McWhorter: ‘The Zorg’ tells a story we all must hear

2025/11/14 Leave a comment

Another good column, again a reminder that simplistic Manichean dichotomies don’t reflect historical realities and complexities:

…As the African American studies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written and I have experienced, people are often uncomfortable learning that Africans sold one another into this living hell. A common objection is that Africans had no way of knowing what conditions their captives would encounter. But they saw those captives being marched all but to death, sold like animals and penned into a slave castle hold. Black African slave traders had more than enough information to understand the fundamental immorality of the undertaking. If whites had seen even only what the Africans saw, we would not hesitate to judge them as unforgivably complicit in sin.

One lesson of “The Zorg” is that history and people are complex. The recently fashionable view of American (or Western) history as just one extended hit job, with whiteness always the oppressor and people of color always the subaltern, is ultimately a childish temptation, excusing us from engaging detail and nuance. Humans of all shades have quite often been awful to one another. Our job is to work against that tendency, not to pretend it doesn’t exist. And to celebrate those who overcome it, whatever their race. Abolitionism — a Western, Anglophone achievement, which Kara recounts in a final chapter — was a keystone example of that effort, and “The Zorg” is invaluable instruction in what made it so important….

Source: ‘The Zorg’ tells a story we all must hear

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StatsCan Study: The contribution of foreign-born mothers to Canadian births from 1997 to 2024

2025/11/14 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Since 2009, Canada has been experiencing a decline in fertility, which accelerated in 2017. In addition, the country saw unprecedented annual population growth from 2022 to 2024 on account of strong international migration. In this context, the study “The contribution of foreign-born mothers to Canadian births from 1997 to 2024” sheds new light on the contribution of foreign-born women (i.e., those born outside Canada) to births in Canada over the period from 1997 to 2024 using vital statistics data on births.

In 2024, more than two in five newborns (42.3%) had a foreign-born mother, a proportion that nearly doubled in just over 25 years. Also, nearly three in five babies (57.0%) born to mothers over the age of 40 years had a foreign-born mother in 2024. In contrast, among babies born to mothers aged 19 years and younger, just over 1 in 10 (12.8%) had a foreign-born mother.

Among all births in Canada, the proportion attributable to mothers born in India increased nearly fivefold from 1997 to 2024, rising from 2.1% to 10.3%. As a result, India was the leading country of origin for new foreign-born mothers in 2024, followed by the Philippines (3.1% of all births) and China (2.0% of all births).

In 2024, Ontario and British Columbia (48.7% each) had the highest proportion of births to foreign-born mothers, while the lowest proportion was observed in the Atlantic provinces (23.6%).

From 1997 to 2024, the largest increases in the number of births to foreign-born mothers were observed in Saskatchewan (+437%), the Atlantic provinces (+298%), Alberta (+264%) and Manitoba (+206%).

According to the 2021 Census of Population, the adjusted proportion of foreign-born women among women of childbearing age was estimated at 32.3%. This is slightly lower than the proportion of births to foreign-born mothers that year (33.0%), a trend that has been observed in the last five censuses of population. This suggests that foreign-born women are overrepresented among mothers who give birth in Canada compared with their proportion of the Canadian population.

From 2022 to 2024, 96% to 98% of Canada’s annual population growth was due to international migration (new immigrants and non-permanent residents), while the remainder was due to natural increase (births minus deaths). However, without the contribution of foreign-born individuals to births and deaths, the natural increase in Canada would have been negative since 2022.

Source: Study: The contribution of foreign-born mothers to Canadian births from 1997 to 2024

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Canada should pull out of refugee pact with U.S. over Trump policies, says former Liberal foreign minister [Axworthy]

2025/11/14 Leave a comment

Not surprising that Axworthy would make that call. Substantively correct, of course, on his assessment of USA Trump administration policies. But impact would be huge and already dwarf the immigration and asylum systems, already subject to backlogs and considerable strain:

Former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy says Canada should pull out of a long-standing refugee pact with the United States that leads to most asylum seekers arriving at the Canadian border being turned back. 

Mr. Axworthy, who is standing down as chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council on Thursday, said in an interview that President Donald Trump’s erosion of the rights of migrants in the U.S. means the country should no longer be considered a safe country for Canada to return asylum seekers to.

The Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. took effect in 2004 and was later expanded to include not just official ports of entry but the entire land border. Under its terms, asylum seekers must claim refugee protection in the first of the two countries they arrive in. 

Most asylum seekers will be sent back if they arrive at the Canadian border after having first gone to the U.S., although there are exceptions, including forpeople facing the death penalty. 

Mr. Axworthy said Canada no longer has shared values with the U.S. under Mr.Trump. He said that “evidence is produced daily on every American newscast” that it is no longer a safe country for asylum seekers to return to.

“I mean, massive deportations without any due process. Clearly, major restrictions on who can come, a system in which there is virtually no appeal. The whole process of law has been shelved, if not totally put in the dumpster,” he said. …

Source: Canada should pull out of refugee pact with U.S. over Trump policies, says former Liberal foreign minister

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Canada needs a smaller, more capable, more affordable public service | MacDougall

2025/11/13 Leave a comment

Agree on potential to improve service and that public sector unions would be better off focussing on how it can and should be used to improve service to the public as well as reduce administrative costs in such areas as finance, HR and others:

…Now, I happen to think the promise of AI is vastly oversold. But it is also the kind of technology that should be able to empower public servants to deliver public services more effectively. It should help a smaller federal workforce deliver exactly the same level of service, if not better. Given the country is staring at red ink and increased debt service charges as far as the eye can see, a little trimming of the federal workforce, like taxes for the general population, is the price we pay for civil society.

Imagine if — just once — a federal public sector union put their hand up and acknowledged some need for cuts and/or reform? Imagine if the public service unions had the humility to acknowledge imperfection and their extremely privileged position vis-à-vis the vast majority of Canadians with lower salaries and cubic zirconium-plated pensions (if they have any pension savings at all)? Imagine if a public service union were a part of the solution instead of part of the problem? The country doesn’t need any more blocks on reform. It needs a smaller, more capable, more affordable public service.

Which isn’t to denigrate the role of unions. I’m sure Mark Carney’s blind trusts are full of investments in the kinds of companies that have chipped away all manner of worker protections to increase investor profits, as are many of our pension funds. I wouldn’t want to be an Uber driver or an Amazon fulfillment centre worker any more than you do, even if I benefit from their services. That hypocrisy is a prime example of why the people who most need union representation are not those in the public sector. What’s more, if recalcitrant public sector unions are the only remaining examples of union stewardship, their function will engender more anger than sympathy amongst the general population.

More to the point, the modernization of the public service can only happen effectively if the unions and government work together. Again, what the public service unions need to realize and accept is that this government might be the last one that approaches the task with a scalpel instead of a chainsaw.

Source: Canada needs a smaller, more capable, more affordable public service | Opinion

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Parkin: Spot the backlash [DEI]

2025/11/12 Leave a comment

More interesting analysis that bucks some of the commentary:

…But maybe we’re not looking closely enough. Thanks to the support of our survey partners at the Diversity Institute and the Future Skills Centre, the survey sample allows us to narrow the focus. Follow along in the chart below, which starts with the responses for employed adults in general, but then zeroes in on gender, racial identity, sexual orientation and age.2

Can you see the backlash taking shape? No, me neither.

Certainly, opinions are influenced by age. Older people are less likely to say that they’ve been positively affected by DEI policies (this holds true for older people in general, not just older white men). But opinions mostly shift to the neutral position (no impact). The proportion of white, heterosexual men age 50 and older who say their own opportunities have suffered as a result of DEI is only five percentage points higher than the average.

Source: Spot the backlash

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May: Leadership Signals – Take it as permission to simplify

2025/11/12 Leave a comment

Her weekly posts are required reading. This week’s except that I liked:

…Small things can be transformative, says Allen Sutherland, president of the Institute on Governance. Such as: the steady signals Carney and Sabia send about not letting process or the “web of rules” get in the way. Streamline. Simplify.

“If there is some transformation in the public service day to day — where public servants act with more commitment to implementation and less focus on simply being rule followers — then I’d say that’s very transformative.”

In short, leadership signals can drive change and behaviour across the public service.

For Michael Wernick, who once sat in Sabia’s chair as clerk, the budget falls short on real transformation. It has aspirational reforms, but none of the legislative fixes, structural pruning, or deep investment in public-service capacity needed.

For Sahir Khan, the budget is like a solid mid-term grade. But “the final mark will depend entirely on execution — and that burden falls squarely on the public service,” says Khan, vice president at OttawaU’s Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy.

One senior bureaucrat summed it up: Carney’s approach isn’t about transforming the institution or rethinking its principles. It’s pragmatic: the public service is being reshaped by being told to deliver on priorities.

“That’s the Carney transformation. You don’t waste time on a grand plan. You set aspirational goals and tell them to get it done.”

Another added: “The government isn’t focused on institutional theory but on practical, delivery-focused fixes. Carney isn’t interested in changing the public service to be different — he’s interested in it changing to deliver something he wants done differently. The focus is on results.”

This approach of skipping grand plans is concentrating attention and decision-making in the PMO and PCO on departments tied to top priorities. Some bureaucrats worry that political staff will jump in to fill gaps if public servants can’t move fast enough. That would blur accountability. It also raises questions about whether departments not directly tied to top priorities are getting enough attention.

Source: May: Leadership Signals – Take it as permission to simplify

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Keller: Mark Carney is already struggling with Justin Trudeau’s immigration legacy

2025/11/12 Leave a comment

Captures the challenge and the resulting disruption well:

…The challenge is that for three years the Trudeau government opened the door to what was effectively an unlimited number of notionally temporary immigrants. They came “temporarily” with the aim of staying permanently. (And who can blame them?) They paid tuition to a fly-by-night college and accepted minimum wage jobs in the hope of parlaying that into citizenship.

In the year 2000, there were 67,000 people holding a temporary work permit. By the end of 2024, there were 1,499,000. 

In 2000, there were 123,000 student visa holders. By the end of 2023, there were more than one million.

Between 2011 and 2015, the number of refugee claims made in Canada averaged about 17,000 a year. Last year, there were 190,000. This year, claims are on pace to hit 110,000.

In 2015, there were 10,000 people in Canada who had applied for refugee status and were awaiting a decision. The figure is now 296,000….

Source: Mark Carney is already struggling with Justin Trudeau’s immigration legacy

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C-3 Senate Hearing 17 November: My Submission

2025/11/11 Leave a comment

My submission, focussing on the Liberal/NDP agreement to remove the recommendations by the House Immigration Committee is below.

While removal and the unlikely to withstand legal challenges to language, knowledge and security/criminality proposals makes sense, removal of a time limit of five-years to meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days does not.

More puzzling is the removal of the requirement for annual reporting on the number of persons reclaiming their citizenship. The Minister and officials appeared weak when discussing the numbers and expected impacts, underlying the need for IRCC to share this data on open data or annual reports as they will be collecting it anyway:

C-3 Citizenship SOCI SubmissionDownload

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China rolls out its version of the H-1B visa to attract foreign tech workers

2025/11/11 Leave a comment

Reminder of increased competition for talent:

Vaishnavi Srinivasagopalan, a skilled Indian IT professional who has worked in both India and the U.S., has been looking for work in China. Beijing’s new K-visa program targeting science and technology workers could turn that dream into a reality. 

The K-visa rolled out by Beijing last month is part of China’s widening effort to catch up with the U.S. in the race for global talent and cutting edge technology. It coincides with uncertainties over the U.S.’s H-1B program under tightened immigrations policies implemented by President Donald Trump.

“(The) K-visa for China (is) an equivalent to the H-1B for the U.S.,” said Srinivasagopalan, who is intrigued by China’s working environment and culture after her father worked at a Chinese university a few years back. “It is a good option for people like me to work abroad.”

The K-visa supplements China’s existing visa schemes including the R-visa for foreign professionals, but with loosened requirements, such as not requiring an applicant to have a job offer before applying.

Stricter U.S. policies toward foreign students and scholars under Trump, including the raising of fees for the H-1B visa for foreign skilled workers to $100,000 for new applicants, are leading some non-American professionals and students to consider going elsewhere.

“Students studying in the U.S. hoped for an (H-1B) visa, but currently this is an issue,” said Bikash Kali Das, an Indian masters student of international relations at Sichuan University in China. 

China wants more foreign tech professionals

China is striking while the iron is hot.

The ruling Communist Party has made global leadership in advanced technologies a top priority, paying massive government subsidies to support research and development of areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and robotics. 

“Beijing perceives the tightening of immigration policies in the U.S. as an opportunity to position itself globally as welcoming foreign talent and investment more broadly,” said Barbara Kelemen, associate director and head of Asia at security intelligence firm Dragonfly….

Source: China rolls out its version of the H-1B visa to attract foreign tech workers

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Moffatt | Mark Carney’s promise on housing was to build build build. What happened?

2025/11/11 Leave a comment

It is both supply and demand that need to be matched which was not the case under the Trudeau government, save for the correction that started under Minister Miller:

…The message in the Budget could not be any clearer: the government is increasingly relying on reduced population growth, rather than building more, to address Canada’s housing shortage. This comes at a high cost, as newcomers to Canada do much to add to the social, economic, and cultural fabric of our country, and the changes in immigration rhetoric risk painting newcomers as the cause of housing shortages, when often they are its biggest victims.

Source: Opinion | Mark Carney’s promise on housing was to build build build. What happened?

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