How Deadly Were the UK’s Secret Nazi Concentration Camps?

2019/06/25 Leave a comment

Valid critique of a shallow treatment:

Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, and yet not a word about them is spoken during Adolf Island, a new documentary special premiering on the Smithsonian Channel (June 23) that investigates the only SS-run concentration camps on British soil—specifically, on the island of Alderney, 60 miles off the south coast of England. According to the program, the men and women rounded up by the Nazis were “dissidents and outsiders” and “political opponents,” but as for Jews, well, they don’t warrant a single mention, even in passing—an omission that epitomizes the speciousness of this hour-long program.

Adolf Island claims that it wants to uncover long-buried WWII Alderney atrocities in order to pay tribute to the experiences of the slain. However, it goes out of its way to not actually identify the types of people who might have perished on the island. The northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands, Alderney boasted two work camps, Borkum and Helgoland, plus two concentration camps, Norderney and Sylt. Sylt was operated by the SS—and housed Jews. Regardless, the show only discusses these facilities’ victims in the most general way, even as archival footage depicts gaunt concentration camp inmates. Its narrative-warping silence is all the more striking considering its purported goal, articulated by a Washington, D.C., Holocaust Museum interviewee: to learn more about small concentration camps because “one of the things that we really try to do here is bring back people’s identities, humanize them. That they’re not just numbers, but that they’re actual people who had lives.”

That they did—many of them Jewish lives!—although good luck finding out much about them here. Adolf Island details the work of professor and forensic investigator Caroline Sturdy Colls, whose research previously led to the discovery of mass graves at the Treblinka concentration camp. As Colls explains, Hitler invaded Alderney in 1940 as part of his larger takeover of the Channel Islands, which he planned to fortify as military bases that would help him control the English Channel. Archival footage of German officers having their car doors opened by British police officers certainly proves chilling, as does present-day imagery of the remnants of the German occupation—concrete barrier walls, gun turrets and army barracks—that still pepper the windswept locale’s landscape.

Colls arrives in Alderney with the hope of excavating near a cemetery at Longis Common where 336 German prisoners were buried, because she suspects that the actual body count was far greater. Given the Nazis’ homicidal ruthlessness, Colls’ suspicions seem perfectly valid. The actual evidence she has to suggest this is true, however, only amounts to her familiarity with Nazi practices, and a few anecdotal accounts about which we’re briefly informed. Nonetheless, Colls acts as if she’s on the verge of making monumental history. “This is probably the biggest murder case on British soil in the modern age,” she proclaims at the outset.

An impediment to Colls’ research soon arises in the form of the local Alderney government, via a letter denying her request to perform archaeological digs; only non-invasive measures are permitted. This is cast by Colls, and Adolf Island, as a blatant denial of history and cover-up of wartime horrors, because doing so allows Colls to present herself as a persecuted crusader. The problem is, we never directly hear from the Alderney government about its reasoning, which makes this David-vs.-Goliath dynamic feel as false and manufactured as the many shots of Colls walking around Alderney. Never fear, though, as Colls enlists the help of an expert team of drone operators (their airborne devices equipped with LIDAR technology) to photograph the sites in question—techniques that afford never-before-seen views of the structures hidden beneath Alderney’s brush-covered surface.

The results, you’ll be stunned to hear, are… underwhelming. Moreover, they fail to achieve Colls’ stated aims: to comprehend the true scale of the camp (which remains only vaguely known); to deduce how it functioned (the best she can tell, it was a labor camp, and sometimes sent prisoners back to Germany’s Neuengamme camp); and to determine who its victims were (again, maybe… Jews?!?). Rather than providing real insight into its central questions, Adolf Island provides unsubstantiated tidbits as a means of implying that the fluff it’s serving viewers is concrete proof of something. That’s never more true than during the finale, when Colls reports that she’s “identified features that have characteristics of unmarked burials”—and then the narrator baldly triples down by stating that Colls has unearthed “a crime scene” and that her data “confirm the presence of the mass grave.”

Speaking of the narrator: rarely has voiceover been as bluntly expository. Everything is relayed in the most loaded, portentous and/or overblown language imaginable, and that goes for Colls as well. Practical maps, cursory newsreel clips and ominous music round out this unimaginative package. While it’s easy to excuse such crude aesthetics as part and parcel of a reality-TV production designed for easy digestion—replete with post-commercial recaps of the prior action, for those viewers just tuning in—they stand in sharp contrast to the more daring non-fiction artistry that can be found, on a routine basis, on HBO, Netflix, and numerous other small-screen outlets.

In effect, Adolf Island is a lot like those dishonest ghost-hunting cable shows that overhype the importance of their sleuthing, treat each new development like a bombshell (before speeding on to the next one), and then end by making definitive conclusions that aren’t supported by the preceding findings. Colls comes across as sincerely interested in examining and exposing hitherto ignored Nazi malevolence. Nonetheless, by trading in faux-revelations, and treating common-sense logic as headline-deserving news—I mean, can you believe Himmler gave SS commandants the authority to kill concentration camp prisoners?—her Alderney inquiry comes across as a disingenuous attempt to give voice to those who died in the Holocaust.

The vast majority of whom were, you know, Jews.

Source: How Deadly Were the UK’s Secret Nazi Concentration Camps?

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What Happens After Amazon’s Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers Clues

2019/06/25 Leave a comment

Good long read on the lack of quality control and standards:

The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy” is a medical handbook that recommends the right amount of the right drug for treating ailments from bacterial pneumonia to infected wounds. Lives depend on it.

It is not the sort of book a doctor should puzzle over, wondering, “Is that a ‘1’ or a ‘7’ in the recommended dosage?” But that is exactly the possibility that has haunted the guide’s publisher, Antimicrobial Therapy, for the past two years as it confronted a flood of counterfeits — many of which were poorly printed and hard to read — in Amazon’s vast bookstore.

“This threatens a bunch of patients — and our whole business,” said Scott Kelly, the publisher’s vice president.

Mr. Kelly’s problems arise directly from Amazon’s domination of the book business. The company sells substantially more than half of the books in the United States, including new and used physical volumes as well as digital and audio formats. Amazon is also a platform for third-party sellers, a publisher, a printer, a self-publisher, a review hub, a textbook supplier and a distributor that now runs its own chain of brick-and-mortar stores.

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C-99 New Citizenship Oath: Dead on the Order Paper

2019/06/25 Leave a comment

Did seem a tad cynical to introduce this bill so close to the election, not to mention my concerns regarding the proposed expanded wording (Liberals propose changes to citizenship oath to respect Indigenous rights):

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s (York South-Weston, Ont.) bill to change the citizenship oath is also poised to die on the Order Paper when Parliament is dissolved for the upcoming election, at some point this summer.

The bill would have changed the oath taken by new Canadians during their citizenship ceremony, to recognize that the Constitution “recognizes and affirms the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.”

Mr. Hussen introduced Bill C-99 in the House on May 28. It was never debated.

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Singh in a bind as NDP must win over Quebecers that support new secularism law

2019/06/25 Leave a comment

Good column by Patriquin on Singh’s Quebec dilemna:

Were he a teacher in Quebec and not a politician based in Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh would find it difficult to work.

Thanks to Quebec’s “laicity bill,” which became law Sunday, Singh wouldn’t today be able to secure a teaching position with a turban on his head. Had he held this position prior to March 28, the law’s retroactive date of enforcement, he’d be stuck in grandfather-clause purgatory, allowed to wear his turban and kirpan—but lose this right should he be promoted, demoted or transferred to another position. It’s a cruel and confounding position for Singh. As leader of the NDP, he has significant support in Canada’s second-largest province. Yet he couldn’t so much as teach a Grade 4 class in the province, much less join a Quebec police force, guard prisoners in a Quebec jail or be a judge in a Quebec court. He couldn’t even serve as a liquor inspector.

Oddly, the NDP has been remarkably quiet about the demonstrable impingement of its leader’s fundamental rights. The party issued no press release following the judgment. NDP MPs, Quebec and otherwise, were largely and conspicuously silent on the issue. In 2013, the Parti Québécois of the day introduced its “Quebec values charter,” which would have had a similar negative effect on Singh’s ability to work in Quebec. At the time, the NDP called it “state-mandated discrimination,” with then-NDP leader Tom Mulcair vowing to “fight it all the way.” Yet the current incarnation of the NDP met the newly-minted Quebec law with a volley of crickets. There were no promises from the NDP to mount a challenge of the law should it form a government in October. Dissent was limited to Singh himself, who tweeted and otherwise expressed his “sadness” at its passing.

Unfortunately, there is method to the NDP’s silence. Quebec’s new secularism law is an onerous and cynical piece of legislation that tramples on rights secured by both the Canadian and Quebec charter. As a particularly mean-spirited solution for a non-existent problem—that of creeping religiosity in Quebec society—it serves no other purpose than to prop up the nationalist bona fides of Premier François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec government. And yet as grievous as it is, the law is remarkably popular amongst the very people Singh and the NDP must court if they wish to have any chance in the looming October election. In short, denouncing Quebec’s law is tantamount to political suicide, for all parties. That silence you hear from the NDP is the noise of political expediency.

How popular is the new law? Nearly three quarters of Quebecers polled believe judges, prosecutors, police and prison guards shouldn’t be allowed to wear religious symbols, according to a Léger Marketing poll for the CAQ government. (Other polls, notably Angus Reid and CROP, reflect similar levels of support.) In fact, according to the Léger poll, nearly 70 per cent of respondents believed the restriction should go even further to include preschool and kindergarten teachers as well. Here, we must acknowledge a bit of political brilliance, however cynical, on the part of Legault. By not including preschool and kindergarten teachers in the religious symbols ban, the premier has sold the law as a demonstration of restraint and compromise. The law “could have gone further,” he said the other day. “There are people who are a little racist and don’t want to see religious symbols anywhere in public.”

The NDP’s relative silence extends to the Conservative Party. While Conservative leader Andrew Scheer gave Quebec’s secularism bill a light spanking last March, the party made no similar overture upon the bill’s passing into law this week. If anything, the Conservative situation in Quebec is even more fraught than that of the NDP: Scheer is courting voters in the province’s exurbs and hinterland, where support for the law is highest (and, not coincidentally, the presence of actual religious minorities is at its lowest.) Scheer is further hampered by another political reality: laws such as the one passed in Quebec have remarkable support in the rest of the country. It is of no coincidence that former prime minister Stephen Harper, with his campaign-era “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line, wasn’t below a bit of Legault-style demagoguery.

And this silence has infected the Liberals as well, albeit to a lesser extent. In 2013, the mere hint of the PQ’s Quebec values charter provoked Justin Trudeau into writing 600 angry words in the Globe and Mail. This time around, it took being asked by a reporter for Justin Trudeau to denounce Quebec’s law.

In keeping relatively quiet on the political excesses of the current Quebec government, perhaps the NDP and others are simply learning from history. At a French-language debate during the 2015 election campaign, NDP leader Mulcair offered by far the loudest critique of Harper’s anti-niqab stance—and the PQ’s values charter by extension. “No one here is pro-niqab. We realize that we live in a society where we must have confidence in the authority of the tribunals, even if the practice is uncomfortable to us,” Mulcair said.

Mulcair’s was a righteous, nuanced and altogether sensible critique of the very type of identity-based politics practised by Harper then and Legault now. It also doomed the NDP, with Mulcair’s support diving at almost the exact moment he uttered the words. No wonder the current crop of federal leaders are so scared to say anything.

Source: Singh in a bind as NDP must win over Quebecers that support new secularism law

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The Gender Gap in Computer Science Research Won’t Close for 100 Years

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Interesting study, with some comparisons with different fields of study:

Women will not reach parity with men in writing published computer science research in this century if current trends hold, according to a study released on Friday.

The enduring gender gap is most likely a reflection of the low number of women now in computer science, said researchers at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a research lab in Seattle that produced the study. It could also reflect, in part, a male bias in the community of editors who manage scientific journals and conferences.

Big technology companies are facing increasing pressure to address workplace issues like sexual harassment and a lack of representation by women as well as minorities among technical employees.

The increasing reliance on computer algorithms in areas as varied as hiring and artificial intelligence has also led to concerns that the tech industry’s dominantly white and male work forces are building biases into the technology underlying those systems.

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‘We didn’t talk about the bombs’: How the 1st cohort of Syrian refugees made it through high school in Canada

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Encouraging story on how schools helped these refugees integrate and succeed:

Marwa Nakhleh’s voice barely registers above a whisper as she recounts the horrors she witnessed on the streets of Damascus.

“It was terrible,” she says of seeing a car bomb go off in her neighbourhood, vividly recalling the darkness that followed. “There’s no electricity, and it’s dark, and people looking for their family and their friends.” Her mother, she says, ran out of the house in a panic, trying to find her.

Guns, bombs and people dying are the scenes she registered as an 11-year-old growing up in Syria’s capital.

Nakhleh is among the first wave of Syrian refugees Canada admitted in 2015-2016 — and she’s among the first students from that group who are now graduating from a Canadian high school.

When the Arab Spring became a nightmare for Syria’s civilians in 2011, and what would become one of the deadliest wars in history broke out, Nakhleh’s parents gathered their four children and headed for the nearest safe place — Lebanon, which was already teeming with refugees.

Nakhleh, 19, says she was unable to continue school in Lebanon, where her family spent four years awaiting resettlement.

Families on the run

As the war in Syria raged and spread, Ammar Jouma’s family cautiously watched and waited at their home in the coastal city of Latakia. In 2012, they too were forced to flee, leaving everything behind.

Their search for safety took them to Turkey, where Jouma’s father was able to find a job. But the days were long and the pay meagre, so Jouma, 12 years old at the time, went to work to help support his family.

“We faced a lot of problems there. We faced a lot of tragedies until we came to Canada — and that was three years ago.”

School plays a pivotal role

As the humanitarian crisis deepened in Syria, Canada agreed to resettle an unprecedented 25,000 refugees, most of them families with children.

At Edmonton’s Queen Elizabeth High School, principal Sue Bell assembled the staff and prepared for the influx. The school already had a large population of immigrant students and was set to accept as many of the Syrians as it could handle.

“I know that whoever walks through our door, we’re going to be welcoming and we’re going to have a place for them to be, and they’re going to love it here,” Bell told CBC News in 2015.

Among the 33 students who walked in the door the following autumn were Nakhleh and Jouma. Both were exhausted from their four-year ordeals as refugees. Neither of them spoke any English.

It fell to the director of the school’s English as a Second Language program, Sherri Ritchie, to help them integrate.

“Learning English, sure,” she says of the challenges facing the students. “But I think the biggest thing is a sense of wellness, a sense of safety, relationship, trust. That’s been the biggest thing.”

Many of the students who came to Canada had missed years of school. Some who arrived in their teens had only an elementary school education. Ritchie says the school had to toss out the rule book when it came to dealing with the students.

Their fears had to be accommodated, and remedial classes were offered. As well, Arabic-speaking students who were already in the system served as mentors, helping to bridge language and cultural barriers.

“We didn’t talk about the bombs, we didn’t talk about the gunshots. We just provided safety and relationships, humour and lots of time and understanding,” Ritchie said.

Some students dropped out, but many others have risen to the challenge.

Nakhleh couldn’t wait to begin school when her family arrived in Edmonton in February 2016. “That’s when I got hope back,” she says.

Dropped into a strange culture with a new language, she pushed forward with her academic studies while also volunteering in the community and working part-time.

Jouma says he struggled at first. Even though he was unhappy in Turkey, he didn’t relish the thought of another move, learning a new language and leaving his friends behind.

“If you saw me the first day I came to school you will say this guy will never, never, never get out of here or get his diploma. When I took ESL Level 1, English Level 1, I was really confused about what’s going on.”

Of the 33 Syrian refugee children who began at Queen Elizabeth High School in 2015-16, Nakhleh and Jouma are among the 11 who crossed the stage Thursday to receive their Grade 12 diplomas.

Big hopes for the future

Now that she has graduated, Nakhleh intends to use her refugee experience to help others facing a similar fate.

“When you’ve been in a war and you’ve seen a lot of bad stuff, you have lots of feelings and you don’t know what to do, especially when you go to another country way different from yours,” she says.

Jouma plans to follow in his family’s maritime tradition. Recalling his grandfather’s stories of adventures on the seas, he plans want to attend a marine school in Vancouver.

“I love oceans, even though we don’t have oceans in Edmonton. But one day I will work there. This is my dream — to become a captain for a big ship. A really big ship.”

He will also get his Canadian citizenship in a few months.

Both students say they still love and miss Syria. But they say it is not safe to go back. Canada is now their home.

Source: ‘We didn’t talk about the bombs’: How the 1st cohort of Syrian refugees made it through high school in Canada

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Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising and consistent during debates over the PQ’s value charter:

Le premier ministre albertain, Jason Kenney, ne s’est pas gêné pour manifester son opposition à la loi sur la laïcité lors de son tête-à-tête avec François Legault.

C’est ce qu’il a répondu à une question du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD), mercredi, à l’Assemblée législative de l’Alberta.

Le porte-parole néo-démocrate en matière de multiculturalisme, Jasvir Deol, s’était levé pour lui demander s’il avait fait part de ses préoccupations à « son nouvel ami » québécois lors de leur rencontre du 12 juin dernier.

Les deux hommes ont tenu une rencontre de travail à Québec, puis soupé ensemble à la résidence officielle de M. Legault.

« Considérant que le premier ministre dit être en train de bâtir une nouvelle amitié avec le premier ministre du Québec, et considérant que les deux ont soupé ensemble mercredi dernier, avant que le premier ministre du Québec ne passe sa fin de semaine à se battre pour forcer l’adoption de sa loi raciste, M. le premier ministre, avez-vous exprimé des préoccupations à votre nouvel ami, le premier ministre du Québec, et lui avez-vous demandé d’abandonner immédiatement ce projet de loi ? » lui a demandé M. Deol.

À cela, M. Kenney a répondu : « Je lui ai fait part de mon opposition, et je pense parler pour la vaste majorité des Albertains quand je dis que nous croyons en la liberté de conscience, et que cette liberté doit être protégée, par exemple, pour les employés de l’État qui portent des signes religieux ostentatoires. »

Loi « haineuse »

M. Deol faisait écho au gazouillis de sa chef, Rachel Notley, diffusé lundi dernier, dans lequel elle dénonce « un jour triste pour le Canada quand le racisme devient loi ».

En Chambre, il a qualifié la loi québécoise de « haineuse », et a exhorté le premier ministre Kenney à la dénoncer sur les réseaux sociaux, ce que M. Kenney n’a finalement pas fait.

Or, Jason Kenney a tenu à rappeler lors de cet échange qu’il a déjà siégé comme ministre de la Citoyenneté, de l’Immigration et du Multiculturalisme sous Stephen Harper, à l’époque de la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, et qu’à ce titre, il était prêt à la contester devant les tribunaux.

« Je me suis toujours clairement opposé au projet de loi (du gouvernement Legault sur la laïcité), à cette approche, a-t-il déclaré mercredi. Même que quand j’étais ministre du Multiculturalisme, j’ai menacé publiquement de contester devant les tribunaux la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, qui comprenait des dispositions semblables. »

Il a également rappelé à l’opposition néo-démocrate qu’il avait soutenu la cause Multani en 2006, pour que les enfants de religion sikhe puissent porter un kirpan à l’école publique au Québec, et qu’il avait changé les règles pour que le kirpan puisse être porté dans les consulats canadiens, ainsi que dans les hauts-commissariats, partout à travers le pays.

En outre, a-t-il poursuivi, « j’ai appuyé le droit des filles à Montréal de porter le hidjab pour jouer au soccer. […] Mon bilan en cette matière est très clair », a-t-il indiqué.

La loi québécoise sur la laïcité, adoptée le 16 juin dernier, interdit le port de signes religieux aux employés de l’État en position d’autorité. Une enseignante au Québec qui tient à porter le hidjab, par exemple, ne pourra être embauchée par une commission scolaire.

D’ailleurs, le premier ministre François Legault a annoncé dans une entrevue à La Presse vendredi qu’il pourrait mettre une commission scolaire récalcitrante sous tutelle, après que la Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) eut déclaré qu’elle allait reporter l’application de la loi à 2020.

Ombre sur le Conseil de la fédération ?

L’enjeu de la laïcité pourrait jeter une ombre sur la rencontre annuelle du Conseil de la fédération, qui se tiendra à Saskatoon du 9 au 11 juillet.

En entrevue à La Presse canadienne, M. Deol a dit s’attendre à ce que tous les premiers ministres du Canada dénoncent d’une seule voix la loi votée par le gouvernement Legault.

Traditionnellement, les premiers ministres s’abstiennent de commenter les affaires internes des autres provinces. La situation est d’autant plus délicate que MM. Kenney et Legault sont à discuter d’autres enjeux, tels que le transport de pétrole et la sélection des immigrants.

« C’est discriminatoire […] ce n’est pas ça la laïcité, a plaidé le député d’Edmonton-Meadows. La laïcité rassemble les gens, respecte les religions de façon égale, et non seulement ça, mais elle permet aux gens de […] contribuer à la société », a-t-il dit.

« Clairement, cette loi divise les communautés en criminalisant les choix faits par les minorités », a-t-il ajouté.

Source: Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

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In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Reminds me of Ontario hospitals doing the same thing during the 2013 PQ charter of values debates:

An Ontario police force will launch a recruiting campaign targeting Quebec residents affected by the province’s new law on religious symbols.

The Peel Regional Police, which covers territory including the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, will conduct a campaign in Quebec after a motion was passed unanimously by the region’s police services board on Friday.

The police force “believes in the values of diversity and inclusion, including the accommodation of religious symbols,” the motion states. It goes on to say that the police board “invites all affected individuals either pursuing or training for a career in policing in Quebec to apply for a career with the Peel Regional Police.”

The motion calls for the police force to place advertising “within Quebec.”

Quebec’s religious symbols law, which was passed last Sunday, will bar public school teachers, government lawyers, judges and police officers from wearing religious symbols while at work.

The Peel Regional Police have just over 2,000 uniformed officers and 800 civilian staff, said Constable Danny Marttini, a spokesperson for the force. They hire approximately 100 new recruits every year, she said.

The police board motion was seconded by Patrick Brown, Brampton’s mayor and the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, who declared his opposition to Quebec’s law in a statement released Friday.

“We need to send a strong message to proponents of [the secularism law] in Quebec,” the statement says. “This law is an affront to freedom of religion and an infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Brown has also introduced a similar motion with Brampton’s city council for recruiting for the city’s fire and emergency service.

Another motion calls for the city to join a legal challenge to Quebec’s law initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

In his motion advocating for Brampton to join the legal challenge, Brown writes that the city “is ground zero for diversity and Canadian multiculturalism, and [Brampton’s] Council bears a responsibility to stand up in defence of the Canadian multicultural mosaic.”

Those motions will be considered at a council meeting on June 26.

Brown’s statement says the law on religious symbols will prohibit Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear religious symbols from pursuing careers in many public sector jobs.

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec thanked the Peel police force for its action.

“Thanks to the Peel Regional Police for applying the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the organization said on Facebook.

Source: In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

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‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the demographics of Brampton:

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown [former Ontario PC leader] is speaking out against the Quebec provincial government’s Bill 21, which prohibits government employees from wearing religious symbols, and is tabling a motion at council’s next meeting to make the position official.

On Friday (June 21), Brown issued a statement strongly condemning Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s provincial government for passing the controversial Bill 21 into law on June 16.

“Bill 21, of course, is the law that will ban Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear symbols of their faith from pursuing careers in numerous public sector jobs,” said Brown in his statement.

Brown, once leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party on Ontario before winning the mayor’s chain last October, also sits on the Peel Police Services Board. He seconded a motion at Friday’s board meeting approving a campaign to recruit Quebec residents interested in a career in policing affected by the new law in that province.

The police board motion also directs Peel police to “place select advertising within Quebec promoting a career at the Peel Regional Police.”

“I was pleased to second the motion at today’s Peel Police Services Board encouraging those Quebec residents interested in a career in policing to apply to Peel Regional Police. We are ground zero for multiculturalism,” added Brown in his statement.

The mayor’s statement included a pair of council motions he said he intends to table at Brampton council’s June 26 special meeting. The first would add the City of Brampton to an ongoing legal challenge.

The second follows the Peel police board motion’s lead inviting those affected by the new laws in Quebec interested in a career in firefighting to apply in Brampton, while also placing select advertising in that province to that end.

Council will debate both motions at its June 26 meeting at city hall from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“We need to join the legal challenge initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims to protect religious freedom. If we don’t stand up for religious freedom in Brampton which is the most culturally and religiously diverse city in Canada than who will?” said Brown.

Source: ‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

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Federal riding profiles: A visible minority view

2019/06/22 2 Comments

How does Canada’s political map of 338 ridings look in terms of the percentage of visible minorities? How do visible minority rich ridings compare to ridings with fewer visible minorities in terms of demographic, economic and social characteristics, and electoral results? 

Their electoral importance is clear, with 41 ridings in which visible minorities form the majority and an additional 93 ridings in which visible minorities form between 20 to 50 percent of the population.

By looking at ridings grouped by their percentage of visible minorities, the changing nature of Canada’s political landscape can be seen. As party electoral strategies focus on defining a winning approach given the needs and make-up of each riding’s population, having a comprehensive look at the demographic, economic and social characteristics helps one understand the various factors at play in electoral strategies. Political parties, of course, have their own more detailed data at the polling station level; this analysis aims to level the playing field, so to speak, for the rest of us.

This analysis provides a visible minority lens to ridings and their relation to demographic, economic, social and political characteristics. Given the ongoing trend of increasing immigration levels, that close to 80 percent of immigrants are visible minority, and the increased number of Canadian-born visible minorities, this approach provides a future-centred perspective to the political map.

While political parties collect some of this and other data at a much more granular level (postal code and polling station), the riding level provides a good sense of the diversity between ridings, and helps explain some of the political strategies employed to reach voters.

The higher unemployment rates, lower median incomes and greater prevalence of low income, suggest that economic issues are as significant as immigration-related issues such as family reunification in visible minority majority ridings. With their younger age profile and larger number of families, family-friendly policies are also important but childcare may be seen more though a family reunification perspective (parents and grandparents) than through government programs.

Identity politics play out differently depending on the percentage of visible minorities as the experience of the last election shows. Efforts by the Conservatives with respect to the “barbaric cultural practices” tip line and the effective distinction between Canadian-only and dual citizens in their citizenship revocation provisions, while appealing to many, created unease among visible minorities and provided an opening for the Liberal “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” language.

However, a likely common thread among most Canadians, whatever their origins, is that immigration and citizenship need to be managed and that the fairness and integrity of the processes is maintained. Public concern regarding irregular arrivals (“queue jumping”) and increased numbers of birth tourists are but the obvious examples. While for some, expressing these concerns may be driven by xenophobia, for most it is more likely driven by concerns over fairness and people taking advantage of policies and processes. 

Tables and analysis

This article uses 2016 Census Profile federal electoral district along with Elections Canada voting results by electoral district to highlight similarities and differences. The three broad groups of ridings — 41 ridings in which visible minorities form the majority, 93 ridings in which visible minorities form between 20 to 50 percent of the population, and 169 ridings with less than 20 percent visible minority — are subdivided to provide greater granularity. The groupings with the smallest number of ridings have the lowest variation or range in any of the indicators.

The full analysis can be found: Federal riding profiles: A visible minority view

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