Misbahuddin Ahmed found guilty of 2 terrorism charges and ISIS Recruitment Video with Canadian

Yet another terrorism conviction. Born in Pakistan, raised in Montreal, radicalized in Canada, a likely candidate for citizenship revocation under the new Citizenship Act:

Conspiring to knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, while participation in the activities of a terrorist group has a 10-year maximum term.

Ahmed will be sentenced on Sept. 15.

Mark Ertel, Misbahuddin Ahmeds lawyer, said after the verdict that his client was misguided for a short period of his life but is a good man. “I’m devastated by the verdict, it’s never easy to lose a case and it’s especially hard to see someone like this be convicted of these types of offences,” said Ahmeds lawyer, Mark Ertel.

“He’s a good man, a family man, the jury obviously found that for a short period of time in his life he was misguided but the acquittal on the third count proves they realized if there was any danger to Canadians or anyone he put an end to it.”

Crown lawyers said during the trial that Ahmed was a “committed jihadist” with an eye on potential Canadian targets, pointing to a bag in his basement they alleged held bomb-making materials.

Misbahuddin Ahmed found guilty of 2 terrorism charges – Ottawa – CBC News.

And another example of a terrorist or extremist, born, raised and radicalized in Canada, and would not be subject to revocation (if he were still alive):

An Ontario janitor who died while fighting with an extremist group in Syria said in a posthumous video released Friday that he had left Canada because he could no longer live among non-Muslims.

“Life in Canada was good,” André Poulin, a Muslim convert who fled to Syria following a string of arrests in Timmins, Ont., said in an Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham recruitment video that encouraged others to follow his path.

“I had money, I had good family. But at the end of the day, it’s still dar al-kufr [a land of disbelief] and at the end of the day you cannot obey Allah fully as you can by living in a Muslim country, in an Islamic state,” he said.

…. But Poulin was hardly a regular Canadian. He was a troubled youth who had repeated brushes with the law for crimes such as uttering threats until he left to remake himself as a jihadist fighter. He was killed last summer in northern Syria.

“He accepted Islam in a land at war with Islam,” a narrator said in the video, referring to Canada, “in a land with few Muslims, in a land where evil, kufr [disbelief] and sin called him from every direction and corner to succumb to Satan and to his desires.”

It said he had married after arriving in Syria and that his wife was pregnant when he was killed while trying to capture the Mennegh airport. In his address from the grave, Poulin implored recruits to leave the West and join him.

“My brothers, how can you answer to Allah when you live on the same street, when you’re using their light and you’re paying taxes to them and they use these taxes to assist their war on Islam. You can’t live as a Muslim,” he said, adding those who can’t fight should “give money.”

The flow of radicalized youths to Syria has become a top priority for Canadian security and intelligence officials, who fear recruits could one day return home, bringing their paramilitary training and violent anti-Western ideology with them.

Parents of those lured to Syria have also becoming increasingly vocal, calling for government action to deal with radicalization and recruitment. Several dozen Canadians are fighting in Syria, and some have joined ISIS, which has seized parts of northern Syria and Iraq through a campaign of guerrilla warfare, suicide bombings and mass executions.

Concerned about the number of Canadians leaving to join armed factions in Syria, imams from across the country issued a statement last month warning Muslim youths against traveling abroad to fight in foreign conflicts.

The Canadian Council of Imams denounced the “narrow, bigoted, dogmatic distortions of the purveyors of violence and terror,” and called for “meaningful discussions, to engage in preventative strategies and to find meaningful solutions to this growing threat in our country.”

‘Regular Canadian’ killed in Syria conflict featured in slick, new ISIS propaganda video

Canada’s new vision of citizenship: a privilege in two classes | The Migrationist

Louisa Taylor on the new Citizenship Act, starting off with a reminder just how moving citizenship ceremonies are to all who attend, criticizing the fundamental change in philosophy in differential treatment for single and dual nationals, and lamenting the lack of public debate.

Once we have a number of court cases and decisions, expect debate will pick up as the recent refugee claimant healthcare ruling illustrates:

There was no shortage of informed critique of the legislation, but the issue failed to catch fire with the general public. One migration advocate said privately last week she and her allies were shocked that the issue failed to move Canadians. It affected each one of us, after all, and a national survey in 2012 found that most of us – naturalized and citizens by birth alike – felt existing citizenship provisions were good enough. But to become bigger, the issue would have had to resonate not just with the quarter of Canadians who were born outside the country, but with the so-called “Canadian mainstream” of citizens by birth – exactly the people most likely to rarely think about citizenship at all.

The law will be in force soon, but the bitter aftertaste remains. Thousands more new Canadians will swear loyalty to the Queen this year, knowing – for better or for worse – their new home has put clear boundaries on their citizenship. Is that how we build a stronger sense of belonging?

Canada’s new vision of citizenship: a privilege in two classes | The Migrationist.

Chart of the Day: Sports and New Citizens

Great initiative by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship to raise the profile and encourage more new Canadian citizens to participate in sports, with a really good info graphic (which can be saved in a high-resolution pdf) and report (New citizens, sports & belonging):

Sports Infographic-FINAL

 

Victoria Ferauge: Expatriate Voting: Engagement or Illusion?

Further to Canadian expatriates should never lose the right to vote, an effective rebuttal by Victoria Ferauge (an American expat):

Americans abroad are a fraction of the population of the homeland:  7 million versus 300 million.  Canadians abroad are 2.9 million versus 35 million – a higher percentage which might or might not make a difference.  How many of those 2.9 million expats  who were within the 5 year limit now defunct bothered to register?  No idea, I could not find any statistics.  The argument in the Global and Mail editorial would have been so much more compelling if there was hard evidence that Canadians abroad were clamouring for the vote.

Sevi argues that “Canada needs to take a proactive approach to engage Canadians living abroad.”  I would say from my own experience that if expatriate voting rights equal responsibility without power or effective representation, then it is clearly NOT the best way to engage that country’s expatriate community.  If the franchise is simply a symbolic gesture to show how very hip and global a country is or an excuse to extract money/support from them, then it isn’t for the expats at all – it’s all about the homelands self-image and self-interest – and that is a terrible place to begin a  dialogue with ones diaspora.

The Franco-American Flophouse: Expatriate Voting: Engagement or Illusion?.

Chart of the Day: The amazing diversity of languages around the world by language families (2)

Primary_Human_Language_Families_Map

 

Another thing that’s interesting, though, is the global dominance of Indo-European languages. This category includes Romance languages, Germanic languages like English and German, Indic languages like Hindi, and even Iranian languages like Farsi. When you merge all of the Indo-European sub-families, you see how much of the globe that family represents:

One last note: though the globes linguistic diversity is impressive, its shrinking. In 2011, David Harmon, a scholar who runs the Index of Linguistic Diversity, warned of a potential for linguistic “mass extinction” in the 21st century. Though there were 7,000 spoken languages in 2011, global linguistic diversity has been in decline. Only 80 percent of languages spoken in 1970 still existed by 2005.

The amazing diversity of languages around the world, in one map – Vox.

Tribunal can deny in-person appeals in disability benefits cases – Citizenship Parallels

Similar situations are likely to occur with respect to the lack of oral hearings in cases of citizenship revocation. A number of witnesses, including some generally supportive of the Government, expressed concern over the lack of oral hearings and relying on a paper process (others argued for full access to the Courts):

And a retired doctor who heard appeals under the previous system says he could not have made fair decisions without meeting claimants face to face.

“I can tell you there were a couple of times when you would say to yourself, ‘This is a slam dunk for denial,’ until the human walked in,” said George Sapp, who lives near Halifax. “Then you would see the person that’s attached to the file. And sometimes it took you back. And you listened.”

Tribunal can deny in-person appeals in disability benefits cases – The Globe and Mail.

Which Country Would You Die For?

My take on dual loyalties:

We live in a globalized world. We have diverse identities, both individually and collectively. As Canada’s diversity continues to increase through immigration and intermarriage, our identities will continue to become more varied and blended.

Our ability to follow global events and to participate in political and other activities in other countries will also continue to increase.

But we do not expect interest in countries of origin to be exclusive. We expect citizens to vote in Canada. We expect citizens to participate in Canadian political, social and economic debates, and not only vote or advocate on behalf of “homeland” issues.

By and large, the government is comfortable with this approach. The only exception is with respect to citizenship revocation in cases of national security or comparable issues, where the revisions to the Citizenship Act distinguish between single and dual citizens. In other words, the existing long-standing policy that a Canadian-is-a-Canadian — whether single or dual national, whether born in Canada or naturalized — no longer applies.

As Canadians continue to navigate and develop their various identities, we expect them to find a balance between their ethnic or country of origin identity and their Canadian identity. We have few hard and fast rules, given the complexity of our lives and identities, and provide considerable scope for Canadians to express their country of origin. However, we expect this activity to be grounded in a commitment to participate in Canadian life.

Which Country Would You Die For? – New Canadian Media – NCM.

Chart of the Day: The amazing diversity of languages around the world, in one map (1)

Human_Language_Families_Map

 

People on Earth speak thousands of different languages. But given the ubiquity of some languages, like English and Mandarin, its easy to forget just how many there are around the planet.

This map provides some great perspective. Instead of representing each language, the map groups territory by which broader language family the dominant local language falls into. For instance, western and southern Europe are deep blue, because most locals speak one of the Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Italian that descended from Latin. When you look globally, the diversity is dizzying:

The amazing diversity of languages around the world, in one map – Vox.

Indonesian expats excited at getting chance to vote – Khaleej Times

For something different, an example of a country that does not allow dual nationality and the impact on mixed marriages:

Amelia Kusnindito, who has been a resident of Dubai for 14 years, expressed hoped that the next president would make changes in the country’s law on mixed marriages. “I am married to a British, but I can only carry an Indonesian passport. I have no chance to get a British passport because this is a law. I really hope in my heart that the president I choose in this election will espouse changes. So far, I have seen that this candidate I choose in my heart has been supporting the Indonesian diaspora, particularly those married to other nationalities outside my country.”

Indonesian expats excited at getting chance to vote – Khaleej Times.

Stephen Harper’s Canada Day speech the latest volley in Ottawa’s pointless history wars – Coyne

Andrew Coyne on the history wars.

The Crown, likewise, is not some useless foreign ornament, as successive Liberal governments often seemed to imply: It is the very foundation of our constitutional order, as essential to our way of life as Parliament, the common law, and the rest of the British inheritance, and as quintessentially Canadian. To remain attached to these institutional underpinnings, to remind ourselves of their advantages, is not to retreat into the past. It is merely to decline to be cut off from it.

So, fine: thus far, the Tories could be said to be righting the balance. But true to the chips on their shoulders, they could not leave it at that. It was not enough to celebrate and affirm Conservative national icons: It was necessary to diminish and downplay Liberal ones. The 30th anniversary of patriation and the Charter of Rights, for example, came and went without any official celebration or even acknowledgment.

And so the history wars continue, pointlessly. Surely it is possible to honour both versions of our past, both sides of our selves, in a country so accustomed to duality — aboriginal and European, French and English, immigrant and native-born — in other respects. Surely we are both a constitutional monarchy and a rights-bearing democracy. Surely our history is distinguished both by war-making and by peacekeeping. Surely our national character is a result both of individual and collective enterprise.

When working on Discover Canada, we tried to make the same point in our “fearless advice” but the direction was more changing the narrative, as in so many other initiatives, than merely righting the balance.

Andrew Coyne: Stephen Harper’s Canada Day speech the latest volley in pointless history wars