he says, arguing that determination requires a “quintessentially individualized analysis.”

There are logical arguments the government might make for some of these measures. Cars and trucks being popular tools for terrorists nowadays, perhaps we’d rather ISIL veterans not be authorized to drive them. We certainly wouldn’t want to license them to own firearms, let alone hunt with them. But the government isn’t making those arguments. It’s making no bones about the fact it simply wants to punish these people for a criminal act, which is not its bailiwick — points for honesty, but it makes it all the more likely the courts will torpedo it.

It’s entirely understandable that people are appalled by the idea of Canadians returning home after committing atrocities in Syria and not face consequences. Anything Canada can do to bring these people to justice, while respecting constitutional rights and the rule of law, it should do. But that only highlights the central absurdity of Bill 46: It doesn’t even apply unless someone is already convicted of a terrorism offence under the Criminal Code, which is precisely what Ford’s government complains isn’t happening.

The convicted would (or certainly should) face many stringent post-release conditions that actually make sense. Neither denying them “free” treatment for a communicable disease nor prohibiting them from fishing makes any sense on any level except as arbitrary, bloody-minded and very likely counterproductive retribution that it’s not in the province’s power to mete out in the first place. This bill is a turkey, and someone with a hunting license ought to kill it.

Source: Chris Selley: Ontario’s no-health care-for-terrorists bill is nonsense at its best

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Government closely watching public opinion on asylum seekers, docs show

2018/10/29 Leave a comment

Duh!

The federal government has been closely monitoring public reaction to the influx of asylum seekers in Canada — regularly conducting national surveys and measuring discussions on social media.

Documents released to The Canadian Press under access-to-information law show department officials receive weekly internal updates on media coverage and public response to issues related to asylum seekers coming irregularly into the country across the Canada-U.S. border.

This monitoring includes internal polling conducted by the Immigration Department to track public opinion about asylum seekers.

Two mid-year surveys of 2,000 Canadians, conducted by the department in March, suggested Canadians were not overly confident about Canada’s ability to manage the border at unguarded points-of-entry and had little sense of obligation about accepting asylum seekers from the United States.

Fewer than half of respondents — 43 per cent in a telephone survey and 35 per cent in an online survey — agreed that Canada is taking appropriate steps to manage irregular border crossings.

Forty-two per cent of telephone respondents and just 18 per cent of those online indicated they felt the number of people coming to Canada and claiming asylum was at an appropriate level.

“Canadians are more receptive to refugees who have been selected by the government of Canada compared to those who come to Canada and claim asylum,” the internal document notes as one of its key takeaways from the public survey.

The documents also show the Immigration Department closely measures public comment about asylum seekers on social media. This includes a weekly average of how many times the issue is mentioned every day.

The government also measures the number of times media stories published about asylum seekers include “myths countering messaging.”

It also uses social media as a tool to disseminate information as part of its outreach efforts to discourage irregular migrants from coming to Canada.

A targeted advertising campaign using search engine marketing to reach key populations in the U.S. was launched on Dec. 18, 2017 and continued until March 17, 2018, which included “targeted messaging based on users’ search terms to users in select U.S. cities where larger temporary protected status populations are found,” the internal document states.

Canada first began experiencing an influx of “irregular” border crossers in early 2017, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would end a program that offered temporary protected status to immigrants from several countries in the United States.

Over 36,000 asylum seekers have since arrived in Canada from the U.S., avoiding official border checkpoints where they would have been turned back to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country agreement between the two countries. Instead, they have been crossing the border along forest paths and fields, declaring their intent to seek refugee status once on Canadian soil.

The issue has sparked calls for Canada to suspend or amend the Safe Third Country Agreement as a way to stop the flow of irregular migrants.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair points to the fact that there was not a major surge in the number of irregular border crossers apprehended by RCMP this summer compared to last summer.

“Our senior officials are working hard, they are working hard and they are managing the situation quite ably,” Blair said Thursday.

However, year-over-year numbers show that overall, more people have crossed irregularly into Canada so far this year compared to the number of individuals who crossed from January to September of 2017.

Source: Government closely watching public opinion on asylum seekers, docs show

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

KHATTAB: We Need to Make Room for People to Change

2018/10/29 Leave a comment

Khattab responds to earlier columns by Candace Malcolm (Controversial Islamic groups receive Canada Summer Jobs Grants):

In a series of columns published by the SUN this past spring, Candice Malcolm not only made several erroneous claims about Muslim organizations receiving funding from the federal government for Canada’s Summer Jobs grant, but she also did something more deplorable that I feel needs to be talked about.

Like many individuals in these divisive times, she erased the space we must afford people who are willing to change their problematic views.

I have come to terms with and apologized for misinformed and insensitive comments I made about members of the LGBTQ2S community in 2012.

Since that time, I have made concerted and humble efforts to learn more about my unconscious biases and unlearn the incorrect beliefs I had towards individuals who are different from me in the near past.

I have connected with LGBTQ2S people who have graciously been willing to spend time learning from one another about life, culture and faith.

I have started developing more critical awareness of where I get my information and actively seek out new viewpoints, even if I feel uncomfortable.

Through dialogue and actively seeking knowledge, I continue to stand by my faith’s definition of traditional marriage while accepting members of the LGTQ2S as my brothers and sisters in humanity.

This response isn’t about me though. It is about how I was afforded a place where I am able to become more aware and can continue the process of cultivating a more compassionate and accepting ethos.

I wouldn’t have been able to do these things without the space to be humbled and vulnerable about what I do not know.

Confronting deeply entrenched biases and prejudices, as well as understanding our complicity in the systems that cultivate them is a lifelong process – one to which I have made a commitment. It should be a lifelong process because those systems of disenfranchisement are all around us as long as they remain standing; they are immersive.

Malcolm did not leave space for discovery and change. In her articles about me, she purposely left out the years of work I have done and continue to do.

This sends a dangerous message to readers, particularly in politically polarized times. It tells people that if you have a change of heart or you mature in your understanding of society and culture, there are no second chances.

Now, more than ever, we need to give second chances to the remorseful.

As an Imam I live by the principles of my faith – including justice, equality, tolerance, freedoms and human rights – and I have dedicated many years to spreading knowledge, advancing dialogue and supporting families and youth.

Ultimately, people who persist in actively preaching hate speech ought to be unequivocally  condemned outright and/or prosecuted. But if someone accepts the consequences of their past words and actions, and shows they are willing to learn how they were wrong, we must as a society make room for  restorative justice.

It is the health and cohesion of our collective communities that hang in the balance. A place like Canada – while still having its own work to do – has afforded me the humility and vulnerability to admit I should have known better and strive to do better.

It is part of the ideals Canadians should continuously strive towards that makes me proud to live here.

Dr. Mustafa Khattab is a member of the Canadian Council of Imams and a Fulbright Interfaith Scholar. He’s currently the senior Imam of the Anatolia Islamic Centre, Mississauga, Canada.

Source: KHATTAB: We Need to Make Room for People to Change

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Ottawa cuts off financing to Edmonton centre for newcomers over sexual misconduct allegation

2018/10/26 Leave a comment

Appropriate:

Immigration Canada has lost its trust in an Edmonton centre for francophone newcomers and is putting an early end to its financing agreement, according to a letter sent to the organization after a sexual misconduct allegation against a former director surfaced.

The government’s decision was taken due to the “inaction” of the board of the Centre d’accueil et d’établissement du nord de l’Alberta (CAE) after it was alleged Georges Bahaya engaged in sexual misconduct toward a client.

Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the client accused Bahaya of victimizing her in 2010.

Bahaya was fired in June 2018. The CAE told Radio-Canada that Bahaya was fired without cause, in the interest of the people who obtain services from the centre.

The organization offers support and services to French speakers who have recently moved to northern Alberta.

In a letter dated Oct. 18, David Manicom, assistant deputy minister of settlement and integration, suggested that the board failed to adequately investigate the allegations.

“The actions, the statements and the inaction of the CAE’s board have caused the ministry to lose its trust in the organization,” Manicom wrote in the letter.

CBC has obtained a copy of the letter, which was sent to CAE interim director Béda Kaji-Ngulu.

“The board’s president [Paul Dubé] publicly defended the former director [Bahaya], even though no measures were taken to verify the allegations against him,” Manicom wrote.

The CAE hadn’t responded to the multiple concerns raised by the ministry when allegations of  Bahaya’s inappropriate behaviour first surfaced last January, reads the letter.

“Consequently, the ministry is not convinced that the CAE can offer services to newcomers in an environment that is safe and secure.”

Immigration Canada will end its financing of several million dollars in March 2019, according to the letter. The exact value of the current contract isn’t known, but under a three-year deal, from 2013 to 2016, the organization received about $3.5 million.

Manicom wrote that the CAE should start winding down its operations and advise staff that their employment will come to an end.

Community wants to ‘clean house’

Members of Edmonton’s francophone community met on Tuesday to discuss how to continue offering establishment services to newcomers.

“It’s important to have a welcoming organization that is run by and for francophones,” said Marc Arnal, president of the Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta (ACFA), a provincial body that oversees services for the francophone community.

The members of the CAE’s board must be replaced, Arnal said.

“It must be recognized that the situation was not handled the way it should have been.”

Community members hope “cleaning house” will convince Ottawa to reinstate the CAE’s financing.

But Dubé, the board’s president, has no intention of stepping down at this time.

He maintains that the board acted in good faith, and that Immigration Canada is overreacting to the situation.

“Isn’t there a disproportion between the accusations against the board and the punishment imposed?” Dubé said Wednesday at an open community meeting.

“Our intentions were those of responsible people, dedicated to their mandate.”

Source: Ottawa cuts off financing to Edmonton centre for newcomers over sexual misconduct allegation

Filed under Integration Tagged with ,

UK: Sajid Javid apologises to immigration applicants forced to give DNA samples

2018/10/26 Leave a comment

He almost appears to be the “Minister of Apologies” for the measures instituted under former Home Secretary and current PM May:

The home secretary has apologised to immigrants – including to Afghan nationals who worked for the British armed forces and Gurkha soldiers – who were forced to provide DNA samples under the government’s hostile environment agenda.

People seeking to live and work in the UK on the basis of a family relationship can choose to provide DNA to prove a relationship to support an application.

But Sajid Javid told the House of Commons that in June it became apparent that the provision of DNA evidence had been made a requirement and was “not simply a request” in a number of family visa applications.

A review into the scandal published by the Home Office on Thursday found that at least 449 demands for DNA were issued, including 51 to Gurkha soldiers.

Ministers have previously revealed that 1,150 Afghan nationals, including 700 family members and parents of those employed by UK government, have been relocated to UK under a scheme targeted by the mandatory DNA testing, although the exact number subject to the tests is unknown.

Yvette Cooper, Labour chair of the home affairs select committee, said: “The revelation that the Home Office has been unlawfully requiring DNA tests in hundreds of immigration applications is deeply troubling and, coming after the Windrush crisis, suggests that something has gone very wrong in the Home Office again.”

“Today I want to take this opportunity to apologise to those who have been affected by this process,” Javid said.

Javid said he had set up a new taskforce for anyone who felt they had been wrongly required to provide DNA evidence for an immigration application. But he added he would order a broader review into Home Office processes to ensure the department was “fit for the modern world”.

“I know that the immigration system is operated by many highly committed people but we must make sure that the structures and processes they use are fit for the modern world and fit for a new immigration system which we will be bringing in after we leave the European Union.

“I will be reviewing the structures and processes more broadly, the structures and processes that we have to ensure they [are] fair and humane. I will now consider what form that review will take.”

Javid said he had issued instructions that officials must not mandatorily seek DNA evidence and would be looking to reimburse any individual who experienced financial loss as a result of the problem. He said they would also be examining whether DNA had been illegally demanded in any other area of the immigration system.

The home secretary said the issue came to light over the summer and an internal review was immediately ordered. The review had finished but there was further work to to be done to establish the scale of the problem, Javid said.

“But regardless of the numbers of the people that have been affected, one case is one too many,” he said. “I’m determined to get to the bottom of how and why in some cases people can be compelled to supply DNA evidence in the first place.”

The majority of cases identified were part of a Home Office operation called Operation Fugal, which started in April 2016, to clamp down on alleged fraud in some family and human rights immigration applications.

Almost 400 letters sent as part of the operation incorrectly stated that the applicant had to provide DNA evidence and that not providing such information without a reasonable excuse would lead to their application being refused on suitability grounds.

Javid said 83 applications were refused, including seven solely for the failure to provide DNA evidence. A further six appear to have been refused for failure to provide DNA evidence where this was not the sole reason.

In addition, the home secretary said the illegal requirement to provide DNA had been applied to Gurkha soldiers and Afghan nationals who had worked for the UK government.

In January 2015, a scheme was expanded to allow adult dependant children of Gurkhas discharged before 1997 to settle in the UK, Javid said.

Guidance was published that stated DNA evidence might be required and that applications could be refused if that evidence was not provided without reasonable excuse within four weeks.

“This published guidance was wrong and has now been updated,” Javid said, adding that there were 51 cases identified where DNA evidence was requested from applicants at their own cost.

There were four cases from the same family who had their application refused solely because they did not provide DNA evidence.

In 2013, applications from Afghan nationals formerly employed by the UK government to resettle in the UK were welcomed. But the terms of the scheme included mandatory DNA testing for family groups paid for by the UK government, Javid said.

Investigations suggest that no one making an application under this scheme has been refused because they did not take a DNA test, he said. “Nonetheless mandatory testing should not have been part of this scheme and this requirement has now been removed,” the home secretary continued.

“In particular I would like to extend my apology to the Gurkhas and Afghans that have been affected. The two schemes I’ve described were put in place to help the families of those who have served to keep our country safe. I’m sorry that demands were made of them that should never have been.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said: “Abuses like this don’t fall from the sky. Officials at the Home Office have been carrying out the government’s hostile environment policy, which is also what led to the Windrush scandal. People are being treated as guilty or illegal unless they can prove their innocence.

“We need a fair and robust immigration system, but the hostile environment isn’t it and the government should end it.”

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty UK’s refugee and migrant rights programme director, said: “The Home Office has once again been exposed as being a law unto itself. The home secretary needs to face up to the fact that problems in his department are systemic, chronic and deep-rooted.”

Source: Sajid Javid apologises to immigration applicants forced to give DNA samples

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

President Trump Isn’t Breaking Immigration Arrest Records

2018/10/26 Leave a comment

Cato Institute does some of the better analysis of US immigration policies and practices:

President Trump has made no secret about his intentions to deport illegal immigrants. His statements as well as administrative actions to remove certain guidelines that focused enforcement efforts on criminals has understandably caused a lot of concern among illegal immigrants, their American families, and those concerned with their plight. They should take comfort that the Trump administration’s efforts to boost arrests, the necessary precursor to a deportation, are stymied by limited local and state law enforcement cooperation with the federal government when it comes to identifying illegal immigrants.

Recently released data on the number of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shows that they are arresting many fewer illegal immigrants under Trump’s administration than under President Obama’s, at least through June of 2018.  During the first full 17 months of the Obama administration, from February 2009 through June 2010, ICE arrested 437,671 illegal immigrants.  For the same first full 17 months of the Trump administration, ICE arrested 226,138 illegal immigrants, about half the number arrested during the same period in Obama’s administration.

Relative to the last full month of the previous administrations, the number of ICE arrests under Trump is up by a whopping 37 percent (Figure 1).  Over the same time, President Obama’s ICE was arresting 25 percent more people than under the last full month of the Bush administration, quite a significant increase on its own.  The increase under Trump is larger as a percentage because it started from a low base, but the increase in the number of arrests under Obama was larger.  For instance, the number of arrests under Obama was 5,803 greater in June 2010 than in December of 2008.  At the same point in the Trump administration in June of 2018, the number of arrests was up 8,965 over December 2016.

There are two broad categories of arrests by the ICE.  The first is called custodial arrests, which is when ICE picks up an illegal immigrant arrested by another law enforcement agency such as state or local police departments.  The second is called ICE arrests, which is when ICE itself arrests illegal immigrants on the streets.  Figure 2 shows that the number of custodial arrests have fallen dramatically since October 2008 while the number of ICE arrests has stayed relatively constant.  This means that local and state non-cooperation with ICE works to reduce the number of ICE arrests as between 70 percent and 90 percent of those arrests are custodial over the entire time.

Some states, like Texas, are fully cooperating with ICE when it comes to immigration enforcement while others like California are resisting mightily.  In Texas, there were 3,963 ICE arrests in May 2018 compared to 2,584 in December 2016, a 53 percent increase.  In California, there were 1,587 ICE arrests in May 2018 compared to 1,356 in December 2016, a 17 percent increase.  ICE is more active everywhere in the country, in sanctuary states and non-sanctuary states, but the difference is stark across such jurisdictions.

The federal government under Presidents Bush and Obama convinced virtually every locality in the United States to sign up for the Secure Communities program that essentially turned over the vast majority of the arrested illegal immigrants to ICE for deportation.  Since President Obama was a Democrat, there was little initial political opposition to the massive increase in states and localities cooperating with the feds via Secure Communities – especially in Democratically controlled states with large numbers of illegal immigrants.  However, political reluctance to cooperate via Secure Communities built rapidly.  In 2011 Massachusetts, Illinois and New York requested to opt out of the program.  States like California then limited statewide cooperation with ICE and then President Obama replaced Secure Communities with a less punitive version called the Priority Enforcement Program that targeted criminals, which was in effect from 2015 to 2017.  Today, most states and localities with large numbers of illegal immigrants are not cooperating with President Trump’s ICE nearly as much as they cooperated with President Obama’s ICE – which is preventing Trump from arresting and, eventually, deporting large numbers of illegal immigrants.

There are other, lesser reasons why the Trump administration is unlikely to reach President Obama’s deportation record.  One is bureaucratic incompetence in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and other executive branch chaos that has so far prevented an orderly and organized deployment of law enforcement resources.  As a partial result of those administrative problems, they are incapable of convincing states and localities to enforce federal immigration laws.  Another reason is that illegal immigrants in 2018 are savvier than they were in the past, are better able to avoid law enforcement, and the few who were criminals were deported over the years, fewer new illegal immigrants have taken their place, and those remaining are less likely to come into contact with law enforcement.

State and local government reluctance to enforce federal immigration laws and cooperate with the Trump administration has limited its ability to arrest and, eventually, deport large numbers of illegal immigrants.  At the current rate, ICE under the Trump administration will be able to arrest about half a million fewer illegal immigrants relative to the Obama administration even if President Trump serves two full terms.  Those who are dispirited by the Trump administration’s efforts to deport large numbers of otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants should take some solace that their efforts to block full local and state cooperation with ICE is bearing fruit.

Source: President Trump Isn’t Breaking Immigration Arrest Records

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

How to understand Salafism in America: The Economist

2018/10/25 Leave a comment

Expect similar differences in Canada:

THE word “Salafism” is often used loosely, especially in continental Europe. When the relationship between Islam and jihadist violence is discussed in, say, France or Germany, the assumption is often made that the problem begins and ends with the Salafis—who put overwhelming emphasis on the first three generations of Muslims and who are thought to have professed the faith at its purest. This Franco-German sloppiness can be bewildering to Islam-watchers in Britain where Salafis have at times been encouraged to play a part in countering terrorism.

In fact, as anyone who studies the Salafi phenomenon quickly realises, things are far from simple. Scholars generally distinguish three strands of Salafism. First, there is the apolitical, quietist sort which favours intense conservatism in dress and personal life and eschews most kinds of involvement with the modern world. Then there are more activist Salafis who share the impatience of the Muslim Brotherhood to see the replacement of relatively secular governments in Islam’s heartland by religiously inspired regimes. They are not quite as energetic, or as pragmatic, as the Brotherhood’s members but they are influenced by Brotherhood thinking. And thirdly, there are jihadist Salafis who think the only appropriate response to the decadence of the modern era, and to a lack of zeal in the historically Muslim world, is violence. All three strains share a suspicion of democratic institutions that confer on fallible human beings an authority that, as they see things, should belong only to God.

In a new report, published under the Programme on Extremism at America’s George Washington University, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens shows that all three forms of Salafism have flourished, albeit with considerable ebbs and flows in their fortunes, on American soil in recent decades. He agrees that the distinction between the three forms of Salafism should be maintained, but also stresses they are not hermetically sealed categories, and that important individuals have moved between them.

Confusingly, the author notes, Salafist thinking (whose hallmarks include deep suspicion of the modern, secular world) has been disseminated by some people who do not themselves accept the label of Salafi. One such person is Muhammad Syed Adly, an influential imam based in South Carolina who urges Muslims to focus on Islamic education and avoid secular education and worldly politics. He has encouraged American Muslims to consider alternatives to regular public schools where their children might pick up liberal ideas about gender and sexuality.

As an example of quietist Salafism, Mr Meleagrou-Hitchens cites the Quran and Sunnah Society (QSS) which flourished across the United States both before and immediately after its formal incorporation in Ohio in 1995. Its back-to-basics message, driven home with tapes from Saudi clerics, appealed both to Arab students in America and to African-Americans who had embraced Islam in a spirit of black power and wanted to hew close to the faith’s fundamentals. As the author points out, Salafism’s utter rejection of secular institutions appealed to some African-Americans who felt the American system had nothing to offer them. Although the QSS eventually went into terminal decline, its legacies apparently include a contingent of American Muslims who are fiercely protective of Saudi Arabia and its clerics.

To show how jihadist Salafism can be generated on American soil, the report looks at some notorious individuals such as Ali al-Timimi (pictured), who was born in Washington, DC, spent part of his teens in Saudi Arabia and later returned to the United States where he gained a doctorate in computational biology. In 2005 he was jailed on ten charges including enlisting people to wage war against America and helping the Taliban. His case, according to the new report, “is a fascinating case study due to his steady progression across the wider American Salafi milieu: from student of the traditional quietist Saudi sheikhs…to an open promoter of Salafi jihadism.”

But of course, quietist Salafism doesn’t always lead in an extremist direction, as the author also stresses. As an example of that point, he cites a school of “post-Salafis” who “have contributed to the development of Americanised version of Salafism” that combines conservative theology with a constructive engagement with national and international issues.

In other words, American Salafism (for all its professed emphasis on simplicity) is irreducibly prolix. Given how many lives could depend on getting things right, it is worthwhile engaging with that complexity.

Source: How to understand Salafism in America

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Signes religieux: le feu sous la cendre

2018/10/25 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

La mairesse Valérie Plante et le chef de l’opposition à l’Hôtel de Ville de Montréal, Lionel Perez, ont eu la sagesse de refuser de se lancer prématurément dans un débat sur les signes religieux, mais ce n’est que partie remise.

La motion du conseiller indépendant de Snowdon, Marvin Rotrand, qui semble se complaire dans le rôle du boutefeu, était d’ailleurs sans objet. La CAQ n’a jamais évoqué la possibilité d’interdire le port de signes religieux aux élus, que ce soit à l’Assemblée nationale ou au niveau municipal. La charte de la laïcité du gouvernement Marois ne le prévoyait pas non plus.

M. Rotrand soutient avoir obtenu l’assurance que les élus de Projet Montréal et d’Ensemble Montréal auraient appuyé sa motion si celle-ci avait été mise aux voix. Cela est en effet probable, mais quel aurait été l’intérêt d’enfoncer une porte ouverte, sinon d’envenimer un débat qui est déjà suffisamment explosif ?

M. Rotrand n’en est pas à sa première intervention du genre. Au printemps dernier, il avait demandé au Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) d’autoriser ses agents à porter le hidjab ou le turban, comme c’est le cas dans de nombreux corps policiers municipaux ailleurs au Canada, que ce soit à Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary ou Edmonton, ou encore dans la GRC.

Aucun policier en service au Québec n’avait manifesté l’intention d’en porter, mais une jeune étudiante en techniques policières du collège Ahuntsic, Sandos Lamrhari, qui souhaite faire carrière au SPVM ou au Service de police de la Ville de Laval tout en portant le hidjab, avait été érigée en symbole par le premier ministre Couillard, qui voyait en elle l’incarnation d’un Québec confiant dans l’avenir, où tout le monde peut participer.

Là encore, il était permis de s’interroger sur l’opportunité de provoquer ce débat, puisque le gouvernement libéral refusait d’interdire à qui que ce soit de porter des signes religieux, pour autant que le visage soit découvert, contrairement à la recommandation de la commission Bouchard-Taylor. Il entendait plutôt laisser à chaque corps policier le soin d’établir son propre code vestimentaire. Or, la direction du SPVM se disait ouverte à toute demande, tout comme la mairesse Plante.

Le changement de gouvernement rend cependant le débat inévitable. Si le premier ministre Legault n’exclut pas que les enseignants puissent échapper au projet de loi que présentera éventuellement le ministre de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion, Simon Jolin-Barrette, il n’y aura pas de recul dans le cas des agents de l’État exerçant un « pouvoir de coercition », notamment les policiers.

La constitutionnalité du projet sera contestée à coup sûr. M. Jolin-Barrette se dit convaincu que son projet passera le test des tribunaux. Sinon, M. Legault a réitéré dès le lendemain de l’élection qu’il était prêt à invoquer la disposition dérogatoire (« clause nonobstant ») prévue dans les chartes des droits. D’une manière ou d’une autre, l’interdiction du port de signes religieux finira donc par avoir force de loi.

Ce débat risque d’accentuer encore davantage le clivage entre l’île de Montréal et le reste du Québec, dont la dernière élection a donné une illustration spectaculaire. Le feu couve sous la cendre et il ne faut pas sous-estimer le risque de dérapage. Il y a à peine deux semaines, le maire de l’arrondissement de Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Dimitrios Jim Beis, s’en est pris férocement à la CAQ, dont il dénonçait les « politiques perçues comme racistes ».

« La CAQ instrumentalise la laïcité comme un cheval de Troie pour la mise en oeuvre de politiques d’exclusion et de division. Aucun Québécois ne devrait avoir à choisir entre sa carrière et sa foi », écrivait-il sur Facebook. Des propos qui avaient un désagréable accent de déjà entendu.

On peut légitimement plaider que, dans une ville aussi multiethnique que Montréal, la population fera davantage confiance à son corps policier si sa composition reflète la diversité ambiante. La commission Bouchard-Taylor avait pris cet argument en compte, mais avait néanmoins conclu que la nécessité d’incarner pleinement la neutralité de l’État l’emportait dans le cas des policiers.

À l’Hôtel de Ville de Montréal, on trouvera sans doute cette interdiction excessive, même si le projet de loi de M. Jolin-Barrette sera nettement moins contraignant que l’était celui de Bernard Drainville, qui visait, au terme d’une période de transition, l’ensemble des employés d’une municipalité.

Le gouvernement Couillard accordait aux divers corps policiers, donc aux municipalités, le droit de définir leurs propres règles. On ne parle cependant pas ici d’aménagement urbain, mais d’un principe directeur applicable à toute la société québécoise. L’expression de la neutralité de l’État ne peut pas être à géométrie variable. Que cela leur plaise ou non, il n’appartient pas aux municipalités d’en fixer les paramètres, mais au gouvernement élu par l’ensemble de la population du Québec.

Source: Signes religieux: le feu sous la cendre

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →