Tech is “flunking” the diversity test, says activist and venture capitalist Freada Kapor Klein

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

Good and interesting interview:

On the latest Recode Decode, Kapor Klein says we need to “take a deep hard look at the BS notion of meritocracy.”

In recent years, several venture capital firms in Silicon Valley have made public strides to become more diverse after decades of being predominantly led by white men. But Freada Kapor Klein, a venture capitalist who has advocated for diversity in tech since the 1980s, isn’t impressed by their progress.

“Writ large, flunk,” she said on the latest episode of Recode Decode. “Failing grade.”

Kapor Klein spoke with Recode’s Teddy Schleifer about why well-intentioned initiatives such as All Raise have not yet had an impact. If the tech industry is going to reflect the diversity of the whole country, she explained, hiring more white women isn’t good enough.

“If what we do is count the number of women partners, and if those women partners are white and Asian and went to the same schools and grew up in the same zip codes and now live in the same zip codes as their male partners, that doesn’t get me very far on diversity,” Kapor Klein said. “Every single day I am awestruck, I am inspired by the entrepreneurs that come to pitch us. And they are from every walk of life, from every background possible, every combination of family circumstances, of race, of religion, of age, of gender, of LGBTQ status, disability.”

Along with her husband, Mitch Kapor, Kapor Klein is the co-chair of the Oakland-based Kapor Center, which seeks to diversify tech through a combination of education, community organizing, and impact investing — in other words, only backing startups that “clos[e] gaps of access, of opportunity or outcome for low-income communities and/or communities of color.” Another prominent impact investor, Bill McGlashan, has been implicated in the college admissions scandal, which Kapor Klein cast as “outrageous and not at all surprising.”

“We have to once and for all take a deep hard look at the BS notion of meritocracy,” she said. “This society has moved farther and farther and farther away from being meritocratic for many decades. As one venture capitalist put it recently, that in the last 50 years, there’s been a bull market in inequality. I think we have to look at all of the forces including the ways in which tech has made things worse.”

One highlight:

Big question before we toss to a break, if you were God here and you were designing … I think part of the challenge is that we’re trying to change the venture capital system based on how it currently is, and there’s so many things you can do. If you were God and you were starting over and you were designing how venture capital and how companies were funded to make sure that underrepresented groups were represented, what would it look like?

Well, I think it would have many dimensions. It would have much more concern for, who’s sitting at the table? It would have much more concern for, what are the pathways in for entrepreneurs? There are many practices in VC that are inherently biased. So this notion of a “warm intro,” and we’ve seen many a famous VC make public statements about “if you can’t figure out how to get a warm intro to me …”

Screw you, right?

Yeah, “screw you. We don’t want to talk to you.” Well …

You can see that’s very obvious how that would limit the pool of people?

Completely. Your zip code isn’t close enough to mine. It’s completely biased, and it’s confusing accidents of birth with accomplishment.

You’d get rid of the warm intro.

Get rid of the warm intro. What’s really interesting is we’ve gotten rid of the warm intro. People can send us their pitches directly over the website. We have invested in companies whose pitch decks come in over the website and none of us know anybody who could’ve introduced them to us. And they are businesses that meet our investment criteria.

And our investment criteria are pretty rigorous. And we see, between what comes to us individually and what comes over the website, we see about 3,000 deals a year. It’s the criteria of investing that I would change, and the criteria for those investments, by definition, means you change who the entrepreneurs are and who the investors are.

Source: Tech is “flunking” the diversity test, says activist and venture capitalist Freada Kapor Klein

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George Will: Supreme Court mulls citizenship question for census

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

Thoughtful column by Will:

The oral arguments the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday will be more decorous than the gusts of judicial testiness that blew the case up to the nation’s highest tribunal. The case, which raises arcane questions of administrative law but could have widely radiating political and policy consequences, comes from the Enlightenment mentality of the nation’s Founders, and involves this question: Does it matter that a conspicuously unenlightened member of the president’s cabinet lied in sworn testimony about why he made a decision that he arguably has the statutory power to make?

Because America’s 18th century Founders were rational, empirical, inquisitive pursuers of evidence-based improvement, they placed in the Constitution’s second section after the preamble a requirement for a census. And the 14th Amendment stipulates the required actual enumeration, every 10 years, of “the whole number” of persons residing in the country. From 1820 (when Congress wanted “foreigners not naturalized” to be counted) through 1950, the census almost always included a citizenship question, and in 2018 Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided that the 2020 “short-form” questionnaire, the one that goes to every household, should include one. Ross has testified that he was “responding solely” to a Justice Department request for the question to provide data helpful to enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965.

A federal district judge called this Ross rationale “pretextual” because Ross was justifying a decision “already made for other reasons.” This was a polite but still stinging way of saying Ross lied, which he almost certainly did: Justice officials initially rejected Commerce’s request that it ask for a citizenship question, and said such data was unnecessary for VRA enforcement. The district judge said Commerce sought the Justice letter to “launder” the request for the citizenship question “through another agency,” this being just one of “a veritable smorgasbord” of rules violations by Ross and his aides.

Ross also testified that he was “not aware” of any discussions of the citizenship questions between Commerce and the White House. But after 18 states, 15 municipalities and various immigration advocacy groups sued, he acknowledged meeting early in 2017 with then-presidential adviser Stephen Bannon, an anti-immigration zealot. The district judge also said Ross “materially mischaracterized” — translation: lied about — a conversation with a polling expert in order to obfuscate the expert’s objections to the citizenship question.

Because more information is preferable to less, the citizenship question might seem sensible. However, the question might result in less information because the Census Bureau’s own experts believe that the citizenship question would cause 6.5 million people — almost one in 10 households includes one or more noncitizens — to not respond to the questionnaire for fear of law-enforcement consequences. The 6.5 million are approximately as many people as live in Indiana. Of the estimated 24 million noncitizens (about 7% of America’s population of almost 329 million), almost 11 million are here illegally.

The citizenship question is, the Trump administration insists, “a wholly unremarkable demographic question.” But why, then, was Ross so dishonest concerning its genesis? This is probably why: A substantial undercount would affect the formulas by which hundreds of billions of dollars of federal spending are dispersed, to the disadvantage of blue states and cities with large immigrant populations. Furthermore, because the 14th Amendment stipulates that seats in the House of Representatives shall be apportioned on the basis of “the whole number of persons in each state” regardless of citizenship, an undercount could cost some states, particularly blue states, congressional seats, and hence electoral votes.

The district court judge was scalding about the “egregious” behavior of Ross, who “in a startling number of ways” either “ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued” evidence, and “acted irrationally … in light of that evidence.” Yet the judge professed himself “unable to determine — based on the existing record, at least — what Secretary Ross’ real reasons for adding the citizenship question were.” Perhaps the judge was precluded from coming to a conclusion about Ross’ motives; the public is not.

This is another case in which Trump administration behavior (following equally indefensible Obama administration behavior) is provoking plaintiffs to ask the judiciary to police the blurry boundaries of executive discretion. The Supreme Court, however, is apt to decide that Ross’ wretched behavior does not alter the fact that Congress has granted to him sufficient discretion over the census to accommodate his decision to include the citizenship question. This, in spite of reasonable surmises about his motives that his behavior seemed designed to disguise.

Source: Will: Supreme Court mulls citizenship question for census

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Pollsters point to rising public racism, Quebec seats to explain Liberals’ U-turn on refugees

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

More takes on the change in approach:

The Liberal government’s move to toughen up the refugee system is a signal to voters that fairness is the party’s priority when it comes to foreigners entering the country, says a former Liberal insider, and it could be part of an attempt to outmanoeuvre the Bloc Québécois, or win over ex-Liberal voters who don’t want more people of colour in Canada, say pollsters.

The government wants to send a message to Canadians that migrants who cross the border between official points of entry to make a refugee claim will be treated the same as those who make a claim at a recognized entry point, said John Delacourt, a vice-president at Ensight Canada and former director of communications in the Liberal Research Bureau.

“That is the line I think that ultimately resonates here. ‘There will be no privileged treatment; it will be fair for everybody,’” said Mr. Delacourt.

Thus far, would-be refugees have been able to exploit a loophole in Canada’s international commitments, and make a claim for refugee status after crossing the border between official points of entry from the United States, while those who try to claim status at official border crossings are generally immediately rejected under the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., which says a person seeking refugee protection has to do it at the first safe country they reach.

The government has been defending itself from near-constant criticism from the Conservative opposition for the past two years over its handling of the loophole, and the flow of thousands of migrants into Canada because of it. Those migrants have been given security, health, and safety checks by Canadian officials, then allowed to proceed into Canada’s urban centres to pursue a refugee claim.

Statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board show that 38,646 claims were made by “irregular” border crossers between February 2017 and December 2018. Only 9,330 have been dealt with so far by the IRB, which has accepted a little less than half of them as valid claims, while the other half were rejected, withdrawn, or abandoned.

The government stick-handled the issue for nearly two years without major changes to the policy or legal framework, but changed tack with its 2019 budget last month and budget implementation bill earlier this month, which will block asylum seekers from making a refugee claim in Canada if they have already had a claim rejected in another country that Canada deems safe, including the U.S., a practice Border Security Minister Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Ont.) called “asylum shopping.”

The 2019 budget described the change as an effort to “better manage, discourage, and prevent irregular migration.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) told reporters April 10 that his government wants to ensure Canadians have “confidence in our asylum system, our refugee system” when asked about the changes. He said the change to government policy was a response to an increase in refugee claimants caused by global instability.

The government has also moved to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. Canada wants to change the pact to close the loophole surrounding claims at non-official points of entry.

Mr. Trudeau’s government made international headlines in 2015 when it agreed to welcome 25,000 Syrians fleeing war in their country within a span of months. The sudden influx of border-crossers from the United States, however—many of them originating in Haiti and Nigeria—has put his government on the defensive over refugee policy since early 2017.

Canadian attitudes toward migrants have shifted dramatically over the past few years, said pollster Frank Graves, the president of Ekos Research.

“What we’re seeing in the public is that the attitudes to immigration, and particularly to things like visible-minority immigration, are becoming incredibly polarized in ways that they were not in the past,” he said.

“Attitudes toward immigration broadly, which includes refugees and asylum seekers, is now becoming a sorting variable…which is frankly kind of unprecedented in Canadian political history. We don’t usually make ballot-booth decisions on the basis of immigration policy.”

Mr. Graves said Ekos has done analysis that suggested to him that Liberal policies on refugees and immigrants had driven people who voted Liberal in 2015 to begin supporting the Conservative Party—specifically some non-university-educated, working-class males who believe “too many” of the immigrants who come to Canada are visible minorities.

“That view is shifting voters in ways that it never has before,” he said.

Nearly 40 per cent of respondents to an Ekos telephone poll of 1,045 Canadian adults between April 3 and 11 said that “too many” of the immigrants coming to Canada were visible minorities. Just shy of 43 per cent said an “about right” share of immigrants were visible minorities, while 11.5 per cent said “too few.”

Former Liberal immigration minister John McCallum reacted to Mr. Graves’ polling figures on Twitter April 13, writing, “Such a dangerous shift from when I was managing Syrian refugees and challenge was we couldn’t bring them in fast enough to satisfy sponsors. Only 3 years ago!”

Of those who said “too many” immigrants were racialized people, nearly 69 per cent identified as Conservative supporters, versus 15.2 per cent for the Liberal Party, and 27 per cent for the NDP. The margin for error for the poll itself was plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20, but the margins of error for the party-identification figures for that specific question were higher—between seven and 14 per cent—because the sample size shrinks when respondents are divided into smaller groups.

Some Canadians have been waiting years for their parents or grandparents to be allowed to come to Canada through the immigration system, but Canadians often conflate refugee and immigration issues, though they are considered as separate streams of migrants by the government, said Mr. Delacourt, who also worked as a staffer in the office of former Liberal immigration minister Joe Volpe in the early 2000s.

“They’re very different streams, and anybody who actually has a strong sense of policy in this area will tell you, ‘That’s mixing apples and oranges,’ in terms of the priorities and planning. But to Canadians, the optics … people do not see individual streams here. They see a strain on resources,” Mr. Delacourt said.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair has said the government’s move to block asylum seekers from making a refugee claim in Canada if they have already had a claim rejected in another country that Canada deems safe is meant to stop ‘asylum shopping.’ The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

“I think part of the government’s course correction on this is about addressing this larger perspective on what’s ultimately fair. Of course, they’re not going to sacrifice what’s fair for individuals who are coming across, case by case. Of course everyone is going to get all the protection one deserves. But by the same token, there is this real concern that the optics of irregular migration creating a strain on resources. It’s not where a government going into an election campaign is going to think it’s a good idea,” said Mr. Delacourt.

The Liberals are likely worried about damage done by the spread of false information or misinformation about their work on the refugee file during the upcoming campaign, said Mr. Delacourt, pointing to a September report by the Canadian International Council that said there was “mounting evidence” of Russian troll accounts on social media spreading disinformation about positions on asylum seekers and refugees in Canadian politics.

The Liberal decision to get tougher on refugee policy could also be motivated by expected battles with the Bloc Québécois in smaller towns, cities, and rural areas in Quebec in the upcoming election, said pollster Greg Lyle, the president of Innovative Research.

More than half of Canadian adults surveyed in an Innovative poll in September said the government was “not aggressive enough” in its approach to immigrants crossing into Canada illegally, while six per cent said it was being “too aggressive,” 26 per cent said it was “acting appropriately,” and 15 per cent said they didn’t know.

The online poll surveyed 2,410 adult Canadians who were part of online research panels between Sept. 27 and Oct. 1. Online polls are not considered truly random, so a margin of error for the poll can’t be calculated.

Forty per cent of Liberal Party supporters said the government was not being aggressive enough on that issue, according to the poll, and 57 per cent of respondents in Quebec. “That, to me, is the big deal,” said Mr. Lyle.

More than 70 per cent of those surveyed said that “the issue of immigrants who are crossing into Canada illegally right now” was a serious problem, including 65 per cent of Liberal supporters, and 81 per cent of respondents in Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois is doing well in the regions of the province, said Mr. Lyle, and will differentiate itself from the Grits by opposing oil and gas pipelines, and contrasting its position with the Liberal government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Bloc will also likely take a more “nationalist” approach to immigration policy, he said.

“It’s a very critical area for the Liberals to do well in. Moving on the migrant issue…shuts down that vulnerability.”

Source: Pollsters point to rising public racism, Quebec seats to explain Liberals …

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Bill proposed to give high-educated foreigners Korean citizenship

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

Very selective proposed citizenship policy, but still signifying change:

Foreigners acquiring a bachelor’s or higher degree in South Korea may soon find it easier to become naturalized here, as a group of lawmakers have proposed easing the nationality law to help overcome the nation’s population reduction.

Rep. Kim Kyung-jin of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace said Monday that he and nine other lawmakers have jointly tabled a motion to revise the Nationality Act to the National Assembly, seeking to ease the rules on simplified naturalization.

The proposed revision calls for allowing foreigners earning a bachelor’s degree or higher in South Korea to be naturalized as a Korean citizen. It also obliges the government to flexibly devise and implement its nationality policies depending on special and economic circumstances.

“The government has spent several hundreds of trillions of won over the past decade to overcome the population crisis caused by the severe low birthrate but failed to attain any visible outcomes,” Kim said.

“Our country should also implement a policy of naturalization that actively accepts foreign talent.”

The lawmaker said the proposed legal revision was based on the opinions of government officials and experts gathered from a forum in February.

According to Statistics Korea, the nation’s population is expected to peak at 51.94 million in 2028 before gradually decreasing to 39.29 million in 2067, a level seen in the 1980s.

The number of foreigners living in South Korea was 2.18 million as of the end of 2017, up 6.4 percent from 2016, government data showed. The number of foreign students here also rose 16.5 percent to 135,000 in the same period.

Kim said the current naturalization policy is focused on multicultural families based on international marriages and lacks consideration of foreign students and talent.

“If talented foreigners will be able to become naturalized in South Korea more easily through the proposed legal revision, it will be helpful in resolving social and labor problems caused by the population reduction,” Kim said.

“As the population problem is a serious matter directly linked to the national fate, we will continue to make efforts to improve the nationality system in the future.” (Yonhap)

Source: Bill proposed to give high-educated foreigners Korean citizenship

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40 years and growing for Nanaimo based immigrant aid group

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

Some background to the upcoming Nanaimo by-election: 14.6 percent are immigrants, 8.2 percent visible minority, and 8.3 percent Indigenous:

Helping well north of 1,000 immigrants a year in the Nanaimo area represented the will of the community to make life easier on new arrivals to the mid island.

The highly regarded Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society (CVIMS) is celebrating its 40th anniversary of helping people acclimatize to their often vastly different realities.

Jennifer Fowler, the agency’s executive director, said it was 1979 when a volunteer led task force explored how to make life easier for local immigrants.

“They wanted to see how we could best help an influx of newcomers that were coming here 40 years ago,” Fowler said. “It was a community initiative that grew us to where we are now.”

Fowler said volunteers of the non-profit agency have long drove their success, which she said would not survive without the incredible support provided to their nearly 40 employees.

Fowler said their one-stop re-settlement hub including language classes, on-site childcare and employment services enriches the entire communitiy, not just directly impacted.

She said despite the supports provided by the CVIMS immigrants face many hurdles while attemping to contribute to the local economy.

“We’ve got a lot of immigrants that are under-employed looking for work in there areas. We need to find ways to utilize these people and resources in a better way.”

Fowler said overall the people of Nanaimo have been incredibly welcoming to those adjusting to life in the Harbour City.

She said Nanaimo is doing its share to pick up the slack of some 64 million people around the world who are displaced.

“From the just over 200 refugees that we welcomed to Nanaimo last year, I like that we’re doing our part in bringing people here.”

Source: 40 years and growing for Nanaimo based immigrant aid group

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Tony Blair: migrants should be forced to integrate more to combat far right

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

While counter intuitive to place the blame of far-right bigotry on the communities being targeted by such bigotry, and Blair, like many Europeans (and some Canadians) never understood or communicated that multiculturalism is about civic integration and participation, some of the specific recommendations have merit (i.e., more effective civics education, tougher enforcement against hate speech, increased funding for language training).

And of course, beyond obeying the laws, defining the specific “norms” and values remains challenging:

Migrant communities must be compelled to do more to integrate to help combat the rise of “far-right bigotry”, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that successive governments had “failed to find the right balance between diversity and integration”, while the concept of multiculturalism has been misused as a way to justify a “refusal to integrate”.

Blair makes the pointed intervention in a report by his Institute for Global Change, which backs forcing schools to have an intake that reflects local diversity, creating a compulsory citizenship programme for teenagers and toughening enforcement against the perpetrators of hate speech.

It also calls for compulsory citizenship education, a ban on segregated shift patterns and the creation of a new cabinet post created to oversee integration.

“Over a significant period of time, including when we were last in government, politics has failed to find the right balance between diversity and integration,” Blair writes in a foreword to the report. “On the one hand, failures around integration have led to attacks on diversity and are partly responsible for a reaction against migration. On the other hand, the word multiculturalism has been misinterpreted as meaning a justified refusal to integrate, when it should never have meant that.

“Particularly now, when there is increasing evidence of far-right bigotry on the rise, it is important to establish the correct social contract around the rights and duties of citizens, including those who migrate to our country.”

The report backs a new form of “digital identity verification” – a return to Blair’s support for ID cards that caused huge divisions when the idea was pushed by his government and later abandoned. It also backs the idea of increased funding for language tuition and handing asylum seekers earlier access to work.

It comes following an increase in religious or racially motivated hate crimes. According to Home Office data, such crimes increased from 37,417 in 2013-14 to 79,587 in 2017-18. MPs such as Labour’s Naz Shah have linked the increase with support for extreme far-right groups.

However, in remarks likely to attract criticism from migrant rights groups, Blair warns that enforcing greater integration by new arrivals is a crucial part of solving the issue.

Blair writes: “In this report, we make it clear that there is a duty to integrate, to accept the rules, laws and norms of our society that all British people hold in common and share, while at the same time preserving the right to practise diversity, which is fully consistent with such a duty.

“Without the right to, for example, practise one’s faith, diversity would have no content; but without the duty to integrate, ‘culture’ or ‘faith’ can be used as a way of upsetting that basic social contract that binds us together.

“Government cannot and should not be neutral on this question. It has to be a passionate advocate and, where necessary, an enforcer of the duty to integrate while protecting the proper space for diversity. Integration is not a choice; it is a necessity.”

In government, Blair pushed the idea that all communities had a “duty to integrate” into British society, adding that no one could override the values of democracy, tolerance and respect for the law.

“Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain,” he said in 2006. “Conform to it; or don’t come here.”

Source: Tony Blair: migrants should be forced to integrate more to combat far right

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Canadian citizenship in assisted reproduction

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

Yet another one of the wrinkles of citizenship policy.

Has some similarities to adoption citizenship issues, where parental pressure resulted in the Conservative government making the needed changes to allow adopted children to be considered citizens rather than having to enter Canada as Permanent Residents:

In a 2015 article I asked: “does sperm have a flag?” The answer is, as it turns out, yes. And in the context of Canadian citizenship, it seems likely that eggs and wombs have flags too – although we can’t yet be entirely sure. But one thing is clear: a genetic/biological relationship plays a critical role in citizenship – even in this contemporary era of reproductive technologies and diverse practices of family formation.

Canada’s Citizenship Act enables people born abroad to a Canadian-born citizen parent to be Canadians. But who is a parent? Traditionally, marriage turned husbands into (presumptive) fathers and mothers were women who gave birth. All Canadian provinces (which have jurisdictional authority for domestic parentage determination) maintain this definition, and they also include provisions for cohabiting different-sex partners. Some provinces have gone further, including specific provisions for same-sex partners, and incorporating provisions to name parents in situations involving assisted conception and surrogate mothers.

In all provincial statutes that address parentage and reproductive technologies, donors are notautomatically considered parents, despite their genetic relationship to the child. Surrogate mothers are considered mothers until they waive their rights. In British Columbia, it is possible for three people to be named parentsto a child, and in Ontario, up to four people can be named parents – but both provinces require a preconception agreement among the parties for these parentage designations to apply.

The provinces are not the only jurisdictions that are required to define who are parents. Given that citizenship status is a federal jurisdiction, and that the vast majority of Canadians become citizens on the basic criteria of birth, one might imagine that parentage would receive some attention in the federal Citizenship Act.  While the word “parent” appears 95 times in the English text of the Act, it is never defined. As far as how children are understood, the Act tells us that a “child includes a child adopted or legitimized in accordance with the laws of the place where the adoption or legitimation took place.”

So, what should be done about children born abroad with the assistance of reproductive technologies?

Since the Citizenship Act is imprecise on exactly who constitutes a parent, the courts have necessarily been compelled to offer clarification. With regard to reproductive technologies, the case of record on this matter is Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Kandola 2014 – heard by the Federal Court of Appeal. There, the court determined that a genetic relationship with a Canadian parent was required for a child born abroad to acquire Canadian citizenship.

The case involved the denial of Canadian citizenship to a child born in India to a Canadian father married to an Indian mother. The couple was forthright with citizenship officials regarding their use of reproductive technologies in the conception of their child and the fact that neither parent was genetically related to their daughter, even though her mother had given birth to her. In the lower court decision, the judge had ruled that the child was indeed a Canadian because she was born to married parents – she was “legitimized…in accordance with the laws of the place where the legitimation took place.”

In the Federal Court of Appeal, however, the court held that the absence of a genetic tie to her Canadian parent meant that the child was not a Canadian. The fact that her parents were married when she was born – and thus, that her birth was legitimate – did not suffice, since to be legitimized, as the Citizenship Act states, requires a prior state of illegitimacy.

The justices also examined the meaning of the word parent. Finding that the term was unhelpfully ambiguous in English, they sought clarity in the French text of the Act. In their reading, in order to be born of a father (né d’un père) or a mother (né d’une mère), a child would have to be genetically related to her Canadian parent. And while the Kandola case did not concern a Canadian citizen mother, the justices opined that both genetic and gestational motherhood would be required in order to confer Canadian citizenship from mother to child.

One might appreciate the clarity of genetic relationship as a means for determining citizenship for children born abroad. Unfortunately, though, genetic relationship is not an especially reliable indicator of a parental social identity or commitment. Indeed, one can envision the possible, lucrative opportunities for Canadian men abroad that such a genetic definition of citizenship would confer. But more seriously, as the availability of reproductive technologies increases and the domestic definition of parentage and families expands, this narrow cleaving to genetics – to Canadian blood – fails to reflect the realities of Canadians’ lives and practices of family formation. We can do better.

Taking the lead from provinces that already have provisions for parentage determination in situations involving reproductive technologies, a revised Citizenship Act (or regulations) could require that Canadian parents register their intent to seek out reproductive services and the possibility that their child could be born abroad.

Parents could be required to provide supporting evidence from health care providers; and the Canadian regulations might limit recognition to certified providers, clinics or hospitals. Such provisions would apply to people normally resident in Canada who seek out foreign reproductive health services, and would address a broader social interest in the health and well-being of Canadian-citizen parents and children, as well as international human rights obligations to protect women from exploitation. For Canadians who are resident abroad and thus less likely to be aware of Canadian legal developments around parentage, the Act could rely on the parentage provisions of the country of residence – as it currently does for the definition of a child.

In the context of Canadian citizenship and foreign adoptions, Canadian law underscores the importance of a genuine parent-child relationship. By contrast, the citizenship of children born to Canadian parents requires only genetics. Surely people who pursue parentage through the use of reproductive technologies are sufficiently genuine in their intent to form a parent-child relationship that they, too, can confer citizenship on their children. It’s time for Canada’s Citizenship Act to catch up.

Source: Canadian citizenship in assisted reproduction

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US Businesses Wage Two-Front War Against 2020 Census Citizenship Question

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

Similar to the concerns of Canadian business when the Harper government cancelled the mandatory census in favour of the less accurate voluntary National Household Survey:

Leading U.S. businesses have been pushing back against the White House’s anti-immigrant policies since the weeks following Inauguration Day, and now they have joined the fight to keep a controversial new citizenship question out of the 2020 census.

The legal battle over the new census question has been in the media spotlight as a lawsuit—joined by major U.S. business organizations—inches closer to a Supreme Court hearing.

In the trenches, though, an equally important fight is shaping up. If the courts preserve the new citizenship question, major U.S. businesses are already in position to launch a holistic, boots-on-the-ground outreach campaign to encourage census participation.

Why U.S. businesses need an accurate census

The new census question asks, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” It further breaks down the question with different boxes to check for persons who are born in the U.S. or Puerto Rico and other territories, born abroad with at least one U.S. citizen parent, naturalized citizens, and lastly, “No, not a U.S. citizen.”

All things being equal, the question is a straightforward one. However, under the current administration, anything related to immigration is far from innocuous. Critics—and they are numerous—argue that the question appears deliberately designed to discourage counting in urban areas where immigrants congregate.

An inaccurate census may serve political purposes, but it is anathema to the U.S. business community.

Earlier this week, Reuters took a deep dive into the relationship between the business community and the Census Bureau and noted several significant reasons why U.S. businesses depend on accurate data:

“Retailers like Walmart and Target Corp use Census data to decide where to open stores or distribution hubs, and what to stock on shelves,” wrote Reuters reporter Lauren Tara LaCapra. “Big banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co use the information similarly for branch strategy, and real-estate firms scrutinize the statistics to determine where to build homes and shopping centers. TV networks like Univision, meanwhile, rely on the numbers to plan programing in local markets. And the Census is an important input for tech giants like Google when they create myriad data-based products, such as maps.”

To cite just one example, Amazon’s multi-city search for a second headquarters also harvested Census data to aid the company’s decision making, LaCapra explained.

How U.S. businesses can help ensure an accurate census

In this context, a new census question that could discourage millions of U.S. residents from participating—or participating accurately—is a bottom-line bombshell.

Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for businesses to step forward and take the lead, even if the new census question survives in court.

LaCapra of Reuters suggests that U.S. businesses have already amassed experience in encouraging census participation at a grassroots, face-to-face level: “Ahead of the 2010 Census, McDonald’s Corp featured information on restaurant placemats, Walmart greeters handed out flyers, big retailers featured reminders on receipts and utility companies stuck inserts into electric, gas and water bills.”

Intentionally or not, AB-InBev has already taken the lead on the 2020 census. The global company’s Budweiser brand touched off a media firestorm by unveiling a pro-immigrant advertisement at the 2017 Super Bowl.

Partnering with the U.S. census bureau

That could be just a small harbinger of private-sector participation in the 2020 census.

The U.S. Census Bureau itself provides guidance for companies that want to get involved in the 2020 census. It is actively recruiting private-sector partners through its Integrated Partnership and Communicationsprogram, which is tasked with “building ties with more than 300,000 state, local, and tribal governments, community-based organizations, nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups, and the private sector.”

The IPC program appeals directly to the corporate social responsibility movement, explaining that “you benefit by fulfilling your CSR goals, accessing our personalized data training and information services, networking with other businesses you otherwise wouldn’t encounter, and engaging with your customers and employees around a civic duty.”

IPC is keenly aware of brand reputation, telling companies: “You have invested heavily in understanding how to reach and how to communicate with your customers and employees. You are trusted brands and trusted voices.”

Furthermore, IPC underscores the bottom-line benefits:

“The 2020 Census data will help you create projections of growth to identify prime locations to open new operations or close old ones. You can enhance your hiring practice and identify skilled workers. Our data provide valuable information on your customer base (income level, household size, homeownership status) to inform your pricing and location strategies.”

Helping the Census Bureau help you

As IPC partners, companies receive messaging, branding and guidance on spreading the word. That includes basics like sharing a link to the 2020 census on company websites, providing Internet connections and free call time to underserved households, and hosting community educational events.

IPC also suggests that companies engage in commentary, through op-eds and similar content, to explain why partnering with the Census Bureau is so important to them.

In addition, the IPC guidance aims to build the 2020 census-taker workforce. IPC partners are asked to advertise Census job openings and help applicants with filling out forms. That can include providing transportation to libraries and other locations where help is available, or where training sessions are located.

That’s just for starters. IPC also encourages companies to sign up for Census Bureau news alerts, spread the word by following @uscensusbureau on Twitter, and distribute Census bureau infographicsand other materials. The organization also hosts workshops to develop local solutions to specific challenges in their community and generate commitments to tackle them.

How brands can take stands supporting the census

IPC also asks companies to use text messaging and social media to encourage Census employment and participation. In that regard, IPC has one particularly salient piece of guidance for its partners, and that is to “actively monitor, fact check, and correct misinformation on social networks about the 2020 Census.”

Reportedly, the Census Bureau has received “initial” commitments from Facebook, Google and Twitter to clamp down on misinformation.

It will be especially interesting to see how the commitment plays out for Facebook. The company has a years-long history of alleged civil rights violations to account for and overcome, in addition to an ongoing connection with white nationalism and tolerance of white nationalismthrough one of its controversial board members, along with its alleged facilitation of Russian propaganda during the 2016 election.

Companies that have come forward include Levi Strauss & Co, Uber, Lyftand Univision. Yet Reuters also reported that companies involved in the lawsuit against the new census question have been reluctant to publicize their stand, fearing backlash from the Trump administration.

Source: US Businesses Wage Two-Front War Against 2020 Census Citizenship Question

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , , ,

Ahead of federal election, imams at 69 Canadian mosques deliver message that every vote counts

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

Similar to 2015:

When Canadians go to the polls in October, a non-partisan group hopes Muslim voter turnout will be higher than ever — and seized one of the year’s most-attended days of prayer to mobilize the community with a single message: every ballot counts.

“As believers, every single one of us has social responsibilities that our very faith is contingent upon,” Imam Faraz Rabbani told congregants at the Bosnian Cultural Centre in Toronto. Voting, he said, is one of those responsibilities.

“The very basis of religion is that the believer is concerned about maximizing the good for themselves and others, and striving to diminish harm.”

Friday’s effort was part of a larger project by the non-partisan, non-profit group Canadian Muslim Vote. It sprang up in 2015 with the aim of breaking what had been a cycle of poor voter turnout among Muslims in Canada — something it says had a tangible impact at the polls.

65 ridings where demographic could make a difference

Good Friday isn’t a religious holiday for Muslims, but being a legal holiday in Canada, it typically sees one of the biggest turnouts of the year for Muslims who hold congregational prayer.

According to the last national household survey in 2011, Canada is home to some one million Muslims. This year, CMV estimates the number of eligible Canadian Muslim voters is closer to 1.6 million.

By 2030, one in 10 Canadians are expected to identify as Muslims, meaning Muslims stand to become one of the largest voting populations in the country, Statistics Canada estimates.

Muslims had historically been less likely to vote compared to other religious groups, according to research by Elections Canada. A 2007 working paper by the elections agency put Muslim voter turnout in the 2000 federal election at 67 per cent, compared with 85 per cent for voters who identified as Jewish, 82 per cent for Catholics and Protestants and 78 per cent for Hindus. Total voter turnout in that election was 61.2 per cent.

That changed in 2015. A post-election poll by Mainstreet Research pegged Canadian Muslim voter turnout at 79 per cent. National turnout in that election was 68.5 per cent.

This year, based on research by Canadian Muslim Vote, there are some 65 ridings where the Muslim voting population is larger than the margin of victory for the 2015 incumbent MP. [Note: The 2011 NHS (the 2016 Census did not include religious affiliation) showed 24 ridings where Muslims formed 10 percent or more of the population, with an additional 45 ridings with between 5 and 10 percent of the population.]

‘A populist movement taking hold’

One area where the Muslim vote could prove decisive is the riding of Milton, Ont. Its incumbent won by 2,438 votes in the last election. And while Muslims don’t vote as a block, the riding has a Canadian Muslim population of approximately 8,000, enough to have a direct impact on the result, CMV’s executive director Ali Manek told CBC News.

So what are the issues of greatest concern to Canadian Muslim voters?

“What we find in the Canadian-Muslim community through our surveys and community consultations is that the majority are concerned with the same things as the rest of Canadians: jobs, economy, taxation, immigration and foreign aid usually top the list,” Manek said. Islamophobia is another big concern, he said.

The group has been working to survey voters heading into the 2019 election and expects to have results on their key issues of concern this May.

Aziza Mohamed, a volunteer with the group, was among those who attended Friday’s event. She said the coming federal election is especially important.

“When we have political parties in our country that are actively courting racists and Islamophobes, it’s really important that we be engaged to fight against that,” she said.

“We have a populist movement taking hold … putting forth ideas that are completely contrary to what Canada stands for and to what Muslim Canadians stand for.”

Among the sermon’s key messages: that Muslims vote not only with themselves in mind, but consider the impact on the wider communities in which they live.

“Think much bigger than your local politics,” Rabbani said.

It’s a message that hit home for Oguz Sarkut, who regularly attends the Bosnian centre with his daughter.

His takeaway from the sermon: “If we don’t vote, we don’t have any right to complain.”

Source: Ahead of federal election, imams at 69 Canadian mosques deliver message that every vote counts

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Why Jason Kenney’s workaholic style may not work when he’s premier [diversity numbers]

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

The numbers:

I pointed out on Twitter that Kenney’s UCP caucus contains a record-setting five Jasons. Yet, this change of government does bring in more ethnic diversity to Alberta’s legislature, as the NDP previously struggled to recruit non-white candidates. The new MLAs include 16 visible minority candidates (five NDP, 11 UCP) up from 10 elected overall in 2015. Say what you will about the racists who were exposed in the UCP ranks throughout this long campaign—and please do, it’s an important discussion—but Kenney has clearly brought with him from Ottawa an aptitude for bringing multicultural leaders and activists into the Conservative fold.

This legislature will have one openly LGBTQ member—rookie New Democrat Janis Irwin in Edmonton—down from three in the previous term. There was nobody from the community running as a UCP candidate. Should Edmonton–West Henday flip to Williams, who self-identifies at Métis, she will be the lone Indigenous MLA.

While Canada now has no female premiers for the first time in more than a decade, the legislature’s gender makeup didn’t suffer tremendously. There stands to be 26 or 27 female MLAs, just behind the record of 28 set last election—still far from parity in the 87-seat assembly.

Source: Why Jason Kenney’s workaholic style may not work when he’s premier

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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