‘Will my child ever be a Malaysian?’ — Malaysian Campaign for Equal Citizenship

2020/04/23 Leave a comment

Of note how the impact of gender discrimination in citizenship policy has a greater impact under COVID-19:

Malaysian women currently do not have equal rights to confer citizenship on their children born overseas on an equal basis as Malaysian men. Women must utilise an application process under Article 15(2) that is fraught with delays and frequent rejections without reasons given, and sadly, no guarantee of ultimately securing citizenship.

The Malaysian Campaign for Equal Citizenship would like to highlight that the impact of discriminatory citizenship laws on women are even worse during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the Malaysian movement control order (MCO) mandates a 14-day quarantine for anyone entering the country, this would be a challenge for pregnant women, especially those who may be travelling with their other children.

Additionally, the MCO only allows foreign spouses to enter Malaysia during the MCO provided they have a long term social visit pass (LTSVP). Hence spouses who do not hold one will not be able to accompany their wives and these mothers either have to return on their own or make the decision to give birth overseas while risking the chances of their children securing a Malaysian citizenship.

With countries’ borders closing and a limited number of flights during the Covid-19 pandemic, these women live with a tremendous dilemma.

That is, expose themselves to the health risks of traveling home (leading to the understandable quarantine) so that the child can be Malaysian; or deliver overseas, and live with the excruciating uncertainty if their child will ever be a Malaysian and then undergo the long tedious process of application.

“I was planning to give birth in Malaysia but because of the coronavirus, travels are restricted. I might not have a choice to give birth in Malaysia which is a pity for my baby as Malaysian women are not able to obtain automatic Malaysian citizenship (upon registration) for their own children, this is just getting more and more impossible.” – Malaysian woman living in Germany

Another Malaysian mother in Singapore felt it was not an ideal solution to travel to Malaysia to deliver her child as her husband could not enter Malaysia without an LTSVP, and she was not comfortable to undergo delivery by herself considering she experienced anxiety throughout her pregnancy.

She has since given birth in Singapore which cost her almost double in medical fees due to such changes in her delivery plans.

Women are often expected to accommodate their pregnancy according to existing Malaysian citizenship provisions by delivering in Malaysia for their children to be Malaysian.

Such inequality in citizenship laws discriminate against women and contribute to the unequal status of women in the family and society. Laws as such make women vulnerable, especially during times of crisis as they are left with limited choices influenced by constraints.

While the Malaysian Government has been swift in addressing the ongoing pandemic, a fair and just solution is needed to ensure that all Malaysian women enjoy equal rights and are not put in unnecessary vulnerable situations.

Therefore, we call on the Government of Malaysia and every Member of Parliament to amend Article 14 of the Federal Constitution so as to grant Malaysian women equal rights to confer citizenship on their children on an equal basis as Malaysian men.

In addressing the urgent needs of the Covid-19 situation on pregnant Malaysian women overseas, we urge the Government of Malaysia, specifically the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration Department of Malaysia to especially grant citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysians during the Covid-19 situation as a temporary measure until full equality is enshrined in Malaysian citizenship laws.

Source: ‘Will my child ever be a Malaysian?’ — Malaysian Campaign for Equal Citizenship

Filed under Citizenship, gender Tagged with ,

Canada needs to start taxing Canadians who live abroad

2020/04/23 Leave a comment

Working on a piece analyzing the issue of citizenship-based versus residency-based taxation, given this opinion piece by Chandra Arya, Liberal MP for Nepean.

His arguments are largely based on anecdote rather than available evidence, he fails to question by the USA is an outlier on citizenship-based taxation compared to other OECD countries, and understates the policy and administrative complexities involved in making such a change.

As always, people cite the Asia Pacific Foundation number of three million expatriates without controlling for age and citizenship. Doing so results in about two million expatriates:

It is time for Canada to adopt citizenship-based taxation (CBT).

While we don’t have complete information on where Canadians have taken up long-term residence abroad, there are reports of about 300,000 Canadian citizens in Hong Kong and tens of thousands in each of several countries in the Middle East. From Asia to Africa, from Europe to the Caribbean and South America and, of course, the US, significant numbers of Canadians have made their permanent home away from Canada. There were about 3 million Canadians abroad, including tourists, at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, according to the Prime Minister.

Currently, Canadian income tax obligations are based on residency status and not on citizenship or immigration status, so non-resident Canadians do not pay taxes. However, expatriate Canadians enjoy the same rights as Canadians who are resident here. They should face the same obligations as resident Canadians, including paying taxes, so that they share the responsibility of contributing, at least financially, to our country.

The United States is the only developed country that taxes its citizens on their global income irrespective of where they live or how long they have lived outside of the US. The constitutional validity of CBT has not been tested in Canada, but the 1924 US Supreme Court decision in the case of Cook v. Tait offers cogent reasoning about CBT that shows its validity under the US constitution. The decision relied on the inherent benefits received by US citizens and their property from the US government, regardless of where the citizens made their home or where their property was located.

Michael S. Kirsch of  the University of Notre Dame, in his seminal 2007 article “Taxing Citizens in a Global Economy,” argues for the same principle. Kirsch suggests that recent globalization trends strengthen, rather than weaken, the case for taxing US citizens living abroad. He concludes that modern advances in transportation and communication weaken the case for giving preferential treatment to income earned by citizens working abroad, in that these developments afford the expatriate US citizen virtually the same rights as that of a resident US citizen, such as personal protection, property protection, the right to vote and the right to enter.

The same can be said of expatriate Canadians. They are assured of guaranteed access to a safe, secure and stable society, virtually free world-class health care and education systems and, depending on income levels, affordable housing, irrespective of their length of stay (or lack thereof) in Canada. In addition, depending on the time spent in Canada, financial supports like Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement are available to them. Anecdotal evidence suggests citizens are returning to Canada to enjoy these benefits after spending their productive lives elsewhere. This is a significant contingent liability for Canada, because citizenship — not contribution (or lack thereof) to our society — is the criterion for benefits and support.

Kirsch also discusses the need to maintain the cohesion of a society. In the absence of citizenship-based taxation, there is a strong tax-driven incentive for a not insignificant number of high-income and high-net-worth individuals to establish tax residence abroad in order to avoid income taxes. The creation of a separate class of citizens could have corrosive effects on broader society, just as it has done in other countries that rely only on residence-based taxation.

A Canadian passport facilitates visa-free travel and increased international mobility — and serves as a plan B, allowing these global citizens to return here when things get rough elsewhere.

There was a time when most immigrants to Canada came here to become citizens and settle permanently. Now, for a small but growing number, the objective is to acquire citizenship and leave again. A Canadian passport facilitates visa-free travel and increased international mobility — and serves as a plan B, allowing these global citizens to return here when things get rough elsewhere. But without CBT, they don’t help to finance the society they are counting on as a safe harbour.

There are also budgetary considerations underlying the adoption of a CBT system. Before the COVID-19 crisis, our economy was in great shape and able to generate sufficient government revenues to maintain a comfortable federal debt-to-GDP ratio of about 30 percent. Now we are in another world altogether. We are going to have the biggest budget deficit in the history of Canada, thanks to the biggest bailout packages ever for millions of Canadians and businesses. The public debt may exceed all previous peaks. While it is always optimal for a country to have an expanding tax base that is able to fund social programs and services or investments in infrastructure, defence and economic development, it has now become a necessity. With CBT, the tax base would include many more new taxpayers.

Changes to demographics, particularly the greying of our society, will only accentuate the need for higher government revenues, as these changes will result in substantial growth in demand for social services. Volatile global situations will increase the number of Canadians returning to safety (financial, health and/or physical) in Canada, also boosting the demand for government services.

One revenue option to meet these demands is to increase direct or indirect tax rates. The alternative is to shrink spending. Canadians seem to have no appetite for either of these options, especially in the current crisis. The Liberals in the recent past have raised taxes on the wealthy. But there is a limit to this approach.

The only viable alternative for enlarging the revenue stream in order to maintain adequate service delivery to citizens is to expand the taxpayer base. This is why the idea of CBT is so appealing. The government should examine CBT’s feasibility, including the potential contingent liability and revenue, plus enforcement and international tax agreement issues. The financial burden and responsibility of meeting the needs of all Canadians should be shared by all citizens. It is the equitable thing to do.

Source: Canada needs to start taxing Canadians who live abroad

Andrew Caddell, in his overview Opinion: The post-COVID Canada faces many challenges The post-COVID Canada faces many challenge includes a throwaway line which is completely silent on these complexities:

Governments will have to get out of debt without crushing the economy, or Canadians. This will require creative ways of raising taxes. One possibility would be a two per cent increase in the GST to seven per cent: that would generate $90-billion over five years. Second, the three million Canadians abroad should contribute, through a 10 per cent tax on income; that could bring in at least $30-billion per year. Third, tax havens for Canada’s wealthiest have to be closed, and that money taxed.

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Opinion: U.S. Must Avoid Building Racial Bias Into COVID-19 Emergency Guidance

2020/04/23 Leave a comment

Another angle and concern regarding racial disparities in healthcare:

Across the United States, we are seeing alarming statistics about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on Latino and black people. In New York City, the New York Times tells us, coronavirus is twice as deadly for these minorities as for their white counterparts. In both Chicago and Louisiana, black patients account for 70% of coronavirus deaths, even though they make up roughly a third of the population.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, where we practice, an estimated 35% to 40% of patients admitted to the hospital with the coronavirus are Latino — that’s a 400% increase over the percentage of patients admitted before the outbreak who were Latino.

In the emergency room, conversations about a patient’s end-of-life wishes are taking place in broken Spanish, seconds before they get intubated. In the intensive care unit, doctors barely have time to update family members, because they’re too bogged down by patient-care tasks to call an interpreter. For patients healthy enough to go home, our usual script around social distancing falls short, as many of our black and Latino patients are unable to self-isolate within large multigenerational households. In addition, many of these patients either are essential workers or live with one — they cannot simply “stay home”.

In a pandemic that has stretched U.S. health care resources thin, it’s not surprising to see a worsening of already existent health care disparities. Several states and organizations have started to release Crisis Standards of Care guidelines in recent weeks — these are meant to help hospitals ration critical resources like ventilators and intensive care unit beds, if and when the need is dire.

The overall aim of such guidelines, which can vary in their specifics from state to state and hospital to hospital, is to allocate limited resources to the people who are most likely to benefit from them.

To determine which patients get priority in treatment, several of the CSCs published so far, such as guidelines from Colorado and Massachusetts, recommend that the hospital use frameworks that include the patient’s age and “SOFA” score (a measure of how critically ill the patient is at arrival, based on objective laboratory values). Importantly, they also include what we doctors call “comorbidities” — other, underlying medical conditions that can put patients who are infected with this virus at a higher risk for worse outcomes.

We know that historically disadvantaged populations — including black and Latino patients — have a higher burden of the comorbidities traditionally used by hospitals to stratify patients by risk. This is largely because of structural and socioeconomic factors. Studies and statistics suggest that, compared to their white counterparts, black patients are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure, twice as likely to have heart failure, three times as likely to die from asthma-related complications, three times more likely to have chronic kidney disease, twice as likely to be diagnosed with colon and prostate cancer, and represent 44% of the HIV positive population. Similarly, Latino patients are twice as likely to both have and die from diabetes, and twice as likely to have chronic liver disease than non-Hispanic whites.

Although the foundational principle of Crisis Standards of Care guidelines are utilitarian and aim to benefit the greatest number of people while treating “individual cases fairly,” a system that penalizes on the basis of comorbidities will undoubtedly and unfairly penalize the populations that are already more vulnerable to those conditions.

Furthermore, given the novelty of COVID-19, we still don’t have a complete picture of which factors lead to worse outcomes. While some data suggest that patients with severe COVID-19 are more likely to have hypertension or respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses, there are also findings suggesting that men have more severe disease than women. Yet, the Crisis Standards of Care are not factoring sex into their scoring system. This means that we are arbitrarily choosing metrics to guess which patients will do better, and we’re doing so at the expense of populations that have historically been marginalized by the health care system.

COVID-19 is already affecting and killing a disproportionate number of black and Latino patients across the United States. Using comorbidities as a proxy for disease severity to allocate resources, without taking into account race and ethnicity, will almost certainly mean that racial and ethnic minorities will be placed in the “back of the line” for critical care resources.

In order to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people ethically and fairly, standards of care must be informed by the existing inequalities in our country.

While we’re not suggesting that comorbidities be removed from crisis standards of care altogether, we urge states to reevaluate current guidelines and include only major comorbidities with a known short-term impact on a patient’s prognosis.

States should also track and make publicly available demographic data — including race and ethnicity — for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in order to ensure that people of color are not being denied resources disproportionately. Lastly, states should ensure that the committees designing crisis standards of care are composed of a racially and ethnically diverse group of individuals in a way that is representative of their population.

It was devastating enough to have to tell my African American patient’s young son that his dad’s illness was so life-threatening we needed to place a breathing tube down his throat and send him to the intensive care unit. I can only imagine how he would feel if, in some unfortunate circumstance, we would have to tell him that his father would need to be taken off the ventilator to conserve resources.

Dr. Jossie Carreras Tartak and Dr. Hazar Khidir are residents in Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Source: Opinion: U.S. Must Avoid Building Racial Bias Into COVID-19 Emergency Guidance

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Ibbitson: Neither the United States nor Canada can afford to ban immigration

2020/04/23 Leave a comment

As some have noted, this is more of a rhetorical argument than substantive, as the debate, at least in Canada, will be more with respect to levels and the mix of programs than a ban (which Trump will continue to talk about for political purposes):

However, Ibbitson is a bit too optimistic that Canada will automatically go back to the current immigration plan and a bit too accepting on the general demographic arguments without considering the expected impact of AI and automation.

Posing options as closing doors or returning the current immigration plan and levels is a false choice as the reality for Canada, I expect, will remain towards open immigration but with some adjustments once the medium-term effects of COVID-19 work through the economy:

The tweet may simply have been a bit of raw meat for his base. But if Donald Trump really does plan to ban all immigration into the United States, that would be the worst act of his presidency, which is saying something.

Banning immigrants would amplify one of the most important demographic trends of our time: declining fertility rates among millennials and Gen Z. Babies who are not being born must be replaced with people brought in from abroad. The inevitable alternative is increased joblessness and economic decline. This is as true for Canada as it is for the United States.

The U.S. President tweeted Monday night that “in light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”

On one level, the tweet in nonsensical. Most countries have closed their borders as they grapple with this pandemic. Until the novel coronavirus is brought under control one way or another, both Canada and the United States will be largely closed to immigration.

But once economic life returns to something approaching normal, then not only will immigration need to return to previous levels – currently 340,000 a year in Canada’s case; traditionally more than one million a year in the case of the United States – they should be increased to make up for the immigrants who should be arriving today but aren’t.

“We desperately need immigration,” said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, in an interview. “We are an aging society that in 10 or 15 years will be totally dependent on immigrants that we are getting now.”

That Canadian fertility rate declined from 1.6 children per woman in 2010 to 1.5 last year, while in the United States it fell to 1.7, far below the 2.1 needed to keep a population stable. Fertility rates have been below the replacement rate in most developed countries for decades, which is why immigration is required for population growth.

But in recent years, a new trend has emerged. The birth rate for millennials and Gen Z is lower than it was for Gen X and the baby boomers. A study by Ron Kneebone, a professor of economics at University of Calgary, showed that fertility levels for Canadian women under 30 declined significantly between 2000 and 2017.

Citing correlations between past economic downturns and fertility, Prof. Kneebone strongly suspects that the current economic crisis will lower Canada’s birth rate even further. “When I’m uncertain whether I’m going to keep my job and be able to pay the mortgage, is this the time to be having another kid? Probably not,” he said in an interview.

And, as he points out, countries with low fertility, little immigration and declining populations struggle to preserve economic growth. Just ask Italy or Japan.

Mr. Trump has played to nativist sentiments throughout his presidency. The fabled wall on the Mexican border, banning visitors from certain Muslim countries, suppressing immigration levels overall – these are policies designed to appeal to Americans who fear their white, Christian culture is being overwhelmed by foreigners.

In that context, Monday’s tweet should be seen not as an update on pandemic border control but as a racist reassurance to his MAGA base.

But restricting immigration would be disastrous for the United States. One-quarter of all health care workers in the U.S. are immigrants. They account for half of all the entrepreneurs whose startups grew to be worth US$1-billion or more. They account for almost 40 per cent of U.S. Nobel Prize winners.

The American health care system and the American economy depend on immigrants. By stoking anti-immigrant sentiments, Mr. Trump is threatening the future of both.

Polls show that most Canadians continue to support the high level of immigration that this country has enjoyed under both Conservative and Liberal governments for three decades. But Quebec Premier François Legault has reduced the number of immigrants coming into the province and has said he may reduce the level even further in the wake of the pandemic.

That’s a policy for economic suicide. When the borders reopen, Canada should increase its immigration target above next year’s goal of 350,000. Every immigrant we don’t bring in this year and next is an opportunity lost for Canada’s future, unless we make it up further on.

Neither the U.S. nor Canada can afford to close its doors.

Source: Opinion: Neither the United States nor Canada can afford to ban immigration

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Toronto public health to start collecting COVID-19 data on race in a bid to track health inequities

2020/04/23 Leave a comment

Other cities and provinces to take note:

Toronto’s public health unit will expand its data collecting capabilities so that it can better assess the pandemic’s impact by race and income, the Star has learned.

The aim is to assess whether there are disparities in how COVID-19 is impacting some communities — an initiative the city is shouldering because “provincial officials suggest this is not a priority concern for them,” according to a letter from Toronto Board of Health chair Joe Cressy to board members, expected to be made public Wednesday.

“We know that the biggest indicator of one’s health status is their postal code — not because of where we live, but because of what it can say about who we are,” the letter says.

“This makes it clear just how important it is that we have access to comprehensive data.”

Ontario has drawn criticism from health advocacy groups for not collecting statistics on race and ethnicity after the province’s chief medical officer, David Williams, said earlier this month this kind of data collection isn’t currently necessary.

A 2016 government report on health inequities — authored by Williams — highlights the role factors like race and income play in determining health, and notes the importance of “data to understand health inequities and inform community development efforts.”

“To create healthy communities, it’s time for the public health sector in Ontario to champion health equity: to bring a wide range of partners together to develop policies and programs that reduce or eliminate social, economic and environmental barriers to good health,” the 2016 report said.

Early evidence from the United States shows Black and Hispanic communities have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary data released by New York City last weekshows the virus is killing Blacks and Latinos at twice the rate of white people.

In a statement to the Star, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of Health said existing legislation does not “require or authorize health information custodians to collect race-based data.”

“Health was excluded from the Anti-Racism Act due to Personal Health Information Protection Act considerations,” the statement said.

“The ministry wants to understand issues of inequity, in terms of how the coronavirus pandemic and pandemic response may affect subgroups of the population differentially and is researching using data from other sources to better understand equity issues.”

In an interview with the Star, Cressy called the province’s response to the issue “flabbergasting.”

“This shouldn’t be groundbreaking. Nor should it even be necessary,” he said of the measures now being taken by the City of Toronto.

“It’s absolutely essential, as it has always been, that we have comprehensive data to fully understand and in turn respond to COVID-19. In the absence of appropriate disaggregate race-based data, we cannot properly respond.”

As a result, Cressy said, Toronto Public Health is now exploring ways to expand data fields in its current system — known as the Coronavirus Rapid Entry System — to include race and sociodemographic data.

Cressy said an early analysis cross-referencing the geographic location of early positive COVID-19 diagnoses with census data didn’t find concerning trends — but noted that initial cases often involved individuals returning from international travel who tend to have higher incomes.

“There are two stories to this pandemic. The first was early travel-related cases. And the second is how COVID-19 preys on the most vulnerable,” he said.

Steini Brown, the dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said low-income Ontarians are “now at a higher risk of infection and cases.”

“If you look into the evidence from the U.S., there are a variety of factors about who people are that are very strongly associated with their likelihood of getting the infection,” he said.

Research has already shown that the workers deemed essential to maintaining the country’s vital supply chain during the pandemic are significantly more likely to be low-wage and racialized compared to the rest of the labour market.

Source: Star ExclusiveToronto public health to start collecting COVID-19 data on race in a bid to track health inequities

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Fewer than 10 asylum seekers sent back to U.S. since Canadian border shutdown: Blair

2020/04/22 Leave a comment

As expected. Full April stats, when available in about a month, will show a dramatic decline in overall numbers:

The federal public safety minister says fewer than 10 asylum seekers have been turned back to the U.S. since the historic shutdown of the border.

Bill Blair provided the figure to the House of Commons today, noting it has been almost a month since the Canada-U.S. border closed to all but non-essential travel to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

The deal struck by the two countries included a provision that those crossing between formal border points in order to seek asylum would also be turned back.

Figures published today by the Immigration Department suggest, however, that the flow of people prior to that remained relatively steady.

The RCMP intercepted 930 people crossing irregularly in Canada in March, down from 1,002 the same month last year.

So far this year, 3,035 people have been intercepted crossing between formal border points, up from 2,698 in the first three months of 2019.

Source:  Less than 10 asylum seekers sent back to U.S. since Canadian border shutdown: Blair – National

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Trump says he will suspend all immigration into U.S. over coronavirus

2020/04/22 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising given that has always been his intent and that of his senior policy advisor and anti-immigration hawk, Stephen Miller. Details yet to come:

President Donald Trump said on Monday he will suspend all immigration into the United States temporarily through an executive order in response to the coronavirus outbreak and to protect American jobs.

The move, which the Republican president announced on Twitter, effectively achieves a long-term Trump policy goal to curb immigration, making use of the health and economic crisis that has swept the country as a result of the pandemic to do so.

The decision drew swift condemnation from some Democrats, who accused the president of creating a distraction from what they view as a slow and faulty response to the coronavirus.

Trump said he was taking the action to protect the U.S. workforce. Millions of Americans are suffering unemployment after companies shed employees amid nationwide lockdowns to stop the contagion.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States,” Trump said in a tweet.

The White House declined to offer further details about the reasoning behind the decision, its timing, or its legal basis.

“As our country battles the pandemic, as workers put their lives on the line, the President attacks immigrants & blames others for his own failures”, former Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar said in a tweet.

Immigration is largely halted into the United States anyway thanks to border restrictions and flight bans put in place as the virus spread across the globe.

But the issue remains an effective rallying cry for Trump’s supporters.

Trump won the White House in 2016 in part on a promise to curb immigration by building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. He and his advisers have spent the first three years of his tenure cracking down on both legal and illegal entries into the country. Crowds regularly chant “Build the Wall!” at Trump’s political rallies, which are now idled because of the virus.

Trump has lamented the economic fallout of the outbreak; his stewardship of the U.S. economy was set to be his key argument for re-election in November.

The U.S. death toll from the virus topped 42,000 on Monday, according to a Reuters tally.

The U.S. economy has come to a near standstill because of the pandemic; more than 22 million people applied for unemployment benefits in the last month.

“You cut off immigration, you crater our nation’s already weakened economy,” former Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro said in a tweet. “What a dumb move.”

The United States has the world’s largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 780,000 infections, up 27,000 on Monday.

But the president has made a point of saying the peak had passed and has been encouraging U.S. states to reopen their economies.

“It makes sense to protect opportunities for our workforce while this pandemic plays out,” said Thomas Homan, Trump’s former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “It’s really not about immigration. It’s about the pandemic and keeping our country safer while protecting opportunities for unemployed Americans.”

The United States in mid-March suspended all routine visa services, both immigrant and non-immigrant, in most countries worldwide due to the coronavirus outbreak in a move that has potentially impacted hundreds of thousands of people.

U.S. missions have continued to provide emergency visa services as resources allowed and a senior State Department official in late March said U.S. was ready work with people who were already identified as being eligible for various types of visas, including one for medical professionals.

The administration recently announced an easing of rules to allow in more agricultural workers on temporary H2A visas to help farmers with their crops.

Source: Trump says he will suspend all immigration into U.S. over coronavirus

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Liberal government’s ‘almost humiliating’ posture toward China a missed opportunity: former top diplomat

2020/04/21 Leave a comment

ICYMI. While David Mulroney is the more “hardline” of the two, the fundamental message from Guy Saint-Jacques is the same:

Two former diplomats are warning that the Liberal government’s recent silence on China could reinforce the country’s increasingly belligerent actions on the world stage, amid concerns Chinese officials actively misled the World Health Organization during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

David Mulroney, who served as Canadian ambassador to China in Beijing between 2009 and 2012, said Ottawa’s “almost humiliating” posture toward China in recent weeks was a missed opportunity to acknowledge the country’s shortcomings during the viral outbreak.

China has drawn criticism for providing potentially faulty information to the WHO, particularly in the first weeks of the spread of COVID-19, which in turn left world leaders largely ill-prepared for the virus.

Guy Saint-Jacques, who served as Canada’s envoy to China from 2012 to 2016, said leaders in Canada and elsewhere need to call for a full investigation of the WHO after it uncritically relayed information from Beijing observers claim could be inaccurate.

He also denounced recent “reprehensible” comments by Health Minister Patty Hajdu, who dismissed claims about faulty Chinese reporting as “conspiracy theories” that originated “on the Internet.”

Mulroney said the recent silence by Ottawa is part of a long-standing instinct to gloss over Chinese aggressions, largely due to its tendency to retaliate and its growing economic heft. But an unwillingness to acknowledge even the possibility of Chinese misdeeds could sow public distrust.

“Ottawa can’t seem to shake this tendency to flatter,” he said in an interview with the National Post.

“I’m not suggesting that we need to insult China or provoke a quarrel. We should simply be guided by the facts. And right now the facts argue for the case that China was delinquent, that it wasn’t transparent enough. That’s not a conspiracy theory.”

“When you start acknowledging the truth, then positive and corrective action is possible. As long as you’re in denial, there’s no hope of action that will ameliorate the situation. This is a tremendous missed opportunity and it’s not too late for the government to slowly turn the ship around,” Mulroney said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has batted away repeated questions about the WHO this week, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would withdraw funding from the organization.

Then on Thursday, Trudeau came closer to acknowledging some of the criticisms of China and the WHO, saying “there have been questions asked” about the organization, “but at the same time it is really important that we stay coordinated as we move through this.”

Both former ambassadors said Trump’s threat to immediately pull funding from the WHO would needlessly and dangerously cripple the organization at a critical time.

Saint-Jacques, who acknowledged that Ottawa is in a “delicate” position with regards to China, said world leaders should call for a thorough review of the WHO’s handling of the pandemic once it is under control.

“You have to draw a line,” Saint-Jacques said. “You have to stop such behaviour. You have to acknowledge that if you dealt with this issue with a lot more transparency we would have avoided an international crisis that has led to one of the greatest recessions of our times.”

The Trudeau government has repeatedly been forced to navigate tense relations with China, particularly after Canadian authorities arrested the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies in 2018, at the request of the U.S.

An attempt by Trudeau early in his leadership to forge a free trade deal with the country quickly evaporated, after Chinese officials made it clear that they were disinterested in certain “progressive” elements put forward by Canada, including proposals around environmental policy and gender-based analysis.

“Cabinet did not fully realize what I call the dark side of China,” Saint-Jacques said of the trade mission.

Criticism of the WHO began in earnest on Jan. 14, when Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the organization, tweeted a message nearly identical to that of the Chinese government, saying researchers “have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the coronavirus.

By Jan. 20 Chinese officials finally confirmed that the virus could indeed spread through human contact, and shut down the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated. Another week passed before the WHO declared a public health emergency.

On Feb. 6, weeks after the body had designated a public health emergency, the organization issued a press release calling on countries to avoid imposing travel bans or “medically unnecessary restrictions” against China, saying such moves could “fuel racism” against the country.

Those directives were absorbed by national governments around the world, who were in turn caught off guard by the scope and nature of COVID-19.

The WHO’s director-general has dismissed much of the criticism of his organization as unnecessary “politicization” of the issue, but he has said the virus exposed some shortcomings at the United Nations group.

“No doubt, areas for improvement will be identified and there will be lessons for all of us to learn. But for now, our focus — my focus — is on stopping this virus and saving lives.”

Source: Liberal government’s ‘almost humiliating’ posture toward China a missed opportunity: former top diplomat

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Racial divide of COVID-19 patients in U.S. grows even starker as new data suggests disproportionate black patients

2020/04/21 Leave a comment

Yet more evidence and advocacy:

As a clearer picture emerges of COVID-19’s decidedly deadly toll on black Americans, leaders are demanding a reckoning of the systemic policies they say have made many African Americans far more vulnerable to the virus, including inequity in access to health care and economic opportunity.

A growing chorus of medical professionals, activists and political figures are pressuring the federal government to not just release comprehensive racial demographic data of the country’s coronavirus victims, but also to outline clear strategies to blunt the devastation on African Americans and other communities of colour.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30% of patients whose race was known were black. The federal data was missing racial information for 75% of all cases, however, and did not include any demographic breakdown of deaths.

The latest Associated Press analysis of available state and local data shows that nearly one-third of those who have died are African American, with black people representing about 14% of the population in the areas covered in the analysis.

Roughly half the states, representing less than a fifth of the nation’s COVID-19 deaths, have yet to release demographic data on fatalities. In states that have, about a quarter of the death records are missing racial details.

Health conditions that exist at higher rates in the black community – obesity, diabetes and asthma – make African Americans more susceptible to the virus. They also are more likely to be uninsured, and often report that medical professionals take their ailments less seriously when they seek treatment.

“It’s America’s unfinished business – we’re free, but not equal,” civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson told the AP. “There’s a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity.”

This week, Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the National Medical Association, a group representing African American physicians and patients, released a joint public health strategy calling for better COVID-19 testing and treatment data. The groups also urged officials to provide better protections for incarcerated populations and to recruit more African Americans to the medical field.

Jackson also expressed support for a national commission to study the black COVID-19 toll modelled after the Kerner Commission, which studied the root causes of race riots in African American communities in the 1960s and made policy recommendations to prevent future unrest.

Daniel Dawes, director of Morehouse College’s School of Medicine’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute, said America’s history of segregation and policies led to the racial health disparities that exist today.

“If we do not take an appreciation for the historical context and the political determinants, then we’re only merely going to nibble around the edges of the problem of inequities,” he said.

The release of demographic data for the country’s coronavirus victims remains a priority for many civil rights and public health advocates, who say the numbers are needed to address disparities in the national response to the pandemic.

The AP analysis, based on data through Thursday, found that of the more than 21,500 victims whose demographic data was known and disclosed by officials, more than 6,350 were black, a rate of nearly 30%. African Americans account for 14.2% of the 241 million people who live in the areas covered by the analysis, which encompasses 24 states and the cities of Washington D.C., Houston, Memphis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia – places where statewide data was unavailable.

The nation had recorded more than 33,000 deaths as of Thursday.

In some areas, Native American communities also have been hit hard. In New Mexico, Native Americans account for nearly 37% of the state’s 1,484 cases and about 11% of the state’s population. Of the 112 deaths where race is known in Arizona, 30 were Native Americans.

After Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation this week to try to compel federal health officials to post daily data breaking down cases and deaths by race, ethnicity and other demographics, the CDC released only caseload data that – similar to the AP’s analysis of deaths – show 30 per cent of 111,633 infected patients whose race is known were black. African American patients in the 45-to-64 and 65-to-74 age groups represented an even larger share of the national caseload.

The lawmakers sent a letter last month to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urging federal release of the demographic data. And Joe Biden, the former vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also called for its release.

Meanwhile, some black leaders have described the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19 as inadequate, after what they said was a hastily organized call with Vice-President Mike Pence and CDC Director Robert Redfield last week.

According to a recording of the call obtained by the AP, Redfield said the CDC has been collecting demographic data from death certificates but that the comprehensiveness of the data depends on state and local health departments, many of which are overburdened by virus response. No plan was offered to help health officials in hard-hit communities collect the data, leaders who were on the call said.

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which took part in the call, said African Americans “have every reason to be alarmed at the administration’s anemic response to the disproportionate impact that this crisis is having on communities of colour.”

Mistrust runs deep among residents in many communities.

St. Louis resident Randy Barnes is grappling not just with the emotional toll of losing his brother to the coronavirus, but also with the feeling that his brother’s case was not taken seriously.

Barnes said the hospital where his brother sought treatment initially sent him home without testing him and suggested he self-quarantine for 14 days. Five days later, his brother was back in hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator for two weeks. He died April 13. Barnes’ brother and his wife also were caring for an 88-year-old man in the same apartment, who died from the virus around the same time.

“Those people are not being tested. They’re not being cared for,” Barnes said.

Eugene Rush lives in one of the areas outside large urban cities that have been hit hard with coronavirus cases. He is a sergeant for the sheriff’s department in Michigan’s Washtenaw County, west of Detroit, where black residents account for 46% of the COVID-19 cases but represent only 12% of the county’s population.

Rush, whose job includes community engagement, was diagnosed with COVID-19 near the end of March after what he initially thought was just a sinus infection. He had to be hospitalized twice, but is now on the mend at home, along with his 16-year-old son, who also was diagnosed with COVID-19.

“I had a former lieutenant for the city of Ypsilanti who passed while I was in the hospital and I had some fraternity brothers who caught the virus and were sick at the hospital,” Rush said. “At that point, I said, ‘Well, this is really, really affecting a lot of people’ and they were mostly African American. That’s how I knew that it was really taking a toll a little bit deeper in the African American community than I realized.”

Source: Racial divide of COVID-19 patients in U.S. grows even starker as new data suggests disproportionate black patients

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

No evidence to back WHO director general’s accusations against Taiwan

2020/04/21 Leave a comment

Likely not the end of this story:

The pattern surrounding the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Beijing party-state’s ongoing influence over it continues. Taiwan, a nation that has shown impressive success in combatting the COVID-19 virus despite its exclusion from WHO, is now accused of racism by the organization’s director general.

WHO Director General Tedros A. Ghebreyesus—an Ethiopian microbiologist and the first African to hold the position—asserted that Taiwan’s government not only launched a cyber campaign against him, but is also the instigator of the racism directed at Africans in general.

In a press briefing on April 6, the director general claimed he had been the victim of racially abusive attacks emanating from Taiwan, and that the country’s foreign ministry had actually stepped up its criticism of him.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen and the ministry of foreign affairs have denied the charges.

Given the fraught situation between Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) generally, including the latter’s manipulation of WHO policies of Taiwan exclusion over the years—combined with the Beijing government’s serious mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, the evidence appears clearly stacked against Tedros’ claims.

President Tsai and her government provided warnings to the WHO as early as last December, which, if not ignored, as they were, might have saved thousands of lives.

For nearly half a century, the People’s Republic of China has effectively blocked Taiwan from joining the WHO. Despite never having exercised authority over the island, the CCP deems Taiwan part of its territory, and forces international organizations—including the United Nations and its agencies like the WHO—to accept its view.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, one of WHO’s top advisers recently evaded and then abruptly cut off Hong Kong journalist Yvonne Tong’s question on whether WHO would reconsider Taiwan’s status in light of the country’s exemplary performance in curbing the spread of COVID-19.

According to the reputable Foreign Policy Magazine, Beijing succeeded from the first outbreak of the coronavirus in misdirecting the World Health Organization (WHO), which receives comparatively modest funding from it but has somehow become obedient to it on many levels.

WHO’s international experts could not gain access to China until Tedros visited President Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of January. Before then, WHO uncritically repeated information from party-state authorities, ignoring warnings from Taiwanese doctors. Reluctant to declare a “public health emergency of international concern,” WHO denied as late as Jan. 22 that there was any need to do so.

After China’s pandemic had levelled off, notes the Foreign Policy article, Tedros then praised Beijing’s “success.”

In sharp contrast, Taiwan has been treated as an outcast by the WHO, despite its exemplary performance in the current world crisis.

Almost 100 anti-COVID-19 initiatives from Taiwan’s national government included: screening Wuhan flights as early as Dec. 31; banning Wuhan residents on Jan. 23; suspending Taiwanese visits to Hubei province on Jan. 25; and barring all Chinese arrivals on Feb. 6. These and other measures resulted in only 388 confirmed cases and six deaths as of April 12 in a population of almost 24 million.

The WHO not only ignores Taiwan’s medical expertise, but also its status vis-à-vis China.

During the current pandemic, the organization keeps changing how it refers to Taiwan, going from “Taiwan, China,” to “Taipei” to the newer “Taipei and its environs”. It permitted Beijing to report Taiwan’s coronavirus numbers as part of its own total, instead of reporting Taiwan’s numbers alone—a conflation that created headaches for the smaller nation. Some countries imposed travel restrictions  on Taiwan along with China, despite the former’s small infection rate.

“Taiwan’s selfless medical workers and volunteers can be found around the world. The Taiwanese people do not differentiate by skin colour or language; all of us are brothers and sisters,” Tsai said in response to Tedros’ accusations. “We have never let our inability to join international organizations lessen our support for the international community.” She added that the WHO head was welcome to visit Taiwan and see for himself.

The internationally acknowledged success of Taiwan with the scourge of COVID-19 might lead to a diplomatic opening. Its government has already concluded a bilateral agreement with the United States to send masks, which could lead to drugs and vaccines going to America for clinical trials. Other governments seem likely to follow.

Susan Korah is an Ottawa-based journalist and David Kilgour was secretary of state, Asia-Pacific, 2002-2003, and Africa/Latin America, 1997-2002, in the Chrétien government.

Source: OpinionNo evidence to back WHO director general’s accusations against Taiwan

Filed under foreign policy, Government Tagged with ,

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