Douglas Todd: Young Chinese Communist revolutionized by move to Canada

2021/06/05 Leave a comment

Anecdotally, there are a number of visible minority women who have used beauty pageants as a means to develop their careers, one of the most prominent being Nazanin Afshin-Jan. Encountered at least one political staffer with a similar trajectory:

The world began opening up for Anastasia Lin after she arrived in Metro Vancouver as a 13-year-old from China, where she had been a fiercely patriotic leader in the Young Pioneers, a Communist organization.

Her discoveries have thrown her on an international roller-coaster ride, bringing both fear and fame.

Source: Douglas Todd: Young Chinese Communist revolutionized by move to Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

IRCC’s ‘arbitrary’ automatic extensions on information requests created ‘unfair playing field,’ say immigration agents

2021/06/05 Leave a comment

Understand the policy rationale given the volume of requests and limited capacity, but underlines the need in IRCC modernization to reduce the need for ATIP requests on the status of individual files:

Some immigration agents filing numerous access to information requests on behalf of their clients are feeling burned by a recently phased-out Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada practice that they say was “arbitrary” and akin to institutional targeting, harming their companies’ reputations and the confidence clients placed in them.

Five unnamed people were highlighted in a recent special report by Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard, who were identified by the department to be subject to automatic delays in requests they made through Canada’s access to information laws. The report, tabled in Parliament on May 25, found the IRCC was out of step with access to information rules. While the Office of the Information Commissioner’s (OIC) probe was triggered by an influx of requests to the department between 2017 to 2020, it learned that five individuals—consultants, agents, or lawyers specializing in immigration—were identified as frequent requesters by the department, which then “automatically” decided an extension was needed on their files.

Under the act, federal institutions have to respond to access requests within 30 calendar days or otherwise request an extension of 60 or 90 days as required. Rules dictate the head of an institution should help facilitate complete, timely, and accurate responses to requesters “without regard to the identity of a person making the request.” In place since 2019, the IRCC policy was scrapped in March 2021, shortly after the commissioner ruled it against the act and recommended it be ended.

The Hill Times spoke with several people who participated in Ms. Maynard’s investigation and said they faced challenges in getting information from the department over those years, some of whom said they filed thousands of requests for information from the IRCC.

Ms. Maynard’s office fields complaints from organizations, businesses, reporters, Parliamentarians, and individuals who encounter difficulties in their access to government records under the Access to Information Act. Complaints are typically related to delays or outright refusals from some institutions.

The Hill Times obtained documents that show IRCC identified the five people in a Sept. 19, 2019, email between IRCC and departmental ATIP workers and, the following day, officials suggested that “by looking at the numbers the first three” should be subject to a 90-day extension while the last two should receive a 60-day extension. The names were redacted, but The Hill Times has seen two names mentioned separately in two sets of documents.

Manmeet Rai, founder of getgcms.com, a website that helps clients request their immigration case files from the department, was listed in one of these emails as among the five. His requests appeared to be flagged to automatically have a 90-day extension added to them, effective Sept. 23, 2019, according to an internal email.

Mr. Rai said he received a “blanket” extension on all requests filed under his name since September 2019, and that development led him to be “concerned about what is going on inside the government.” He learned his name appeared on that IRCC list when he filed an access-to-information request on his own name.

Mr. Rai declined to delve into specific business information, like how many requests he filed each year, but said he submitted more than 7,000 requests in 2019 alone.

He said IRCC’s policy, also revealed in Ms. Maynard’s investigation, was “arbitrary.” Its application, he said, was “a targeted exercise toward a specific group of people who were filing requests to help immigrant applicants who were not otherwise entitled to obtain their information” under the act. His requests were “clumped together” when they should have been treated as independent files.

“Everyone wants the information as soon as possible, because if the information is available to them, they can take some corrective action if their application is in progress,” said Mr. Rai. “But if they are to wait for 120 days from the date they filed the request, that is just absolutely dreadful for anyone.” (As of publication, the department had not yet responded to requests for comment from The Hill Times.)

While Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) accepted and agreed with Ms. Maynard’s findings, he noted in his response to the report, that “bulk requesters take a significant amount of IRCC resources due to their sheer volume.” In 2019-20, an average of 6,157 pages of records per business day had to be pulled for the top five requesters, the minister said, amounting to more than 30,000 pages per week.

“These top five requestors alone made over 10,000 requests last year. Paired with the extraordinary growth in requests … it became apparent that IRCC needed to take steps to support broader access rights in an equitable manner.” He said “nevertheless,” the department would no longer be relying on its policy.

Mr. Rai, who took part in the OIC’s investigation, commended the office for being “co-operative and upfront.” That the policy no longer exists is a testament to it living up to its task as a watchdog, he said, but he still feels the policy damaged his business. Mr. Rai noted over the last several years, there have been a swath of websites offering similar services that have popped up, but which promised deadlines he could not meet given the automatic extension applied to his information requests.

“You don’t have to be licensed to do that, you just have to be in Canada,” he said, noting that may have been why the department saw an “influx of so many requests” in recent years.

According to the OIC’s report, IRCC received a total of 116,928 access requests in 2019-20, a figure 42 per cent greater than the year before. All other government institutions combined received a fraction of that figure, equalling 39,294 requests during the same fiscal year. Out of this figure, 98 per cent were related to immigration case files, coming from foreign nationals or immigration lawyers hoping to get more details on their clients’ files.

Typically, Mr. Rai said his organization serves two types of clients: people filing permanent residency applications, and those looking for temporary residence, like students or visitors.

“The outcome was that instead of the people who were already doing it, there were new websites which came out and said, ‘See, we are doing it better than others because these guys are being targeted and they get an extension, whereas we can provide you the same information within 30 days,’ ” he said.

IRCC should be ‘transparent’ with rejected applicants

IRCC should be more “transparent” with rejected applicants, who are often keen to know why (and file access-to-information requests) so they could course correct moving forward, added Mr. Rai.

“If IRCC is more transparent in giving out information to each individual … people would be happy and would get some solace out of it that something is happening, rather than just keeping quiet after the application is filed,” he said.

It’s a reality the OIC appeared to be aware of. In its report, the office noted the department’s MyAccount portal “provides little information on the status of the processing of an application,” with template letters used to let applicants know if they have been accepted or rejected. IRCC is now looking to do a “comprehensive review of various refusal letters,” with a new temporary resident refusal letter that could be used for the 2021-22 year, according to its response to Ms. Maynard’s report.

But according to the OIC’s report, the department still does not plan to offer excerpts of notes made by the immigration officers assigned to a person’s file, which is a “frequent” request in complaints it receives.

Prateek Sharma, founder of gcmsbuddy.com, also took part in the OIC’s investigation and said he suspected he’s one of the top five identified by IRCC for automatic extensions. Since starting the website in 2017, he said he has filed between 7,000 and 8,000 complaints against IRCC with the OIC.

The bulk of his clients hired him in 2018, and shortly after, the “majority” of his company’s requests started getting 90-day extensions. He agreed with Mr. Rai that the time period coincided with a steady rise in websites claiming they had faster turnaround times.

“Word spreads easily among a small community. There are forums and WhatsApp groups around, and people started complaining that this website is getting all the extensions and another website has just started that’s not getting [them],” he said. “It contributed to an unfair playing field for us, because it was not my fault. People wanted to know about their status, and it was not like I was requesting the same information for the same person again and again.”

Ms. Maynard noted in a May 25 interview that requesters were filing multiple requests for multiple clients; Mr. Sharma said as a result, he felt services like his were singled out and he took a reputational hit. (Citing privacy concerns and the nature of its investigations, the OIC declined to name the five identified requesters and how many each filed.)

“[Clients] are worried about their future because they have a lot of things to plan; moving to Canada and starting a new life,” he noted.

“If some business is doing good, you’re kind of targeting them. The more requests we are sending, that means we are a popular website and we are offering a good service.” According to Mr. Sharma, there were about three or four major websites offering a similar service before 2019, a figure he predicted has since grown to 10 or more. “That prompted people to start new websites and now they are on par with us. All our hard work and everything—our reputation was ruined because of this.” While “thankful” the policy is now phased out, he wasn’t sure “if there’s a way to measure those losses.”

Because of the repeated extensions, Mr. Sharma said his group was subject to “angry customers” who noted other websites were offering a quicker turnaround. “It was a hard time, because the number of emails we used to get asking for status updates increased a lot,” he said.

Think about applicants, not just workers, urges agent 

The Hill Times spoke to another requester who took part in the OIC’s investigation, an associate with gcmsnotes.com who also rancaipsnotes.com. They asked not to be identified by name, but their name was listed in a Sept. 20, 2019, document obtained by The Hill Times. The email named the associate as somebody whose files would be subject to a 60-day extension, effective Sept. 23, 2019, per an internal IRCC email.

The associate said from their clients’ perspective, it was “quite frustrating” not to know why their application may have been refused, especially if those applying are students. Because intake periods for colleges and universities can range from January, May, or September, the associate said many clients wanted to know how to tweak their applications so they could apply in time for the next period, while others may have punted their timelines to start classes to a later semester.

“People are falling behind in their careers, or in starting a career, because of this arbitrary decision on their file,” the associate said. “It had a pretty big impact. … For some of them, they had to make life-altering decisions about whether to postpone their intake. They were disappointed with that.”

The associate supported the OIC recommendation to beef up IRCC’s staff so there are more workers tasked with handling the volume of requests. Ms. Maynard earlier said there are some 200-plus analysts helping the IRCC, which ranks among the bigger units. Her office, which itself is subject to the act, has about three full-time workers.

Mr. Mendicino told her office he agreed with the recommendation, according to the report, though his written response fell short of committing to a number of workers or funding. The department is working to secure more resources “in conjunction with the departmental action plan, while implementing permanent technological solutions,” he wrote in his response to the OIC.

Asked for more information about the IRCC’s policy, IRCC spokesperson Peter Liang did not elaborate in a May 27 email. Thanking the OIC for its “thorough and thoughtful investigation,” Mr. Liang said the department has developed a management action plan in response to the report, though the link he referred to only mentioned that the policy no longer exists. The department did not respond in time for publication to follow up questions about Mr. Rai, the associate who said they were among the five targeted, or how the policy came to be.

“They are concerned about the well-being of the IRCC employees. … Who’s concerned about the well-being of the students and the families who are affected by this?” the associate asked.

Concerns about unlicensed immigration consultants have long persisted in the field, with legislation to set up a new College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants passing in 2019.

In her report, Ms. Maynard noted the department flagged “dishonest actors who are taking advantage of vulnerable” people by, among other things, charging clients high fees for access requests, though regulation of the industry is an issue beyond the office’s “legal jurisdiction” and is not addressed in the report.

When one requester asked for departmental communication “directing ATIP staff to seek time extensions for ATIP requests” between September and December 2019—when the phased-out policy was in effect—they were told there were no records but “all instructions were given verbally,” according to documents obtained by The Hill Times.

The associate questioned whether verbal instructions were appropriate.

“If you’re a large organization handling over 100,000 requests a year, and you are going to get instructions verbally, how are you going to make sure your employees in the department are consistent in their actions? How are you going to hold your people accountable?” the associate wondered. “Somebody has to write them down to make sure they’re consistently applied across the board.”

IRCC defended its practice to Ms. Maynard’s office, her report noted, arguing the Treasury Board Secretariat’s (TBS) policy on access to information, “endorse[s]” the practice they employed. But in her ruling, Ms. Maynard said while the TBS offers “guidance” to institutions on what is considered a large volume of records, “it in no way suggests that a series of unrelated access to information requests can be lumped together.” According to that guidance, a large number of records is generally considered such if it requires more than 500 pages to be pulled and if their production interferes with the institution’s operations.

Citing privacy concerns and the nature of its investigations, OIC spokesperson James Ellard said in an email the office does not identify requesters by name, nor can it offer a breakdown of requests made by each individual. Asked if it was aware of any other government institutions that have identified top requesters in this way, he said the circumstances were “unique” to the department.

“This type of dramatic increase [in access requests] has not been observed elsewhere, nor is the commissioner aware of any other department adopting the practice of grouping requests by individual and automatically claiming time extensions to all requests made by these individuals,” he said, adding Ms. Maynard is “pleased” to see the practice is no longer in effect.

The Hill Times has asked the IRCC who was responsible for the practice’s creation, implementation, and authorization, along with its justification, but did not hear back by publication. The paper also presented some of the sentiments expressed by the requesters to the department for comment.

Source: IRCC’s ‘arbitrary’ automatic extensions on information requests created ‘unfair playing field,’ say immigration agents

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Canadian citizenship oath could help newcomers learn more about Indigenous people

2021/06/05 1 Comment

Suspect the forthcoming guide along with news coverage will be more significant but nevertheless, important:

Sharon Nyangweso says she first heard of Indigenous people in Canada when she was eight years old. Her family had just moved to Canada for her mother’s job at the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa. At one of the gatherings, a guest approached her mom upon learning they just arrived in the city.

What happened next stuck with Nyangweso.

The person told her mom to avoid Rideau Street because Indigenous people were there and “they were always drunk.” This memory unsettles her to this day, because the comment came not from a naturalized Canadian but from someone in her own circle.

“That came from another immigrant,” she said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Not just another immigrant but one that had intimate knowledge of what it meant to be part of a colonized nation.”

Nyangweso said there’s a wide gap when it comes to dissemination of information to immigrants about Indigenous Peoples and cultures in Canada. One that, she said, causes the perpetuation of misconceptions resulting from the country’s history of colonialism.

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined the history and legacy of residential schools in Canada, issued 94 recommendations, or calls to action. Numbers 93 and 94 urged the federal government to update the Canadian citizenship guide and test, as well as the oath, to reflect a more inclusive history of Indigenous Peoples and a recognition of their treaties and rights. This way, newcomers and immigrants to Canada would have a more thorough understanding about First Nations, Metis and Inuit, as well as their cultures.

On Thursday, the House of Commons was set to adopt Bill C-8, which would amend the Citizenship Act to update the oath in line with what the TRC recommended.

The new oath would read: “I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada, including the Constitution, which recognizes and affirms the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.”

The House of Commons unanimously agreed to fast-track the proposed legislation, on Tuesday.

At a committee meeting Wednesday, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino thanked all members of Parliament for supporting the passage of the bill, saying he looks forward to working with colleagues in the Senate to ensure it becomes law.

His press secretary, Alexander Cohen, said: “Reconciliation is a whole-of-government initiative.”

Cohen also said the Liberal government is still revamping the content of the new citizenship guide to make it more inclusive. The new guide will have 10 chapters and will paint a diverse image of Canada. It will include stories of Black Canadians, LGBTQ Canadians, francophones and Canadians with disabilities. It will also have a chapter on residential school. There’s still no schedule as to when the updated guide will be released.

Matthew Norris, board president of the Urban Native Youth Association in Vancouver, B.C., said recent immigrants to Canada are in a good position to be allies to Indigenous people.

“I think newcomers to Canada have a role to play to understand where the society has come, where to go, and to be voices of support for Indigenous people, as we’re constantly trying to fight for our rights,” said Norris.

Norris said he encourages people and stakeholders to also look at other TRC calls to action, particularly regarding the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Bill C-15, which deals with that, is currently before the Senate.

Stronger calls to recommit to the project of reconciliation have emerged after Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced last week that ground-penetrating radar located what are believed to be the remains of 215 children in an unmarked burial site on the grounds of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Over more than a century, some 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were forcibly sent to government-funded, church-operated schools, where many suffered abuse and even death.

“We talk about Indigenous history but it’s also the Indigenous presence,” Norris said. “Residential schools weren’t that long ago. It’s affected our family members. It’s affected younger generations. Intergenerational trauma is continuing to rear its ugly head throughout our lives.”

Nyangweso, who just took her citizenship test recently, said adequate information about Indigenous lands, peoples and cultures will help newcomers and immigrants to better engage in civic processes and become better allies for Indigenous rights.

She added she hopes teaching newcomers about Indigenous people and cultures should not just start and end with the citizenship guide or the oath.

She said good information, that’s accessible outside of the citizenship guide, will equip immigrants and new Canadians to be more respectful inhabitants on Indigenous lands.

Source: Canadian citizenship oath could help newcomers learn more about Indigenous people

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Krauss: In Defense of the Universal Values of Science

2021/06/04 Leave a comment

Agree:

The progress of modern science has been a truly global phenomenon, a fact worth celebrating, just as the technological fruits of science have, to varying degrees, impacted the lives of everyone on the globe.

Scientific breakthroughs have paid no heed to geographic boundaries. Modern algebra owes its origins to 10th century Arabic mathematicians. Around the same time Chinese astronomers recorded an early supernova that formed the Crab Nebula, even when no record of this remarkable object was made in Europe. In spite of the attempts by British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington to quash the impact of an otherwise unheralded young Indian physicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the latter’s groundbreaking work on stellar evolution altered our picture of stars so significantly that he was later awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.

Nevertheless, the postmodern notion that empirical scientific knowledge is somehow culturally derived, with little or no objective underpinning, has continued to persist in various social science and literary corners of academia far removed from the rush of scientific progress.

Until recently, it seemed inconceivable to imagine that any physical or biological scientists could become so misguided as to argue against the empirical basis of their own fields. But we are living in strange times. This week, the Divisional Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Oregon sent an email to faculty “to encourage you all to attend this exciting presentation!”, by a visiting physicist, which was described as follows:

Title: Scientists vs. Science: Race, Gender, and Anti-Intellectualism in Science

Abstract: Black thought can help us free science from the white supremacist traditions of scientists. Scientists vs. Science will use Black feminist and anti-colonialist analyses to show that white supremacy is a total epistemic system that affects even our most “objective” areas of knowledge production. The talk hinges on the development of the concept of white empiricism, which I introduced to give a name to the way that anti-intellectual white supremacy plays a role in physicists’ analysis of when empirical data is important and what counts as empirical data. This white empiricism shapes both Black women’s (and other) experiences in physics and the actual knowledge produced about physics. Until this is understood and addressed directly, systems of domination will continue to play a major role in the practice of physics.

On its own, this racist nonsense would not deserve remarking on here, even if it does lead one to wonder how its author, who apparently doesn’t understand the empirical basis of her own discipline, could gain an appointment at a physics department. But the response it produced by the administrator at Oregon is more worrisome.

The Dean at U. of O. should know better, being a professor of Anthropology, although his specialization in Folklore and Public Culture suggests he might be particularly sympathetic to arguments that knowledge is culturally or racially derived.

The Dean’s email apparently received wide circulation beyond U. of O. in the academic community. A tweet from Bruce Gilley, who is a professor of Political Science and Public Policy and on the board of the National Association of Scholars saw what the U. of O. Dean had missed, namely that the underlying pretext of the talk was itself racist. As he remarked “Neo-racism is now spreading like wildfire in the academy with the normalization of racist and anti-scientific ‘research’ that freely denigrates people based on their race. This talk below will use ‘black feminist and anti-colonial analysis’ to debunk ‘white empiricisim [sic].’”

Galileo would have discovered four moons of Jupiter with his telescope regardless of his sex or pigment, and DNA is a double helix regardless of whether it was Rosalind Franklin’s crystallography that demonstrated it, or Watson and Crick’s analysis of that empirical data. Empirical evidence is not white, or black, and the term “black theory” makes no intellectual sense.

As it turns out, the U. of O. talk was abruptly cancelled, with no reason given in the announcement. I agree with Professor Gilley’s assessment that, having been announced, a better course would have been to have proceeded with the talk, and allowing those present to then ridicule its premise via intelligent rebuttal.

I wonder however, whether that would have happened, or whether there would have been polite applause, for fear of appearing racist by asking pointed questions. I happened to attend another online talk by this individual, in this case a physics seminar. Each slide shown also included a reference to a different racist incident that had happened in the US. Speaking to other colleagues after the seminar, I wasn’t the only one who questioned the appropriateness of this political commentary from beginning to end in a seminar on dark matter, as would I would have equally squirmed had each slide quoted a different lie uttered by Donald Trump when he was President. Yet none of us spoke up at the time to raise any concerns.

We need to be willing to be more vocal up front in our critical assessment of nonsense emerging in academic science settings. In more reasonable times, this nonsense would never have passed the selection criteria applied by seminar organizers in any serious academic department in the first place. In current times, such gibberish instead helps promote a dangerously distorted view of science that can fall upon receptive ears among even senior academic administrators.

Source: In Defense of the Universal Values of Science

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2021 Might Be A Decisive Year For H-1B Visas

2021/06/04 Leave a comment

Significant, given possible effects on relative attractiveness of Canada to potential immigrants:

The Trump administration was hostile to high-skilled immigration, but the Biden administration may enact the most enduring policy changes to H-1B visas. And the changes might not be positive for employers. A series of decisions loom on regulations that would affect who can receive H-1B petitions, how much employers must pay H-1B professionals and much more.

The Big Picture: “H-1B visas are important because they generally represent the only practical way for high-skilled foreign nationals, including international students, to work long-term in the United Statesand have the chance to become employment-based immigrants and U.S. citizens,” as discussed in a recent Forbes article. “In short, without H-1B visas, nearly everyone from the founders of billion-dollar companies to the people responsible for the vaccines and medical care saving American lives would never have been in the United States.”

The number of H-1B visas is small for a country the size of the United States. The 85,000 annual H-1B limit—the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000-exemption for H-1B visa holders with a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. university—comes to 0.05% of the U.S. labor force. Companies are allowed to file for only 85,000 new H-1B petitions in a year, and about two-thirds, or 56,000 a year, are in computer occupations. 

The U.S. job market is strong for individuals who work in computer occupations. The unemployment rate in math and computer occupationswas 2.5% in April 2021, below the 3%, lower than in January 2020 before the pandemic began. 

Today, there are well over 1 million active job vacancy postings in computer occupations, according to a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysis of Emsi Job Posting Analytics. “There is not a fixed number of jobs, and people with high skills often create more jobs for people with complementary skills,” notes the NFAP analysis. “Still, even if one adopts a zero-sum approach, there are nearly 20 times more job vacancy postings in computer occupations than new H-1B petitions typically used by companies in computer occupations each year. There are also likely many more openings than publicly posted positions.”MORE FOR YOUFederal Judge Hears Arguments Against Trump’s H-1B Visa BanH-1B Visa Denials Continue To Mount For CompaniesCourt Hearing Shows Businesses Could Prevail Against H-1B Visa Rules

With regional Covid-19 bans still in place and many U.S. consulates either not operating or working in a limited capacity, visa backlogs, including for H-1B and L-1 visa, will continue to mount until the State Department commits to new policies. Jeffrey Gorsky, former Chief of the Legal Advisory Opinion section of the Visa Office in the U.S. Department of State, believes the State Department could become more creative with biometric intake, give visa processing a higher priority and conduct more interviews via video. He believes interviews via Zoom would meet the statutory definition of in-person interviews.

Due to Trump administration policies that U.S. courts found unlawful, H-1B denial rates reached 24% for initial employment and 12% for continuing employment in FY 2018 (compared to 6% and 3% in FY 2015). After USCIS agreed to a settlement with the ITServe Alliance that overturned years of restrictive policies, H-1B denial rates returned to pre-Trump levels (after costing companies millions of dollars). The Biden administration may remove some restrictions on H-1B visa holders that prevent them from starting businesses, according to the New York Times.

Still, the H-1B annual limit is low. Employers filed 308,000 H-1B registrations for cap selection for FY 2022, according to USCIS. That means over 72% of H-1B registrations for high-skilled foreign nationals were rejected even before an adjudicator evaluated the application.

The economic literature shows loosening restrictions on H-1B visas would benefit the U.S economy and American workers. A study by economists Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih, Chad Sparber and Angie Marek Zeitlin found, “The number of jobs for U.S.-born workers in computer-related industries would have grown at least 55% faster between 2005-2006 and 2009-2010, if not for the denial of so many applications in the recent H-1B visa lotteries.”

Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, found in her research that H-1B restrictions push technology-related jobs out of the United States: “[A]ny policies that are motivated by concerns about the loss of native jobs should consider that policies aimed at reducing immigration have the unintended consequence of encouraging firms to offshore jobs abroad.”

Some policymakers argue America needs even more restrictive laws and rules to block the hiring of foreign-born scientists and engineers. As discussed below, the Biden administration will soon decide on a series of restrictions that could produce significant changes in H-1B visa policy.

Rule Would Make it Less Likely International Students Will Get H-1B Petitions: Before Donald Trump left office, his administration finalized a regulation that would end the H-1B lottery and replace it with a system that awards H-1B petitions by highest to lowest salary level. Many attorneys consider the regulation to be unlawful, and there are pending lawsuits against the rule. Instead of taking steps to rescind the rule, the Biden administration only delayed the regulation until next year’s H-1B cap selection.

In addition to questions of legality, the rule finalized by the Trump administration would fulfill a long-standing goal of Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller and his allies to make it more difficult for international students to obtain an H-1B petition, which would discourage many students from coming to America in the first place.

International students are disadvantaged under the rule because choosing H-1B petitions by salary level favors individuals with the most experience in the labor market over those with the least experience. “The National Foundation for American Policy found that an international student may be 54% more likely to get an H-1B petition under the current H-1B lottery system than under the Trump administration’s regulation that would end the H-1B lottery,” according to an NFAP analysis of actual cases of recent international students and filings for H-1B petitions. “The data demonstrate the new regulation would have a significant negative effect on the ability of international students to gain an H-1B petition.”

“The law firm Curran, Berger & Kludt provided NFAP with 170 cases of F-1 students with applications for H-1B cap selection for FY 2018, FY 2019, FY 2020 and FY 2021,” according to NFAP. “Under the current system that randomly selects H-1B petitions, 60% of the F-1 students were chosen through the H-1B lottery. However, the law firm provided information on the pay levels (Level 1 through 4) for the students’ H-1B applications, and NFAP found if the new regulation had been in effect, only 39% of the students’ H-1B petitions would have been selected.” Education organizations had warned the Trump administration’s rule would harm international students and make studying in America less attractive.

Rule to Force Employers to Pay H-1B Visa Holders and Employment-Based Green Card Applicants Well Above Market Wages: Under a Department of Labor (DOL) rule, published in the final days of the Trump administration, “employers must pay 23% to 41% higher salaries than under the current system across a range of occupations if they want to employ high-skilled foreign nationals in America,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysis. https://embedly.forbes.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fdatawrapper.dwcdn.net%2FUsMsI%2F1%2F&display_name=Datawrapper&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdatawrapper.dwcdn.net%2FUsMsI%2F1%2F&key=3ce26dc7e3454db5820ba084d28b4935&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=dwcdn

The rule would apply to H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants and could have a devastating impact on both. H-1B visa holders waiting in the green cards backlog might be forced to leave the country if an employer could not extend their H-1B status at the new, much higher required salary level.

There is no evidence H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants as a group are underpaid relative to native-born professionals. Numerous economic studies have found high-skilled foreign nationals, on balance, earn more than their native-born counterparts. For example, Andrew Chamberlain, the chief economist at Glassdoor, found, “Across the 10 cities and roughly 100 jobs we examined, salaries for foreign H-1B workers are about 2.8% higher than comparable U.S. salaries on Glassdoor.” A recent study by Utah State University economist Omid Bagheri finds a larger wage premium for high-skilled foreign nationals.

The Biden administration published a notice of an agency action to delay the DOL rule until November 14, 2022. At the same time, the administration requested information from the public on data sources for calculating the prevailing wage.

Three courts blocked the rule when it was published as “interim final” in October 2020. On January 14, 2021, the Trump administration published a final rule that was only slightly modified from the original and carried the same aim—to price H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market. “The revisions to the rule don’t change the fact that it still fails to do what the law requires—to reflect the actual, prevailing wage for workers in that geographical area doing similar work,” said Kevin Miner, a partner at Fragomen. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and allied business groups and education organizations filed an amended complaint that argues the regulation to end the H-1B lottery is unlawful and continued its lawsuit to end the Department of Labor wage regulation.

New Regulation on Work at Third-Party Sites: “USCIS is still aiming to have a regulation in place by FY23 cap season to restrict use of the H-1B category by outsourcing companies by changing the ‘employer-employee relationship’ definition,” according to Berry Appleman & Leiden. Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder and CEO of Everest Group, argues access to talent is key for competitiveness as information technology services companies attempt to build digital platforms for U.S. companies. “Almost every major U.S. firm is building some form of digital platform so it can enhance its competitive position both domestically and internationally,” he said. “This is probably the most important thing these firms are doing and success will define both company and global success as we move into the future.”

The mistaken premise of nearly all restrictions on high-skilled immigration is that foreign-born scientists and engineers offer no value to America or U.S. companies except for a willingness to work for less money. Some policymakers believe that people born in other countries possess inferior abilities to people born in the United States—hence the belief companies must pay them lower salaries—and incorrectly assume that only a fixed number of jobs exist in the U.S. economy. The Biden administration has an opportunity to adopt a more forward-looking policy.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/06/02/2021-might-be-a-decisive-year-for-h-1b-visas/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=follow&cdlcid=5e4bc7f55b099ce02faa6b40&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=follow&cdlcid=5e4bc7f55b099ce02faa6b40&sh=7932dc0018df

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Buckingham Palace’s Institutional Racism Revealed in Damning Unearthed Documents

2021/06/04 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Less than three months ago, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry accused an unnamed member of the royal family of having asked a racist question about the likely color of any of their then-unborn children’s skin.

In response, Prince William told reporters, “We are very much not a racist family.”

However, British newspaper the Guardian today revealed that the monarchy has explicitly employed racist hiring practices and that it continues to claim a special exemption from British equality legislation.

The smoking gun is a 1968 letter from a civil servant—which the Guardian found in Britain’s national archives—saying that “it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint colored immigrants or foreigners” to “clerical and office posts” at Buckingham Palace, although such people were considered for lower status “ordinary domestic posts.”

If defenders of the monarchy planned to talk down the significance of this documentary evidence because it is more than 50 years old, the Guardian also reveals that the institution continues to this day to be exempt from equality legislation that other organizations in the United Kingdom are required to follow.

The Guardian found the 1968 letter as part of an ongoing investigation into a little-known legal and constitutional procedure known as “Queen’s Consent,” in which the British Parliament has to seek permission from the monarch in advance of debating any law which may affect her interest. Queen’s Consent is distinct from Royal Assent, the purely ceremonial process by which laws passed by Parliament are given a symbolic sign-off by a monarch.

Buckingham Palace has consistently sought to play down and head off the Guardian’s investigation into Queen’s Consent, and has previously said that the process is “a parliamentary process, with the role of sovereign purely formal. Consent is always granted by the monarch where requested by government.”

The Guardian has unearthed multiple examples that would appear to suggest the granting of Queen’s Consent is far from a formality, including an exemption for the queen on having her art collection searched for stolen or looted artworks.

The race and employment bombshell is likely to be the most damaging for the monarchy given the allegations of racism that were made by Meghan and Harry. Meghan said that “concerns” were raised with Harry about her potential kids’ skin color. (A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan declined to comment on today’s revelations.)

Among the documents unearthed by the Guardian is a 1968 note taken by a civil servant, which summarized the position of senior royal courtier, Lord Tryon, who held the title “keeper of the privy purse” as Britain’s government sought to introduce the country’s first workplace anti-discrimination legislation.

Tryon, the civil servant wrote, had told him that palace staff fell into one of three categories: “(a) senior posts, which were not filled by advertising or by any overt system of appointment and which would presumably be accepted as outside the scope of the bill; (b) clerical and other office posts, to which it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint colored immigrants or foreigners; and (c) ordinary domestic posts for which colored applicants were freely considered, but which would in any event be covered by the proposed general exemption for domestic employment.”

When the legislation was ultimately introduced in the 1970s, the Guardian says, government officials worked with the queen on the precise wording of the laws, in order to give the queen an exemption from them.

The Race Relations Board, which was then in charge of investigating complaints, and usually referred apparent breaches to be tried by British courts, was specifically directed to send any complaints made by employees of the queen to the home secretary instead.

The Guardian said that the queen “has remained personally exempted from those equality laws for more than four decades.” As a result of the exemption, the paper said, it is “impossible for women or people from ethnic minorities working for her household to complain to the courts if they believe they have been discriminated against.”

Buckingham Palace did not dispute this, the Guardian said, but the palace said it had “a separate process for hearing complaints related to discrimination” but did not specify what this process was.

Buckingham Palace did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.

Source: Buckingham Palace’s Institutional Racism Revealed in Damning Unearthed Documents

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Should statues of Sir John A. Macdonald be taken down? Canada’s minister of Indigenous services says no

2021/06/04 Leave a comment

Of note and right approach:

As shock waves continue to reverberate following the discovery of a gravesite of 215 Indigenous children, Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller spoke out Wednesday against taking down the statues of the prime minister responsible for creating the residential schools that led to their deaths.

Miller said removing statues of Sir John A Macdonald from public display would amount to Canadians taking their eyes off the brutal history and legacy of the schools.

“Knocking things down, breaking things is not my preferred option. Turning my eyes away from things is not my preferred option,” Miller said during a news conference in a government building named after Macdonald.

“Looking at things as painful as they are, explaining why they are, is my preferred option.”

Across the country, institutions and local governments are resuming efforts to remove statues of Canada’s first prime minister, and to rename streets and schools whose namesakes have a direct connection to Canada’s residential school program.

Similar such movements have become flashpoints over the last several years, including last summer in the wake of global Black Lives Matter protests, when Miller and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke out against taking down the monuments.

But the outpouring of anger now is more directly targeted at the heart of one of Macdonald’s legacies: the residential school system.

The revelation last week that 215 children were buried in unmarked graves on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. is leading to fresh rounds of soul-searching about whether and how Canada must come to grips with the deadly effect of those schools, which were initiated by Macdonald’s government in 1883.

During the century that followed — the last school closed in 1996 — about 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their homes and forced to attend what Miller called “labour camps” that were built for the express purpose of eradicating their culture.

At least 4,000 children are known to have died while attending residential schools. Following the discovery of the graves in Kamloops last week, those estimates have begun to climb, with some now speculating the number could be as high as 25,000.

“We know there are lots of sites similar to Kamloops that are going to come to light in the future. We need to begin to prepare ourselves for that,” former senator Murray Sinclair said in a written statement late Tuesday.

“Those that are survivors and intergenerational survivors need to understand that this information is important for all of Canada to understand the magnitude of the truth of this experience.”

What must be done with that information is a debate taking many forms, be it the removal of Macdonald statues or the demands for the federal government to move much faster to implement the calls to action on missing children and burial information contained in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report on residential schools.

In 2019, some $27 million was set aside to respond to those calls, but the funds were redirected to address the impacts of the pandemic and to finish off virtual engagement sessions on the response to the TRC, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett’s office said Wednesday.

Some money began to flow last year. On Wednesday, Bennett announced communities that want to begin the work of documenting, locating and memorializing missing children could apply anew and the money would flow on an “urgent” basis.

How that work is done must be determined in consultation with communities, Bennett and Miller have insisted.

The ministers said on Tuesday it is also important to listen to those who speak out against Macdonald.

However, Miller said the debate over renaming buildings or taking down statues has become too partisan, and misses the point.

“I respect the meaning and the expression of people saying we need to take this down, rip it down,” he said.

“It’s an expression of pain. I understand. I’m not a proponent of it. I think we have to keep explaining. We have to keep explaining so that we don’t repeat those errors.”

Conservative politicians have also spoken out against the need to tear down statues, though for different reasons, arguing doing so amounts to so-called “cancel culture.”

Conservatives including Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and federal Leader Erin O’Toole have also said removing statues of people like Macdonald would also erase all acknowledgment of the benefits they provided to Canada.

Source: Should statues of Sir John A. Macdonald be taken down? Canada’s minister of Indigenous services says no

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Nicholas: L’amnésie du Canada missionnaire

2021/06/04 Leave a comment

Important reminder of the cultural genocide impact of missionaries:

Ce sont d’abord les noms qui m’ont mis la puce à l’oreille. Les porte-parole de la Nation Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, où l’on a retrouvé les restes des 215 enfants du pensionnat de Kamloops, en Colombie-Britannique, s’appellent notamment Baptiste, Jules, Casimir, Michel, Gosselin, Antoine, Lampreau. Pourquoi ?

J’ai donc replongé dans Le Canada français missionnaire de Lionel Groulx, paru pour la première fois en 1962. « En bref, je voudrais raconter la grande aventure d’un petit peuple qui, à peine né, se jette dans la conquête religieuse de l’Indien en Amérique du Nord », commence-t-il. La phrase décrit bien le projet de l’essai, qui recense la longue liste des missions catholiques canadiennes-françaises au fil des siècles, de l’Atlantique au Pacifique à l’Arctique et aux États-Unis, puis celles de l’Afrique, de l’Asie, de l’Amérique latine, de la Caraïbe. Tout y passe, méticuleusement. Il s’agit, pour le chanoine Groulx, de démontrer que l’esprit impérialiste fait toujours partie de l’âme des gens d’ici, malgré la Conquête : « Son empire de jadis, il semble […] qu’il le veuille reconstituer sur un plan supérieur, le plan spirituel cette fois, avec des frontières indéfiniment extensibles ».

L’essai débute au temps de la Nouvelle-France, où il vante « l’audace conquérante » des premiers missionnaires, qui a persisté sous le régime anglais. Il déplore qu’au XIXe siècle, « les épreuves ou misères n’ont que très peu changé depuis le temps de la Nouvelle-France. Le Sauvage reste encore sauvage, ou peu s’en faut : homme-enfant, léger, fantasque, incapable d’efforts soutenus, mal débarrassé de son vieux paganisme ». Il ajoute : « Comme aux temps anciens l’alcool le fascine ; le concubinage sévit ».

Les descriptions racistes ne sont pas accessoires au livre, mais une partie importante de l’argumentaire. C’est qu’il n’y aurait pas autant de noblesse dans le missionnariat si les Autochtones n’étaient pas dépeints comme des sous-humains en attente de rédemption. Par exemple, le chanoine nous décrit les Dénés (Territoires du Nord-Ouest) comme « barbares, presque sataniques », mais tient à nous rassurer. Au contact des missionnaires, « les infanticides, le cannibalisme, souvent provoqués par la misère, disparaissent ».

Dans son récit, le chanoine Groulx insiste sur le rôle des Oblats de Marie-Immaculée, ordre français que l’évêque de Montréal Ignace Bourget invite, en 1841, à s’établir près de lui pour recruter activement au sein de la population du Bas-Canada. Les Oblats « se livrent aux missions indiennes avec une véritable fougue évangélique », nous assure Groulx. Ainsi des missions sont lancées un peu partout au Québec et au Canada bien avant l’ouverture officielle des pensionnats autochtones. Lorsque ceux-ci sont mis en place, on se porte volontaire pour les faire fonctionner. Ainsi, au moins 57 des 139 pensionnats financés par le gouvernement du Canada ont été gérés par les Oblats durant leurs années d’opération. Riches de leur expérience dans l’Ouest, ils font d’ailleurs pression sur les députés francophones du gouvernement Mackenzie King, dans les années 1930, afin que des pensionnats soient aussi ouverts au Québec.

C’est ainsi que des religieuses de la vallée du Saint-Laurent partent nombreuses « à l’aventure », notamment dans l’Ouest. Les frères emploient les Sœurs de l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge pour s’occuper du pensionnat de Onion Lake, en Saskatchewan. Les Sœurs missionnaires du Christ Roi, après avoir géré des camps de concentration pour les Canadiens d’origine japonaise durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, sont assignées aux « écoles indiennes ». Les Sœurs de Sainte-Croix et des Sept-Douleurs ouvrent quant à elle un pensionnat à Moricetown, au nord-est de Prince Rupert. Et les Sœurs de Sainte-Anne, originaires de Saint-Jacques-de-l’Achigan, dans Lanaudière, se chargent notamment des « écoles indiennes de Kamloops, de Kuper Island et des Songhees », en Colombie-Britannique.

Finalement, on commence à comprendre le pourquoi de ces noms à consonance francophone des membres de la Nation Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, où ont été retrouvés les 215 enfants du pensionnat de Kamloops.

On commence à comprendre qu’on avait peut-être tort de présenter la découverte macabre des restes des enfants de Kamloops avec une plus grande distance, ici, parce que « l’Ouest, c’est loin de nous ». On commence à voir que ce qui s’est passé au Québec comme dans les Prairies, le Grand Nord ou l’Ouest s’est déroulé avec la participation de certains de nos grands-oncles, de nos grands-tantes, dont le lien avec l’Église faisait la fierté et l’orgueil de bien des familles d’ici. On aperçoit aussi que l’amnésie collective sur les pensionnats autochtones est bien étrange, alors que certains de nos intellectuels les plus célèbres et célébrés se sont même vantés du rôle de l’Église canadienne-française dans leur établissement, afin d’y puiser un sentiment de fierté nationale.

Cette Église, et cette vision du nationalisme, bien des Québécois en ont un souvenir douloureux, et s’en sont dissociés à l’époque même des pensionnats et de Lionel Groulx, et bien sûr ensuite. Mais la dissociation peut-elle justifier les trous de mémoire ? L’anachronisme qui sépare l’Ouest canadien de l’histoire des francophones ? La prétention que ces administrateurs coloniaux ne font pas partie de nos histoires familiales ? Le détachement de ce qui s’est passé ici même au Québec ?

Rappelons-nous que la commission qui a fait la lumière sur les pensionnats s’appelle Vérité et Réconciliation. Et cette vérité inclut que les idées du chanoine Groulx fassent écho à une vision sociale et politique qui a influencé, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, les rapports entre les peuples autochtones et les francophones de partout au pays pendant plusieurs décennies. Sans vérité, quelle réconciliation est possible ?

Source: L’amnésie du Canada missionnaire

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We can’t have Indigenous reconciliation without closing the employment gap

2021/06/03 Leave a comment

Good piece:

There’s a fine line between patient, incremental progress and leaning on a lethargic, long-term plan as an excuse for inaction, especially when it comes to grappling with the legacy of the residential school system.

Glenn Nolan is on the right side of that line.

He is the vice-president of government affairs for Noront Resources Ltd., and a member of the Missanabie Cree First Nation with a reputation in the mining world as an executive who knows how to bring Indigenous communities and economic development together.

His grandparents were both residential school survivors. In Nolan’s words, they were self-destructive, alcoholic and neglected their children. His grandfather told his father about seeing a youngster beaten unconscious in front of the class when he was in grade 4. The child was never heard from again; the teacher was simply transferred.

For the next generation, life was difficult, but not as difficult. His father was angry but quit drinking in his 30s. Nolan became the first in his family to get a post-secondary education. And he can hardly believe his luck these days at being able to spend the pandemic in his long-time home by the lake near Atikokan, Ont.

“It affected all of us,” Nolan says, reflecting on the generations since the residential school experience snaked through his family history. “But the valleys aren’t as deep, and the climb up out of it wasn’t as steep. So we’ve actually been very successful.”

At a society-wide level, however, progress in vanquishing the economic fallout of residential schools — poverty and inequality — is harder to see.

Statistics Canada published data in April that drew from the 2016 census, and its numbers are harsh. About 76 per cent of non-Indigenous working-age people were employed in 2016, the same as in 2006, the report shows. But for First Nations people living on reserve, the employment rate was just 47 per cent in 2016, which was actually a decline from the 50 per cent noted in 2006. The situation was slightly better for First Nations people living off reserve, with 60 per cent employed — compared to 62 per cent a decade earlier.

So, a huge gap, and getting wider.

As for the unemployment rate, it was 23 per cent on reserve in 2016 and 14 per cent off reserve, compared to just six per cent for the non-Indigenous population.

Income rose for everyone between 2006 and 2016, but the gap between non-Indigenous and First Nations people remains enormous. The median employment income for a non-Indigenous person was $34,000 in 2016 — double that of a First Nations person.

Similarly, poverty rates have declined for everyone over the decade, but the gap is outrageous. About 48 per cent of people on reserve were considered to be low income, compared to 14 per cent of non-Indigenous people.

There’s some hope in education. The gap is huge, but it’s getting narrower.

A 2019 report by the National Indigenous Economic Development Board compiled a whole range of pertinent indicators to assess progress over time, and found that “in general, outcomes for Indigenous peoples in Canada are improving and some gaps are decreasing, but to varying and sometimes small degrees.”

Right now, though, we have a pivotal moment.

The public is mortified by the discovery of the remains of 215 undocumented children by the Kamloops Indian Residential School, and the painful realization that there may well be thousands and thousands more bodies out there.

The calls from politicians, Indigenous leaders and people across the country to take urgent action, mitigate the harmful generational effects of residential schools and seek justice for the missing children are loud and clear.

At the same time, we have a federal government that proposes an aggressive attempt to rebuild the post-pandemic economy in a more just way, investing for inclusive growth that will not just repair the damage of the pandemic recession but also addresses the glaring inequities of the past.

And we have a private sector that anticipates labour shortages in the near future.

It’s a moment where federal policy and fiscal power could turn incremental, or sometimes invisible, progress into something more meaningful.

Yes, there were measures in the spring budget — $140 million for lending to small Indigenous businesses as well as $1 billion to ramp up rural broadband services.

And the federal government already supports numerous training, community and employment initiatives, Nolan points out.

The Indigenous economic development board has done some thorough research on economic reconciliation, and points to a few key areas where governments could do more and make an outsized difference in enabling Indigenous communities to develop their own strengths: beefing up procurement practices, improving access to capital, expanding education and training opportunities, and enabling Indigenous stakes in natural resource development. 

These are all practical suggestions that have the added benefit of ramping up existing support systems and encouraging local initiative — scaffolding, rather than starting from the ground up.

Nolan warns about moving too fast, when well-meaning help for economic development that doesn’t come with proper supports only sets up communities to fail.

“When you build a business, you can’t be the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company right away,” he says. “Businesses fail unless they have all the parameters in place.”

And that’s where the fine line is — finding that place between a lethargic status quo and patient progress that will, one day, take us all closer to reconciling with the past.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2021/06/01/we-cant-have-indigenous-reconciliation-without-closing-the-employment-the-gap.html

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Alberta Premier Jason Kenney defends John A. Macdonald’s legacy amid backlash over residential schools’ deadly legacy

2021/06/03 Leave a comment

Rare defence these days. But like all historical figures, a mix of the good and the bad, just as we too will likely be judged by future generations:

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney drew criticism Tuesday with a staunch defence of the legacy of Canada’s first prime minister — who is back in the spotlightafter the discovery of a mass burial site of Indigenous children near a former residential school.

Yet another statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was carted off in the back of a truck Tuesday; this time, it was a jaunty seated version of Macdonald removed from a Charlottetown street corner.

The removal in Prince Edward Island was the latest public consequence of Macdonald’s role in creating a residential school system for Indigenous children, which spawned decades of abuse and death.

Three quarters of a country to the west, Kenney decried what he described as the cancellation of one of the architects of the country, “imperfect” though he may have been.

“I think Canada is a great historical achievement,” Kenney told reporters in response to a question that followed an update on his province’s vaccine rollout.

“It is a country that people all around the world seek to join as new Canadians. It is an imperfect country, but it is still a great country, just as John A Macdonald was an imperfect man, but was still a great leader.”

Grand Chief Vernon Watchmaker of Treaty Six, an area that includes much of the central parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan, said in a statement he was “appalled” at the insensitivity of the premier’s comments at a time when Indigenous people from coast to coast are grieving the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

“The country and the province was established at the cost of our lives and well being,” he said.

“Just when we think we are experiencing acts of reconciliation, the premier contradicts all the efforts towards an understanding.”

Macdonald, a Scottish immigrant who became Canada’s first prime minister in 1867, has been under increasing scrutiny for his role creating the residential schools system. In 1883, Macdonald spelled out in the House of Commons his thinking on the schools, which would come to number more than 130 from coast to coast.

“Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools, where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men,” he said, as quoted in the House of Commons record of debates.

Tuesday is not the first time that Kenney has gone to bat for Macdonald, who, Kenney points out, tried to extend the vote to some First Nations. Last summer, Kenney said he’d like to see a Macdonald statue toppled by protesters in Montreal installed on the grounds of the Alberta legislature.

The discovery of the bodies in Kamloops, however, has triggered a fresh wave of pushback against Macdonald and the other creators of the system.

The Macdonald statue in Prince Edward Island, which news reports note has been defaced several times this year, is going into storage. Meanwhile, a group of students at Ryerson University say they will now refer to the institution as ‘X University,’ because of Egerton Ryerson’s association with the schools. And in Calgary, a school named for cabinet minister Hector-Louis Langevin is being rebranded.

When asked Tuesday, Kenney said he was unaware of that last decision, which had been announced hours earlier and instead, repeated his support for the former first minister.

He said that when he was a federal minister he’d founded a bill to recognize a John A Macdonald Day, to acknowledge the man “without whom Canada would not exist.”

“This is the problem with your line of questioning,” he said, speaking to the reporter who’d asked about the statue. “If the new standard is to cancel any figure in our history associated with what we now rightly regard as historical injustices, then essentially that is the vast majority of our history.”

Kenney listed Tommy Douglas and the Famous Five, who pushed to get the vote for white women, all of whom to some extent supported eugenics as a way to sterilize the weak.

He also mentioned Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who made it effectively impossible for Jews to immigrate to Canada during the Holocaust, and prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who brought in martial law that led to the arrest of “thousands of people with absolutely nothing to do with the FLQ Crisis.”

On the other hand, he pointed out that former prime minister Stephen Harper made an official apology to residential school survivors, and that the federal government has provided more than $3.5 billion in restitution.

After the discovery in Kamloops was announced last week, Kenney tweeted that it was a “terrible reminder of the legacy of Canada’s system of aboriginal residential schools.”

His then became the first province to announce it would help fund the search for more unmarked graves, though officials have announced no details or specific dollar amounts so far.

But his unflagging support of Macdonald comes at a time when his government is facing growing fire for failing to educate children about residential schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called on every child to learn about residential schools starting in kindergarten. But the proposed curriculum drafted by Kenney’s government doesn’t begin teaching that history until Grade 5.

As reported by CBC, one of the people hired to review the social studies draft, a man named Chris Champion who previously worked for Kenney when he was a federal minister, has called the inclusion of First Nations perspectives in school a fad, and said the blanket exercise commonly used to teach about the effects of colonialism brainwashes children.

Furthermore, some Indigenous leaders asked to consult on the new curriculum have accused the government of engaging in tokenism and of misrepresenting their positions.

Kenney said the new plan would be an improvement over the current curriculum, which doesn’t introduce residential schools until Grade 10 and that the amount of content students will learn increases overall.

“I think that’s the solution, which is to present young people, to present all Canadians, including new Canadians, with a balanced depiction of our history, including the terrible gross injustice and tragedy of the Indian residential schools.”

Source: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney defends John A. Macdonald’s legacy amid backlash over residential schools’ deadly legacy

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