Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2023/10/14 Leave a comment
Sensible:
The question, then, is what to do about those monuments that glorify what should be a shameful moment for the men who served in the Waffen SS and cause for sombre reflection by Canadians, particularly the Ukrainian community?
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2023/10/13 Leave a comment
While I understand the worries, I also find that they are overwrought, given that the only way to manage large numbers is through AI and related IT tools.
And as Kahneman’s exhaustive survey of automated vs human systems in Noise indicates, automated systems deliver greater consistency than solely human systems.
So by all means, IRCC has to make every effort to ensure no untoward bias and discrimation is embedded in these systems and ensure that the inherent discrimination in any immigration or citizenship processes, who gets in/who doesn’t, is evidence based and aligned to policy objectives:
Canada is using a new artificial intelligence tool to screen would-be international students and visitors — raising questions about what role AI should be playing in determining who gets into the country.
Immigration officials say the tool improves their ability to figure out who may be trying to game Canada’s system, and insist that, at the end of the day, it’s human beings making the final decisions.
Experts, however, say we already know that AI can reinforce very human biases. One expert, in fact, said he expects some legitimate applicants to get rejected as a result.
Rolled out officially in January, the little-known Integrity Trends Analysis Tool (ITAT) — formerly called Lighthouse or Watertower — has mined the data set of 1.4 million study-permit applications and 2.9 million visitor applications.
What it’s searching for are clues of “risk and fraud patterns” — a combination of elements that, together, may be cause for additional scrutiny on a given file.
Officials say that, among study-permit applications alone, they have already identified more than 800 “unique risk patterns.”
Through ongoing updates based on fresh data, the AI-driven apparatus not only analyses these risk patterns but also flags incoming applications that match them.
It produces reports to assist officers in Immigration Risk Assessment Units, who determine whether an application warrants further scrutiny.
“Maintaining public confidence in how our immigration system is managed is of paramount importance,” Immigration Department spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald told the Star in an email.
“The use of ITAT has effectively allowed us to improve the way we manage risk by using technology to examine risk with a globalized lens.”
Helping with a big caseload
Each year, Canada receives millions of immigration applications — for temporary and permanent residence, as well as for citizenship — and the number has continued to grow.
The Immigration Department says the total number of decisions it renders per year increased from 4.1 million in 2018 to 5.2 million last year, with the overwhelming majority of applicants trying to obtain temporary-resident status as students, foreign workers and visitors; last year temporary-resident applications accounted for 80 per cent of the decisions the department rendered.
During the pandemic, the department was overwhelmed by skyrocketing backlogs in every single program, which spurred Ottawa to go on a hiring spree and fast-track its modernization to tackle the rising inventory of applications.
Enter: a new tool
ITAT, which was developed in-house and first piloted in the summer of 2020, is the latest instrument in the department’s tool box, one that goes beyond performing simple administrative tasks, such as responding to online inquiries, to more sophisticated functions, like detecting fraud.
MacDonald said ITAT can readily find connections across application records in immigration databases, which may include reports and dossiers produced by Canada Border Services Agency or other law enforcement bodies. The tool, he said, helps officials identify applications that share similar characteristics of previously refused applications.
He said that in order to protect the integrity of the immigration system and investigative techniques, he could not disclose details of the risk patterns that are used to assess applications.
However, MacDonald stressed that “every effort is taken to ensure risk patterns do not create actual or perceived bias as it relates to Charter-protected factors, such as gender, age, race or religion.
“These are reviewed carefully before weekly reports are distributed to risk assessment units.”
A government report about ITAT released last year did make reference to the “adverse characteristics” monitored for in an application, such as inadmissibility findings (e.g. criminality and misrepresentation) and other records of immigration violations, such as overstaying or working without authorization.
The report said that in the past, risk assessment units conducted a random sample of applications to detect frauds through various techniques, including phone calls, site visits or in-person interviews. The results of the verification activity are shared with processing officers whether or not fraudulent information was found.
The report suggested the new tool is meant to assist these investigations. MacDonald emphasized that ITAT does not recommend or make decisions on applications, and the final decisions on applications still rest with the processing officers.
Unintended influence?
However, that doesn’t mean the use of the tool won’t influence an officer’s decision-making, said Ebrahim Bagheri, director of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s collaborative program on responsible AI development. He said he expects human staff to wrongfully flag and reject applicants out of deference to ITAT.
Bagheri, who specializes in information retrieval, social media analytics and software and knowledge engineering, said humans tend to heed such programs too much: “You’re inclined to agree with the AI at the unconscious level, thinking — again unconsciously — there may have been things that you may have missed and the machine, which is quite rigorous, has picked up.”
While the shift toward automation, AI-assisted and data-driven decision-making is part of a global trend, immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo says the technology is not advanced enough yet for immigration processing.
“Most of the experts are pretty much saying, relying on automated statistical tools to make decisions or to predict risk is a bad idea,” said Bellissimo, who takes a personal interest in studying the use of AI in Canadian immigration.
“AI is required to achieve precision, scale and personalization. But the tools aren’t there yet to do that without discrimination.”
The shortcomings of AI
A history of multiple marriages might be a red flag to AI, suggesting a marriage of convenience, Bellissimo said. But what could’ve been omitted in the assessment of an application were the particular facts — that the person’s first spouse had passed away, for instance, or even that the second ran away because it was a forced marriage.
“You need to know what the paradigm and what the data set is. Is it all based on the Middle East, Africa? Are there different rules?” asked Bellissimo.
“To build public confidence in data, you need external audits. You need a data scientist and a couple of immigration practitioners to basically validate (it). That’s not being done now and it’s a problem.”
Bagheri said AI can reinforce its own findings and recommendations when its findings are acted on, creating new data of rejections and approvals that conform to its conclusions.
“Let’s think about an AI system that’s telling you who’s the risk to come to Canada. It flags a certain set of applications. The officers will look at it. They will decide on the side of caution. They flag it. That goes back to the system,” he said.
“And you just think that you’re becoming more accurate where they’re just intensifying the biases.”
Bellissimo said immigration officials have been doing a poor job in communicating to the public about the tool: “There is such a worry about threat actors that they’re putting so much behind the curtain (and) the public generally has no confidence in this use.”
Bagheri said immigration officials should just limit their use of AI tools to optimize resources and administer its processes, such as using robots to answer emails, screen eligibility and triage applications — freeing up officers for the actual risk assessment and decision making.
“I think the decisions on who we welcome should be based on compassion and a welcoming approach, rather than a profiling approach,” he said.
Source: How Canada is using AI to catch immigration fraud — and why some say it’s a problem
2023/10/13 Leave a comment
Balanced and relevant reflections:
Quatre choses fondamentales semblent nous filer entre les doigts et échapper à notre vue, alors que le monde tente de prendre acte de la violence en Israël et à Gaza.
La vérité. Nul besoin de s’étendre face au malheureux mélange du journalisme en crise, de l’explosion de l’intelligence artificielle et de l’effondrement de Twitter (renommé X). Les petits crochets « vérifié » ne garantissent plus la crédibilité de personne, les services de modération du contenu et de vérification des faits des plateformes ne sont d’aucune efficacité et les fausses informations abondent. Résultat : il n’a jamais été aussi difficile de s’informer en ligne d’un conflit où les actions — et les morts — évoluent d’heure en heure.
Le temps. Bien des observateurs ont comparé l’attaque du Hamas contre des civils israéliens, y compris beaucoup d’enfants, samedi, à Pearl Harbour ou au 11 septembre 2001. Ce qu’on essaie de transmettre par cette image, c’est le sentiment d’une brèche. Il n’y a jamais eu autant de morts du côté israélien, tout comme les Américains n’ont pas l’habitude d’être attaqués sur leur propre sol. Les États-Unis ont disposé de temps pour entrer en deuil national, puis réagir : la guerre du Pacifique qui s’est soldée par deux bombes atomiques d’un côté, la guerre en Irak et la déstabilisation du Proche-Orient de l’autre.
On ne dispose pas, ici, de temps. La contre-offensive de l’armée israélienne à Gaza est déjà en cours. Le nombre de civils décédés monte d’heure en heure, dont là aussi, beaucoup d’enfants. Vu le déséquilibre des forces en présence, on craint ce qui suivra.
La quasi-totalité de la classe politique canadienne a condamné les manifestations propalestiniennes du week-end, comme si chaque personne dans la rue était là pour « célébrer » l’attaque du Hamas, et donc des morts juives. Bien qu’il y eût, certes, parmi les organisateurs, des personnages aux objectifs hautement condamnables, bien des participants en étaient mal informés et se montraient plutôt profondément inquiets, ainsi que solidaires du peuple palestinien, plus largement.
Comment peut-on vouloir envoyer ce message de soutien aux Palestiniens alors que les corps des victimes du Hamas sont encore chauds ? Parce qu’il n’y a pas de temps, justement. Toutes les préoccupations, les peurs, les colères et les deuils s’empilent les uns sur les autres, se blessent et s’enterrent les uns les autres. Dans un conflit où les émotions sont aussi à fleur de peau, le manque de temps envenime tout.
Le pouvoir. C’est une chose de souhaiter une couverture médiatique équilibrée et qui met de l’avant une représentation juste des points de vue de chaque partie impliquée, de chercher à traiter avec respect chaque victime de la guerre. C’est indispensable, même. C’en est une autre de gommer, de perdre de vue, ou de feindre de ne pas remarquer comment le pouvoir et ses iniquités affectent différemment chacun des camps.
Un exemple criant, parmi tant d’autres. D’un côté, Gaza fait l’objet d’un blocus depuis des années, et l’Égypte ne permet la sortie que de quelques personnes au compte-goutte au poste frontalier de Rafah, qui est d’ailleurs bombardé par Israël depuis le début de la semaine. De l’autre, on planifie avec l’appui de la communauté internationale des évacuations de l’aéroport de Tel-Aviv, où une proportion importante des Israéliens a une double citoyenneté, et d’où on peut circuler dans le monde sans visa.
Tout le monde cherche à fuir devant la peur, la peur atroce, la terreur, les morts. La peur peut être aussi grande de chaque côté. La peur est propre à chacun. La peur ne se mesure pas. Les moyens de fuir, eux, se mesurent.
La paix. J’ai le sentiment que chaque reportage, chaque entrevue doit se terminer sur un « avez-vous l’espoir de voir la paix un jour » ? Non seulement c’est cliché, mais il est aussi irritant de voir la paix présentée comme un processus qui appartient à une poignée d’hommes qui accepteraient un jour de parlementer autour d’une même table.
La paix n’est pas qu’un état politique, c’est une action que l’on peut choisir de mener, ou non, chaque jour. La paix est un moteur derrière nos gestes et nos paroles aussi.
On se souvient tous du « soit vous êtes avec nous, soit vous êtes avec les terroristes » de George W. Bush au lendemain du 11 septembre. C’était là une logique guerrière, qui a mené tout droit à la guerre réelle. Cette logique est manichéenne. Elle prend toute entreprise de contextualisation comme une injure, et est persuadée que de chercher à comprendre les actions du camp adverse, c’est les justifier, les excuser ou même s’en solidariser.
Cette logique guerrière pullule. Elle accélère la droitisation de la société civile israélienne et prend sa gauche, qui souhaite une Palestine libre, en étau — alors que cette gauche est essentielle aux efforts de paix. Elle mène à des tensions douloureuses au sein des communautés juives d’ici, et rend d’autant plus ardue et coûteuse le partage de perspectives qui dissonent d’avec celles des grandes associations. Elle soutient tout autant le processus de radicalisation qui a permis l’émergence du Hamas et marginalisé le leadershipde l’Autorité palestinienne. La logique guerrière refuse de faire la distinction entre le soutien à une Palestine libre et un cri de ralliement terroriste. Elle ramène du même souffle toute la population d’Israël, et même tout le peuple juif, à l’administration de Nétanyahou.
La paix, comme choix à la portée de tous, c’est le choix de faire de la place dans son esprit et dans son coeur à plusieurs émotions et vérités en même temps. La paix cherche à comprendre à la fois le rôle du trauma de l’Holocauste et des siècles d’antisémitisme dans la charge symbolique que porte Israël, les 75 ans de délocalisation, d’oppression et de marginalisation du peuple palestinien, le rôle du colonialisme dans le contrôle britannique du territoire palestinien au moment où il a été donné à Israël et le pouvoir continu de l’Occident sur la région depuis. La paix cherche à écouter tout, entendre tout, faire assez de place pour tout.
Anthropologue, Emilie Nicolas est chroniqueuse au Devoir et à Libération. Elle anime le balado Détours pour Canadaland.
2023/10/13 Leave a comment
Good commentary with reasonable recommendations:
This time last year, the media buzz about the labour market was over The Great Resignation, a bigger phenomenon in the United States but occurring here too, as workers took advantage of record-high job vacancy rates to abandon suboptimal jobs for better ones.
This year there’s an emerging made-in-Canada phenomenon that has barely generated a whisper, let alone a buzz: wage slaves from abroad. It’s a result of public policy.
The idea of owning workers seems like an abomination from another time and place. In Canada, in 2023, it’s difficult to comprehend how any worker could be beholden to a single employer.
Nonetheless, this year the government of Canada has issued more than 142,000 permits to employers to hire temporary foreign workers who are not allowed to work for anyone else. It’s the highest number ever issued, and that figure only covers up to August. Intake through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has grown by 45 per cent across Canada this year compared with the same eight months in 2022, a record-breaking year of population growth, almost exclusively (96 per cent) due to newcomers.
Permits are issued to employers who make the case that they cannot find a Canadian to do the job — at “prevailing wage rates,” that is. When the federal government finds the reasons provided on the Labour Market Impact Assessment form acceptable, it permits a foreign worker to enter Canada to work only temporarily, and only for that employer.
Just since August 2021, the federal government has expanded the categories of occupations eligible for such a permit and increased the allowable proportion of migrant workers working for an individual employer to 30 per cent from 10 per cent. That gives such employers huge influence over not just their migrant workers but all their workers. It is far from clear this was necessary policy reform. It should be reversed.
Ontario’s employers are escalating their dependence on the permanently temporary in sectors such as warehousing and transport trucking, personal care workers in long-term-care facilities, restaurants and fast food outlets, and farm workers.
The vast majority of employers are moral. But tying permits to a single employer increases the odds of exploitation and abuse.
Although the federal government conducts investigations of employers using the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, employers are often given a heads-up before the inspection takes place. Last year, more than 2,100 inspections were carried out. Only 116 were found non-compliant.
Of the 766 employers on a public registry of employers who broke the rules over the past seven years, the most frequent violation was wage theft — not providing the pay promised in the contract. Only seven employers were banned even temporarily from hiring migrant workers through this program; 23 were just given warnings.
Wage theft is not the only issue. Farm workers had an extraordinarily high incidence of disease and death during COVID because of their living conditions. Abuse and assault of workers providing care to people in their homes and institutions remains all too common. These are the very categories of migrant workers least likely to find a pathway to permanence.
Migrant workers may have the same rights as Canadian workers on paper but are less likely to know what those rights are and even less likely to exercise them for fear of jeopardizing their jobs and futures. That kind of contagion needs to be contained. It spreads rapidly in an uncertain world.
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology is studying this area of public policy. Last week, Tomoya Obokata, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, presented testimony to the committee about his recent visit to Canada, expressing concern for “low-wage and agricultural streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as the workers at the higher risk of labour exploitation, which may amount to forced labour or servitude.”
I appeared before the committee as well and presented some ideas for policy reform.
First: end the practice of tying work permits to an employer. An open work permit, tied to a region (for example, in parts of the country that are aging more rapidly) or in an industry or sector with high vacancies (such as hospitality or long-term care) would mean workers could leave terrible workplaces without risking deportation. This change could reduce the number of bad jobs and improve the quality of life in communities. Addressing potentially crippling labour shortages, while limiting the abuse of workers, seems a promising avenue of reform.
Second: create simpler pathways to permanent residency for all those who seek it and make those pathways clear before people arrive. Canada has developed an incredibly complex system, with more than 140 types of temporary permits in the immigration database, according to Rupa Banerjee of Toronto Metropolitan University.
In 2022, three times as many people were permitted temporary resident status versus permanent resident status in Canada. Less than a third of those who came here to work or study for a restricted period transitioned to permanent status, even after 10 years of temporary residency; but many more will grab at the chance, without knowing the odds.
There is a whole industry designed to lure international students and migrant workers here on what often turns out to be the false hope of permanent residency; and the relationship between temporary and permanent admissions to Canada is getting more lopsided every year.
Although Canada’s job creation rate has been remarkable, including for Canadian-born and landed immigrant workers, the fastest-growing rate of job creation has been among migrant workers: 61 per cent more jobs than pre-pandemic levels.
We are expediting the intake of migrant workers for entrenched needs, not temporary ones.
Increasing reliance on temporary foreign workers to do the work that needs doing, while not allowing them to form families, get sick, age or retire may be an employer’s dream and a labour market “solution.” But it risks creating a dystopian future for Canadian society.
Armine Yalnizyan is a leading voice in Canada’s economic scene and Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. She is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star’s Business section. Follow her on Twitter: @ArmineYalnizyan. You can write to her at ayalnizyan@atkinsonfoundation.ca.
2023/10/13 Leave a comment
Former “citizen of convenience,” Indian film star Akshay Kumar:
For several years, Akshay Kumar had Canadian citizenship. He faced backlash over it, and this year became an Indian citizen. He has now spoken about the matter.
Actor Akshay Kumar, who earlier had Canadian citizenship, has opened up about why he had opted for it in the first place. Speaking with news agency ANI, Akshay revealed that he took the step because his films ‘were not doing well at one time’ and he gave 13 to 14 flops”. Akshay often faced criticism over his Canadian citizenship. On Independence Day this year, the actor had announced that he was now an Indian citizen. (Also Read | Akshay Kumar gets Indian citizenship, shares proof on Twitter)
Akshay on becoming a Canadian
Akshay told ANI, “I became a Canadian because my films were not doing well at one time and I gave 13 to 14 flop films. At that time, my friend used to live in Canada and he said you come here and we will work on something. My friend had offered me that we would do cargo business together. I said okay my films are also not going well and a person has to work, no matter where he is. When I started living in Toronto, I got a Canadian passport. In between that, two films were left for release. After the two movies got released it became a big superhit. I told him that I was going back. Then I got more films and reached here today. But I never thought people got a hold of it, it was just a travel document. I just pay my taxes, and I am the highest taxpayer.”Akshay on Indian citizenship
Speaking on getting Indian citizenship, he said, “For 9 to 10 years I didn’t go there. It’s a very nice place and one of my best friends is there. I decided that I should take my citizenship. It was just a coincidence that I had received a letter on 15th August that I had got citizenship. But it is not just a passport, it is your mind, it is your heart, it’s your soul that has to be Indian. What is the point if I do have an Indian passport but my soul mind and heart are not Indian?”
Akshay got Indian citizenship this year
Earlier, Akshay had shared a picture of his official government documents, proving that he has finally got his Indian citizenship. “Dil aur citizenship, dono Hindustani (Heart and citizenship, both Indian). Happy Independence Day! Jai Hind,” Akshay had captioned the post.Akshay had spoken about backlash in 2019
Akshay has faced a lot of criticism on social media platforms for holding Canadian citizenship in the past. In 2019, after receiving backlash for his Canadian citizenship, Akshay issued a statement on his official X (formerly known as Twitter) account, stating that he does not understand the negativity around the subject.
Source: Akshay Kumar reveals why he got Canadian citizenship in the first place – Hindustan Times
2023/10/12 Leave a comment
Of note:
Sukhdool Singh, an alleged gangster, was gunned down in Winnipeg last month, in a tit-for-tat killing between rival gangs.
Singh was wanted in India for extortion and murder, and was alleged to have links to the Khalistan Tiger Force, which has been designated a terror organization by the Indian government. He is said to have escaped to Canada on a forged passport in 2017 and India has been trying, unsuccessfully, to extradite him ever since.
Singh’s case is instructive because it is at the heart of the dispute between Canada and India. The Indians say Canada has offered a safe haven for Khalistani terrorists in return for votes from the Sikh community.
Canada says that its hands are tied because freedom of speech is protected under the Charter of Rights.
By its actions, the Canadian government has also endorsed the recent findings of the House of Commons justice and human rights committee that concluded suspects could be abused and tortured if returned to India and a host of other countries. Only six people were extradited to India between 2002 and 2020 and none of them were suspected Khalistani terrorists.
Canada is seen as being soft on terror, with some justification.
Its record on clamping down on terror financing is abysmal, as noted by B.C.’s Cullen commission into money laundering, which found that the federal Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) is ill-equipped to share intelligence with law enforcement. Proof of FINTRAC’s impotence is the lack of any charges laid between 2009 and 2016, even though it uncovered 683 transactions linked to terror financing
The government is in the process of beefing up its efforts against money laundering and terror financing, with a number of proposed legislative changes aimed at giving FINTRAC and law enforcement more powers.
But Canada’s perennial balancing act with rights and freedoms leads to much hand-wringing. For example, the Canada Revenue Agency has been accused of unfairly targeting Muslim-led charities, leading to calls for the agency to suspend its terror-financing investigative unit. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his sympathy for what he called the systemic Islamophobia in the CRA.
However, the atrocities that the world has witnessed over the course of the past weekend in Israel may tilt that balance away from the indulgence that has prevailed.
The scenes that played out on Saturday night in Mississauga, with joyous crowds cheering and honking horns, as if their team had just won the World Cup, were abhorrent. This was the glorification of the mass murder of children, such as the 40 dead babies discovered at the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel. This was celebration of Hamas’ deliberate and systemic targeting of civilians to kill as many as possible.
To his credit, Trudeau renounced such scenes in his remarks at a Jewish community centre in Ottawa. “The glorification of death and violence and terror has no place anywhere, especially here in Canada. Hamas terrorists aren’t a resistance, they’re not freedom fighters, they are terrorists and no one in Canada should be supporting them, much less celebrating them.”
Canada has a law against displaying hate — Section 319 of the Criminal Code, which says that anyone who incites hatred against an identifiable group where incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of an indictable offence.
But such is the power of section 2b of the Charter when it comes to freedom of expression, it has been used sparingly — just 20 times between 2001 and 2019.
That is a good thing. I am proud to live in a country where truth cannot be put down by persecution. As John Stuart Mill said about free speech, conflicting doctrines often share the truth between them.
But it is quite another thing to witness fellow citizens lionize rape and murder.
In 2015, the Senate committee on national security and defence released a report in the wake of the terror attack on Parliament Hill.
It made a number of recommendations that were never enacted, including establishing a “no visit” list of identified ideological radicals and working in Muslim communities to create an effective counter-narrative to Islamic fundamentalism.
But one conclusion that it drew has special resonance today — that our hate laws should be updated to ban the glorification of terrorists, terrorist acts and terrorist symbols. The committee said it recognized issues with the Charter of Rights but noted that France and U.K. have similar laws.
There are clearly issues with what constitutes “glorification” — a grey zone where there may not be specific calls for action. France’s law appears to go too far: one 25-year-old man was handed a suspended sentence for scribbling “Vive Daesh” (aka ISIL) on a toilet wall.
Yet, antisemitic chants calling for the destruction of Israel, or in the case of Canada’s Khalistanis, building a carnival float that celebrates the assassination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (as happened in Toronto in 2023) create the conditions for violence. The British law includes a clause that specifically says the offence occurs when members of the public might reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being proposed as conduct that should be emulated.
The introduction of such legislation may go a long way to healing the rift with India — and that cannot be done quickly enough.
We are entering a period of what historian Niall Ferguson has predicted will be a “cascade of conflict,” where Russia, Iran and China will do their best to overturn the international order by testing a fiscally overstretched America in three theatres: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. It will be no surprise to anyone if China makes an illegal move in the South China Sea in the coming weeks.
Canada needs to recognize that, in W.B. Yeats’ words, anarchy is loosed upon the world and innocence is drowned; that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
We need to stand with our allies, even if we don’t often like what they do. India’s Narendra Modi is a thin-skinned chauvinist; Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu may be corrupt and is certainly incompetent.
As the former Shin Bet chief, Ami Ayalon, told Le Figaro, the Netanyahu government is largely responsible for the divisions that created an opportunity for Hamas, with its controversial push for justice reforms and a policy that marginalized the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
But these flaws pale in comparison to the what the great autocracies would have in store for us.
I’m haunted by a quote in Avi Shavit’s superb history of Israel: My Promised Land, where he talks about the vitality of the nation. “And yet, there is always the fear that one day, daily life will freeze like Pompeii’s.”
For too many Israelis, life did indeed freeze this weekend. The existential threat there is palpable. Canada cannot allow pluralism and reasonable accommodation to plant the seeds of our self-destruction.
Source: John Ivison: Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide
2023/10/12 Leave a comment
Hard not to agree:
In September, Clerk of the Privy Council John Hannaford announced the creation of a five-member task force of deputy ministers to lead a “broad conversation” on the values and ethics of the federal public service. A “milestone” report is expected by year’s end.
Upon hearing of this initiative, I could not help but think of the famous line by Capt. Renault in the classic film Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects!”
I have no doubt about the clerk’s good intentions. That the public service is in serious need of thorough examination and renewal is beyond debate. What is in question is how a committee of busy senior bureaucratic “insiders,” working off the side of their desks, and with a very tight deadline in the latter months of the government’s mandate, can possibly address the many and substantial issues that require serious review.
As others have argued in these pages, including former clerk of the Privy Council Kevin Lynch, the issues are many, from service delivery to recruitment and renewal; from institutional timidity to the public service-political relationship; from the degradation of ministerial responsibility to the weakening of departmental autonomy as a source of policy advice and innovation versus the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office.
It is hardly surprising that, in the face of these formidable challenges, the clerk’s announcement was greeted with puzzlement by some observers. How and why did public servants’ “values and ethics” become the central issue? Why does the clerk believe that a strictly “in-house” study is the answer? A “conversation” with public servants does not scream action.
Whatever the rationale, this review is a far cry from the kind of root-and-branch overhaul that critics have been demanding for some time.
The federal public service has historically been the subject of royal commissions, which have injected the kind of fresh thinking that only an outside perspective can bring. The last such commission — the Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability — was established more than 40 years ago (1976) and reported in 1979. Known as the Lambert Commission, after its chair, TD bank executive Allan Lambert, this commission came about as a result of fears of a breakdown in financial management and accountability.
Prof. Donald Savoie, the dean of Canadian public administration, and others have acknowledged that nothing less than a Royal Commission on the Future of the Public Service, independent of senior public service managers, is required if there is to be genuine change. An independent and wide-ranging examination of the federal public service is long overdue.
Such a commission must be led by an outsider and so provide for sweeping inquiries into key public service reform issues that cannot be done by those within the system.
It is true that initiating a royal commission comes with its own risks. Such commissions can be expensive as well as unpredictable, sometimes delving into matters beyond their mandate, and so put their efforts in danger of being shelved and ignored by unreceptive governments.
A royal commission, of course, cannot be initiated by the clerk of the Privy Council. Only the prime minister can make that happen.
It took a shot across the bow by then-auditor general of Canada J.J. Macdonell to kickstart the Lambert Commission when he warned that “Parliament — and indeed the government — has lost or is close to losing effective control of the public purse.” Crisis can be the spur of creative thinking and innovation, but only if decision-makers are willing to concede that the crisis is real.
To do so, however, requires bold thinking and decision-making at the political level, as well as a willingness to take a “beau risque.” To expect that from any government in the twilight of its mandate may be too much to ask. But that does not make the need any less urgent.
Ottawa resident Michael Kaczorowski is a retired senior policy adviser with the federal government.
Source: Kaczorowski: Reforming Canada’s public service can’t be done superficially
2023/10/12 Leave a comment
More Quebec commentary on the need for Quebec to exercise the same control over the IMP, whose numbers have ballooned as elsewhere in Canada, as it does for TFWP:
De mauvaises langues accusent le député Sol Zanetti d’avoir atteint le summum de l’exagération en gonflant, puis dégonflant, une balloune depuis son siège de l’Assemblée nationale jeudi dernier. Je ne suis pas d’accord. Juste avant, en point de presse, un autre député solidaire avait fait pire.
Au cas où on déclare atteinte, voire dépassée, la capacité d’accueil du Québec et qu’on veuille limiter le nombre d’immigrants temporaires au Québec, passés de 47 000 en 2007 à 470 000 cette année, il a dit ceci : « Si on définit qu’elle est remplie [la capacité d’accueil], on coupe qui ? On va commencer à faire des déportations massives ? On va commencer à dire que ces 100 000 là, qui sont de trop, peut-être, qui ont déménagé ici, qui ont eu des contrats, qui ont eu un logement, qu’on leur a donné un permis, qui travaillent dans le réseau de la santé et dans l’éducation… On va leur dire : “C’est terminé ? […] Vous savez quoi, là, on s’excuse, on vous a fait venir pour rien, on s’est trompé, finalement, on n’a pas la capacité de vous avoir” ? »
Je vais vous étonner. Il s’agit d’un député qu’on estimait jusque-là crédible et posé : Guillaume Cliche-Rivard. Il est avocat, expert en immigration. Comment peut-il ne pas savoir qu’on parle ici des temporaires qui, comme leur nom l’indique, sont bien temporaires. L’immense majorité des étudiants étrangers qui peuplent McGill et Concordia et anglicisent le centre-ville prennent la poudre d’escampette dès qu’ils ont leur diplôme en poche. L’immense majorité des travailleurs agricoles volent retrouver leur famille latino-américaine une fois la récolte terminée. Les autres savent tous que leur séjour affiche une date de péremption, ce à quoi ils ont librement consenti.
Bref, si on décidait, selon le chiffre évoqué, d’admettre désormais 100 000 personnes de moins, ce qui nous maintiendrait toujours à un niveau historiquement excessivement élevé, il suffirait d’attendre que ceux qui souhaitent repartir repartent et de ne donner des autorisations qu’à 370 000 candidats, plutôt que 470 000.
L’introduction du terme « déportation » dans un débat sur l’immigration qui se déroulait depuis quelques mois dans un contexte apaisé est simplement honteuse. S’il tient à sa crédibilité, Cliche-Rivard doit faire amende honorable.
Sur le fond, il affirme ne pas savoir si, oui ou non, notre capacité d’accueil est atteinte. Il voudrait qu’une équipe d’experts se penche sur la question. C’est une idée tellement bonne que je la proposais en 2018 lorsqu’on ne comptait sur le territoire que le quart du nombre de temporaires actuel.
On peut bien, comme le fait la ministre de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, par un appel de projets de recherche, en obtenir une analyse plus fine et régionalisée. Mais refuser d’admettre aujourd’hui que l’ajout depuis cinq ans de centaines de milliers de personnes supplémentaires aggrave les crises du logement, de la santé et des garderies me rappelle ceux qui, face aux méfaits du tabac ou du réchauffement climatique, réclamaient davantage d’études.
Heureusement, un grand nombre de Québécois ont entendu parler de la loi de l’offre et de la demande. Début octobre, 71 % d’entre eux (comme 68 % des Canadiens) ont déclaré au sondeur Ipsos qu’imposer un plafond d’admission aux étudiants étrangers serait une bonne façon de réduire la pression sur les logements abordables. Logiques, 75 % des Québécois (71 % des Canadiens) pensent qu’il faut revoir à la baisse les cibles d’immigration le temps que se résorbe la crise du logement. (Mémo au politburo de QS : ce sentiment est partagé par 66 % des 18-34 ans, votre électorat principal.)
Qui, parmi nous, à part les élus solidaires, figure parmi les dissidents de la loi de l’offre et de la demande ? Le gouvernement fédéral, bien évidemment. L’inénarrable ministre de l’Immigration, Marc Miller, a redit récemment qu’il fallait davantage d’immigrants pour construire davantage de logements. (Marc, ça ne marcherait que s’ils les bâtissaient avant d’arriver ou s’ils les emmenaient avec eux. Un pensez-y-bien.)
Plus terre à terre, son collègue Pablo Rodriguez, qui semble admettre l’existence d’un problème, a prétendu que l’augmentation du nombre de temporaires était la faute du Québec. Mme Fréchette affirme au contraire que c’est la faute du fédéral. Peut-on savoir qui remporte la palme de cet édifiant concours de Ponce Pilate ?
Mardi, dans ces pages, la spécialiste Anne-Michèle Meggs a mis clairement la responsabilité sur les épaules du Québec.
À l’exception des demandeurs d’asile, le Québec a indubitablement le pouvoir de réduire le nombre d’étudiants étrangers, qui comptent pour 44 % des temporaires, mais il ne le veut pas ; il a indubitablement le pouvoir de limiter le nombre de travailleurs temporaires (17 %), mais il ne le veut pas.
Sur le reste, les 36 % du Programme de mobilité internationale, Québec a omis d’exiger un droit de veto lors de sa création pendant l’ère Harper. Le gouvernement Legault — au pouvoir pendant l’explosion des temporaires et en possession depuis avril 2022 d’un rapport des experts Pierre Fortin et Marc Termotte l’avisant de sa « perte de contrôle » du dossier — a choisi de ne pas utiliser le levier à sa disposition : réclamer, comme le lui permet l’entente Canada-Québec, l’ouverture de discussions qui lui permettraient d’en reprendre le contrôle.
Bref, alors que 7 Québécois sur 10 savent que l’explosion du nombre d’immigrants rend intenable — et probablement insoluble — la crise du logement, entre autres, nous sommes en présence d’une opposition solidaire fantasmant sur des « déportations » massives et d’un gouvernement caquiste qui se prétend nationaliste, mais refuse d’utiliser les pouvoirs que détient déjà la nation.
Bref, bienvenue au Québec.
Jean-François Lisée a dirigé le PQ de 2016 à 2018. Il vient de publier Par la bouche de mes crayons, aux éditions Somme toute/Le Devoir. jflisee@ledevoir.com
Source: Les expulsions barbares
2023/10/12 Leave a comment
Another insightful analysis by HESA that applies to other areas of government than Global Affairs:
A couple of months ago, I was invited to participate in a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) stakeholder roundtable on its Strategic Plan for the next five years. It was very kind of them to invite me and a few others to be part of the consultation. It was an interesting window into how the federal government thinks about policy and – especially – strategy.
It seems to me that GAC is in the education business for three reasons.
But instead of talking about goals and the role of GAC in these three areas, the department chose to jump straight into talking about four “pillars”: digital marketing, diversification (in the sense of widening the international student base beyond India and China), scholarships and education agents. The background papers for those four pillars are available here (there are also another 9 or so background papers here, and kudos to the folks at GAC for making all of this public…it would be normal in other countries, but in Canada, this counts as a major act of transparency).
I don’t want to dismiss these pillars – they are all important – but they don’t really amount to a strategy. They are more like issue management. And as a result, what pervaded the discussion was a mixture of presentism and mission confusion. By presentism, I mean that the conversation tended to focus on “how do we make minor changes to things we do now” rather than “what should we be trying to achieve in this area”? This was most evident in the discussion about the small suite of scholarships that that GAC runs such as the Canada-ASEAN Scholarships, the Canadian International Development Scholarships Program, and the CARICOM Faculty Leadership Program. All the questions were about “how can we make these work better?”, where “better” means “in line with educational objectives with respect to student recruitment diversification. This was disappointing. The possibility of aligning these with actual foreign policy objectives, like, say, our vaunted turn to the Indo-Pacific? Not on the table.
Similarly on the question of digital marketing – the Government of Canada spends $5 million year, spread across 25 countries (not India and China), on “promoting the benefits of studying in Canada as they relate to the primary drivers influencing international students’ choice of study destination” (which, apparently do notinclude immigration – more on that below). What was at issue was not “is spending this money a good idea?” either in the sense of “is there any evidence that this advertising is working” or “is there any evidence that there is a market failure here given how much institutions themselves spend on marketing?”. Just, again, “how could we do it better” in the sense of more “efficiency”, not “should we be doing this at all”?
The issue of agents was a bit more intriguing. As a host of recent news stories have suggested, there are some serious cases of study permit fraud in Canada and we could certainly stand to gain from being more pro-active and adopting stricter controls on agents as other countries have done through the London Statement (which is a good policy in theory, though I suspect over-rigorous enforcement of such policies are a potential nightmare). But tucked into the paper is a sentence which suggest that from GAC’s perspective the problem is not fraud per se, but “the wrong kind” of students, to wit:
This advising fee model [among student agents] has led to a lack of quality control with respect to study permit applications, resulting in a huge increase in applications from students who have no chance of being approved for a Study Permit, increasing IRCC workloads and contributing to the backlogs in the system, negatively impacting genuine, high-quality prospective students. [emphasis added]
The sharp-eyed will see links here back to the whole “trusted provider” approach that IRCC is taking, only for some reason it’s taking aim at agents rather than institutions. In any event, we see here that a group of Ottawa officials have a very clear idea in their heads with respect to “genuine” students vs. fake ones, “high-quality” students vs low-quality ones, etc. And I’m guessing once again it has something to do with the use of the immigration tack.
Why do I think this? Well, one very intriguing moment in the consultation happened when a fairly senior GAC employee recounted an event he had recently witnessed in Dubai. At this event, an unnamed university President said something to the effect “come study at my university and you’ll be on a path to Canadian citizenship”. This was deeply distressing to the GAC employee. “That’s not what this program is for”, he huffed (he presumably meant both the PGWP program and pathway to Permanent Residency that follows).
It was on Zoom and most everyone was muted, but I could still hear a lot of jaws dropping at this. This is of course exactly what IRCC policy is meant to be for. GAC might not like the policy that IRCC developed, but since it is responsible for selling the policy overseas, you’d think GAC would understand it. The fact that not everyone there does, combined with the fact that – as noted above – GAC seems determined to ignore the evidence that immigration is a major factor in student choice, suggests some major communications gaps between Ottawa departments. Maybe not the most auspicious conditions under which to launch a new strategy.
In short, I found this whole exercise to be well-meaning but not particularly strategic. The strategy focuses on scholarships for students from other countries but refuse to link these scholarships to broader diplomatic or soft power goals. The strategy wants to attract students from other countries using digital marketing and so forth but refuses to look at the link to immigration, because GAC and IRCC appear to be at cross-purposes on the subject. It’s the kind of process that might lead to some tiny little improvements but never seems to have even considered the possibility of a strategy that was genuinely transformative. I don’t feel that’s GAC’s fault, particularly: rather, boldness and ambition just aren’t in a lot of governments’ DNA these days. Too bad.
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Multicultural Meanderings 