Canada’s envoy on the Holocaust departs and has a final warning

2023/10/18 Leave a comment

Of note. Lyons good replacement given her extensive experience:

Former Liberal cabinet minister and global human rights advocate Irwin Cotler exited his role Monday as Canada’s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism with a warning: hatred against Jews is the “canary in the mine shaft” of human evil.

Cotler said his three years in the role have seen a marked escalation of antisemitism around the world. He cited the hate flourishing on social media, rising numbers of people who hold antisemitic beliefs, and an increase in hate crimes being carried out against Jews.

The attack last week in Israel by the militant group Hamas must also be understood to have global implications for hate, he said.

He called the organization, which Canada and other countries consider a terrorist group, not just an enemy of the Jewish people but of Palestinians as well.

“It’s an enemy of peace itself,” he said.

“And that’s what we’re up against, and regrettably, the Palestinian people end up being human shields and end up themselves being hostages to this murderous terrorist, antisemitic group, letting us understand once again that while it begins with Jews, as we say, it doesn’t end with Jews.”

Cotler has now passed the baton for the role to Deborah Lyons, who has been both Canada’s ambassador to Israel and also the head of the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan.

“Our world is hurting. We’re a little bit broken. And we are hurting,” she said in her inaugural remarks at a press conference Monday.

“But as we make our way together, through this permeating sense of helplessness, I know that as Canadians, with our wonderful leaders, we will come together, we will see the challenges, and we will face that incredible work that needs to be done.”

Lyons said she’ll emphasize antisemitism education, both on university campuses and in the corporate sector, as well as ensuring more robust data collection to help improve the safety and security of the Jewish community. She also called upon faith leaders and politicians to do their part.

“Please unite us and inspire us through your actions to continue to build that diverse and inclusive Canada, which all your constituents deserve,” she said.

Lyons was asked Monday what, as a non-Jewish person, she brings to the job, and she pushed back saying that all Canadians have a role to play supporting one another.

“What I bring to this job is a commitment as a Canadian.”

The Liberal government created the special envoy role in 2020, following through on previous commitments to international Holocaust remembrance efforts. Lyons is the second person to hold the job, after Cotler. Her’s is a two-year appointment.

The announcement she is taking over from Cotler came at the start of a two-day conference in Ottawa organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on fighting antisemitism.

Former Conservative cabinet minister and Alberta premier Jason Kenney, among the speakers Monday, said that while for now there is cross-partisan consensus in Canada around the moral need to combat antisemitism, there is a blunt reality: the Jewish community is small, and must remain vigilant.

“Do not take for granted the positions being expressed here in Ottawa today,” he said.

“You must redouble your efforts intelligently to build coalitions across the pluralism of this country and to be voices of clarity and courage.”

Source: Canada’s envoy on the Holocaust departs and has a final warning

Filed under Multiculturalism, Antisemitism, Holocaust Tagged with , , ,

Heintzman and MacQuarrie: Dialogue on public service more important than ever

2023/10/17 Leave a comment

Of note:

Given the state of the world these days, the recent announcement by Clerk of the Privy Council John Hannaford creating a “task team” of deputy ministers on the values and ethics of public service may seem frivolous. 

But we believe the clerk’s initiative is significant with the potential to influence the quality of our democracy for a generation.  

Canada’s public service is an important national institution, one of the key pillars of our parliamentary democracy. As we watch the erosion of democratic institutions elsewhere, the condition of our federal public service, and the quality of its democratic vocation, should concern all of us.

The clerk’s initiative recognizes that recent events show the federal public service faces some major performance challenges that call for a new effort of renewal. To make wise choices for renewal, you must know who you are, what a public service is for, and what it should be. Without this conscious awareness, a public service can easily fall short of its distinct standards of professionalism and service

The clerk’s initiative recognizes that recent events show the federal public service faces some major performance challenges that call for a new effort of renewal. To make wise choices for renewal, you must know who you are, what a public service is for, and what it should be. Without this conscious awareness, a public service can easily fall short of its distinct standards of professionalism and service.

Hannaford’s announcement comes exactly 30 years after the creation of a celebrated task force on public service and ethics under the leadership of John Tait, the former federal deputy minister of justice. The “Tait Report” set the agenda for public service values and ethics for a generation.

But times change. Every decade brings its own issues which challenge a public service to rediscover its distinctive identity as a “compass” (the clerk’s word) to guide direction for the future. He has asked the new task team to lead a “broad conversation” on how to bring the public service’s values and ethics “to life within a dynamic and increasingly complex environment.”

We think there are three conditions for the team’s success.

First, the “conversations” with public servants and others must take the form of what the Tait Report called “honest dialogue” about problems like these, among other things:

  • Performance: the federal public service has recently lost its reputation for providing timely, citizen-centred service to Canadians;
  • Trust: the civil service no longer enjoys the automatic trust and legitimacy that is essential to our democracy;
  • Boundaries: the public service has not yet acquired or sought the tools for drawing a line between the values and accountability of elected and non-elected officials, as recommended by the Gomery Report and others;
  • Accountability: public service leaders do not appear to take accountability for their own shortcomings, including the enormous expansion of the public service over the last decade and declining efficiency, and; 
  • Technology: the civil service has notoriously mismanaged implementation of digital technology, and has not yet brought public service values seriously to bear on public servants’ use of social media and artificial intelligence.

These are the kinds of real problems the task team’s “conversations” with public servants and others should openly confront if its work is to have legitimacy. 

Second, this dialogue should not be rushed. Nothing will be accomplished by simply repeating the public service’s stated core values. To recover their motivating power and urgency, public service values must reemerge from honest dialogue, modelled by the task team itself, about the problems at hand.

Third, the “conversation” must go beyond the public service to include parliamentarians. This is the unfinished business from the Tait Report. Tait recommended a dialogue about public service values should engage ministers and MPs, leading to a new “moral contract between the public service, government and Parliament of Canada.” The state of the federal public service is not just a concern for the government of the day. The quality and honesty of its advice and its ability to deliver programs and service efficiently and effectively are important to us all.

The current federal political context makes this kind of dialogue—about the kind of public service we need to support our parliamentary democracy—more urgent than ever. Now is the time. And the Clerk of the Privy Council has just set the table.

Ralph Heintzman and Catherine MacQuarrie are former senior public servants, and both served as head of the federal government’s Office of Public Service Values and Ethics.

Source: Dialogue on public service more important than ever

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Canada’s change to its Roxham Road deal is called a ‘shameful downgrading’

2023/10/17 Leave a comment

Of note. The Temporary Foreign Workers Program is economic, not humanitarian:

The federal government has been accused of downgrading its commitment to welcome 15,000 “humanitarian” migrants that it agreed to in exchange for closing down the land border to asylum seekers.

Instead of accepting 15,000 migrants on humanitarian basis, Ottawa now said 4,000 of the spots will be allocated to temporary foreign workers while the other 11,000 spaces — for permanent residence — are restricted to Colombians, Haitians and Venezuelans.

“It is a shameful downgrading of our commitment to refugee protection in the Western Hemisphere. We are deeply disappointed with the government’s backpedalling on already insufficient targets for refugee protection,” said Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“Let us be clear, the temporary foreign worker program is not a humanitarian program. It is one designed to fulfil Canadian economic needs. It only affords temporary access and is marred by its own serious rights violations.”

In March, Ottawa and Washington expanded the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement across the entire shared border — not just at the official ports of entry.

In doing so, they closed a loophole that had been used by irregular migrants to cross from one country into the other, through unguarded border crossings such as Roxham Road in Quebec, to seek asylum.

Following the announcement, a joint statement said Canada would bring in an additional 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year to expand safe, regular pathways as an alternative to irregular migration. (Canada had set a target of 76,305 permanent residence spots for refugees and protected persons in 2023; the 15,000 will be on top of that.)

“We couldn’t simply shut down Roxham Road and hope that everything would resolve itself,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a news conference then.

“At the same time, we continue to be open to regular migrants, and we will increase the number of asylum seekers who we accept from the hemisphere — the Western Hemisphere — in order to compensate for closing these irregular crossings.”

Earlier this week, advocates who were already upset with the arrangement were shocked when Immigration Minister Marc Miller released further details about the new resettlement initiative.

Starting this fall, the permanent-residence pathway will be newly available for up to 11,000 Colombian, Haitian and Venezuelan migrants in Central or South America or the Caribbean. To qualify, they must have extended families in Canada, who are either a citizen or permanent resident.

The Canadian relative must be at least 18 years old and sign a statutory declaration that they will provide supports to the applicant to help their settlement and integration, such as helping them find housing, enrolling children in school, and registering adults for language classes.

While the humanitarian pathway has yet to open for application, immigration officials said they are on track to bring in the additional 4,000 temporary foreign workers from the Americas.

The 15,000 new arrivals would not have to meet the United Nations refugee definition — as those arriving at Roxham Road often sought to — and the Immigration Department has not clarified what the standard of humanitarian need would be.

“This is a far cry from the protection that was promised to refugee claimants when Roxham Road was closed and it is not acceptable,” said Sreenivasan.

“We urge the government to at the very least stick to their original commitment and ensure all 15,000 arrive to permanent safety in the country.”

The Immigration Department said the humanitarian program is open only to Colombian, Haitian and Venezuelans because they make up the largest volumes of irregular migrants fleeing ongoing violence and political unrest in the continent.

Those from other nationalities, it said, can still come under the temporary foreign worker program and the so-called Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot, which grants permanent residence to skilled refugees abroad if they have a Canadian job offer.

“Safe and regular migration pathway are alternatives for irregular movements, which are often dangerous ways to move across borders, where people are made vulnerable by criminal gangs and put in terrible humanitarian situations,” said department spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater.

“By providing access to regular pathways, including through existing temporary foreign worker streams, more people have access to safe migration opportunities to work in Canada.”

Sabater said the yet-to-open humanitarian program will close one year after launch or when 3,500 applications representing up to 11,000 migrants have been approved.

Source: Canada’s change to its Roxham Road deal is called a ‘shameful downgrading’

Filed under Humanitarian, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canadian immigration update: August 2023

2023/10/17 Leave a comment

Latest monthly update. Highlights:

Two-thirds of permanent residents were former temporary residents, mainly reached a new high, mainly from International Mobility Program and the Post-Graduate Work Program. Year to date: Permanent Residents: 338,000 out of which 189,000 are former temporary residents.

Among temporary residents, the greatest growth is with respect to the International Mobility program, recently driven by “Research, educational or training programs,” over one-third of total IMP. Year to date: 605,000. The number of international students also increased dramatically (school year), year to date: 475,000.

Asylum claimants remain high, year to date: 85,000, the majority of which are inland claims, perhaps reflecting relaxed visa requirements and vetting. 

The number of new citizens remains strong, largely driven by virtual ceremonies being the default option (ill-advised IMO). Year to date: 338,000. 

Visitor visas issued year to date: 1,293,000.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Howard Anglin: What did you think they meant by ‘decolonization’ anyway?

2023/10/16 Leave a comment

Painting an overly broad brush but nevertheless interesting take on the differences among individuals and groups on how they use the term:

Just as Parliament’s recent reminder of the complexities of the Eastern Front and the existence of “literal Nazis” gave Canadians reason to reconsider our casual use of that term in day-to-day debate, perhaps the live-streaming of a 21st century pogrom will make our leaders and our media think twice before blithely tossing around words like “racist” and “hate” to describe merely disapproved beliefs.

As Orwell once said of the word “fascism,” these words have become so devalued by over-use in our political phony-wars that they often seem to have no meaning except to signify “something not desirable.”

Shielded from most of the world’s problems, we have become too comfortable describing minor offences in terms that have truly vile referents in the world beyond our shores. An obvious example this week is the term “decolonization,” which has been eagerly adopted by Canadian governments, universities, elementary schools, libraries, bookstores, and even coffee shops. Most people who implement these policies probably think of “decolonization” as something benign like the inclusion of more representative works and stories from underrepresented—and in Canada especially Indigenous—voices. If that is all it means, and if “representation” doesn’t become an excuse for sacrificing intellectual rigour and aesthetic quality (and it shouldn’t and needn’t), then it is a good thing.

Within this broad majority, however, I would distinguish between those who are earnestly working to bind our society together and tend sensitively to old wounds, and those who go further, embracing the symbols of the revolutionary counter-culture while turning a blind eye to its real-world implications. Among the latter are the sort of people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts to show that they are the “good guys,” not because he took sadistic pleasure in shooting reactionary peasants and boasted that “Hatred is the central element of our struggle! Hatred … so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him [a] violent and cold- blooded killing machine.” They don’t mean that Che, of course, if they’ve even bothered to learn who he was.

Beyond this majority, there is a smaller group for whom the idea of “decolonization” has a harder edge. They welcome it as a chance to turn the tables on our country’s historically-dominant European majority, not by supplementing our traditional symbols with new ones but by disparaging them as shameful and displacing them. These are the people who saw the burning of churches two summers ago and took pains to explain why the (often Indigenous) congregations had it coming. They are motivated by a retributive impulse that is often indistinguishable from revenge (or in the case of the white progressives who make up much of this class, masochistic self-flagellation). Unfortunately, this group is the movement’s avant-garde. Their energy and ideas drive and direct the policies in practice, while the well-meaning are carried along because they don’t have the words or courage to distinguish their good intentions from this destructive agenda.

But as we learned this week, there is buried within this last group a hardcore faction that would go even further. When they talk about decolonization, they mean it literally, with all its blood-soaked consequences. Symbolic change won’t cut it for them; they want action. They are the ones who read Frantz Fanon’s Damnés de la terre(and Sartre’s revolting introduction) not with the detached pose of most Western progressives but with lurid visions of incarnadine vengeance. They read things like “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” and they don’t just believe it intellectually, they howl for it viscerally, palpably, urgently.

Twitter has exposed them as cheerleaders of rape and infanticide, of “literal racism,” and “literal hate.” Sure, they were tweeting from the safety of their faculty lounges with the security of tenure and they might not be so sanguine about murder when it isn’t mediated through a small screen, but this much was clear: they saw the same images that sickened and revolted normal people and their first reaction was to justify and celebrate them. They rushed into the digital public square to explain that the shooting of young people attending a “peace” concert was an act of “anticolonial resistance,” they denied that settlers were “civilians” (and so off-limits for targeted killing), and they wondered, rhetorically, what everyone thought the words “[p]ostcolonial, anticolonial, and decolonial” meant? It’s a question their colleagues should be thinking hard about today, especially those with “settler” in their bios.

It was a revelatory moment. Perhaps these armchair Amins and tenured Tourés have spent so long insisting that “words are violence” that they can no longer tell the difference between a micro-aggression and a massacre. Perhaps they have spent so much time in a world of relative truths that they can’t bring themselves to accept the objective reality of evil when it bares its fangs. And perhaps we collectively bear some of the blame for this. Our schools, businesses, and governments have ignored or indulged them for so long that they may have believed, with good reason, that there would be no consequences for airing their zealotry this time too. But now that we’ve seen it, we should not forget it. We need to make sure they play no further role in shaping Canadian social policy. They have done far, far too much damage already.

Source: Howard Anglin: What did you think they meant by ‘decolonization’ anyway?

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Jamie Sarkonak: Multicultural ‘awareness months’ fail to raise awareness

2023/10/16 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, she has a point. But they are important to specific communities and provide opportunities for political announcements and events.

Was essential part of the job when working at multiculturalism, drafting press releases and ministerial and other speeches and talking points:

October is Women’s History Month. It’s also Latin American Heritage Month. And German Heritage Month. And Canadian Islamic History Month. And 2SLGBTQQIA+ History Month (though this has not been recognized by the federal government — yet). Some provinces recognize this to be Canadian Library Month.

It’s a fairly busy time in our modern update to the old liturgical calendar. Instead of numerous saintly feasts, we get cultural awareness months, remembrance days and the like. Paradoxically, there are now so many of these observances that they don’t seem particularly worth observing at all. Everyone is special, so no one is.

Who actually celebrates these things? I don’t. October, to me, is simply “Halloween Month.” For the most part, these events — which don’t come with the benefit of time off, as statutory holidays do — seem to be an opportunity for corporations to market themselves and for public-sector communications staff to have something to write about.

In the federal government, efforts to fill the multicultural calendar are fairly recent. A 2017 list of Canada’s “important days” marked only 26 special events (back then, October’s only observance was Women’s History Month). In 2023, that number has more than doubled to 62, with many of the additions recognizing some flavour of cultural heritage. The number of LGBT-related observances on the list went from zero to six, indicating a new significance for the once under-the-radar demographic.

The list of “commemorative days” on the federal government’s website picks and chooses what to highlight, which makes it a decent gauge for identifying the priorities of whoever is in the driver’s seat. Other observances have been officially designated, but they aren’t on the list.

Examples include the obscure National Hunting, Trapping and Fishing Heritage Day in September and Pope John Paul II Day in April, both of which were established in 2014. Also established in 2014 was Lincoln Alexander Day, which actually did make the cut for the current federal government’s calendar. It celebrates the first Black member of Parliament (Alexander had many other achievements).

Why an emphasis on identity? Probably because of our national multiculturalism policy. Government departments and Crown corporations are beholden to the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which states that Canadian policy involves the “recognition and appreciation of the diverse cultures of Canadian society” — hence, awareness months.

In their annual accountability forms to prove to Canadian Heritage that they’ve been adhering to the multiculturalism policy, departments must provide examples of actions taken to “promote and celebrate the historical contribution and heritage of communities of all origins to Canadian society.”

In its latest set of responses, CBC explained that it complied with the law by observing Asian Heritage Month, National Indigenous History Month and Black History Month. The Bank of Canada noted the same occasions, with the addition of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Canadian Heritage dutifully carries out Parliament’s instructions to grow the list of observances. Irish Heritage Month and Emancipation Day (celebrating the abolition of slavery) were the “two new commemorative date initiatives” of 2021.

“These commemorative dates present an excellent opportunity for Canadians to learn more about the richness of the cultures and the historical contributions of these communities, and reflect upon both the proud moments in our history as well as the darker moments, to better shape our futures,” the department wrote in its annual report. “The Government of Canada looks forward to celebrating these new dates which play an important role in raising awareness of the richness of Canada’s cultural diversity.”

That is, the more calendar days celebrated, the better we’re upholding multiculturalism.

Holocaust remembrance and the end of slavery mark historical events of significance — they make sense to recognize. It’s important to keep memories of the Canadian past alive. In a similar vein, there’s a day dedicated to the first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and a day dedicated to a Swedish man who became Canada’s first honorary citizen for helping save more than 100,000 Jews from Nazi persecution. These additions to the calendar are worthwhile.

But broader heritage celebrations seem odd to build the national calendar around. Black History Month, one of the older awareness months intended to highlight stories that often went untold, seemed much more significant back when it was fairly unique. Now, it’s lost in the crowd.

Going forward, the list can still grow. We still lack heritage months celebrating the English (though we have one for the Irish), the Spanish (though we have one for the Portuguese) and the Japanese (though we have one for the Philippines). There are months that celebrate Jewish, Islamic and Hindu heritage — but nothing for the Buddhists or Christians.

More days could be added, which would be consistent with government policy. But to what end? As the calendar grows, the significance of each day shrinks. Anyway, happy Halloween Month.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: Multicultural ‘awareness months’ fail to raise awareness

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My #citizenship oath petition interview

2023/10/14 Leave a comment

In case interested, my interview on Ottawa morning. Was a bit more punchy than usual but leave others to judge:

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100/clip/16014776 https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100/clip/16014776

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Kheiriddin: The ‘decolonization’ movement will condemn us to the brutality of our past

2023/10/14 Leave a comment

Valid commentary on the limits of “settler colonial” and decolonization language. Assume NDP MPP Jama is not going to leave Canada despite being “a politician who is participating in this settler colonial system.”

While history is always being reviewed and revised, that it is different from being erased, as we have to know the past in order to bring about a better present and future:

After 24 hours of outrage, Ontario NDP MPP Sarah Jama has apologized.

On Tuesday, Jama posted on Twitter that she was “reflecting on my role as a politician who is participating in this settler colonial system, and I ask that all politicians do the same. #FreePalastine (sic).” This was followed by a lengthy statement in which she condemned Israel, where, she said, “For 75 years, violence and retaliation rooted in settler colonialism have taken the lives of far too many innocent people.”

This earned her a rebuke — but not a demand for resignation — from NDP Leader Marit Stiles. Jama now says that she understands “the pain that many Jewish and Israeli Canadians, including my own constituents, must be feeling.” But as of Thursday morning, her original post remains up, and Jama remains in caucus.

Jama’s statement illustrates the absurd lengths to which the “decolonization” movement has been taken. Today, the word “decolonization” has lost all meaning. It has become a trope for overthrowing whatever order someone finds offensive.

Decolonize Palestine of Jews. Decolonize Canada of white people. Decolonize language of words that might cause offence. Decolonize the math curriculum of Eurocentric “ways of knowing.” Never mind that much of modern mathematics was developed by Arabic mathematicians — history doesn’t matter, only dogma does.

But history does matter. And in modern times, a lot of it is revisionist. It fails to note that many of the colonized people of today were once colonizers themselves, and vice versa. Jews may be considered settlers in Israel by some people in 2023, but they were subject to thousands of years of oppression there, including by the Roman Empire, the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire.

As a result, the Jewish people became scattered throughout the world, and had no haven to flee to when Adolf Hitler dragged six million to the gas chambers, before finally being allowed to return to their ancestral homeland.

In North America, the descendants of Irish Catholics would be considered “settlers” by Indigenous people. But Catholics in Ireland were displaced by British and Scottish settlers in the 1600s, setting off centuries of conflict, the partition of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the Troubles, which claimed over 3,500 lives at the end of the last century.

In Canada, Quebec francophones would also be considered “settlers” today, despite themselves having been conquered by the British at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and spending 200 years seeking to become “maître chez nous” (masters in our own house), mostly but not exclusively by political means.

Canada’s First Nations were also both conquered and conquerors. Over the past 500 years, Indigenous people were systematically colonized by Europeans, who moved into their territories, waged war on them and eradicated their traditional way of life through the reserve system, the pass system, residential schools and other means.

But before the Europeans arrived, Indigenous nations made war on each other, engaging in both guerrilla tactics and sophisticated battles. The Haida Nation routinely conducted slave raids down the West Coast. The Iroquois Confederacy warred with the Huron-Wendat. War was as much a part of Indigenous societies as it was in other parts of the world.

Today, few people talk of these things: Indigenous peoples are portrayed as harmonious and peace-loving, while non-Indigenous people are seen as aggressive and violent. But we should talk about them, and in light of what’s happened in Israel, maybe we finally will.

Human history is a miserable river of blood, and all our ancestors bathed in it. We will never erase the sins of the past. All we can do now is move forward and decide what we will and will not tolerate today and in the future.

We can choose to stand for the principles of human rights and dignity. We can stand for equality of races and sexes. We can stand for the rule of law and democracy. We can say never again will we force children into slavery, or “re-education,” or murder them in their beds.

These concepts, it should be noted, are not “colonial.” As African political philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò writes in his brilliant work, “Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously”: “The problem is that many of our decolonizers too easily conflate modernity and westernization.”

For example, he rejects the argument that capitalism is colonial and discusses how colonialism actually blocked the economic aspirations of millions of Africans. Táíwò does not reject things such as western legal systems and the scientific method simply because they were not derived from African thought. He argues that to do so implies that colonized people have no agency and cannot decide for themselves what path to follow.

The colonization lens has become a trap that pits group against group, nation against nation. It ignores the common principles that led to the recognition after the Holocaust that war was not “a continuation of politics by other means,” as Carl von Clausewitz famously put it, but something to be avoided. If we’re ever going to put a stop to the cycle of violence, we must first stop dividing ourselves into “colonizers” and “colonized” and recognize that we are all just one thing: human beings condemned to sharing space with each other.

Terrorism, such as the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas last weekend, doesn’t make the world a better place. It won’t create an independent Palestine. It won’t lead to progress of any kind, for anyone. All it does is drag us back to the brutal past from which humanity has striven for centuries to escape.

Source: The ‘decolonihttps://apple.news/AjKtDEd9rQ0qMsa39ekIv5Qzation’ movement will condemn us to the brutality of our past

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Rioux: Terroriste, mais encore…

2023/10/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

Ce n’est pas un hasard si le mot razzia nous vient d’Algérie. Depuis le Moyen Âge, Arabes et Ottomans menèrent des razzias ininterrompues sur les côtes méditerranéennes, où ils capturaient des otages qui étaient ensuite vendus comme esclaves, jetés dans des harems ou réduits aux travaux forcés.

Ce n’est pas un acte de guerre, mais une razzia à la puissance mille qu’a perpétrée le Hamas le 7 octobre dernier en pénétrant dès l’aube en territoire israélien pour « tuer du Juif » et assassiner plus d’un millier de militaires, de civils, de femmes et d’enfants confondus. Sans oublier de rafler une centaine d’otages qui serviront de boucliers humains, de monnaie d’échange ou de chair humaine dans des exécutions diffusées sur les réseaux sociaux afin de terroriser les mécréants.

Ceux qui font profession d’aveugles n’y verront qu’un attentat de plus dans la longue histoire du conflit israélo-palestinien. Nous sommes pourtant devant le pire carnage commis depuis 1945 à l’égard de civils juifs, assassinés pour la seule raison qu’ils étaient juifs. Sur leur chemin, les djihadistes ont abattu 260 jeunes qui participaient à la rave party Supernova. Quand ils ne les ont pas égorgés ou violés. Des fous de Dieu surgis d’un autre âge face à l’insouciante jeunesse mondialisée de Tel-Aviv, le contraste ne pouvait être plus étourdissant. Pour nombre de juifs, dont le secrétaire d’État Antony Blinken, cela n’évoquait rien de moins qu’un pogrom.

Certes, cette offensive poursuivait aussi des objectifs politiques. Il s’agissait de torpiller les accords d’Abraham, qui étaient sur le point de réconcilier diplomatiquement Israël et l’Arabie saoudite. Une alliance particulièrement inquiétante pour l’Iran, principal soutien du Hamas. Notamment parce qu’elle montre que juifs et musulmans peuvent vivre en harmonie, comme l’illustrent les 150 000 Israéliens qui visitent chaque année les Émirats arabes. Autre vision intolérable pour le Hamas, car le moindre signe de réconciliation signerait son arrêt de mort.

Ce carnage n’a donc rien à voir avec la cause nationale palestinienne, et encore moins celle d’un État indépendant. Il s’inscrit au contraire dans la lignée des grands attentats islamistes du 11 septembre, de Charlie Hebdo et du Bataclan.

Le mot terrorisme, que la prude CBC et l’extrême gauche française se refusent à prononcer, est d’ailleurs largement insuffisant pour désigner cette organisation islamiste, antisémite et totalitaire qui tient Gaza sous sa férule. Ses crimes vont bien « au-delà du terrorisme », pour reprendre les mots du bédéiste Joann Sfar. Car le Hamas n’a rien d’un banal mouvement de libération qui aurait commis quelques attentats. Créé en 1988, il est la branche palestinienne des Frères musulmans, nés en Égypte dans les années 1920, qui ont notamment soutenu l’alliance entre Hitler et le grand mufti de Jérusalem. Ici, l’oumma remplace la nation, l’islamisme le nationalisme, et le califat l’État démocratique.

Radicalement opposé aux voix libérales palestiniennes — que les Frères musulmans ont d’ailleurs souvent éliminées physiquement —, le Hamas n’a jamais eu d’autres buts que d’islamiser la société palestinienne et d’empêcher que ne s’impose une direction laïque soucieuse des intérêts nationaux de son peuple. « La mort sur le chemin de Dieu est la plus éminente des espérances », proclame sa charte fondatrice qui stipule aussi que « la bannière d’Allah » doit flotter « sur chaque pouce de la Palestine ». L’État palestinien ne pouvant être, à la rigueur, qu’une étape avant l’expulsion complète des Juifs de la région.

L’idée qu’avec le temps, le Hamas deviendrait un interlocuteur sérieux apparaît aujourd’hui comme un leurre. Cette organisation a toujours agi afin de faire capoter toute perspective de paix et de création d’un État palestinien. C’est ce qui faisait dire au journaliste israélien Stéphane Amar, que nous avions interviewé à Tel-Aviv, en 2016, que « le rêve des deux États est mort depuis longtemps ». Il ne pourrait renaître que le jour où Israël, seule démocratie du Moyen-Orient, trouverait un interlocuteur qui ne souhaite pas son extermination.

Nous avions alors constaté sur place combien la seconde Intifada, avec ses attentats kamikazes contre les civils, avait achevé de tuer tout espoir de paix, anéantissant du coup la gauche israélienne depuis longtemps ouverte au compromis. Tant que l’islamisme dominera le mouvement palestinien, la théorie des deux États demeurera un mythe. Quel État dans le monde souhaiterait la création à ses frontières d’une théocratie doublée d’un État terroriste ?

Les véritables défenseurs du peuple palestinien aujourd’hui ne sont pas ceux qui, trop heureux de s’en laver les mains, renvoient dos à dos les potentats du Hamas et le gouvernement démocratiquement élu de Benjamin Nétanyahou. Ce sont ceux qui combattent l’islamisme dans l’espoir que renaisse un jour un leadership palestinien digne de ce nom.

Le temps de juger les graves erreurs de Nétanyahou viendra bien assez vite. On peut compter sur le peuple israélien pour cela. Comme pour exiger une riposte ciblée et proportionnée. Mais, pour l’instant, constatons que la guerre que mène le Hamas pour détruire Israël n’a rien d’une lutte nationale et tout d’une guerre de civilisation.

On pourrait rêver d’un autre combat. Mais on ne choisit pas ses ennemis. C’est eux qui nous choisissent.

Source: Terroriste, mais encore…

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Will the federal government go ahead with a one-click citizenship oath?

2023/10/14 Leave a comment

Of note, MP Kwan predictable in her discounting the history and meaningfulness of citizenship. Presume she prefers weddings, funerals and graduations and the like to be in person, given the stronger sense of connection and belonging compared to virtual. But becoming Canadian? Meh:

A petition to stop the federal government from allowing new Canadians to take their citizenship oath by clicking a button online is set to be tabled in Parliament.

The petition (Petition (e-4511), which was launched in July of this year, garnered more than 1,500 signatures. It was backed by the Conservative Party’s Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Tom Kmiec.

In a statement released last month, Kmiec said the measure would “cheapen” the citizenship oath by reducing it “to a click on a website or an app as if citizenship were no more than consenting to terms in a contract.”

In February, the Liberal government announced it was planning to allow for self-administered citizenship oaths. The proposed process would permit aspiring new Canadians to log onto a secure online portal to administer their citizenship instead of attending an in-person or virtual ceremony with other successful citizenship applicants.

Andrew Griffith, a former director general at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), started the petition to maintain the citizenship ceremony as an important milestone in the Canadian immigration journey. Griffith, who attended many ceremonies as part of his previous role, says they are an important way of marking a critical step for new citizens. “Citizenship is not just a mechanical process of getting a driver’s licence. It’s making a decision to come to Canada, to contribute to Canada and to vote in Canadian elections. [Citizenship ceremonies] really give a sense of belonging and inclusion.”

The petition further called on the government to “revert to in-person ceremonies as the default”, limiting virtual ceremonies to only 10 per cent of the overall total. It also urged the government to explore more evening and weekend ceremonies to make them more accessible and flexible for attendees.

Claudio Chalom, who recently became a Canadian citizen after arriving from Brazil six years ago, said while he would have preferred having his citizenship ceremony in person, he still appreciated the chance to do it online and thinks other new Canadians should have the opportunity to do the same. “I think we should still have some sort of ceremony to mark the celebration of this special moment,” he said, describing his own experience as “emotional”. “It was a moment we won’t forget in our lives.”

The one-click citizenship proposal was initially introduced by former Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Sean Fraser, to reduce backlogs in the immigration system. The government said the move to self-administered citizenship would cut processing time by three months and eliminate the need to take time off work to attend ceremonies. The new minister Marc Miller said the government is still considering moving forward with the proposal.

Canada’s immigration system has recently seen record numbers of new immigration and visa applications, rising to nearly 2.3 million in July. The latest IRRC data from September shows citizenship and spousal sponsorship applications currently face a 19 to 24 per cent backlog. IRCC aims to keep backlog at 20 per cent or less.

IRCC projections suggest backlogs are expected to drop over the coming months, although there is a chance they could continue into 2024.

Jenny Kwan, the New Democratic Party’s Critic for Housing, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said her party supports the Liberal government’s proposal as it allows for more flexibility for new immigrants with different needs. Attending the ceremony, she said, can be hard to schedule for some.

She pointed to her own family’s experience. Her family came to Canada from Hong Kong when she was a child and lost income as a result of having to take the day off to take their citizenship oath in person. “When we became citizens, both my parents had to take time off work, and we were a low-income family. And that was a very stressful situation that my parents were faced with.”

She said this is why she supports moving to a move flexible system: “Everybody’s circumstances are different. What is important is to ensure that there is flexibility and options made available for people so that they can choose the most appropriate option for themselves. I don’t think there is strictly one way to do it.”

The federal government solicited feedback on the proposed amendments to the citizenship regulations earlier this year, and almost 700 people responded. Two-thirds of those who voiced their opinions disagreed with the government’s proposal. Opposition was particularly strong among Canadian-born citizens and immigrants.

However, strong support for the proposed changes came from citizenship applicants facing delays in the system, with at least 66 per cent indicating they would prefer to allow for citizenship online.

The petition (e-4511) is set to be debated in the coming months.

Katrya Bolger, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

Source: Will the federal government go ahead with a one-click citizenship oath? – Yahoo News Canada

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

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