Le nom des immigrants francophones, source d’erreurs bureaucratiques

2023/04/04 Leave a comment

Understand the frustration but how is this different from passport limitations which have to conform to international standards? Errors are, of course, another matter:

Plusieurs immigrants africains rencontrent des problèmes bureaucratiques en arrivant au Canada parce que leur nom est mal inscrit sur leurs cartes officielles par les autorités gouvernementales, déplorent des intervenantes du milieu communautaire. Ces dernières dénoncent l’« inconsidération culturelle » des autorités canadiennes.

Les cartes d’identité canadiennes, comme dans plusieurs autres pays, utilisent le modèle « nom et prénom ». Mais certains États, dont le Djibouti, en Afrique francophone, y font exception. Les Djiboutiens ont trois prénoms sur leur passeport : le premier est le leur, le deuxième est celui de leur père et le troisième appartient à leur grand-père. Lorsque certains obtiennent leur première carte de résidence permanente au Canada, l’espace prénom est manquant ou leur nom est inversé. Ainsi, une femme peut se retrouver avec un nom masculin, par exemple.

L’erreur peut causer plusieurs maux de tête. Si un résident permanent devient citoyen canadien, il devra par exemple changer son nom légal afin d’obtenir un passeport en raison de l’erreur sur la carte. Dans d’autres cas, une erreur est introduite dans le deuxième ou troisième permis de travail obtenu par un demandeur d’asile, disent des intervenantes. Lorsque la personne se présente au comptoir de Service Canada, permis en main, pour renouveler son numéro d’assurance sociale, sa demande est refusée en raison de l’erreur, expliquent des intervenants.

La solution pour les immigrants djiboutiens est souvent de modifier leur nom auprès des instances provinciales, ce qui leur permet, par la suite, de changer leur nom sur leur carte de résidence permanente et d’autres documents officiels. Mais le processus est coûteux : un adulte doit débourser 137 $ pour le faire, tout comme un enfant, à moins que ce dernier le fasse en même temps que son parent. La nouvelle carte de résidence permanente, elle, coûte 50 $.

Le ministère ontarien des Services au public et aux entreprises ne recense que quatre changements de nom officiels faits par des Djiboutiens en 2021 et 2022. Mais Sana Khalil, une agente de la Clinique juridique francophone d’Ottawa, qui vient en aide à des Djiboutiens, estime que les données provinciales « n’ont aucun sens » et que le nombre de changements de nom est plus élevé. L’une de ses collègues à la clinique, dit-elle, a fait « plein de demandes ».

Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada affirme faire de son mieux pour s’assurer de l’exactitude du nom sur les documents qu’elle délivre, mais que des erreurs peuvent survenir. L’agence utilise le nom tel qu’il apparaît sur la zone de lecture automatique du passeport — la section au bas de la photo de l’individu — pour créer des documents tels que la carte de résidence permanente. Au Canada, le nom de la famille du citoyen y est inscrit en premier, mais au Djibouti, c’est souvent le premier prénom de la personne qui y figure.

Source: Le nom des immigrants francophones, source d’erreurs bureaucratiques

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

NFB implements self-declaration questionnaire to respectfully collect data on community of creators and creative partners

2023/04/04 Leave a comment

Interesting wording to address potential sensitivities:

As part of its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) recognizes the need for accurate data to ensure equitable representation of voices that have been historically marginalized, underrepresented and misrepresented in the film industry.

The NFB’s self-declaration questionnaire is voluntary and confidential, and data will only be used in aggregate. It will not be used in the selection of NFB collaborators or submitted projects. The information collected includes Indigenous identity, racial/ethnic identity, disability status, gender identity/expression, 2SLGBTQI+ status and official-language minority status.

As a public producer and distributor, the NFB has a mandate to reflect the lives, experiences and perspectives of all Canadians in its works. Diverse voices and perspectives are crucial to its success and to the success of Canadian storytelling. The NFB is committed to following best practices and policies to ensure equitable representation, both on screen and behind the camera.

Source: NFB implements self-declaration questionnaire to respectfully collect data on community of creators and creative partners

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Lisée: «Nègres blancs d’Amérique» 55 ans après

2023/04/04 Leave a comment

Lisée on the history and the context of when the book was written, and its questionable relevance today in terms of current challenges:

L’auteur était le plus souvent debout. En l’absence de chaise ou de table, il écrivait penché sur le lit superposé du haut. Il n’avait pas de stylo, c’était interdit. Il usait ses bouts de crayon à mine, sans rien avoir pour les aiguiser. En haut de chaque page subtilisée à la cantine, il écrivait, en anglais, « Notes for my lawyer », seule façon d’avoir le droit de mettre quoi que ce soit sur papier. Il ne savait pas d’où venait sa soudaine fluidité d’écriture. D’autant qu’il sortait d’une grève de la faim d’un mois qui lui avait soustrait 25 kilos. Il pouvait écrire de jour comme de nuit, l’ampoule ne s’éteignait jamais.

« La fatigue provenait moins de la faim que du bruit infernal qui régnait dans la prison, a-t-il raconté. À toute heure du jour, il se trouvait des détenus pour taper à corps perdu sur les murs métalliques des cellules ou pour improviser des rythmes assourdissants de tam-tam. D’autres hurlaient jusqu’à épuisement leur terreur ou leur désespoir. D’autres encore s’ouvraient les veines et déclenchaient par leur acte un tumulte ahurissant. Un Noir mit le feu à ses vêtements et chercha ainsi à s’immoler. Un autre se jeta tête première du deuxième étage de notre section. Un troisième fut battu à mort par les surveillants dans sa cellule. »

C’est ainsi qu’est né l’essai québécois le plus lu au monde. Celui qui fit scandale, lors de sa publication il y a 55 ans. Celui dont le titre seul, aujourd’hui, peut mettre fin à des carrières journalistiques ou universitaires, scandaliser le CRTC, pousser une commission scolaire anglophone de Montréal à apposer un autocollant pour cacher le mot offensant dans chaque exemplaire d’un manuel.

Pierre Vallières et son camarade Charles Gagnon occupaient cette cellule de la prison des hommes de New York, surnommée The Tombs, Le sépulcre, en septembre 1966, pour avoir « troublé la paix » en manifestant devant l’édifice de l’ONU en faveur de l’indépendance du Québec. Les deux prisonniers sont surtout accusés d’avoir organisé, plus tôt cette année-là à Montréal, des attentats du Front de libération du Québec.

Vallières noircit donc les pages « avec la fébrilité de celui qui sait qu’il peut être déporté à tout instant et qui profite de chaque minute de libre expression qu’il lui reste encore ». Il pond donc en deux mois 90 % d’une oeuvre qui fera 540 pages chez l’imprimeur. Les deux tiers des feuillets sont déjà sortis de la prison lorsque l’extradition vers Montréal se produit.

Paniqué à l’idée que le dernier tiers sera saisi par des policiers québécois, qui eux lisent le français, Vallières offre un troc aux agents américains de l’immigration venus le saisir au sortir de sa prison : il ne résistera pas physiquement à cette nouvelle arrestation si les agents remettent les pages restantes à son avocat. Si ces agents n’avaient pas tenu parole, rapporte Vallières, le livre n’existerait pas. L’auteur est absent du lancement, le 14 mars 1968, car emprisonné et en procès pour les attentats qui lui sont attribués.

Vallières tenait à son titre, mais l’idée n’était pas neuve. Comme le rappelle Daniel Samson-Legault dans sa méticuleuse biographie de Vallières, Le dissident, chez Québec Amérique (que je recommande chaudement), l’expression avait été utilisée avant lui par Marie-Victorin, les journalistes Jean Paré, Yves Michaud et quelques autres pour décrire la condition des Canadiens français.

Vallières la reprend à répétition dans l’ouvrage et s’en sert comme d’un synonyme d’« opprimé ». Il l’associe d’ailleurs à toutes les victimes du capital, y compris aux ouvriers blancs américains. « C’est en anglais que ce concept se formula spontanément dans ma tête. White Niggers of America. Les Noirs américains furent les premiers, et pour cause, à saisir ce que pouvait être, sur les rives du Saint-Laurent, la condition particulière des Québécois francophones. »

Il ne dit pas à quels Noirs il fait référence, mais on sait que le leader noir américain de l’époque, Stokely Carmichael, qui viendra à Montréal, n’a rien à redire sur cette appropriation sémantique. De même, après avoir trouvé le titre très drôle, Aimé Césaire, inventeur du concept de « négritude », dira que Vallières avait bien compris qu’il ne s’agissait pas que de couleur de peau. Vallières use avec autant de liberté du terme « esclavage », une condition qu’il dit retrouver chez tous les dépossédés. On est dans l’hyperbole, pas dans la nuance.

Le livre fait fureur. Environ 50 000 exemplaires vendus au Québec, presque autant aux États-Unis, sans compter les versions allemande, espagnole et italienne. Brusquement, en 1969, l’auteur, l’éditeur — le poète et futur ministre péquiste Gérald Godin pour la maison Parti pris — et même la dactylo sont accusés d’avoir, en publiant l’ouvrage, fait oeuvre de sédition. Un crime passible de 14 ans d’emprisonnement.

Le ministre de la Justice de l’Union nationale, Rémi Paul, fait saisir tous les exemplaires en circulation, y compris celui du dépôt légal à la Bibliothèque nationale du Québec. L’accusation n’aura pas de suite. Le livre reprendra sa carrière en 1972, une fois passée la crise d’Octobre (pendant laquelle les felquistes le font lire à leur otage britannique, James Cross).

Faut-il le relire aujourd’hui ? Seulement si on veut prendre la mesure de la dépossession dans laquelle étaient plongés les Québécois du début des années 1960. Vallières décrit le délabrement et l’insalubrité de son quartier, Jacques-Cartier, sur la Rive-Sud (en forçant le trait, nuance son biographe, mais même…). Le récit biographique du jeune révolté reste poignant, celui de sa recherche intellectuelle, entre Teilhard de Chardin, Sartre, Marx et le Che, est fastidieux, mais ne manque pas de sincérité. Son appel à la violence révolutionnaire, au moment du formidable essor du Québec social, syndical, laïque, culturel et politique de 1966, était, même à l’époque, une erreur et un leurre.

Le problème n’est pas que Nègres blancs d’Amérique ait mal vieilli. Il fait simplement partie de l’histoire. Il est dans notre rétroviseur. Il a peu — rien ? — à nous dire sur le Québec d’aujourd’hui ou de demain. Son titre, seul, résonne comme un cri de liberté, comme l’audace de dire des choses avec des mots forts, en les détournant ou en leur faisant violence. Un doigt d’honneur aux censeurs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui.

Source: «Nègres blancs d’Amérique» 55 ans après

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Shia Muslim scholars denied entry into US suspect religious bias

2023/04/04 Leave a comment

Of note, particularly given that the persons quoted had made frequent trips to the US:

It took the US consulate seven minutes to reject Nabil Ahmed Shabbir’s visa application.

Shabbir, a British Shia scholar, had applied for his US visa to assist with the birth of his first child. His wife, an American Shia Muslim, wanted to have the birth in the US.

Shabbir hadn’t even left the embassy gate after handing in his visa application when he got a text message saying it had been rejected.

Shabbir, whose work has brought him to the US dozens of times prior to this rejection in 2020, did not think obtaining a visa would be an issue.

Instead, he had to watch his firstborn’s birth via WhatsApp video.

Shabbir is one of numerous Shia scholars who have been repeatedly – and unexpectedly – denied entry to the US in the past decade, despite their prior travel to the country for work purposes, raising concerns that they are being deliberately excluded because of their religion.

Despite traveling to the US regularly for five years on a valid 10-year visa, Shabbir was stopped at the airport in 2019 and detained for five hours, facing questions about the intent of his visit.

He was traveling with his wife, but was asked why he had invitations from years ago from American organizations – which fed his suspicion that officials had gone through his email.

He was eventually allowed to enter, but once he returned from the US, he received a notification that his visa had been revoked.

This revocation – unceremonious, without a specific reason and out of the blue – fits a pattern that has been experienced by many Shia scholars.

Mohammad Ali Naquvi, cofounder and chair of the American Muslim Bar Association (AMBA), said his organization has documented denials or revocations of more than 50 Shia scholars in the past decade.

Some were denied entry as they were about to board a US-bound flight, some were denied entry after arriving in the country and forced to turn back despite having a valid visa – and some like Shabbir still remain in a limbo of “administrative processing”.

“It has a burden on the religious practice of Shia Muslims in the US, not being able to have the scholars here,” Abed Ayoub, national executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said. “Not being able to have your religious events because of immigration enforcement is very problematic.”

The issue has been going on for a long time. Sheikh Jihad Ismail, an Australian Shia scholar, was about to board his flight to Albany from Dubai in 2014 when he was told he couldn’t fly into the US. This threw him off, especially because he had visited the US nearly 20 times since 2002, giving talks and engaging with the Shia community in the country. His visa has been under “administrative processing” for six years. According to Naquvi, there are some “administrative processing” cases that go back nine years.

Both Ismail and Shabbir know numerous other scholars going through similar experiences. Ismail recalled the story of a friend who was recently made to return on the next flight after arriving in the US.

Many of these scholars are from English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia.

There is no solid reason to which anyone in the community can point to explain why so many Shia scholars have been denied entry, but they say they have their suspicions.

Ayoub traces the issue back to the San Bernardino shooting in 2015, in which the shooters had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

This was followed by the Obama administration passing the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, which disqualified the visa waiver for applicants from 40 countries if they had made any trips to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen on a government assignment or military order.

This is tricky because Shia pilgrimages, including the ziyarah, take place in Iran and Iraq.

Nearly all Shia scholars have visited or regularly visit these countries, which automatically puts them under scrutiny under the law.

“Because you’re seeing a big number of individuals coming from visa waiver countries, what we believe is happening is the consular officers at the state department are misreading this law,” Ayoub said.

“What they’re doing, in our opinion, is yes, the individual may not qualify for visa waiver, but they’re holding the same standard in even issuing a visa,” he added.

That still doesn’t explain why Ismail was denied the visa in 2014, before the San Bernardino shooting, feeding further confusion among the scholars. It’s clear that there is a pattern that holds true for all these instances, yet nobody can pinpoint the exact issue that would uniformly justify these cases.

This has a grave impact for Shia Americans, especially the current generation.

For a religion with a rich practice of cultural and knowledge exchange across borders, Shabbir said there is an immense value English-speaking scholars have in reaching the current generation, and these visa denials hamper that education.

If scholars like himself aren’t allowed to teach in the US, the other option for such exchange programs is to invite scholars from countries where they may not understand British or American culture, and the culture gap could become a barrier.

“Those young people then find it very difficult to consolidate their faith and the culture they are living in,” he said.

“They see the western culture as something inherently bad, and if they’re going to be religious that means they have to be against western culture,” he added. “Whereas it’s not the case – but they won’t know that until they are presented with a western scholar who has grown up through the system.”

But there are signs of progress. Ayoub said the Trump administration assisted on some individual cases, and activists are now in talks with Biden administration officials who Ayoub said had been “very receptive”.

Those like Shabbir hope the doors open up soon. For him, beyond giving talks as a religious scholar, he misses the opportunity to visit his in-laws, with whom his wife has been staying for a few months to take care of her mother. This means he has to go months without seeing his wife or child.

“It’s not just the visa rejection,” he said. “There’s just so much more that ends up being attached to it.”

Source: Shia Muslim scholars denied entry into US suspect religious bias

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Lightman and Akbary: New data provide insight into pandemic inequalities

2023/04/03 Leave a comment

Insightful analysis, contrasting vaccination rates (relatively similar) and health outcomes (disparities):

Existing analyses of COVID-19 in Canada and internationally suggest infection rates were highly variable across populations, with researchers highlighting the disproportionate burdenexperienced by groups that are intersectionally disadvantaged.

Early in the pandemic, widespread evidence emerged of the unequal rates of infection experienced by residents and care workers in long-term care homes in Canada. Soon after, racialized populations and immigrants were also found to be especially hard-hit. The COVID-19 mortality rate was significantly higher for racialized populations.

Our new research finds that while these individuals had higher rates of COVID-19 infection, they were equally or more likely to get vaccinated than comparison groups. This has important policy implications. Rather than focusing on individual decision-making, the data suggest a need to prioritize protections and pay for workers in essential jobs that are unpredictable, dangerous, physically demanding and/or low wage.

Overwhelming evidence shows that vaccines are an effective protective measure, both in terms of reducing infection ratesand severity of illness. Using the 2022 Statistics Canada dataset “Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians – Testing and Vaccination,” our analyses found that variable vaccination rates were not the reason behind differing rates of infection.

These data were collected as part of Statistics Canada’s crowdsourcing initiative which aimed to gather timely information on Canadians’ experiences of testing for COVID-19 and access to vaccination during the pandemic. Statistics Canada used open advertising to obtain participants who chose to self-select by completing an online questionnaire from February 21 to March 13, 2022.

For racialized minorities, 20 per cent tested positive, compared to 15 per cent for non-racialized minorities (outcomes were similar when comparing PCR to rapid test results). In particular, those who identified as Black and Filipino (populations that also have high rates of employment in care occupations and in service industries fared worst. Black populations experienced a one-third rate of positivity for rapid tests (see Figure 1).

https://e.infogram.com/lightman-fig1-1hzj4o37mqvl34p?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fmarch-2023%2Fnew-data-provide-insight-into-pandemic-inequalities%2F%3Futm_source%3DPolicy%2BOptions%2BNewsletter%26utm_campaign%3D18ca25504e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_14_05_26_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_26f66e24ce-18ca25504e-104024581%26mc_cid%3D18ca25504e%26mc_eid%3D86cabdc518&src=embed#async_embed

Citizenship was also an important factor. Those without Canadian citizenship status (including temporary foreign workers) fared worse for both types of testing (at an average of 22 per cent positivity), compared to those immigrants with citizenship status and the Canadian-born. The latter fared by far the best, at 14 per cent positivity via PCR tests, and 17 per cent positivity via rapid tests (see Figure 2).

https://e.infogram.com/lightman-fig2-1hd12yxqz1wmx6k?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fmarch-2023%2Fnew-data-provide-insight-into-pandemic-inequalities%2F%3Futm_source%3DPolicy%2BOptions%2BNewsletter%26utm_campaign%3D18ca25504e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_14_05_26_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_26f66e24ce-18ca25504e-104024581%26mc_cid%3D18ca25504e%26mc_eid%3D86cabdc518&src=embed#async_embed

Women and men, interestingly, were found to have had similar rates of infection. However, those who identified as essential workers had higher rates of infection (see Figure 3), with women overrepresented among this population.

https://e.infogram.com/lightman-fig3-1h7z2l8z9qnzg6o?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fmarch-2023%2Fnew-data-provide-insight-into-pandemic-inequalities%2F%3Futm_source%3DPolicy%2BOptions%2BNewsletter%26utm_campaign%3D18ca25504e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_14_05_26_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_26f66e24ce-18ca25504e-104024581%26mc_cid%3D18ca25504e%26mc_eid%3D86cabdc518&src=embed#async_embed

Yet the data on rates of vaccination tell a different story. This suggests that variable infection rates were tied to specific jobs or to systemic inequalities, rather than a function of individual choice.

There was only a marginal difference in vaccination rates between essential workers and non-essential workers. Racialized people and immigrants had higher rates of vaccination than non-racialized people and non-immigrants (see Figure 4).

https://e.infogram.com/lightman-fig4-1h7g6k0gvyrgo2o?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fmarch-2023%2Fnew-data-provide-insight-into-pandemic-inequalities%2F%3Futm_source%3DPolicy%2BOptions%2BNewsletter%26utm_campaign%3D18ca25504e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_14_05_26_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_26f66e24ce-18ca25504e-104024581%26mc_cid%3D18ca25504e%26mc_eid%3D86cabdc518&src=embed#async_embed

Finally, the data reject explanations tied to access to health facilities. In the five cities in Canada with the highest rates of infection, residents had higher rates of access to at least one health facility and a pharmacy close to them (see Figure 5).

https://e.infogram.com/lightman-fig5-1hxr4zxr1nreo6y?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fmarch-2023%2Fnew-data-provide-insight-into-pandemic-inequalities%2F%3Futm_source%3DPolicy%2BOptions%2BNewsletter%26utm_campaign%3D18ca25504e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_14_05_26_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_26f66e24ce-18ca25504e-104024581%26mc_cid%3D18ca25504e%26mc_eid%3D86cabdc518&src=embed#async_embed

Together, this information suggests that COVID-19 infection rates were not related to personal decision-making or access to health services. Instead, it raises concerns about broader social responsibilities. Populations that are racialized and/or non-citizens and those doing essential jobs were infected at disproportionate rates, even as they took steps to get vaccinated.

Notably, the data do not provide information on time order, so it is plausible that those workers on the front lines reported positive cases prior to having access to the vaccine. This raises further questions about which occupations and which areas of each city were prioritized for personal protective equipment and early access to vaccination, while refuting suggestions of a lack of awareness or interest in vaccination by underserved communities.

As well, the data do not indicate the severity of illness. Thus, the analyses may tell a story of lives saved due to vaccination for populations that were at greater risk of infection due to their workplace conditions.

In terms of policy, this suggests that there is an urgent need to focus on improving working conditions for essential workers. This includes providing paid sick leave and job guarantees for those who take time off work to care for themselves or others. Staffing levels and accommodations to work from home for those who are sick (when possible) should be ensured. Accommodations to reduce workplace injuries and increase mental health supports must be made available. Providing safe transportation to and from work facilities as well as paid time to travel to get vaccinated should be a policy initiative. Finally, emergency housing for self-isolation when needed and access to child and elder care, as well as affordable housing for those with lower socioeconomic status, should also be top priority.

Perhaps most critically, wages must be raised for workers who are systematically at higher risk of infection due to the face-to-face nature of their employment (while also structuring workplaces to avoid dangerous work conditions where possible.) This would at least partially compensate for increased rates of infection within certain jobs and recognize the toll it takes on individuals, families and communities.

All this reinforces a structural rather than individual analysis of disease burdens and public health measures. Clearly, getting vaccinated is not the end of the story. Ongoing social responsibility is needed to protect vulnerable groups – whether this takes the form of masking, work-from-home measures, or other workplace accommodations.

The implications of the pandemic are nowhere near over. There must be a move beyond rhetoric of “gratitude” to essential workers; instead, governments and employers must implement better policies and pay. These policies must be evidence-based so Canadians have an accurate understanding about the pandemic and its effects.

Given the emerging information about the potentially long-term implications of COVID-19, these measures take on added urgency for groups such as children, people with disabilities and intersectionally disadvantaged populations.

A note about methodology

Statistics Canada started the crowdsourcing initiative as part of a data collection series to address the informational needs of Canadians and enhance their understanding related to the impact of COVID-19. According to an evaluation report, Statistics Canada’s crowdsourcing products have proven to be useful for briefing purposes, policy research and analysis, program and service planning and decision-making, as well as knowledge-production and modeling. Statistics Canada uses a number of measures to ensure the quality of data collected through the crowdsourcing initiative. First, the questionnaires are designed based on Statistics Canada’s standard practices and wording used in a computer-assisted interviewing environment. During data collection, a computer application is used to automatically control the flow of questions, depending on participant responses, and to check for logical inconsistencies and errors in participant responses. The computer application used for these purposes is tested extensively. After data have been collected, Statistics Canada maximizes the quality of crowdsourced data through error detection of invalid or missing values for age, gender and postal code at micro levels. Furthermore, Statistics Canada compensates for overrepresentation and underrepresentation by calculating a benchmark factor for every participant based on demographic projections of the number of people by province and territory, sex and age group. As recommended by Statistics Canada, therefore, the authors of this article used the benchmark factor to produce their results in the same way that survey weights are used to produce estimates from non-crowdsourced data.

Source: Lightman and Akbary: New data provide insight into pandemic inequalities

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Hicks: The radical improvement of data will transform public sector reform

2023/04/03 Leave a comment

The comparatively easier issue is developing and accessing more reliable and granular data (evidence-based policy development). The harder issue is the extent to which whether governments will use the data to inform policies and programs, compared to political and short-term considerations (policy-based evidence development).

I am less optimistic than Hicks:

Recent Policy Options articles have reflected on the need for public sector reform to deal with “wicked problems” related to decentralization, outsourcing, lack of public trust, lack of openness and the politicization of policy advice. Donald Savoieargues that the public service, with its obsolete policies and processes, has come so irreparably off its moorings that only an independent royal commission can fix it. Others, including Daniel Caron, Evert Lindquist and Robert Shepherd, call for internal reform processes.

An obvious question is why experiences over the past 50 or so years with both royal commissions and internal reforms have had such poor results. One factor has been the lack of the kind of reliable, granular evidence that would be needed to assess and learn from past initiatives that would also be needed to ensure that new directions can be managed in a transparent, accountable manner. As Caron, Lindquist and Shepherd say, institutional learning must be based on ongoing evidence and much of that needed evidence has, until now, not existed.

However, that is changing. As I demonstrate in a recent article, a radical improvement in evidence has become possible as a result of the availability of rich sources of new information, new ways of combining data from multiple sources in ways that protect privacy and the development of new predictive analytic tools based on big data. Much of this new evidence will be based on calculations using detailed administrative files. Ground-breaking information from other sources are on the horizon. For example, the use of data from personal monitoring devices from volunteers (with guaranteed anonymity) will be possible in the near future.

Another factor contributing to the failure of past reforms has been a tendency to examine the way in which services are administered separately from the actual content of those services. Many issues of public trust, morale, transparency, efficiency and service quality can only be addressed though deep changes in outdated policies and programs. They cannot be addressed by changes in the way programs are administered by the public service.

A third factor is that most reforms have taken place within existing programming and jurisdictional silos. This has made things worse by reinforcing overly fragmented programming, especially in the social policy area. Social policy in Canada is too often characterized by confusing sets of income supports and tax measures administered by both orders of government as well as overlapping but uncoordinated services provided by health care, educational and community organizations.

If the goal is to help people improve the quality of their lives and to increase trust between individuals and their governments, reforms need to be based on accountable partnerships that provide integrated services and supports based on an individual’s needs and aspirations. In practice, that hasn’t happened, largely because there’s been no source of routine evidence about which mixes of intervention are likely to work best for people with diverse characteristics in different circumstances.

However, that could change soon. Formerly wicked problems will be much easier to solve. Progress will soon make it possible to produce the kind of evidence that will allow us to learn from past experience and will support the accountability regimes needed to sustain reform efforts. That same evidence will also support major reform in the way policies are formulated, and the way in which programs are designed and delivered.

The new evidence will allow powerful new kinds of causal analysis. For example, it will become possible to make comparisons of the previous and subsequent characteristics and experiences of the participants in particular programs with those of non-participants with similar characteristics and in similar situations. This information would allow analysis of which programs (and combinations of programs) are working best, for whom and in what circumstances.

Using predictive analytic techniques, information on “what is likely to work best” will be available instantly – at the time when decisions are being made on choices of interventions. It will allow programs to continually improve and evolve based on automatic feedback loops showing what has been working best for people, including those who now feel alienated by standard, often fragmented programs that do not reflect their individual circumstances.

Over time, the new information is likely to reshape the way in which people are matched with programs. It would support the growth of an independent case management function where individuals with the greatest needs are referred to the service most likely to be effective (or, often, a combination of services and income supports) by counsellors who have access to evidence on what is likely to work best, regardless of who offers the service. The same information would allow other individuals, acting on their own, to learn what services exist and which are likely to work best for them given their needs and interests.

Development has reached a point where Statistics Canada is considering plans to use these new techniques to radically improve its social statistics. It is the only agency with the mandate and technical capacity to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of the source data and to ensure the quality of the resulting statistics.

The next logical step would be for it to gradually and cautiously enter into partnership arrangements with agencies in different jurisdictions and in different policy domains. Those agencies who wish to be early reformers can experiment with ways of using the anonymous “what works” evidence using the big data that is securely held within Statistics Canada.

It will take time to develop a fully mature system based on the new analytics. Progress will be slow and uneven across different policy domains. Issues related to public acceptability will be paramount. However, much of the needed background development work has already taken place. If the demand is there, significant progress is possible in many areas within five to 10 years.

To be successful, a public sector reform initiative should have a broad mandate that will result in the creation of the inter-agency partnerships needed to test out the new “what is likely to work best” evidence in practical program and policy applications. It should also propose ways of systematically applying lessons learned to mainstream programming.

Source: Hicks: The radical improvement of data will transform public sector reform

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Eight key takeaways from landmark French immigration study [2021 data]

2023/04/03 Leave a comment

Most notable finding for me was the social mobility of the second generation:

A major new demographic study has explored immigration into France for the first time in a decade.

The dossier, by the French statistics bureau Insee, was published on Thursday (March 30).

It mainly used data from 2021, the most recent available.

Here we look at its main findings.

1. One-in-ten people in France is an immigrant

The study found that there were an estimated seven million immigrants living in France in 2021, equivalent to 10.3% of the population.

The study defined ‘immigrant’ as someone who was “born with a foreign nationality in a foreign country”.

2. More than a third of immigrants acquired French nationality

The study found that many immigrants become significantly integrated into France, especially those who have children (second-generation) and grandchildren (third-generation), in the country.
It also found more than a third (36%) of people who arrived in France as immigrants acquired French nationality.

3. Nearly half of immigrants in France come from Africa

The study found that 50 years ago, most immigrants in France had come from southern Europe. This has now changed.

In 2021, they were more likely to come from north Africa (the Maghreb region), Africa, or Asia.

  • In 2011, there were 882,000 immigrants to France from Spain and Italy
  • In 2021, this had dropped to 543,000
  • In 2011, there were 1.63 million immigrants from the Maghreb
  • In 2021, there were more than 2 million immigrants from the Maghreb

Overall, almost half of the immigrants in France come from Africa (3.31 million of a total of 6.96 million).

4. More than half of the immigrants living in France are women

Challenging the stereotype that most immigrants are single men, the study revealed that 52% of immigrants living in France are women.

This has risen from 44% in 1968.

As with the immigrant population in general (see below), women are particularly likely to be “estranged” from the world of work, even though they are likely to have similar, if not higher, levels of education than immigrant men.

Insee said: “{Women are] nine times’ more likely to be inactive and three times less likely to be in full-time employment than men.”

The bureau said that while this could be partly because many immigrants make their journeys for family reasons, “including, often, the goal of raising a family,” this alone did not explain the gap.

“The probability of being inactive rises with the number of children, and whether they live with a partner,” Insee said.

5. Immigrants are more likely to be affected by unemployment

In 2021, 13% of immigrants were unemployed, compared to 7% of the general population in France.

Immigrants are over-represented in certain jobs, such as at-home carers and maternelle assistants for women, and the construction sector for men.

They are more likely to be in interim and temporary contracts compared to the rest of the population, and “often are in less-skilled jobs, associated with lower pay and more difficult working conditions”.

Insee said that 39% of immigrant men in employment are unskilled workers, compared to 29% of men who are neither immigrants themselves nor descendants of immigrants.

Insee suggested that lower employment levels among immigrants could partly be due to “hiring discrimination”. It said that it had tested the difference between immigrant job applications and non-immigrant applications.

“Similar candidates with a suspected Maghreb origin receive 32% fewer callbacks than those without the suspected origin, even though both say that they have done all of their education, diploma, and work, exclusively in France,” it wrote.

The lower employment levels could also be due to employers not recognising foreign qualifications, and also due to immigrants tending to have lower levels of French language skills.

This is especially the case for refugees, who are less likely to be from French-speaking countries (30%) compared to other immigrants to France (67%).

6. Immigrants are more likely to be poor

Immigrants are twice as likely as the rest of the population to suffer from financial poverty, especially those from Africa and Asia.

In 2019, at least half of immigrants earned less than €1,417 per month; 15% less on average than immigrant descendants, and 26% less on average than people without any recent immigrant background.

Insee said: “19% of immigrants born in Africa cannot have a personal car for financial reasons, versus only 3% of immigrants born in Europe. 47% of those from Africa cannot have a week of holiday away from home, compared to 22% of immigrants from Europe.”

Immigrants are also more likely to be in poor health. Insee found that 10% of immigrant men are likely to be in “bad or very bad health”, compared to 7% of the non-immigrant population, and 5% of descendants of immigrants.

7. Descendants of immigrants have high social mobility

Despite these challenges, the study shows that descendants of immigrants tend to have upward social mobility in terms of education and work.

Insee said: “The level of diplomas among immigrant descendants is very close to the non-immigrant and non-descendant-of-immigrants population.” This shows a strong rise in education levels and social mobility from one generation to another.

“A third (33%) of descendants of immigrants, whose father was an unskilled worker, go on to become managers or have a semi-skilled profession,” the study states.

This is higher than the figure (27%) for those who are not descendants of immigrants.

Around 32% of immigrants have higher-education qualifications, which rises to 38% among the descendants of immigrants, compared to 41% of the non-immigrant population.

8. Immigrants are more likely to be religious

Immigrants in France are more likely to be religious than the wider non-immigrant population.

In 2019-2020, 51% of the general population aged 18-59 in metropolitan France said they did not have a religion.

This rises to 59% among people with no recent (within three generations) immigration background.

In contrast, only 19% of immigrants who arrived in France after age 16 say the same, rising to 26% among descendants of immigrants.

  • 29% of the immigrant population said they were Catholic
  • 10% said they were Muslim
  • 9% said they were another form of Christianity

Among descendants of religious families:

  • 91% of people raised in a Muslim home follow their parents’ religion
  • 84% of people raised in a Jewish home do the same
  • As do 67% of people raised in a Catholic home
  • And 60% among other forms of Christianity

Insee said: “The fact of having grown up in a family of mixed religious or Catholic background is decisive when it comes to the secularisation of immigrant descendants.”

Source: Eight key takeaways from landmark French immigration study

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Temporary Foreign Worker program sees 68% jump in approvals 

2023/04/01 Leave a comment

The absence of temporary residents from the annual departmental immigration plan becomes more and more untenable given how temporary workers and students form a larger number than new Permanent Residents, particularly given the impact on housing availability and affordability, healthcare and infrastructure:

Employers in Canada were approved to fill more than 220,000 positions through the Temporary Foreign Worker program last year, taking advantage of government decisions that broadened access to migrant labour.

TFW approvals jumped 68 per cent from 2021, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of figures recently published by Employment and Social Development Canada. Over the final three months of 2022, companies were authorized to hire nearly 69,000 positions through the TFW program – the most in a quarter since at least 2017.

The numbers reflect part of the hiring process: Foreign workers still need to get the appropriate permits to fill those positions.

Even so, the ESDC figures show that employer demand for temporary foreign labour is soaring at a time of near-record-low unemployment rates and elevated job vacancies.

Companies also benefited from an overhaul of the TFW program last spring, when the federal government increased employers’ access to low-wage labour, among other changes.

As businesses rush to use the TFW program, Canada is experiencing the largest population gains in decades. The country grew by slightly more than one million people in 2022, a 2.7-per-cent increase that was the most since 1957, according to a recent Statistics Canada report.

Temporary immigration was the primary driver of growth. In 2022, the number of non-permanent residents jumped by around 600,000 on a net basis, a record increase. This group includes international students, along with those temporary workers whose permits are issued outside of the TFW program.

In its report, Statscan said the federal government is deliberately courting more immigrants to boost the supply of labour as the country ages. However, the agency also noted: “A rise in the number of permanent and temporary immigrants could also represent additional challenges for some regions of the country related to housing, infrastructure and transportation, and service delivery to the population.”

In the fourth quarter, farms and food-processing plants were the largest sources of TFW approvals, which is usually the case. Over all, nearly 25,000 roles as general farm workers were authorized to be filled. Procyk Farms Ltd., of Wilsonville, Ont., received 599 approvals in the quarter, the most of any company.

Collectively, the restaurant industry was approved to hire thousands of people, including more than 3,100 cooks. Those employers included franchisees of Tim Hortons and McDonald’s Corp.

Other high-demand roles included truck drivers, construction workers and nurse aides.

The federal government said the expansion of the TFW program was meant to address a shortage of workers, something that companies have openly complained about for years.

In one of last year’s changes, companies are now able to employ 20 per cent of their staff through the low-wage stream of the TFW program, up from a previous 10-per-cent cap for most employers. In seven sectors with “demonstrated labour shortages,” such as restaurants and construction, the limit was temporarily set to 30 per cent. Earlier this week, Ottawa extended the 30-per-cent cap until late October.

However, many economists have criticized those moves, saying it helps companies avoid paying higher wages, and that it could lead to the exploitation of migrant workers, whose immigration status is tied to their employer.

“Unfortunately, we increasingly have a system where our temporary and permanent immigration systems are focused on the same objective – satisfying employers’ current labour needs,” economists Parisa Mahboubi and Mikal Skuterud wrote in a recent memo for the C.D. Howe Institute. “The risk is that the overall immigration system fails to do anything well.”

To hire a TFW, a company must submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment to the federal government, showing that they can’t find local workers to fill their open jobs. The ESDC figures refer to the number of roles that received positive assessments.

Most temporary foreign workers in Canada are not employed through the TFW program. At the end of 2022, there were more than one million active work permits in the International Mobility Program. This group includes a range of workers, such as company transfers from abroad. IMP permits have jumped by 193 per cent over the previous decade.

International students, who mostly don’t need work permits to secure employment in Canada, are a rapidly growing part of the labour force. At the end of last year, there were slightly more than 800,000 active study permits – nearly triple the volume from 10 years earlier.

Source: Temporary Foreign Worker program sees 68% jump in approvals

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Vaughn Palmer: B.C. wants federal housing dollars tied to immigration patterns

2023/04/01 Leave a comment

Good to see the discussion happening at the political level and that Don Wright’s assessment getting attention (https://www.theorca.ca/commentary/don-wright-will-trudeau-make-it-impossible-for-eby-to-succeed-6762001):

Finance Minister Katrine Conroy expressed disappointment this week that the federal budget did not respond to B.C.’s calls for more funding for housing.

“There doesn’t seem to be funding for the housing that we have been asking for,” she told reporters Tuesday.

Ottawa did allocate new money to an Indigenous housing plan, valued at $4 billion.

Conroy was “really happy to see more funding for that,” though she noted B.C. already funds Indigenous housing.

Based on what she didn’t see in the budget, it appeared to her that B.C. would be left on its own to fund other types of social housing as well as develop housing for middle income levels.

“We need to be in a partnership with the federal government, municipal governments and our provincial government to ensure that we have enough housing for people,” said Conroy.

However, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had a ready explanation for the apparent shortfall when she visited B.C. on Thursday.

There was no new money for the housing crisis in this year’s budget, because Ottawa is still rolling out the $10 billion commitment in last year’s budget.

“This was a multi-year plan,” Freeland told a news conference in Surrey. “You don’t deploy $10 billion in one month or in one year.”

The plan includes the $4 billion “housing accelerator program” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched in mid-March.

The goal is to accelerate construction of 100,000 homes over 10 years.

To tap the fund, municipalities must submit plans for fast-tracking housing units, with an emphasis on affordability.

“Tell us what your plan is to get more homes built,” said Freeland. “Tell us how some of that money can help you build those homes, and we will write a cheque. And $4 billion will mean we can write a lot of cheques.”

Premier David Eby, who shared the platform with Freeland, took a more conciliatory tone than his finance minister had done earlier in the week.

“There are very significant parcels of federal housing funding from the last budget that have yet to be deployed in a significant way in British Columbia,” he acknowledged. “B.C. needs to see our fair share of that funding. We have partnered with the federal government on many projects and many more to come.”

By way of a hint, the premier added: “If they have surplus from other provinces that is unspent, bring it to British Columbia, because we’re going to put it to work right here. We’re an excellent partner for that.”

On the fairness question, Eby was referring to his government’s argument that B.C. is entitled to a disproportionate share of housing funding because the province receives a disproportionate share of immigrants to Canada.

B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon made the case at the beginning of the year, and he’s reinforced it at every opportunity since.

“I’ve spoken to the federal ministers multiple times, urging them to consider tying their immigration numbers to both housing starts and affordable housing,” he said recently.

“We know it is going to be critical to build that stock for the amount of people that are coming, not only the new immigrants but also the temporary residents that are being approved to come to Canada.”

Kahlon’s concern was reinforced this week in an opinion piece from Don Wright, who headed the provincial public service in the first term of the John Horgan NDP government.

“B.C.’s success in addressing the public’s concerns here will be largely hostage to the federal government’s immigration policy,” Wright wrote in an article Monday in the online Orca publication that asked, “Will Trudeau make it impossible for Eby to succeed?”

His point was that the federal government’s ambitious immigration targets will add to existing pressures on the supply of doctors and housing, two challenges Eby is pledged to address.

Wright challenged the conventional wisdom that housing affordability is best addressed by the supply side of the housing equation.

“Demand matters too,” he wrote. “And as quickly as we have built new homes, the population in our major urban centres rises as well.”

“The federal government’s prescription for this? Ramp up immigration numbers!” said Wight.

“A story is spun that this will actually increase housing supply because we are going to bring in more trades workers to build the houses we need,” notes Wright, before knocking down the “heroic assumptions” in that statement.

“It is not going to work,” he wrote. “Of the 160,000 new British Columbians last year, more than 95% settled in the Lower Mainland, Southern Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan — where affordable housing was already acutely unavailable.”

Net result, concludes Wright: “Premier Eby is going to have even more difficulty in delivering more affordable housing.”

Wright did not conclude his piece with a call for Ottawa to slam the brakes on immigration.

In less judicious hands, it might come to that. But the New Democrats don’t want it to come to that.

Hence their argument that B.C. should get a greater share of federal housing dollars in recognition that the province also welcomes a greater share of Canada’s newcomers.

Source: Vaughn Palmer: B.C. wants federal housing dollars tied to immigration patterns

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