Too much exposure to Fox “news.” And they should know better:
A flock of homeward-bound snowbirds landed in Brockville on the weekend, settled overnight in the Walmart parking lot, and proceeded to shop in defiance of government directives that they self-isolate for 14 days, multiple witnesses report.
The actions of the returning Canadians struck fear and concern among store employees, fuelled angry social-media posts by residents, tested the patience of politicians and even prompted area municipal officials to take direct action.
On Saturday evening, more than 20 recreational vehicles, the majority of which had Quebec plates, parked in the Walmart parking lot, stayed overnight, and left Sunday morning. On Sunday night the count was 14 RVs, again predominantly Quebecers.
The snowbirds were returning from wintering in the United States, apparently heeding the Canadian government’s advice that they return home as the border was closed to non-essential traffic because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But while heeding the call to return, many of the snowbirds ignored other recommendations, in a pamphlet given to them at the border by customs officials, that they go straight home and stay there for 14 days.
Brockville Police say that people returning to Canada are not breaking any law by refusing to self-isolate so police are powerless to force them to do so.
In a statement, Brockville Police said the parking lots used by the RVs are private property but that police are willing to help enforce a parking ban if asked by the stores.
“We are working with local business to ask them to assist by not permitting overnight camping and screening people before they enter the store,” police said. “If they wish us to police their lots at night, we will certainly assist.”
Local MPP and provincial cabinet minister Steve Clark said he was disturbed to see the “travellers irresponsibly stopping to shop locally.”
“I’m working with officials to stop this serious problem that puts people at risk,” Clark said in a statement to constituents. “My message to those coming back to Canada is simple: Go straight home and stay there for 14 days.”
Mayor Jason Baker drafted a note to the travellers, translated into French by Coun. Nathalie Lavergne, that welcomed them to Brockville and reminded them of the advice to go into isolation for two weeks.
“We are happy to offer you a chance to rest as you are travelling home and need a break,” his notice reads. “We hope you respect the need to remain in isolation for the next 14 days. If you need supplies from these stores please place this form under your windshield wiper and we will try to help. We hope to see you visit our beautiful city again when life returns to normal.”
Baker also had a message for Brockville residents, asking them to be tolerant.
“These are Canadians trying to return home. Brockville can offer them a safe place to rest and we will do our best to make it safe for our front-line workers,” the mayor said.
“Together we can be a welcoming safe haven for our countrymen or we can be a community who turns people away. I know which community I want to lead.”
Two council members from Elizabethtown-Kitley took a more direct approach. Coun. Tom Linton, later aided by Mayor Brant Burrow, took it upon themselves to approach the RVers and inform them of the need to stay out of the stores.
Linton was passing the Walmart on Saturday evening when he estimated about 20 RVs in the parking lot. Burrow also went by and counted 22 in all.
Early the next morning, Linton was in the adjacent parking lot of the Real Canadian Superstore, where his daughter works. Senior citizens, some with canes and walkers, were lining up to enter the store when it opened for a special seniors’ shopping hour at 7 a.m., Linton said.
To his astonishment, an RV with Quebec plates peeled out of the Walmart parking lot from among the other RVs and stopped in front of the Superstore. A woman got out and stood behind the 15 to 20 seniors in line, he said.
Linton said he pulled his vehicle up to the woman and asked if she had just returned from the U.S. The woman admitted that she had.
“I told her that she shouldn’t be standing in that line. You’re putting those people at risk and you’re putting my daughter, who works there, at risk,” Linton said he told the woman, who eventually got back in the RV and left.
Linton then went to the Walmart parking lot and attempted to persuade the RVers, who had camped overnight, to stay out of the stores.
The discussions were polite, Linton said, and the majority of them listened, although a few snuck into the store when his back was turned.
Recorder and Times reporter Ronald Zajac witnessed one of those confrontations and acted as translator for the Quebecer who didn’t speak English and for Linton, who doesn’t speak French.
The man, who had just returned from Florida, was unconvinced by Linton, saying “I’m being careful.” He went into Walmart to buy garbage bags.
The actions of the returning Canadians struck fear and concern among store employees, fuelled angry social-media posts by residents, tested the patience of politicians and even prompted area municipal officials to take direct action.Reuters
Linton concedes it’s above and beyond his job as a councillor to be arguing with people in a parking lot.
But “my daughter works at the Superstore – she’s wiping down things to keep other people safe – and people are taking it upon themselves to put people at risk,” Linton said.
On Monday morning, Linton, accompanied by Burrow, were back in the Walmart parking lot and they managed to persuade all of the people in the 14 RVs to stay out of the store, they said.
Linton said he will be back at the Walmart again.
“As long as my daughter is in danger, her father is not going to stand by with his hands in his pocket,” Linton said.
Burrow took it upon himself to call the managers of major stores in Brockville – Walmart, Superstore, Home Depot, Canadian Tire and Food Basics – to notify them of the problem of Canadians returning from the U.S. He said if Linton managed to chase them away from Walmart, the travellers might try elsewhere and he wanted to warn the other stores.
Burrow said he was talking with Baker to work up a schedule of some Brockville councillors to supplement Linton’s and his efforts in the Walmart parking lot. (Baker, who is self-isolating, can’t be there himself.)
Every new group of RVers returning to Canada will have to be educated because “some people just don’t seem to get it,” Burrow said.
The ultimate aim is to shame Walmart into taking action on its own since it’s their store, their parking lot, Burrow said.
Baker said that city staffers were meeting with Walmart management on Monday to seek a solution.
Of course, there is a long and sordid history of immigration restrictions and internment practices in Canada (as elsewhere). But any comparison should avoid being simplistic, and acknowledge the changes and focus on the current political and health context, rather than the litany of past sins.
Moreover, the population of Canada is diverse, and the measures undertaken are not to preserve the “white” Canada of old, but all Canadians, whatever their origins. So exclusionary perhaps, racist no.
The travel restrictions in place are more inclusive than exclusive in how they treat family members of citizens and permanent residents, as well as allowing for the entry of Temporary Foreign Workers:
The dangers to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic are terrifying, so it’s not surprising governments around the world are taking extraordinary measures to curb its spread, including closing borders to non-nationals.
We are living through an exceptional situation and governments are taking extreme steps as a result. At the same time, we know extraordinary measures can have enduring and profoundly damaging effects.
During the First World War, 8,579 “enemy aliens” were interned — the term referred to citizens of countries that were at war with Canada who resided in Canada — as well as hundreds of conscientious objectors.
Almost 22,000 Japanese Canadians were interned during the Second World War following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against Imperial Japan. About 75 per cent of those interned were Canadian citizens, including 13,000 people who were Canadian-born. Under the sweeping powers of the War Measures Act, the federal government confiscated their property — including land, fishing boats and businesses — and sold it at a discount, using some of the funds to pay for the costs of internment.
During the FLQ crisis following the kidnappings of British diplomat James Cross and Québec cabinet minister and deputy premier Pierre Laporte, the military and police conducted 3,000 searches, detained 497 people, including Québec nationalists and labour activists, in the pursuit of suspected accomplices. Only 62 people were ever criminally charged.
The fallout from all of these excesses was tangible: Ukrainian Canadians, who made up the bulk of the “enemy aliens” in the First World War, fought for decades to be recognized as full citizens; Japanese Canadians sought and received redress more than four decades after their internment; René Levesque and the Parti Québecois roared to power just six years after the FLQ crisis and very nearly achieved the separatist dream of an independent Québec in 1980.
And so with great power, comes great responsibility.
This old adage is all the more relevant if one considers the way many of the travel bans have been instituted along national lines: allowing citizens to move but restricting the movement of others.
Citizenship can be exclusionary
In efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19, lines of responsibility and accountability are being forcefully drawn around the lines of citizenship. This is troubling if one considers that citizenship can be exclusionary, especially when it creates hierarchies of priority and, seemingly, of human value.
Canada has won international praise over the last few years for its commitment to refugee resettlement in particular, as evidenced by the arrival of 25,000 Syrian refugees in a few short months.
But Trudeau has announced that due to these “exceptional times,” a new agreement has been signed with the United States that would see asylum-seekers crossing the border on foot returned to the U.S. This exceptional reaction goes against Canada’s commitments under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a 1985 Supreme Court ruling that says refugee claimants have a right to a fair hearing (the Singh decision).
The implicit and explicit nationalism apparent in many state responses to COVID-19, including in the Canadian context, is not necessarily “contrary to our values” as some have argued.
Rather, some of Canada’s earliest restrictions on migration and mobility related to people who were “physically defective,” “feeble-minded” or “afflicted with any loathsome disease” to use the language of the 1910 Immigration Act. This same act effectively prohibited Black migration to Canada from the United States and the Caribbean on the basis of that they were “unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada.”
Structurally, Canada’s immigration system — and its subsequent and related border controls — was designed to exclude as much as to include. This remains the case today.
As we navigate our current public health issues, it bears contemplation not only about immediate challenges but also what will come after.
During the pandemic, there have been many disturbing storiesof Asian Canadians being targeted and harassed because of racist perceptions about who they are and where they come from — a situation compounded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s deliberate, nationalistic and racist insistence to give the coronavirus an ethnic and geographic association.
It is notable that this violence has been directed at people of Asian descent, even though the disease has been spread by travellers of many different ethnicities. This difference reflects the easy associations of otherness of the kind that shaped foundational exclusionary immigration laws and regulations and, apparently, continue to resonate in the present.
This is an easy moment to draw lines between us and them, to talk about “our neighbours” and “foreign travellers” as though they are not one and the same. But the long-term damage could be very great, particularly for racialized and vulnerable communities that have experienced the impact of exclusionary migration measures historically.
The decision to close the border to refugees is bitterly ironic in light of Trudeau’s 2018 official apology for the Canadian government’s exclusion in 1939 of Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis.
The past and the future should be part of our thinking in the present. And to be clear, now is no time for nationalism.
Yet another illustration of the limits of technology to recognize and adapt to diversity:
With an iPhone, you can dictate a text message. Put Amazon’s Alexa on your coffee table, and you can request a song from across the room.
But these devices may understand some voices better than others. Speech recognition systems from five of the world’s biggest tech companies — Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft — make far fewer errors with users who are white than with users who are black, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The systems misidentified words about 19 percent of the time with white people. With black people, mistakes jumped to 35 percent. About 2 percent of audio snippets from white people were considered unreadable by these systems, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at Stanford University. That rose to 20 percent with black people.
The study, which took an unusually comprehensive approach to measuring bias in speech recognition systems, offers another cautionary sign for A.I. technologies rapidly moving into everyday life.
Other studies have shown that as facial recognition systems move into police departments and other government agencies, they can be far less accurate when trying to identify women and people of color. Separate tests have uncovered sexist and racist behavior in “chatbots,” translation services, and other systems designed to process and mimic written and spoken language.
“I don’t understand why there is not more due diligence from these companies before these technologies are released,” said Ravi Shroff, a professor of statistics at New York University who explores bias and discrimination in new technologies. “I don’t understand why we keep seeing these problems.”
Governments around the world have been dipping into the migration management toolbox to demonstrate decisive action in the face of a global pandemic. More than 130 countries have implemented border closures, travel restrictions, prohibitions on arrivals from certain areas, and heightened screening. These steps initially were taken to try to block COVID-19 from crossing borders and later as part of a raft of mobility restrictions seeking to mitigate further spread.
While these restrictions failed in their initial goal of preventing the breakout from seeping across international borders—the virus is now in every corner of the world save Antarctica—they may be more effective as governments shift their focus from containment to mitigation.
In a matter of one week, a handful of bans has given way to sweeping shutdowns of international travel, alongside aggressive interior restrictions on movements. Travel bans are a blunt tool to stem spread from one country to another (as authorities struggle to distinguish between affected and unaffected travelers), yet they are a logical part of the toolkit in the context of social distancing and restricting all forms of movement.
The Containment Phase
The pressure to wall countries off from the virus has been fierce; yet in a globalized world where millions of people cross borders on a regular day, hermetically sealing one country off from its neighbors to prevent the arrival of an airborne threat is next to impossible. First, borders are porous, so even the most sweeping legal restrictions will not prevent all crossings. At best, they may delay the arrival of the disease, but this benefit comes at an enormous social and economic cost—essentially grinding international ties to a halt at a time when cooperation to overcome a common threat (including by sharing medical knowledge and allowing health workers to circulate freely) is more critical than ever. And at worst, mobility restrictions may encourage deception (to elude both border and health screenings), which is highly undesirable in a public health emergency where it is paramount to identify and track those who are infected. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) is clear that blanket travel bans from affected areas rarely achieve their goals.
The Wrong Tools for Containment?
The threat of a pandemic has spilled over into border closures in more recent history as well. Fear of Zika virus (2016), Ebola fever (2014), and H1N1 influenza (2009) all led to calls for tighter restrictions on international entries in a range of countries. Yet applying border controls to the spread of disease across international boundaries is like trying to catch water with a sieve. It has little chance of stopping all possible threats.
It is also unclear whether tools such as visa restrictions and prohibitions on certain categories of arrivals—designed to screen for “bad actors”—can be adapted to address a very different kind of threat. Targeting nationality, for example, may be a blunt tool in the realm of public health; the Hungarian government banning Iranian asylum seekers, for instance, fails to account for those who may have been living in closed camps in Turkey for years. And airlines do not have systems in place to collect (and verify) even basic contact information that would allow individuals to be traced should they become infected. By some estimates, this technology is more than a year away.
In the containment phase of the novel coronavirus (before WHO acknowledged on March 11 that the new pathogen would likely spread across the globe) attempts to reduce the pool of people arriving from high-risk countries may have had limited effect for a number of reasons, including difficulties reliably screening people on entry. And curtailing some forms of mobility while allowing certain types of travelers (including returning citizens and diplomats) to cross borders—even as these groups, too, have been tied to spreading the disease—can undermine the whole purpose of containment.
Aside from failing to achieve their public health goals at the containment stage, these measures may also lead to unintentional perverse outcomes. Enacting blanket travel bans at the start of a crisis could potentially incentivize more travel from an outbreak zone to get around these hurdles. Under President Trump’s proclamation, Chinese nationals can only apply for visas to the United States from another country; this could incentivize unnecessary travel to a country like Japan.
These measures simultaneously cast the net too widely (snaring some who are not a threat) and far too narrowly (missing those who are). But rather than improve passenger data or information-sharing, countries have been closing borders rapid-fire. The United States, for example, in early February banned the entry of certain arrivals from China and Iran. Colombia closed its border to Venezuelans, as well as to arrivals from Asia and Europe. And in an early precursor to more significant European border closures, Austria and Germany began imposing checks on trains and vehicles arriving from Italy in early March.
Weaponizing Fear
Bold measures taken in the name of containing the spread of disease across international boundaries are often fig leaves for broader aims: reducing “undesirable” migration and curtailing the openness that has been blamed for uncontrolled movements of asylum seekers and migrants. Announcing the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to nonessential travel, Trump described the border restrictions as necessary to stop “mass global migration.”
Other countries seeking curbs on immigration, Greece and Hungary, for example, have announced they will refuse to accept any asylum seekers for a month. And in some cases, governments have exploited public health concerns to expedite plans in morally gray areas. For instance, the Greek government has leveraged fears about the spread of coronavirus to justify its controversial plan to build “closed” camps (essentially detention centers) for asylum seekers who reach Greek shores.
Yet even countries historically friendly to immigration are taking sweeping measures, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for example, announcing that Canada would cease to accept asylum seekers from the United States at unofficial crossings.
Populist politicians who rail against migration are attempting to draw a clear link between migrants and coronavirus, in face of no evidence to support this. Italy’s former interior minister, far-right politician Matteo Salvini, traced his country’s outbreak, without justification, to the docking of a rescue ship with 276 African migrants in Sicily. And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared: “Our experience is that foreigners brought in the disease, and that it is spreading among foreigners.”
Migrants have long been scapegoated for the public health concerns of the day. Cholera was nicknamed the “Irish disease” in the 1830s. Ellis Island screenings in the late 19th century would send people back for contagious diseases such as trachoma and ringworm. In the 1980s and early 1990s there was vigorous debate in the United States over whether being HIV-positive should disqualify prospective immigrants (a ban imposed in 1993 was not lifted until 2010). And today a definitional battle is taking place over COVID-19, with some insisting on referring to it as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan flu.”
Nativist politicians across Europe and the Americas have found they can score easy points by casting the blame for society’s ills on the “other,” and by stoking moral panic for political gain. Fear is being weaponized. And these fears are taking root in fertile ground: facts are being questioned like never before, and today’s social media environment is rampant with conspiracy theories (such as the idea that the coronavirus is a bioweapon engineered by the Chinese or even the CIA).
The Mitigation Phase and an Effective Way Forward
The actions, and in some cases bombastic rhetoric, around closing borders are taking public attention away from where it is better spent: measures that actually work to stop the spread of disease once it is in the community. In the mitigation stage, curtailing travel to limit human interaction may prove effective precisely because all other movements are similarly restricted under a larger social distancing strategy.
The mutual agreement between the United States and Canada to close their common border to nonessential travel, for example, is a logical extension of steps both countries are taking to encourage people to stay home. Some of the measures taken within the European Union, where several Member States have temporarily reintroduced border controls, are sensible extensions of domestic decisions to limit movement.
However, it is essential to implement these measures in ways that advance public health goals—which means not stopping at restricting travel, but aggressively testing, tracking, and limiting exposure. Enhanced screenings at airports that put large crowds into very close physical proximity for hours, as occurred recently at a number of U.S. airports, flouts these principles and increases the risk of transmission. Failing to obtain travelers’ travel and contact details (given the likelihood of asymptomatic transmission) or letting individuals come from high-risk destinations without any medical screening at arrival likewise may undermine any benefit gained from restricting movement.
Governments are under huge pressure to place the bulk of their resources on the most visible measures, including at borders. But these controls are only one piece of the puzzle. Many communities are already at risk of dire outbreaks (particularly those with individuals of precarious legal status who may fear coming forward to authorities or feel pressure to continue work despite symptoms), so these controls must be combined with other interventions. Among them, medical testing, limiting contact with exposed individuals, outreach to vulnerable populations, and ensuring everyone has access to medical care in the event of infection.
There also are broader philosophical considerations, including whether immigration enforcement operations, and widespread detention of asylum seekers and other migrants awaiting immigration hearings, may conflict with other public interest imperatives during this crisis. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for example, has wisely decided to temporarily suspend most nonurgent enforcement actions (committing not to arrest people at health-care facilities, for example). However, lingering fear and mistrust within unauthorized communities, and contradictory messaging from government authorities, may still keep people from seeking care.
Governments need to find a way to respond to legitimate public concerns without scaremongering, which risks eroding already weak public trust. And while a threat that has now reached global pandemic proportions has sparked a “nation-first” approach in many countries, the solution to complex transnational challenges facing our societies must by necessity be an international one. Rather than focusing inward on protecting their own, countries should be reaching out to other countries—including those where the virus first surfaced—to help find solutions.
Although a great many governors have made allowances for religious ceremonies to be performed in their coronavirus lockdown orders, many churches, too, have acknowledged in these extraordinary circumstances that their congregants should not be expected to attend public gatherings just for the sake of religious ceremony. Even Pope Francis has suggested Catholics who are at risk should ask God for forgiveness directly rather than go to Confession — a remarkable departure from centuries of Catholic Church doctrine.
But not all those of faith feel this way. In an angry article published in the right-wing Christian Journal First Things, editor R. R. Reno took a different position, suggesting that Christianity does not, in fact, command the faithful to take steps to save lives from COVID-19.
“At the press conference on Friday announcing the New York shutdown, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, ‘I want to be able to say to the people of New York — I did everything we could do. And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy,’” wrote Reno. “This statement reflects a disastrous sentimentalism. Everything for the sake of physical life? What about justice, beauty, and honor? There are many things more precious than life. And yet we have been whipped into such a frenzy in New York that most family members will forgo visiting sick parents. Clergy won’t visit the sick or console those who mourn. The Eucharist itself is now subordinated to the false god of ‘saving lives.’”
“A number of my friends disagree with me,” wrote Reno. “They support the current measures, insisting that Christians must defend life. But the pro-life cause concerns the battle against killing, not an ill-conceived crusade against human finitude and the dolorous reality of death.”
Indeed, Reno even suggested that fearing the pandemic is a victory for Satan.
“There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost,” wrote Reno. “Satan rules a kingdom in which the ultimate power of death is announced morning, noon, and night. But Satan cannot rule directly. God alone has the power of life and death, and thus Satan can only rule indirectly. He must rely on our fear of death.”
“Fear of death and causing death is pervasive — stoked by a materialistic view of survival at any price and unchecked by Christian leaders who in all likelihood secretly accept the materialist assumptions of our age,” concluded Reno. “As long as we allow fear to reign, it will cause nearly all believers to fail to do as Christ commands in Matthew 25. It already is.”
Of note. More on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, albeit peaceful:
Only the rider’s eyes were visible from behind her black face veil. With a bow in her left hand and an arrow in her right, she cantered her horse toward a target, aimed quickly and let fly. The arrow struck home with a resounding pop.
The rider, Idhanur, who like many Indonesians uses one name, is a 31-year-old teacher at an Islamic school in East Java who says that firing arrows from horseback while wearing her conservative veil, or niqab, improves her chances of going to heaven.
Ms. Idhanur is part of a growing, peaceful movement of Muslim women who believe they can receive rewards from God through Islamic activities like wearing a niqab and practicing sports that the Prophet Muhammad is thought to have enjoyed.
Many also say it offers protection from prying eyes and harassment by men in a country where unwanted sexual advances are common.
Ms. Idhanur, who teaches at Al Fatah Islamic Boarding School of Temboro, part of the revivalist Tablighi Jamaat movement, has an answer for Indonesians who fear that conservative Islamic dress is a troubling step toward extremism and the marginalization of women.
“Even though we are wearing a niqab like this, it doesn’t mean that we become weak Muslim women,” Ms. Idhanur said after dismounting. “We can become strong Muslim women by participating in archery and horseback riding.”
Indonesia, a democracy that has the world’s largest Muslim population, is officially secular and has long been known for tolerance. But in the 22 years since the dictator Suharto was ousted, the country has turned increasingly toward a more conservative Islam.
Conservative clerics, such as Indonesia’s vice president, Ma’ruf Amin, have gained a more prominent role in public life. And local governments have enacted more than 600 measures imposing elements of Shariah, or Islamic law, including requiring women to wear hijabs — a catchall for head scarves — to hide their hair.
A small minority of Muslims have embraced extremist views and some have carried out deadly bombings, including the 2018 Surabaya church attack that killed a dozen bystanders. One suicide bomber was a woman, prompting many Indonesians to be wary of women who wear niqabs, a more conservative face veil where the only opening is a slit for the eyes.
Concern that the niqab is associated with terrorism prompted Indonesia’s religious affairs minister, Fachrul Razi, a former army general, to call for a ban on employees’ and visitors’ wearing niqabs in government buildings.
He fears that some government workers are being attracted to extremist thought and sees the niqab as a sign of radicalization. His regulation has yet to be adopted. A 2018 ban on niqabs at a university in Central Java lasted only a week before opposition compelled the university to rescind it.
But Sidney Jones, a leading expert on terrorism in Southeast Asia, said it was important to distinguish between radical Islamists who pose a threat and followers of conservative Islamic groups who promote a traditional Islamic lifestyle, such as the proselytizing Tablighi Jamaat sect.
Good distinction between criticism of the Chinese government and Chinese citizens:
When we criticize the actions of governments run by autocrats and dictators, like those in Russia and China, we must bear in mind that it is not the citizens who are responsible for their government’s abuse and negligence; they are in fact, the greatest victims of it.
When we criticize the actions of governments run by autocrats and dictators, like those in Russia and China, we must bear in mind that it is not the citizens who are responsible for their government’s abuse and negligence; they are in fact, the greatest victims of it.
For instance, the Chinese people bear no responsibility for their government’s illegitimate imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor and Hussein Celil. It is also the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) criminal negligence that directly contributed to the mass outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, and the ensuing pandemic we face today. In fact, I very much doubt the families of China’s COVID-19 victims are celebrating their government’s actions today.
When we criticize the actions of these governments, we must be very specific and accurate in directing our criticism towards those who are in power. In the case of China, it is the Communist Party that holds exclusive decision-making power, and in Russia, the Putin regime. In both cases, the people of these nations have no meaningful say in the decision-making process of their governments, and face arrest and imprisonment for criticizing them.
By generalizing our disapproval and outrage towards the citizens of these regimes, we risk hurting and stigmatizing these communities, and that plays directly into the disinformation warfare tactics that such regimes are engaged in against the Western world, including accusations of “racism.”
Authoritarian regimes frequently label foreign criticism of their policies as “racist” as a way to delegitimize them and polarize debate. By wrapping themselves in ethno-nationalist rhetoric, these regimes often claim that a critique of their actions is equivalent to a critique of the people itself; this heightens the need to be precise with our language and aware of the propaganda efforts of authoritarian regimes. It’s a tried and true tactic in the authoritarian playbook.
China’s former ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, accused the Canadian government of “white supremacy” last year, when Canada demanded the release of its citizens who had been arbitrarily detained in China, in retaliation after Canada complied with a U.S. extradition request for Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou.
Last week, the E.U. published a report that warned Vladimir Putin is seeking to use the COVID-19 pandemic to destabilize Western nations and undermine our alliances. The report states that the Russian government’s cynical disinformation attack is designed to “aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries, specifically by undermining public trust in national health care systems, thus preventing an effective response to the outbreak.”
In the apparent absence of any evidence that would disprove the E.U. claim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pskov accused the E.U. of “Russophobia” in an effort to intimidate European policy-makers, critics and media into silence.
The same tactic has been used by the Russian government to discredit Canadian political leaders, like Chrystia Freeland, whose Ukrainian background has been cited as tainting her judgment. Putin critics, like myself, have also been labelled“Russophobic” for advocating for Canadian Magnitsky human rights legislation, a law that was lauded as the most pro-Russian measure that any Western government could take, according to assassinated Russian pro-democracy opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov.
Yet the concerns of Canadians who are worried about ethnic communities being stigmatized by the global pandemic must not be dismissed either. As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin has pointed out, President Trump’s recent reference to COVID-19 being a “Chinese virus” is “simplistic but technically accurate,” and plays into the hands of Chinese Communist Party propagandists, who in turn use this to provoke anti-Trump and anti-Western sentiments.
Leading U.S.-based Chinese human rights activist Jianli Yang told me that he “may not like the term ‘Chinese virus’ that President Trump has been using in the past few days,” but he doesn’t believe “it is intended by him for any racist meaning.” He believes that Trump was using the term to counter the Chinese government’s attempts to “divert responsibility for its mishandling of the outbreak which has resulted in this global pandemic.”
Yang believes that “there should be and must be a moment when all, victimized individuals and countries, come together to hold the CCP regime accountable.”
Here in Canada, we can be fairly certain that our governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, at all three levels of government, have been shaped by our sensitivity to potential accusations of racism by Chinese government propaganda. Why else did Canada refrain from limiting travel from Hubei and China, only to close off virtually all foreign travel mere weeks later?
Canada is not alone in facing such foul accusations.
In Sweden, a former, long-serving Swedish MP, Gunnar Hökmark, wrote in a recent opinion piece that “China’s leaders should apologize to the world for epidemics coming from China because of the dictatorship’s failure to address food safety, animal standards, and because its repression of truth and the freedom of its own citizens.” China’s ambassador to Sweden Gui Congyou condemned the statement and accused Hökmark of “stigmatizing” China. China’s ambassador also went on to criticize Hökmark, his colleague Patrik Oksanen and their think tank, the Stockholm Free World Forum, for being part of an “anti-China political machine” and for “attacking, slandering and stigmatizing China.”
Canadians and our government must take great care to avoid generalizations that risk stigmatizing Canadians of Chinese heritage, or any other community, whose governments engage in similar repressive behaviour, including the Russian and Iranian regimes. However, we must also be alert to regime propagandists who seek to dismiss and silence legitimate criticism of their actions when they smear critics with false accusations of “racism.”
As Jianli Yang underlined for me, “the Chinese Communist regime is not justified in accusing anyone of racism, who criticize its early-stage covering up of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the latest information (disinformation) war against other countries.”
Nice commentary by Andrew Cardozo of the Pearson Centre:
Some things are becoming clear through the COVID-19 crisis. First, government can be a huge force for good—in fact, it’s the only central force for some time to come. Second, we are very fortunate to have a strong health-care system, and it’s a good thing we don’t have a confusing, two-tier system. Third, governments can effectively help with income. Fourth, we are being kicked and dragged into the online world really fast—virtually and through remote work. Fifth, we have become a lot more hygienic. Sixth, it is clear that a good part of the success of our health-care system is our diversity—the women and men of various origins who make the system run so well come from a range of origins. Lastly, a strong public broadcaster makes a difference.
Almost no one is criticizing government for taking action on several fronts. To the extent there is criticism, it is that the government is not doing enough or fast enough.
Whether it’s health care, income support, business support, immigration or national security and diplomacy; it’s government, government, government.
As the crisis started to unravel, we were seeing situations of Americans not going for tests as it could cost several hundred dollars for each person. Not so in Canada. Never. That’s why we have a universal system and not a two-tier system, which some people so desire.
And even if you really don’t care about your less fortunate fellow citizens, the prospect of potential carriers of the virus not being diagnosed meant that they would continue to carry it and spread it around—to selfish people included.
Isn’t it time we move to universal pharmacare so people who get the virus do not have to worry about paying for the drugs required? And the areas of public policy should include the economy, employment, and income support, and we should be trying to provide a “basic income” for Canadians. Isn’t it time we move our whole system to one of ensuring a basic income for all Canadians permanently?
Then there’s working from home. It’s the big new thing. It’s no more a nice thing to do, with all sorts of environmental and family benefits. It’s a necessity. It has to happen, now, right away, and as across the board as humanly possible. Who knew? A transition that started perhaps a decade ago and was slowly moving along, will literally become mainstream in a matter of days. Working remotely, and managing remote workers is suddenly the norm.
Oh and hand washing. My unscientific observations over the years is that one-third of men do not wash their hands after, you know. Yes, ladies, sorry to reveal the dirty truth. I hear on the female side of the ledger that figure is close to zero per cent. And those remaining two-thirds—only one-third uses soap. My male friends generally agree that these proportions are accurate.
Now we men are 100 per cent washing with soap, at least I hope. That is a huge and sudden progress.
But washing hands after washroom use is just one element of hygiene. We are likely to become a whole lot more hygienic—although I hope not overly so, or we will lose any built-up immunities.
The diversity of our top health officials is suddenly evident. It seems there is no other area of expertise where so many women and men of various origins have risen to the top.
Dr. Theresa Tam has to be the coolest, calmest, and most authoritative health official ever. Born in Hong Kong and educated in the U.K., she delivers the warnings in a way that is straightforward and non-threatening.
Her deputy is Dr. Howard Njoo, a veritable global citizen born in Europe and raised in Canada, of Chinese-Indonesian-Southeast Asian origin.
Dr. Horacio Arruda is director of public health of Quebec. Dr. Wajid Ahmed is the medical officer of health for Windor-Essex and Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang is Waterloo region’s medical officer of health are among the top health authorities across Canada.
Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, pictured on March 16, 2020, at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, is ‘a veritable global citizen born in Europe and raised in Canada, of Chinese-Indonesian-Southeast Asian origin,’ writes Andrew Cardozo. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
The faces on TV are numerous. Dr. Peter Lin, whose calming dulcet tones grace CBC TV and radio, is called the CBC House Doctor. Dr. Samir Sinha is director of geriatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Dr. Susy Hota is a University of Toronto academic. Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti is an infectious diseases specialist in Mississauga and Dr. Samir Gupta is a clinician-scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, oh yes, there’s that other billionaire immigrant, Li Ka Shing. Dr. Nisha Thampi is head of Infection Control at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, infectious disease specialist with Toronto’s University Health Network frequently appears on CTV.
We would be woefully understaffed if it were not for the thousands of immigrants throughout the system, all the Filipina and Caribbean nurses, for example. Something for Quebec to watch closely—they may want to extend a more immigrant-friendly welcome mat and suspend Bill 21 for a while.
Overall, we are also seeing a large number of women in top spots in public health across the country. In addition to Dr. Tam and Dr. Wang noted above, these include Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s high-profile provincial health officer; Dr. Patricia Daly, her counterpart for Vancouver; Dr. Deena Hinshaw, chief medical officer of health for Alberta (who is leading from her home, in quarantine); and Dr. Jessica Hopkins, Peel’s medical officer of health.
And, of course, at the political level, we are seeing the COVID cabinet committee, led by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and the competent and always informative Health Minister Patty Hajdu.
Lastly, the CBC. While the private networks are doing a great job, the CBC-Radio Canada is performing at its best. CBC News Network and ICI RDI are providing stellar services, which not only provide news about who is doing what, but provide a lot of information to viewers to help us understand what COVID-19 is all about and how we need to defend ourselves. The demonstrations on how to wash your hands could not have been more valuable.
In these troubled times, it helps to see the silver linings and the strong system we have in place.
Too early to tell to see whether business models will change:
Many young people from China who are in Canada on study visas are returning home because they’re feeling isolated and lonely and yearn to be with their families, says Burnaby immigration lawyer George Lee.
The departure from Canada of people on study, work and travel visas is just one of many signs that globalization, which promotes the free movement of goods and humans, is suffering a setback because of COVID-19, says Lee, who has frequently travelled to China to serve his clients.
“They don’t feel safe here, if they’re alone without family members. Some want to be with family who are sick. It’s understandable. If I was alone in London right now, I would come back myself,” said Lee, noting the COVID-19 outbreak is making open borders and global mobility seem more of a threat than a benefit.
With both authoritarian and democratic governments taking extraordinary measures to reduce the international flow of trade and people to halt the spread of the virus, promoters of globalization say when the crisis abates they will have to work harder to convince the public of the benefits of open borders.
Canada began turning around all international visitors to Canada at airports on Wednesday, and will close the U.S. border to non-essential travel on Saturday. Ottawa has also banned almost all people returning to Canada who are not citizens or permanent residents.Even though the Liberal government announced on March 12 it would again hike its quota of immigrants — to 341,000 new permanent residents this year, 351,000 next year and 361,000 in 2022 — the government was forced to announce three days later it was cancelling all citizenship ceremonies, citizenship tests and retests.Globalization has been a big factor shaping both Canada, where 22 per cent of the population, is foreign-born and cosmopolitan Metro Vancouver, where 45 per cent of the population is foreign-born. Since 87 per cent of Canada’s COVID-19 cases have occurred as a result of travel outside the country, Vancouver International Airport is now only one of four airports in Canada open to foreign travellers.
The efforts of Canada and other nations to stop the virus are creating barriers to trade and transnational migration.“In the midst of all this, the bizarre thing is that China is inviting its citizens to return home, saying it’s safer than being in Canada or the U.S.,” said Lee, referring to the country where the novel coronavirus began, and which has grown into the world’s second largest superpower in large part because of the movement of technology, capital and people.
While Lee says many people on temporary student, work and visitors’ visas are returning to their homelands, Vancouver immigration lawyer Sam Hyman adds that some others appear to be extending their stays in Canada, with the government allowing them to remain longer than their permits stipulate.Asked how he believes COVID-19 will affect Canada’s future migration policies, Hyman said “the last thing we want now is for anyone to politicize all this.”
“The coronavirus outbreak has been a gift to nativist nationalists and protectionists, and it is likely to have a long-term impact on the free movement of people and goods,” author Philippe Legrain recently wrote in Foreign Policy, in a piece headlined The Coronavirus is Killing Globalization As We Know It.
Even though the disruption caused by drastic border and health-protection measures is expected to be temporary, the British political economist said the public is realizing there are risks to relying on global supply chains and that people are vulnerable to seemingly distant foreign threats. Some business leaders worry about what they’re calling de-globalization.“Many ostensibly liberal governments have slapped restrictions on travel and trade that are more draconian than ever (Donald) Trump dared impose at the height of his conflict with China last year,” said Legrain, who wrote the book, Open World, as a counter-argument to Canadian author Naomi Klein’s No Logo. “It provides fodder for nationalists who favour greater protectionism and immigration controls.”In addition to tightening the borders to combat COVID-19, this month Ottawa made other moves affecting migration.It’s restricted temporary foreign workers entering the country, barred anyone who tests positive to COVID-19 and suspended the family-reunification program. Most contentiously for refugee advocates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday suddenly changed tack and stopped accepting asylum seekers as they try to cross into Canada on foot. About 20 to 50 had been arriving each day and there had been confusion about whether they were going into quarantine.
At the same time Ottawa is giving would-be immigrants more time and leeway to obtain permanent resident status and has stopped deporting people.
All in all Hyman believes the government is “doing a good job in extremely trying circumstances” as it attempts to offset its welcoming migration policywith protecting the public’s health. Lee, the immigration lawyer, believes Canada is acting “generously” with migrants, adding no restrictions on permanent residents and relatively few measures hampering the country’s fast-growing cohort of 642,000 foreign students, 141,000 of whom come from China (43,000 are in B.C.)“I think Canada is very gentle in this regard. It’s not acting like China, which is just shutting everything down,” said Lee.
Only the next few weeks and months will reveal how COVID-19 plays out in changing Canada’s approach to the cross-border movement of people and to globalization itself, which up until recently has been the most far-reaching economic phenomenon the world has witnessed.
A rare positive decision but one that will encounter considerable and understandable scepticism given current imm policies and rhetoric:
President Trump on Sunday said undocumented immigrants should be able to get tested for coronavirus without fear of arrest or deportation.
“The answer is yes, we will do those tests,” Trump said during a White House briefing.
“You could say illegal alien, you could say illegal immigrant, you could say whatever you want to use your definition of what you’er talking about… Yes we will test that person,” he continued. “Because I think it’s important we test that person, and we don’t’ want to send that person back into wherever we’re going to be sending that person.”
Vice President Pence noted at the briefing that Customs and Border Protection issued guidance that agents will not target emergency rooms or health clinics in search of undocumented immigrants, barring extraordinary circumstances.
The assurance from Trump that undocumented immigrants could seek a test for the virus without fear comes after he spent his first few years in office seeking to clamp down on immigration and warning of the dangers that migrants pose. He has pushed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and imposed policies turning back asylum-seekers.
Trump initially deferred the question to Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who said all people with symptoms should be tested, noting that the virus “doesn’t judge based on where you’re from.”
Public health experts have pushed for expanded coronavirus testing to allow officials to better identify who needs to quarantine to curb the spread of the disease.
There are more than 30,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and more than 400 Americans with the virus have died.
Multicultural Meanderings 