Finland to Apply Stricter Rules for Acquiring Citizenship From October 1

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

  • Finland will apply stricter rules for acquiring citizenship, starting from October 1, 2024.
  • The Parliament of Finland approved a bill to extend the period of residence required for Finnish citizenship from five to eight years.
  • Through the new changes, only periods of residence with a residence permit would be considered when it comes to determining an applicant’s period of residence.

Source: Finland to Apply Stricter Rules for Acquiring Citizenship From October 1

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Babb: School boards shouldn’t rush into adopting anti-Palestinian racism strategies

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Sensible but unlikely to be followed:

…People will also likely struggle to understand what differentiates anti-Palestinian racism from Islamophobia. For the average person, many forms of racism, including, for instance, antisemitism and Islamophobia, are already difficult to comprehend, let alone address. By adding anti-Palestinian racism into the mix, there is serious potential to further complicate the anti-racism landscape at a time when efforts to combat many forms of racism are struggling to achieve substantive results.

Going forward, senior decision makers – particularly those responsible for educating and protecting our children – need to start having more realistic and difficult discussions before moving toward knee-jerk initiatives that could threaten certain groups of people. Indeed, there are reasons why hundreds of concerned parents, educators and community leaders protested outside the building where the vote took place. They’re worried about the future of their children in Canada’s public-school system, and many are left feeling more vulnerable than they ever have before. One Jewish community leader recently told me that despite all of the things he has seen since Oct. 7, the situation in the schools is what has him the most worried.

If we’re going to focus on anti-Palestinian racism, it needs to be done right, and it needs to be done after all voices are heard and difficult discussions are had.

Source: School boards shouldn’t rush into adopting anti-Palestinian racism strategies

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Canadian Dream? High housing costs has two-in-five recent immigrants saying they may leave their province (or Canada)

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Another sign that the value proposition for immigrants to Canada is weakening. How many will act on this deception remains unclear:

Canada’s immigration levels have reached record highs in recent years, but as more immigrants seek the Canadian dream from abroad, many who have arrived in recent years have discovered less of a dream and more of a nightmare.

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds recent trends that have seen Canadians concentrating in Alberta, moving south, or beyond Canada and the U.S., potentially increasing in coming years. Most likely among those to consider further relocation are recent arrivals. Consider that while three-in-10 Canadians (28%) say they’re giving serious consideration to leaving their province of residence due to housing affordability, this number rises to 39 per cent for those who have lived in the country for less than a decade.

Canada’s newcomers tend to be urbanites with skills to quickly engage in the economy, and housing affordability challenges in these urban spaces is perhaps compounding their uncertainty. In Toronto and Vancouver, the long-term risk would be one of losing the workforce required to keep the city cores humming. In Downtown Toronto, 44 per cent say they consider leaving, with 22 per cent saying this is a strong current consideration. Similar numbers also say this in the surrounding 905 area code. In Metro Vancouver, one-in-three (33%) aren’t sure if that region is a long-term home.  

More Key Findings:

  • Two-in-five renters (38%) are considering moving away from their province, compared to 28 per cent of homeowners with a mortgage and 16 per cent of homeowners without one.
  • The most common destination for those who consider relocating is another province in Canada. Nearly half say this (45%) with Alberta the top choice (18%). That said, one-quarter say they would leave for another country beyond the U.S. (27%) and 15 per cent would head south to that latter nation.
  • Alberta is the primary potential beneficiary of emigrants from B.C., with 35 per cent saying they would travel one province east if they were to leave. In Ontario, the largest group say they would move abroad beyond the U.S. (26%), while Alberta ties for second (17%) with Canada’s southern neighbor (17%).

Source: Canadian Dream? High housing costs has two-in-five recent immigrants saying they may leave their province (or Canada)

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Ottawa considering buying hotels to house growing number of asylum seekers

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Sigh. Recognition of reality or abandoning efforts to reduce the numbers or speed up the claim processes:

Ottawa is considering buying hotels to house the growing number of asylum seekers and to cut the cost of block-booking hotel rooms to accommodate them, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says.

The federal government has in the last few years taken out long leases on hotels to help provinces house thousands of refugee claimants. This year, Ottawa has been footing the bill for approximately 4,000 hotel rooms for 7,300 asylum seekers, many of whom have transferred from provincial shelters and churches, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

In a recent interview, Mr. Miller said the government is looking at a more sustainable and affordable way to house people claiming refugee status, including buying hotels and converting them.

One model being considered could involve installing federal and provincial officials in the converted hotels to provide front-line services to asylum seekers waiting for their cases to be heard, he added.

Despite efforts to “stabilize” the number of asylum claimants, “these numbers aren’t going down drastically anytime soon,” Mr. Miller said….

Source: Ottawa considering buying hotels to house growing number of asylum seekers

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FINLAYSON: Trudeau’s immigration policy supercharging housing demand

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Yet more commentary on the link between immigration and housing, and the time lags involved in expanding the latter:

According to a recent Statistics Canada report, Canada’s population has just hit the level it was previously expected to reach in 2028. That startling finding underscores the extraordinary growth of the country’s population since the pandemic, driven by record inflows of permanent and “temporary” immigrants.

A rapidly expanding population can bring benefits, notably by stimulating overall economic activity and providing additional workers. But it’s not an alloyed good. The number of Canadian residents is increasing faster than economic output (gross domestic product), which has translated into an unprecedented series of per-person Gross Domestic Product declines over the last several quarters. Productivity is stagnant as newcomers struggle to find their way in the economy and job market. In addition, a significant share of new immigrants don’t seek or obtain employment, dampening immigration’s contribution to the growth of economic output.

Meanwhile, unusually brisk population growth is putting considerable strain on public services and infrastructure, in part because the federal government did essentially nothing to plan or prepare for the dramatic surge in immigration that its own policies sanctioned. The “downstream” challenge of managing the pressures flowing from turbo-charged immigration falls mainly to provinces and municipalities, not far away Ottawa.

All of this has implications for the hottest issue in Canadian politics today — housing affordability and supply. Like the rest of us, newcomers need a place to live. Immigration is the predominant source of incremental housing demand in much of the country, particularly big cities. Demand for housing also comes from the existing Canadian population, as young adults establish separate households, marriages dissolve, and people move to other communities or neighbourhoods for work, education or retirement.

Unfortunately, homebuilding has been running far behind what’s necessary to accommodate immigration, let alone meet the demand from household formation among current residents. In 1972, when the population stood at 22 million, roughly 220,000 new homes were added to the Canadian housing stock. In 2023, with a population of 40 million, housing starts were only a little higher than half a century ago.

This brings us to the Trudeau government’s multi-faceted housing plan, rolled out over the past year and finalized with great fanfare in the 2024 federal budget. The government has pledged to somehow build 3.9 million new homes by 2031 — just seven years from now. This is equivalent to 550,000 housing starts per year. It’s an aspirational target, but also a patently unrealistic one.

The federal government has little control over what happens in the towns, cities and provinces where most of the policy and regulatory decisions affecting homebuilding and community development are made. Moreover, the Canadian construction sector doesn’t have the spare human resources or organizational capacity to quickly double housing starts.

Even today, the construction sector’s “job vacancy rate” is higher than the all-industry average.

The year 2021 marked a record for Canadian housing starts at 270,000. Starts fell over 2022-23, amid higher interest rates.

This year, RBC Economics projects housing starts of 251,000, rising to 273,000 in 2025. To put it mildly, these figures are inconsistent with Ottawa’s ambitious plan to deliver 550,000 new homes per year.

We’ll likely see more and faster homebuilding over the next few years, as governments at all levels direct more money and

political attention to housing. But a doubling of housing starts simply won’t occur within the Trudeau government’s politically manufactured timeline. One thing seems certain — Canada’s housing “crisis” will continue to fester.

Jock Finlayson is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute

Source: FINLAYSON: Trudeau’s immigration policy supercharging housing demand

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France: Citizenship, equality, jus soli: Republican principles cannot be betrayed

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

You can’t equate a “political adversary and an enemy of the Republic”: This demand was clearly carried out by Albane Branlant, a candidate for Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, who could have stood in the second round of the parliamentary elections but withdrew in favor of the left-wing candidate François Ruffin to help beat the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in their Somme district. Far from being rhetorical, this demand is an imperative.

In contrast to this resolute and consistent defense of the “republican front” against the far right, the procrastination of leaders of the outgoing governing coalition and, worse still, the blindness of the part of the members of the right-wing Les Républicains who have not allied with the RN, reflect a loss of fundamental political bearings. The situation in France, which in a few days’ time risks being led by the heirs of a long anti-republican political history, calls for a painful but essential review of the hierarchy of priorities. At the top of the hierarchy is the defense of the principles inherited from the French Revolution.

In this respect, the RN’s plans to discriminate against dual nationals, roll back the right to citizenship for people born in France, and create a “national priority” are far less acceptable than any of the other policy platforms submitted to the electorate.

Unconstitutional discrimination

The promise to ban dual-nationals from certain civil servant jobs revives the far right’s long-standing obsession with the “false French,” which, from Charles Maurras’s Action Française monarchist movement to the Vichy regime, fueled hatred of Jews, calling them “unassimilable” and pushing for measures to “denaturalize” them. Today, it targets French people of Muslim culture or religion, accused of being “French on paper” but of dubious allegiance.

Insulting and absurd from an economic, cultural, security and diplomatic point of view, the hunt for dual nationals also amounts to unconstitutional discrimination between French citizens. In the RN’s arsenal, it adds to the astonishing plan to completely abandon jus soli, the right to citizenship for any person born in France, running against the principle of integration by birth through the socialization in France of children of foreigners. This principle has been enshrined in the Constitution or in French law since 1791, and not even Vichy wanted to call it into question. As for the “national priority,” it relies on self-proclaimed “common sense” to attack the constitutional principles of equality and solidarity.

Wind of revolt

What the RN’s first two projects have in common is that they would weaken France’s sovereignty by confining large segments of its population to foreign nationalities. All three measures, by multiplying attacks on the egalitarian and fraternal foundations of our society – in other words, on the republican promise – would provoke anger, resentment and violence. All the while opening up an immediate conflict with the Constitutional Council, whose current president, Laurent Fabius, appointed for nine years by President François Hollande in February 2016, has demonstrated his vigilance on this matter.

If constitutional and historical references appear to carry little weight in the face of the strong wind of revolt represented by the RN’s score in the first round of the elections, political leaders deciding on withdrawals for the second round who ignore or neglect them will bear a heavy responsibility: That of having sold out centuries of republican accomplishments in hazardous electoral bargaining.

Source: Citizenship, equality, jus soli: Republican principles cannot be betrayed

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Adams and Parkin: Canadians don’t need to worry about identity politics

2024/07/03 Leave a comment

Useful reminder:

On Canada Day, there is nothing wrong with focusing on what we have in common. But in doing so, we can celebrate the fact that what brings us (and keeps us) together is a respect for the things that sometimes make us different. That is the paradox, and the beauty, of what we call national unity.

Michael Adams is the founder and president of the Environics Institute for Survey Research. Andrew Parkin is the Institute’s executive director.

Source: Canadians don’t need to worry about identity politics

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Lederman: How attitudes to immigration have evolved in The Globe through the generations

2024/07/03 Leave a comment

Good historical overview, highlighting how the Globe overall reflected public attitudes of the time:

….As The Globe marks its 180th anniversary, questions around immigration continue to populate its pages. Who gets in, who doesn’t. On what criteria. Deafening in its absence for many years: discussion of who was displaced by settlers as Canada formed and evolved. From the Chinese head tax to Roxham Road, a trip through the pages of The Globe offers the real story in black and white. Canada – if it opened its gates at all – has often been inhospitable, even hostile, to newcomers….

Source: How attitudes to immigration have evolved in The Globe through the generations

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Nadeau | L’extrême droite n’existe pas

2024/07/03 Leave a comment

Sobering:

Lorsqu’il débarque à Montréal en 1937 pour exposer les dangers de la montée du fascisme dans le monde, l’écrivain André Malraux raconte, à ceux qui viennent l’écouter, comment un avion de son escadrille a été abattu en Espagne. Il parle de la nécessité de combattre, « pour le peuple et pour un idéal de dignité humaine ». Il fait, au passage, l’éloge de Norman Bethune, ce docteur qu’incarna Donald Sutherland au cinéma, à qui l’on doit des avancées en médecine.

Le Devoir, dans ses pages de l’époque, considère l’auteur de La condition humaine, prix Goncourt 1933, comme un vulgaire propagandiste. Les auditoires de Malraux sont à majorité anglophones, écrit Le Devoir, comme si cela discréditait sa pensée. Le quotidien Le Canada, qui assiste aux mêmes événements, offre un compte rendu différent.

Nous le savons aujourd’hui : devant la montée de l’extrême droite en Europe, qui gronde dans l’Espagne de Franco comme une répétition générale du pire, André Malraux ne se trompe pas sur la nécessité de combattre le fascisme.

Le monde canadien-français que Malraux découvre, il en parle, dans un discours prononcé à Madrid, le 7 juillet 1937. « Dans un pays des plus pauvres, plutôt dans une des contrées les plus pauvres, qui ressemble tant à l’Espagne, au Canada français où se trouvent la même misère et le même courage, j’ai parlé pour l’Espagne. » Malraux raconte encore comment un simple ouvrier canadien-français lui offrit sa montre, sa seule richesse, pour financer la lutte contre la montée de l’extrême droite.

Dans cette société canadienne-française que connaissent mes grands-parents, les revendications sociales et politiques s’accumulent en un terrible fatras. Au milieu d’une crise générale, comment s’en sortir ? Le monde d’en bas se trouve écrasé par ceux d’en haut. Pour remédier aux faiblesses du système politique dont ils font les frais, plusieurs souscrivent à l’idée de l’affaiblir davantage, au nom d’élucubrations qui montrent du doigt des boucs émissaires.

Toute ressemblance avec ce passé, il est interdit de la noter, professent aujourd’hui les nouveaux administrateurs des mêmes vieilles peurs et des mêmes vieux ressentiments qu’autrefois. Ceux-là mêmes qui affirment que l’extrême droite n’existe pas, malgré des évidences qui nous préviennent du contraire, voient en revanche poindre partout, à les en croire, les doigts crochus de mouvements de gauche.

Les néofascistes cavalcadent de nouveau, en toute liberté, dans les prairies décomplexées de la haine des étrangers et des minorités. Ils chevauchent des rhétoriques usées, où il est toujours question de culture et de civilisation, comme s’il s’agissait de statues de marbre immuables. Ils préconisent des mesures coercitives, le renforcement des pouvoirs exécutifs. Leurs mots servent à labourer un champ de bataille plutôt qu’à cultiver un espace commun. Mais surtout, n’allez pas dire que leur idéologie, leurs obsessions d’une régénération chantée sur des airs identitaires, leur volonté de stigmatiser des minorités, c’est du déjà vu, du déjà connu ! « La plus belle des ruses du Diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas », écrivait Baudelaire.

En mai dernier, les partis d’extrême droite se sont rassemblés à Madrid, à l’invitation du parti ultranationaliste Vox. À la tribune se sont succédé la cheffe de file du Rassemblement national (RN) français, Marine Le Pen, le déjanté président argentin Javier Milei, lequel est désormais appuyé par le milliardaire Elon Musk, ou encore André Ventura, le dirigeant du parti ultranationaliste portugais Chega. Les voix de la première ministre italienne, Giorgia Meloni, du premier ministre hongrois, Viktor Orbán, ainsi que d’autres figures de la droite radicale se sont aussi fait entendre. Tous clament combattre les mêmes ennemis : les minorités, les immigrants, les étrangers, les mouvements sociaux. Vladimir Poutine, après tout, ne ressemble-t-il pas beaucoup, par plusieurs aspects, à ces gens-là ?

En voyant la Bolivie échapper, la semaine dernière, à un coup d’État, comment ne pas penser à l’assaut du Capitole aux États-Unis, le 6 janvier 2021, alors que Donald Trump, malgré ses mensonges en série, risque bel et bien de revenir à la tête du pays ? Cette situation mondiale fragile favorise, dans son ombre, la croissance de populismes de toutes sortes. Au Canada, la montée d’un Pierre Poilievre profite en partie d’un contexte mondial délétère pour s’autoriser à multiplier des coups de gueule dignes, parfois, de chats de ruelle. Du jamais vu, en tout cas.

En France, le RN du clan Le Pen a beau battre des records d’absentéisme au Parlement européen, c’est à lui que l’électorat a confié une large part de sa représentation lors du scrutin du 9 juin. Ces mêmes élus risquent maintenant de faire des gains sans précédent lors du second tour des élections législatives du 7 juillet. Le RN promet de repousser les immigrants, tout en diminuant les taxes sur les carburants, ce qui revient à amputer les revenus de l’État tout en augmentant les profits des compagnies pétrolières. Le RN affiche par ailleurs la volonté d’exonérer les moins de 30 ans d’impôt. Âgé de 28 ans, le président du RN, Jordan Bardella, pourrait ainsi ne pas verser un sou à l’État s’il devient premier ministre, tout comme d’autres jeunes loups fortunés de son entourage. Dans un cadre où l’équité est mise de côté, la nouvelle extrême droite, soutenue par des milliardaires et des possédants, propose dans les faits de prendre le relais du néolibéralisme en assurant le renouvellement de son hégémonie, en profitant d’un moment mortifère où la crise de la démocratie atteint des sommets.

La montée des droites extrêmes témoigne d’un effondrement des systèmes de représentation politiques, dans un déni de démocratie de plus en plus généralisé, à une époque où les politiques néolibérales encouragent au chacun pour soi. Quoi qu’on en dise, les néofascistes et leurs partisans ne représentent pas, devant ce désastre, une menace pour le système, mais son pur produit.

Quand une démocratie est malade, disait Albert Camus, le fascisme se presse volontiers à son chevet. Et ce n’est pas pour prendre de ses nouvelles…

Source: Chronique | L’extrême droite n’existe pas

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Statement by Minister Miller on Canada Day

2024/07/03 Leave a comment

Quite a good statement and video IMO. Curious to hear views of others:

“On Canada Day, we celebrate our freedoms and reflect on our rights and responsibilities as Canadian citizens. We remember and honour the shared history, symbols and values that define us as Canadians. A critical part of being Canadian is understanding the histories and realities of Indigenous Peoples, who have been caretakers of this land since time immemorial, and recognizing their integral role in this country’s past, present and future.

“Every Canadian has a responsibility to advance reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. It is important that we all understand the rights and significant contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. As part of our ongoing commitment to advance reconciliation, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship worked with Indigenous creators to share the voices and experiences of Indigenous Peoples directly with new Canadians. I am pleased to share that the video ‘Welcome, there is room’is now being used at every citizenship ceremony across the country.

“This morning, I am honoured to attend a special citizenship ceremony being held at the Rogers Centre before the Toronto Blue Jays annual Canada Day game. This is one of the many citizenship ceremonies taking place across Canada today. The moment when newcomers take their oath of citizenship is a very meaningful and moving experience for everyone involved. I consider this to be one of the best parts of my job! If you wish to experience the sense of pride in being Canadian, I encourage you to participate in an upcoming citizenship ceremony in your area.

“To learn more about Canada Day celebrations near you, you can also visit the Canadian Heritage website.

“I hope today’s celebrations renew your pride in being Canadian and inspire you to give back to your community, to learn more about Indigenous Peoples and cultures and to welcome those who have chosen Canada as their home. Our diversity, equity, inclusivity and multiculturalism are what sets Canada apart.

“Whether you’ve recently chosen to work, study or build your life here—or you’ve always called this country home—today is about celebrating what unites us: our love and respect for Canada.

“Happy Canada Day!”

Source: Statement by Minister Miller on Canada Day

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