Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2023/09/21 Leave a comment
The chart below breaks down the 1,503 signatures as of 19 September by province. No significant change.
And if you haven’t yet considered signing the petition, the link is here: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4511
2023/09/20 Leave a comment
One of many articles on the intelligence revelations that the Indian may have been behind the Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar:
It was a jolt for Canada when China retaliated for the arrest of a Huawei executive in Vancouver by locking up two Canadian bystanders, the two Michaels, five years ago. Now a second shock shows us foreign governments are continuing to reach into Canada to intimidate.
This time, agents of a supposedly friendly country, India, are alleged to be linked to the death of a Canadian, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh community leader who in June was shot in his truck in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C.
There has never been anything like this before: an explosive public allegation that a foreign government’s agents targeted and killed a Canadian citizen, in Canada.
Certainly, there has never been a moment like the one on Monday afternoon when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood up in the House of Commons to tell the country that Canada’s security agencies are pursuing “credible allegations” of a potential link to the Indian government.
India is not supposed to be an enemy, or even an adversary. There are tensions, because the Indian government has for decades accused Canada of being soft on Khalistani terrorists, who seek to carve an independent Sikh state out of what is now northern India. But India has often conflated non-violent Sikh separatist advocates with terrorists and extremists. Mr. Nijjar was organizing an unofficial referendum on the creation of a Sikh state when he was killed.
The idea that New Delhi might send agents to kill a Canadian in Canada is stunning.
Mr. Trudeau said on Monday that he had spoken to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the allegation “in no uncertain terms” at last week’s G20 summit in New Delhi, but there was no word from the Canadian government on Mr. Modi’s response. There’s no sense Mr. Trudeau was given a satisfactory answer, or that he was promised Indian co-operation on an investigation.
Canada has already expelled an Indian diplomat who was the chief of the Indian foreign intelligence agency in Canada, but it’s not clear what, if anything, will happen next.
Again, Canada is jolted into recognizing a new world in which foreign governments reach out to influence, intimidate and coerce Canadians in Canada. Again, there is new reason to believe foreign interference might be a bigger, broader danger than this country is prepared to counter. This time, the allegation is assassination, which underlines the direct threat to the security of Canadians – especially those who belong to diaspora communities here.
Already, many in Canada’s Sikh community believed that the Indian government had been involved in Mr. Nijjar’s killing, and his death had sparked anger and protests. Indian diplomats had complained to Mr. Trudeau’s government that those protests were becoming threatening. The killing brought tension to Canadian streets.
It wasn’t quite the same thing in 2018, when China arrested Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on U.S. charges. But that was an attempt to intimidate Canada for exercising its own laws. It showed Canadians can’t expect sovereignty without foreign coercion.
And there have been more examples of China and other countries feeling they can reach inside Canada. The RCMP said earlier this summer that they had shut down illegal Chinese police activity in several Canadian locations. The Globe and Mail has reported on a series of attempts by Beijing to influence Canadian elections. Canadian relatives of victims of the 2020 downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 by Iranian armed forces reported that people close to the Iranian regime had approached them in Canada, in an attempt to intimidate them into silence.
Now, Mr. Trudeau has made an explosive, albeit unproven, allegation of an extreme example – an alleged assassination in Canada – and promised to work closely with allies “on this very serious matter.” In the Commons, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called on allies to “condemn this violence … in the harshest terms possible.”
But it is far from certain that the U.S. and other Canadian allies will rush to hold India to account.
For one thing, credible allegations in the hands of intelligence agencies aren’t the same as evidence gathered by police for a trial. And in a world where Western allies have imposed extensive economic sanctions against Russia and are increasingly seeking to counter China’s influence, the U.S. and European nations won’t relish the prospect of conflict with another major power.
But if the allegation is true, it will be fuel for the coming public inquiry into foreign interference. Foreign governments apparently feel as though they can reach into Canada with impunity. Countering that is now a pressing national priority.
Source: Canada once more forced to reckon with era of foreign intimidation
2023/09/20 Leave a comment
A reminder:
De nombreux récents événements démontrent, sans équivoque, que l’intégrisme religieux constitue une menace à l’égalité des sexes ici et dans le monde. En voici quelques exemples : « À travers plus de 50 édits, ordres et restrictions, les talibans n’ont laissé aucun aspect de la vie des femmes indemne, aucune liberté épargnée. Ils ont créé un système fondé sur l’oppression massive des femmes qui est à juste titre et largement considéré comme un apartheid de genre », déclarait la directrice d’ONU Femmes, Sima Bahous, le 15 août 2023.
Nulle part ailleurs dans le monde, il n’y a eu d’attaque aussi généralisée, systématique et globale contre les droits des femmes et des filles qu’en Afghanistan. Tous les aspects de leur vie sont restreints sous le couvert de la moralité et par l’instrumentalisation de la religion. Les politiques discriminatoires et misogynes des talibans nient le droit des femmes à l’égalité.
Le 14 août 2023, on apprenait que le premier ministre d’Israël, Benjamin Nétanyahou, négociait, dans le cadre d’un accord avec des alliés ultraorthodoxes, des concessions qui pourraient transformer radicalement le visage d’un pays où l’égalité des droits pour les femmes est garantie dans la déclaration d’indépendance de 1948. Bien que les lois israéliennes n’aient pas encore été modifiées pour refléter ces concessions, d’aucuns craignent que ces changements soient déjà en cours, aux dépens des femmes.
Les médias israéliens ont ainsi fait état, ces derniers mois, d’incidents jugés discriminatoires : des chauffeurs de bus ont refusé de prendre de jeunes femmes parce qu’elles portaient des hauts courts ou des vêtements de sport ; des hommes ultraorthodoxes ont arrêté un bus public et bloqué la route parce qu’une femme conduisait ; le service national d’urgences médicales et de catastrophes a, pour la première fois, séparé les hommes des femmes pendant la partie théorique de la formation paramédicale entreprise pour répondre à une exigence du service national israélien.
Rappelons que lorsqu’il y a ségrégation basée sur le sexe, pour répondre aux souhaits des ultraorthodoxes, les femmes soit sont assises à l’arrière, soit ont accès à moins de financement, soit ont un choix de carrière limité. Les défenseurs des droits des femmes s’inquiètent également des efforts que fait le gouvernement israélien pour affaiblir la Cour suprême, qui, elle, a soutenu l’égalité des droits pour les femmes dans plusieurs domaines.
Le mouvement iranien « Femme, vie, liberté », commencé en septembre 2022 à la suite de la mort d’une jeune Iranienne de 22 ans, Mahsa Amini, dans le cadre de son arrestation par la police des moeurs pour « avoir mal porté son voile », a permis de mettre en relief les affronts aux droits des femmes perpétrés par la République islamique d’Iran.
Sa constitution même part du principe que la femme est une citoyenne de seconde zone, est légalement la propriété de l’homme et doit se conformer à une multitude d’interdits sous peine de sanction allant jusqu’à la mort. Interdits économiques, interdits d’aller et venir, interdits empêchant chacune d’elles de disposer d’elle-même. Selon le Code criminel iranien, la valeur d’une femme est égale à la moitié de celle d’un homme lorsqu’il est question de dédommagement pour un meurtre, lors de la séparation d’un héritage familial ou encore lorsqu’il est question du poids à accorder aux témoignages dans un cadre judiciaire ou dans un contexte de divorce. De plus, la République islamique d’Iran impose une ségrégation systémique entre les sexes dans les écoles, les hôpitaux, les transports, les sports et autres.
En 2022, aux États-Unis, les fondamentalistes chrétiens, très influents auprès de la droite américaine, obtenaient l’invalidation par la Cour suprême de l’arrêt Roe v. Wade, qui protégeait le droit à l’avortement à l’échelle nationale. Selon le juge dissident Stephen Breyer, cette décision aura pour conséquence de restreindre les droits des femmes et leur statut de citoyennes libres et égales.
Entré en vigueur en 2021 en Pologne, un arrêt de la Cour constitutionnelle, contrôlée par le parti conservateur nationaliste et catholique au pouvoir Droit et justice (PiS), interdit tout avortement sauf en cas de danger pour la vie ou la santé de la femme enceinte ou si la grossesse découle d’un viol. Dans la pratique, il semble cependant impossible d’obtenir un avortement, même légal. La Pologne devient ainsi l’un des pays européens les plus restrictifs en matière de droit à l’avortement.Ici aussi
Le Canada n’est pas en reste concernant les dangers de l’intégrisme religieux. CBC News révélait, en juin 2023, l’existence d’un document stratégique de la Liberty Coalition Canada selon lequel elle veut recruter 10 000 nouveaux candidats politiques chrétiens afin de pouvoir aligner les lois canadiennes sur les « principes bibliques ». Or, le droit à l’avortement, qui fait consensus au sein de la population canadienne, fait partie de ses cibles. Après le succès obtenu par les lobbys religieux aux États-Unis, la vigilance est de mise ici aussi, au Canada, à l’égard du respect du droit des femmes à l’égalité.
Comme le disait si bien Simone de Beauvoir : « N’oubliez jamais qu’il suffira d’une crise politique, économique ou religieuse pour que les droits des femmes soient remis en question. Ces droits ne sont jamais acquis. Vous devrez rester vigilantes votre vie durant. »
Source: L’intégrisme religieux, une menace aux droits des femmes
2023/09/19 Leave a comment
Poorly argued. No understanding or acknowledgement of the different time and context between higher levels of immigration during the early 20th century and the settling of the West, or the post-World War II economic boom.
And he completely ignores the larger numbers of temporary workers and international students:
Increased immigration can be justified as a solution to aging populations and labour shortages but there are other benefits. There are benefits to a larger economy and internal market size as well as increased clout in a more global world. Moreover, the diversity of a larger population can be a key ingredient in fostering more innovation and trade growth.
But those outcomes are not assured given our productivity lag. Canadians are only about 70 per cent as productive as Americans. This is the crux of the issue. There is a role for government here in either helping facilitate the solutions or getting out of the way of those who can get things done.
Evidence suggests that immigration often has a negligible effect on a country’s prosperity in per capita income terms. Increases in labour force size are a source of overall economic growth, though this output is divided among a greater population. Output must rise faster than population for per capita income to rise, and the key to that is productivity.
In order for larger populations to have positive economic effects, increases in labour force size need to be accompanied by increases in firm-specific plants, machinery and equipment as well as physical infrastructure in transportation and communication – not to mention housing.
In other words, the solution here is more business investment to raise productivity.
This is a big endeavour, but it can be done. Indeed, it has been done before.
An immigrant to Canada in 1912 arrived during a national development and construction boom that developed the Western wheat economy and featured a soaring national investment-output ratio at upwards of 30 per cent of GDP.
There was investment not only in transcontinental railways but also in manufacturing capacity and urban infrastructure as cities expanded. As a result, while population from 1900 to 1914 grew nearly 50 per cent, the total size of the economy after inflation doubled, and real per capita income soared.
Our current immigration boom pales in comparison to that which occurred during the first decade of the 20th century. Annual immigration now represents just 1.5 per cent of Canada’s population compared to the peak years 1912 and 1913 at 5.1 and 5.3 per cent. The equivalent today would mean nearly two million immigrants a year and we are nowhere near that amount.
Source: Opinion: More immigration will make Canada wealthier – we just … – The Globe and Mail
2023/09/19 Leave a comment
Yes indeed:
A new report by human-rights lawyers, released ahead of the public inquiry on foreign interference, says Canada must be prepared to take forceful action to protect those who are often the targets of these attacks: immigrants and refugees.
It says Canada is breaking its obligations under international law to protect those who start a new life in this country but often face intimidation and pressure from authoritarian governments they left behind in their homeland.
“Canada is legally obligated to protect people within its borders against certain human-rights violations arising from incidents of transnational repression, and there are legal frameworks and mechanisms available to Canada at the international and domestic levels to combat such incidents,” the report said.
“Despite this, the Canadian government has yet to sufficiently respond,” it added.
In order to combat this repression, the report urges Ottawa to cancel a long-standing treaty with China that obliges it to co-operate with Beijing on police and criminal investigations.
As Western intelligence agencies, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, have warned, Beijing has a history of using what are ostensibly anti-corruption campaigns, such as Operation Fox Hunt, to instead find and punish dissidents who have fled to other countries. Last fall, it was reported that China ran a network of illegal police stations in Canada and around the world.
Canada should end its 1994 treaty with China on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, the authors say, referring to an agreement that allows Chinese or Canadian prosecutors to call upon investigators in each other’s country to help obtain evidence.
On Monday, Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josée Hogue begins her term as commissioner of a public inquiry into foreign interference by China and other hostile states.
The inquiry follows months of reporting on Chinese foreign interferenceincluding revelations in The Globe and Mail on May 1 that Beijing targeted Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 2021 election. The disclosure of this meddling prompted Ottawa to expel Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei later that month.
The new report, Combatting Transnational Repression and Foreign Interference in Canada, was authored by international human-rights lawyers Sarah Teich, David Matas and Hannah Taylor.
It’s published by Human Rights Action Group as well as the Council for a Secure Canada. The report is endorsed by nine groups representing diaspora communities that fight transnational repression from countries including China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea and others.
The report says that the various agencies and departments of the federal government need to work together to effectively combat transnational repression.
Canada needs not only a registry of foreign agents to track efforts to influence this country, it says, but also a commissioner of foreign influence to receive and investigate complaints: including alleged violations by foreign embassies and consulates.
The authors say Canada needs a dedicated hotline where targets of intimidation can call for help in order to co-ordinate a response and keep track of these repressions.
Canada should criminalize the offence of “refugee espionage” where foreign governments spy on those who have fled their homeland to settle in this country, they say. And, it should create a civil cause of action – a basis to seek judicial relief – specific to transnational repression so that diaspora groups have easier standing to sue foreign governments or agents in Canada working for them.
Ottawa should also train law-enforcement officers and campus security at universities to recognize and address cases of transnational repression, the report said.
In addition, it should commit to slapping targeted sanctions on foreign officials or entities found to be engaging in transnational repression, the report said.
Canada has a poor global reputation right now for tackling this form of foreign interference, the authors say. They noted that a report from Freedom House, a Washington-based advocacy group for civil liberties, concluded that mechanisms available to report incidents of transnational repression in Canada are inadequate, and that victims are often “disappointed by the lack of response from law enforcement.”
The authors of the new report say Canada is failing its obligations to protect people in this country from foreign-based repression, including under the 1954 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Most of the rights it’s obliged to protect are also listed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights include the right to life; the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the right to liberty and security.
The report calls on Ottawa to create a specialized fund to provide physical, psychological and financial support for victims of transnational repression that can be used for needs such as emergency housing, physical and mental health treatment and new phones or laptops for those whose devices are hacked.
Source: Canada must better protect immigrants, refugees from foreign intimidation, report says
2023/09/19 Leave a comment
We shall see (all immigration policy is inherently discriminatory, the question revolves around whether it is for legitimate reasons or not).
It seems like a bit of a stretch to argue that:
“There were now increasing numbers of persons of colour. These schemes were justified on the basis that the immigrants of certain races, colours, or ethnic or national origins were considered unable to assimilate to Canada’s climate and society and to be better-suited for ‘unfree’ and low-skilled work.”
Whe Canada was also abolishing race-based restrictions on permanent residents.
As a child, he would get postcards from his aunt in Canada and dream to see the country and live here one day.
In 2014, as a 22-year-old, he reached out to a compatriot from Guatemala and scraped together $3,000 to pay for a job offer in poultry catching from the man’s employer in Quebec.
He would end up spending most of his next nine years in Canada as a migrant worker — on six separate closed work permits, which only allowed him to work for his sponsoring employers despite what he described as abusive and exploitative conditions and treatment.
Identified in court documents only as A.B., the young man is leading a class-action lawsuit initiated against the Canadian government for violating migrant domestic workers’ and farm workers’ Charter Rights under the closed work permit regime.
“What we’re trying to do is challenge all the provisions of the immigration regulations that allow the federal government to bind these workers and to restrict their rights to change employers,” said Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, executive director of the Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers, which filed the court case on behalf of closed work permit holders.
“It’s time to put an end to nonfree work, a system that treats the worker as the quasi-property of her employer.”
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the provisions of the immigration law that allow such practice unconstitutional, and to award damages to migrant workers who have been subjected to “employer-tying measures” on or after April 17, 1982, when the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms took effect.
None of the claims have been proven in court.
As opposed to an “open” work permit, foreign workers on a “closed” or “employer-specific” work permit can only work here according to the specific conditions on the work permit, such as working for the named employer. Migrant workers in low-wage, low-skill jobs are generally issued a closed work permit.
The lawsuit alleged that “employer-tying measures” were rooted in direct discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin and colour.
“The development of these schemes coincided with a shift in the demographics of the immigrants entering Canada to work in these occupations. They had previously included predominantly ‘white’ immigrants,” said the 55-page court application filed on Thursday.
“There were now increasing numbers of persons of colour. These schemes were justified on the basis that the immigrants of certain races, colours, or ethnic or national origins were considered unable to assimilate to Canada’s climate and society and to be better-suited for ‘unfree’ and low-skilled work.”
When migrants on closed work permits are terminated, they lose legal status in Canada and must secure another employer with authorization by Employment and Social Development Canada to hire foreign workers.
That process can be “lengthy, difficult, costly, and most importantly highly unpredictable” as the person may risk being denied a new work permit, the lawsuit claims. It can result in the worker being prohibited from working and making a living for an indeterminate period of time.
The plaintiffs said the harmful impacts of those measures are widely known and well-documented, including:
Restricting workers’ capacity to resign and make choices concerning their work and livelihood in Canada;
Limiting their freedom of movement;
Impeding their ability to assert their rights and access help.
“The employer-tied workers’ inability to change employers creates a striking power imbalance in favour of the employer, making migrant workers uniquely vulnerable,” the lawsuit argues.
“These harmful impacts are compounded when temporary foreign workers work in remote locations, reside in employer-provided accommodation or live in their employer’s own home.”
In the lead case, the Guatemalan man obtained his first “closed” work permit valid from 2014 to 2016. The lawsuit claims he had to work between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., Monday to Friday, with only three 10-minute breaks per night, and was required to catch up to 40,000 chickens per shift, at a rate of five in each hand for every catch.
A.B. would get $3.75 per thousand chickens and $12 for the same number of turkeys. His Canadian co-workers, however, would be paid double these rates, the lawsuit alleges.
A.B. would go to bed with rips and tears on the skin of his hands and with sore muscles. When he woke up, he was often unable to extend his hands, which would remain contracted and curled in a “catching” position.
“As a result of his ‘closed’ work permit, A.B. had no choice but to endure this treatment,” he said in his claim. “He feared that complaining could lead to being fired, threatening his status in Canada, his ability to obtain a renewal of his permit.”
After a work injury in 2015, A.B. required leave from work. His contract was not renewed and he returned to Guatemala, where he underwent an MRI and found out he suffered a herniated disc.
He found another job at a family dairy farm in Quebec in 2017 and worked there until 2019, on three yearly closed work permits.
There, he claimed he was paid late, sometimes by weeks, and subjected to the employer’s “aggressive behaviour, homophobic and racial slurs, rants against the incompetence of migrant workers, and humiliating and degrading comments.” An accident in 2019 aggravated his previous work injury, and he was dismissed.
From 2020 to 2022, A.B. worked for another dairy farm — on two more “closed” permits, where he claimed he suffered similar abuse.
“The Government of Canada has not ceased to resort to employer-tying measures. It has instead continued to subject a growing number of temporary foreign workers to those measures — and it still continues to do so today,” the lawsuit said.
“The Government of Canada’s failure to put an end to those measures evidences its continued clear disregard for the employer-tied migrant workers’ Charter rights and human dignity.”
Source: Ottawa faces class action alleging rules around migrant workers are discriminatory
2023/09/18 Leave a comment
Of note:
The Canadian Constitution Foundation announced in a press release on Thursday that it has been granted intervenor status in an appeal, approved a year ago but not yet scheduled, that will concern Ontario’s famous racist math test for teacher candidates. In 2018, as you might recall, the Ontario government, concerned about sluggish student math performance, introduced a new math proficiency test (MPT) that teachers would have to pass before being admitted to the profession.
The test was based on the kinds of questions that students in grades 3, 6 and 9 would themselves be expected to answer in a classroom, and it was checked closely for explicit indications of racial bias and sensitivity. Nevertheless, in both trials of the MPT and the first year it was given officially (2021), some groups of test-takers — notably candidates self-described as being of African, Caribbean and Indigenous descent — didn’t score quite as well as the white ones.
Yes, friends, it’s one of those “disparate impact” issues that is constantly raising the political temperature in the United States, but that we haven’t yet fought about much here. This is the struggle that has a chance of spreading the American race-panic infection when the Ontario Court of Appeal and perhaps the Supreme Court get around to hashing it out.
In late 2021, a hastily assembled “Teacher Candidates’ Council” brought an application for judicial review of the MPT on the grounds that it violated Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which forbids the state from racial discrimination. A panel of the Divisional Court, wielding novel Supreme Court doctrine on “disparate impact” cases, ruled that the MPT was discriminatory and struck down the statutory requirement for teachers to pass it.
The Divisional Court’s ruling is a truly dismal, laborious document: it exhibits a logic that the legal commentator Leonid Sirota has described as “Bonkerstown.” Section 15 says that the law cannot engage in “discrimination based on race,” and nothing in or about the test does that — except, well, that it’s a test. The court comments in the decision, as a matter of uncontested and universally recognized fact, that “Black and Latinx teacher candidates are much more likely to fail standardized teacher tests than their White peers,” and that standardized tests, perhaps by their very nature, “are biased against almost all vulnerable classes of potential teachers other than women.
Does this mean that any kind of state-administered proficiency test yielding a “disparate impact” is thereby outlawed? The ruling “disparate impact” case, Fraser v. Canada, dates only from the fall of 2020, and was written by, you guessed it, the now-retired Justice Rosalie Abella. Abella’s disparate impact doctrine, summarized helpfully at paragraph 57 of the Divisional Court ruling, says that the legislature’s intentions in writing a law are irrelevant, and that there is no need for a court to demonstrate or show how a law causes a disparate impact on racial groups. If there is any difference at all in the between-group outcomes of a law, Sec. 15 is activated.
This essentially throws disparate-impact questions in the hands of the classic Oakes test. In a given case, is there a sufficiently urgent and compelling reason for Sec. 15 to be violated? The Divisional Court agreed that the MPT was a way of addressing a “pressing and substantial objective” — improving the dismal math education in Ontario. The government’s choice to adopt the test was proportionate and rational: there is some evidence that teachers who do better on math tests themselves get better results from students. This takes us to the question of “minimal impairment,” which is the hurdle at which the MPT fell.
The Divisional Court panel acknowledged that high deference to lawmakers is required when it comes to “complex social problem(s) with many potential solutions.” As often happens, this high-flown language was a warning sign that the court wasn’t going to defer at all. The panel acknowledged that the government did what it could to mitigate the disparate effect of the test, screening it for biases and letting teacher candidates take it as often as they needed to. But the government did have alternatives to imposing the MPT at the end of teacher education. It could have added, and did consider adding, more math requirements and math courses to bachelor of education programs themselves.
The government was reluctant to do this, and preferred to have an MPT, because altering bachelor of education requirements would involve the province poking its nose into higher education and treading on the independence of universities. Moreover, there’s no real indication that this approach would necessarily be any better for education students who are bad at math exams. But simply because the MPT had been tried, and shown to yield disparate outcomes, the existence of a hypothetical alternative was enough to engage the “minimal impairment” part of the Oakes analysis in the eyes of the Divisional Court judges.
In short, you can’t say you minimally impaired the rights of racial minorities if there was anything else you could have done to uphold a training standard or a proficiency requirement. Nobody needs me to hector them about the grotesque nature of this chain of reasoning — which involves deciding that there are groups inherently bound not to cut the mustard on tests of their capability, and reading the Charter of Rights in a way that protects them from those tests. Most of you will see this as mirror-image racism disguised as racial sensitivity, and that’s just what it is.
Source: Colby Cosh: Ontario math case is mirror-image racism disguised as racial sensitivity
2023/09/18 Leave a comment
Quebec’s language commissioner on demographic trends, on setting a target of 85 percent for economic immigrants:
C’est bien de vouloir remettre les pendules à l’heure. Mais encore faut-il avoir une pendule. Encore faut-il savoir l’heure. Dans la discussion sur le déclin du français — ou, comme certains le prétendent, son « déclin présumé » —, ce ne sont pas les données qui manquent. Dans cette chronique comme ailleurs, on est davantage dans le trop-plein que dans la disette.
Mercredi, à l’Assemblée nationale, le nouveau commissaire à la langue française, Benoît Dubreuil, nous a rendu un service collectif majeur en offrant une balise claire permettant de déterminer si on va, ou non, dans la bonne direction. Pour sa première intervention publique, il donnait son avis sur les augmentations proposées des seuils d’immigration. Pour rappel : la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) a fait il y a un an à peine sa campagne en promettant de s’en tenir à 50 000 par an. Aller plus loin serait, a dit le premier ministre, « un peu suicidaire ». Fidèle à sa pratique de rompre ses promesses, il envisage maintenant de les hausser à 60 000, et en fait à 70 000 s’il compte à part une des nombreuses filières d’accès à la résidence permanente.
Dubreuil n’était pas venu pour taper sur les doigts de la CAQ, ce n’est pas son rôle. Il était venu lui dire comment atteindre l’objectif affiché de « renverser le déclin du français ». La décision de n’admettre que les immigrants économiques qui connaissent le français au point d’entrée, écrit-il dans son mémoire, est « susceptible d’accroître, de façon importante, l’utilisation du français par les personnes immigrantes ». Mais jusqu’à quel point ? Et quelle est la mesure du succès ?
Pour la première fois dans l’histoire des politiques linguistiques, il en fixe une : 85 %. C’est, une fois qu’on exclut les langues tierces et qu’on répartit les gens qui affirment être linguistiquement non binaires (donc anglos et francos également), la répartition des Québécois qui travaillent principalement en français et qui utilisent principalement la langue de Vigneault dans l’espace public. Si les futurs immigrants se répartissent linguistiquement ainsi, il n’y aura pas de déclin, affirme-t-il, mais stabilisation. Sinon, le déclin se poursuivra.
« Nous ne pouvons pas négliger les effets cumulatifs de cet écart, écrit-il. Si les 793 915 personnes immigrantes et les 148 075 résidents non permanents (RNP) qui occupaient un emploi au Québec en 2021 avaient opté pour le français au travail dans la même proportion que la population d’accueil (84,4 %), ce sont 234 243 personnes de plus qui y auraient utilisé le français le plus souvent au travail. Ce nombre représente 5 % de l’ensemble de la main-d’oeuvre du Québec. » L’impact serait « concentré dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal : le français y serait utilisé le plus souvent par 78 % des travailleurs, au lieu de 69 % ».
Le hic ? Les calculs de Dubreuil sur les scénarios proposés à 50 000 ou 60 000 par an n’atteignent pas sa note de passage de 85 %. Elles sont, au mieux, à 79 %. Donc elles ralentissent la rapidité du déclin, sans l’arrêter.
Mais la réalité linguistique est complexe, et qui sait si les autres mesures adoptées et à venir n’auront pas un impact à la hausse ? Placide, Dubreuil accepte cette part d’incertitude. Et comme il n’a pas le mandat de déterminer si une hausse des seuils sera délétère pour le logement, les places en garderie ou l’hôpital, mais seulement sur le français, il propose de s’appuyer sur les faits. Qu’on fixe d’abord le seuil à 50 000 et qu’on mesure chaque année, chez les nouveaux venus, si le critère de 85 % est atteint ou presque. Si oui, qu’on passe à 60 000 si on le souhaite. Sinon, on fait une pause et on s’interroge sur les boulons qu’il faut resserrer pour la suite.
La ministre semblait agréablement surprise par le mécanisme proposé (comme moi). Mais est-ce bien suffisant ? Il y avait autour de la table de la commission un véritable croisé du français, estomaqué que rien ne soit dit sur l’éléphant dans la pièce : les 370 000 temporaires dont l’utilisation du français est encore bien moindre que celle des permanents. « Si notre intérêt est la promotion du français, qui est en déclin, on fait fausse route parce que le troisième scénario est absent, à savoir les travailleurs temporaires. » Ce député, un libéral né au Maroc, est Monsef Derraji. Je lui accorde le titre de défenseur du français de la semaine.
Dubreuil a appelé en effet à une « approche cohérente » incluant les travailleurs et, a-t-il précisé, les étudiants temporaires, mais puisque la ministre nous annonce pour bientôt de nouvelles mesures sur le sujet, j’ai décodé qu’il attendait de les voir avant de se prononcer sur leur efficacité.
En vérité, l’excellente première performance de Dubreuil ne m’a pas étonné. Son CV était atterri sur mon bureau en 2002, alors que je cherchais quelqu’un qui connaissait bien l’allemand. Le CV de Dubreuil m’informait que son allemand était excellent, comme son anglais, son néerlandais et son russe. Il était désolé de m’informer qu’il ne pouvait que lire, mais ni parler ni écrire, le danois et le suédois (il ne s’est intéressé que par la suite au portugais, à l’espagnol, à l’italien et au roumain). Pour Les Politiques sociales, qui devint pour une décennie la référence francophone sur le sujet, Dubreuil produisait par pays des synthèses d’une qualité telle qu’on les retrouvait ensuite, en ligne, telles quelles, dans les textes de cours de profs d’université.
Il terminait son doctorat en philosophie politique sous la direction de Jean-Marc Ferry (il est donc « docteur ») et, de l’autre main, faisait publier dans des revues savantes des textes de pointe sur l’anthropologie des langues. J’ai rencontré beaucoup de gens intelligents dans ma vie, mais très peu du niveau de Benoît. J’en ai rencontré encore moins qui conjuguent ce savoir avec un pragmatisme créatif et une totale absence de suffisance.
À l’écouter présenter son rapport, je retrouvais l’homme posé, presque humble, vous expliquant sans aucun effet de toge que le patient malade — le français — requiert un traitement vigoureux, que ses signes vitaux doivent être annuellement vérifiés et que son rétablissement ne sera complet que si sa pression artérielle francophone atteint, ou dépasse, 85 %. Merci, docteur.Source: La pendule du Dr Dubreuil
2023/09/18 Leave a comment
Of note:
September 16 marks the first anniversary of the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. Those who killed her should be sanctioned by Canada.
Brutally beaten to death by Iranian authorities for not abiding by their strict restrictions against women’s autonomy and dress, Ms. Amini’s murder sparked global outrage and solidarity with the women of Iran.
Iranian women continue their brave campaign for freedom, unveiling themselves as acts of peaceful protest, knowing full well they may share the fate of Ms. Amini for doing so. Imagine their reaction when they learn that their torturers are visiting family in Toronto and vacationing in Vancouver.
In one of his first acts as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller rightly recognized and redressed this injustice, banning Iran’s former health minister, a major rights violator, from his frequent visits to Canada. But this lets the bigger fish off the hook.
Ebrahim Raisi used to be called The Hanging Judge from his time personally overseeing executions of political prisoners. Mr. Raisi’s cruelty followed him into Iran’s presidency, where he is now crucial to the brutal crackdown against women. Canada’s allies have already sanctioned him for his crimes, making Canada a curious outlier.
Similarly, Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution was recently sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K. for designing the regime’s anti-women laws and demanding their violent enforcement. The fact that its leaders can visit Canada at their leisure is an affront to the dignity and equality of Canadians, and sends the wrong message to Iranians.
Canada should instead be communicating solidarity and extending support for Iranians through its sanctions systems. The new law on asset repurposing, which was first proposed by World Refugee and Migration Council members Allan Rock and Lloyd Axworthy and advanced by us in Parliament, is perfectly suited to address the situation.
Seizing assets is the natural next step after freezing them, and Iranian victims are the obvious beneficiaries. For those struggling to rebuild their lives in Canada after losing limbs or loved ones to the torturers in Tehran, it would be poetic justice for them to receive the proceeds of assets their persecutors have hidden away in Canada.
We support the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project’s proposal for Canada to create a fund for Canadian-Iranian victims, which would facilitate community involvement from coast to coast in the decision-making process. With a broad and inclusive board of directors cutting across the Iranian diaspora in Canada, the fund would ensure transparency and grassroots engagement in the distribution of seized assets for medical, material and psychosocial support to victims.
This fund will also draw out all those Iranian-Canadians with credible evidence of crimes perpetrated against them or their loved ones. This would allow Canada to document and build cases toward prospective prosecutions. In the same way Ukrainian refugees are being interviewed by the RCMP regarding Russian crimes, and Iraqis and Syrians about the Islamic State, Canada should be gathering evidence from Iranian victims in the country.
Sanctions and asset seizures are powerful forms of accountability and restitution, but prosecution should not be forgotten. Those Iranian rights abusers enjoying the freedoms in Canada that they deprive their compatriots of at home should be the ones sitting in prison. Even if they are not in Canada, or a perpetrator cannot be identified, the evidence gathered from victims could be used in other trials that might take place around the world.
Canada played a crucial role in setting up the continuing United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which would benefit from the support of evidence gathered by Canadian investigators. Canada also leads the annual UN General Assembly resolution on Iran, which receives overwhelming support from around the world every year in calling out the crimes of the regime in Iran and expressing solidarity with its victims. When the General Assembly meets next week, Canada can use this global diplomatic platform to strengthen sanctions co-ordination and implementation, and build further global support for strengthening investigations of perpetrators.
For all the innocent women whose lives and liberties they have taken away, Canada can secure justice and send a global message that its borders, banks and businesses are closed to Iran regime criminals. We must honour Mahsa Amini’s memory, and the courage of Iranian women, in sanctioning or jailing their abusers. This important moment of commemorating her murder must not only be an act of remembrance, but a reminder that we must act.
Ratna Omidvar is an independent senator from Ontario who first proposed Canada’s asset repurposing laws in Parliament. Bill Browder is the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer and director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Source: Canada should honour Mahsa Amini’s memory by sanctioning her killers
2023/09/18 Leave a comment
Coyne acknowledges (partially) that high immigration levels are part of the problem but only partially so. And when exactly did we have higher immigration rates, as a percentage of the population, since the settling of the West?
It’s a shortage of houses, not a surplus of people. Now everyone’s convinced the problem is high immigration. No doubt there’s some truth in this, in specific markets – the extraordinary, seemingly unanticipated surge in the number of foreign students enrolling in Canadian universities and colleges has overwhelmed the supply of student housing. Maybe a pause there would help.
But we had higher immigration rates in the past without igniting a housing crisis. And prices were already at stratospheric levels long before the immigration surge of the past two years. I don’t disagree that made things worse, but it’s the long-term decline in the supply of new housing that has set us up for this.
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Multicultural Meanderings 