ICYMI – May: Could ‘mission government’ solve Ottawa’s delivery problems?

2025/05/23 Leave a comment

Agree with overall assessment. Political and bureaucratic will central to any efforts:

…Longtime bureaucrats say they’ve seen other versions of this before—tiger teams, super ministers, special cabinet committees—and that mission government is just the latest trendy management brand to fix age-old problems. One noted the government already has many of the tools it needs to fix things. What it takes is political will and strong, focused leadership. Without that, the system reverts to the status quo—and resists change. 

“I’m not sure it really matters how you do it. What you need is the prime minister to say, ‘This needs to get done,’ and a political co-ordination mechanism to drive it across departments. So, call it mission or whatever.” 

Many bureaucrats expect Carney to govern like a CEO focused on priorities, outcomes, and results. Some anticipate he’ll be ruthless if progress stalls. Others question whether his central banking background fully prepares him for the operational demands of governing. 

In his first press conference as prime minister, Carney outlined his priorities: meeting with Trump, cutting internal trade barriers, launching nation-building projects, accelerating housing, tightening border security, and toughening bail for some crimes.

Those familiar with early briefings say Carney’s mindset seems clear: “’How quickly can we do this? How do we accelerate? How do we show action?’ There’s a rigor to the way he thinks, and the system will have to adapt to keep up. It’s kind of refreshing to see,” said one senior bureaucrat.

Source: Could ‘mission government’ solve Ottawa’s delivery problems?

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Does size really matter? Rethinking public service reform

2025/04/04 Leave a comment

Larger public service does not equal improved public services as we have learned from the Trudeau years. That being said, more fundamental examination of program outcomes and efficiencies needed (e.g., program review exercise), but size and high growth rates are proxies that most people understand:

…Interestingly, neither Carney’s nor Poilievre’s perspectives acknowledge that higher program spending and larger headcounts has not led to significant improvement in public service delivery, as shown by a recent analysis by Jennifer Robson, one of our co-authors. 

This is a critical point. The effectiveness of public services cannot be accurately assessed by size alone. The simplistic equation of a larger public service with inefficiency, or a smaller one with effectiveness, ignores the complexities inherent in governance. 

Effective public service requires a nuanced approach that considers not just the quantity of personnel but also the quality of services provided, the efficiency of processes and the outcomes for citizens. 

While the Trudeau government expanded the public service, this did not necessarily translate into improved services. As Robson points out, this discrepancy suggests that merely increasing or decreasing staff numbers is not a panacea for the challenges facing public administration.  

The focus, therefore, should shift from a binary debate over size to a more comprehensive discussion about efficacy. 

This includes examining how public services are designed and implemented, how they adapt to changing societal needs and how they can be reformed to better serve the public without necessarily expanding or contracting the workforce arbitrarily. 

Such a perspective moves beyond partisan talking points and addresses the real issue: delivering high-quality public services that meet the needs of Canadians efficiently and effectively. 

This perspective would also better reflect nuanced public opinion. Concerns about government spending do not necessarily translate into support for across-the-board cuts. Instead, Canadians prioritize investment in essential services. 

This is not just a debate about numbers on a balance sheet. It is a battle over the role of government itself. 

By reducing it to a question of ideological alignment – big government versus small government, or populists versus bureaucrats – politicians risk weakening institutional legitimacy and public trust. 

This also diverts discourse and resources away from the core issues affecting public service efficacy, including procedural barriers, resource constraints, and training and talent management.  

Framing this debate as being over size makes for a slippery slope toward the deeply entrenched partisanship evident in the U.S. and toward an erosion of public trust in the public service. 

Canada now faces a defining question: Will we follow the U.S. in politicizing public institutions? Or will we maintain a commitment to evidence-based, professional and accountable governance? The answer will shape the future of Canada’s public sector – and the country’s political landscape – for years.  

Source: Does size really matter? Rethinking public service reform

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Savoie: The election campaign is a chance to rethink Canada’s public sector

2025/04/01 1 Comment

It is, like so many issues. However, unlikely to gain traction given more pressing issues and few short-term political benefits in doing so:

…Canada’s underperforming public service is too big, too costly. It keeps growing in good and bad times at both the federal and provincial levels. Since 2020-21, the size of the federal public service, for example, has grown by 3.7 per cent annually, above the average growth rate of 1 per cent between 2007 and 2020 (the pre-COVID pandemic period). The IMF reports that the public sector in Canada accounts for 42.5 per cent of GDP. In the U.S., the figure is 36.3 per cent – and that was before Mr. Musk was let loose with his chainsaw.

Canadians know that they are not getting value for their money from the public sector, as public opinion surveys show. It’s time to finally deal with activities that have long passed their best-before date and to accept that our public sector managers have lost the ability to manage and, in particular, deal with non-performers. This is costly and saps the morale of many public sector workers who work hard in the public interest. What is often lost in the debate is that public sector managers want to perform at the top level; they don’t want to be handcuffed by overly demanding transparency requirements and the work of public sector unions.

These unions have a lot to answer for. The fact that 77 per cent of public sector workers in Canada belong to a union, compared to 15.5 per cent in the private sector, speaks to the problem. Their purpose is to promote the interest of their members, because that is what they are paid to do. They only need to push against political will, which is at times shaky, while private sector unions must push against unbending markets forces that are certain to become more difficult in the Trump era.

An election campaign provides the opportunity for a debate on the role of government and public sector unions, and to ask if the federal government still requires nearly 300 organizations. Canadians should also ask if the federal government has encroached too far in areas of provincial responsibilities because it has the spending power to do so. Time would be better spent debating these issues rather than reacting to every social media message or change of mind that comes out of the White House.

Source: The election campaign is a chance to rethink Canada’s public sector

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Snyder: Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

Good reminder (most of the US business, academic and other leaders failing the moment):

1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about — a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union — and take its side.

3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multiple-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

5. Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

7. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.

8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

11. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. 

14. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.

15. Contribute to good causes. Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay. Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.

16. Learn from peers in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends in other countries. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to use of the words “extremism” and “terrorism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “emergency” and “exception.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

19. Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

20. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.

Source: Snyder: Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

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HESA: That Was The Quarter That Was, Winter 2025 [Trump administration]

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

ùMore on the impact of the Trump administration’s higher education policies:

…On top of this came attacks on institutional autonomy, which for the most part consisted of threats to defund any institution which continued activities deemed to be “DEI”, a term the Administration defined in terms so vague as to make it nearly impossible to comply. In the case of Columbia University, it also threatened to defund an institution due to its failure to combat “antisemitism”, which was an odd thing to demand given how many genuine antisemites seem to orbit the Trump regime (Columbia caved). And also there was the detention and potential deportation of hundreds of international students, mainly it seems for the crime of exercising free speech and freedom of assembly in such a way as to be critical of Israel. The cumulative impact of what has happened in US in the past seventy days will take years if not decades to reverse. Careers have been destroyed. Promising lines of research – such as those involving mRNA research – have simply been dropped. If one wanted to destroy America’s future prosperity and scientific pre-eminence, one could scarcely have done more than the Trump Administration has done. This will be to the good fortune of some individual institutions in other countries, but to the world as a whole – especially North America – the faltering of science and the economic progress that depends on it will lower economic growth potential for a decade or more to come.


There are, broadly, three aspects to the whole US story. The first is one of anti-scientism, a broad disdain for the idea that anyone other than those in power are permitted to say what the truth is. This is most obvious when looking at the policies of the Department of Health and the NIH around the non-promotion of vaccines, but it permeates the administration generally. There are no other parts of the world – for the moment – where we see anything similar. But the other two aspects her – attacks on institutional autonomy and academic freedom on the one hand, and reductions in the financial capabilities of universities on the other, do have echoes elsewhere.

With respect to state controls over institutional autonomy and academic freedom, the most obvious parallel case to the United States over the past three months is Georgia, where the controversial pro-Russian government sees universities as a centre of dissent and wishes to increase supervision over them and thereby limit autonomy.  India and Pakistan have also seen flare-ups over the past few months with respect to autonomy – mainly but not exclusively relating to government use of the power to name vice-chancellors – but this is less a “new shift” than the latest incidents in a long-running battle.


The other issue, of course, is overall university funding. The United States is certainly unique in the extent to which scientific research budgets are under attack. And it is unique in the sense that it seems to be the only country where individual institutions are being singled out for specific funding reductions in the manner of Columbia University. But it is not unique in the sense that universities are feeling the need for quick retrenchment.There two closest parallels are Argentina and the Netherlands. In the former, President Milei’s inflation-busting program involves reducing government spending to well below the rate of price growth. By some accounts, real transfers to universities are now down about 30% on last year, which has led to a series of strikes. In the latter, the still new-ish coalition government, elected in 2024, is still enacting both a series of cuts to university finances and imposing restrictions on teaching programs in English, which has the effect of reducing universities’ international student fee income. This too, is leading to strike action.

Among OECD countries, universities in France, already struggling to deal with last year’s reductions in funding, got hit with a new round of compressions in the February budget, and most are looking at deficits both this year and next. The anglosphere trio of the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia are also facing continuing struggles from the loss of international students stemming from a combination of tighter visa restrictions, reduced demand and greater international competition, but unlike the other examples cited, these financial challenges in the short-term stem from a loss of market income, not government income….

Source: That Was The Quarter That Was, Winter 2025

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Open letter to the next prime minister: We need a royal commission on Canada’s future

2025/03/27 2 Comments

Yet another call:

There is no longer any room for doubt. Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency is a seismic shift for the entire world. 

However, the liberal international order that Trump threatens and that benefited Canada so greatly for so long has been unraveling for more than two decades. As a result, Canadian policies and mindsets rooted in the late 20th century are hopelessly outdated.

The time for complacency is over. Canada must wake up, adapt and steel itself for the harsh realities of today. In short, we need a royal commission on securing Canada’s future. 

The world in which Canada operates has fundamentally changed in the last 20 years. It began with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Afterward, security trumped trade in the U.S. New and enhanced security measures led to a “thicker” border. More rules, regulations, paperwork and scrutiny caused delays and increased costs. Canada-U.S. trade suffered as a result. 

This shift further illustrated the risks of Canada’s deep economic dependence on its southern neighbour, but our reaction was to work even more closely with the U.S. to keep the border open to trade. Since then, the escalating climate crisis, the rapid digital transformation, the global financial crisis, China’s economic and political rise, Russia’s authoritarian resurgence and U.S. fears of hegemonic decline have only intensified America’s focus on national security as a defining feature of its economic relations, pushing other countries to do he same.

The policies and governance mechanisms that underpin Canada’s society, economy and security were not designed for the current illiberal international landscape.   …

Source: Open letter to the next prime minister: We need a royal commission on Canada’s future

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Breton: Forty years later, we’re due for another big rethink about Canada’s future

2025/03/24 Leave a comment

Agree:

…So why don’t we do them anymore?

The last major policy-focused one was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1991-96), chaired by Georges Erasmus and René Dussault. The five-volume RCAP report remains an influential document, brimming with extensive research backed by years of consultations.

Even if the report’s central recommendations were shelved, the RCAP helped to shape the national reconciliation conversation we’re having today.

Since then, however, governments have mostly avoided this approach. Why?

First, conducting a thorough, multi-year national inquiry is expensive and the current context is not one where governments are looking to spend money on large-scale enterprises with unclear outcomes.

The national political landscape also seems to be tilting toward a smaller role for government. On this note, however, it is worth mentioning that one of the main criticisms of the Macdonald Commission was that economists had co-opted it and that its report largely embraced market-based solutions.

In other words, a royal commission launched by a government does not automatically mean a bigger role for government.

Second, a royal commission may take on a life of its own and interpret its original mandate in unintended ways. Its findings cannot be predetermined, making them politically risky.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, there’s the growing belief that complex issues can be solved with quick fixes or slogans, even when history suggests otherwise.

A recent example is internal trade barriers. For decades, these have persisted despite numerous attempts at reform. Yet, Anita Anand, then minister in charge of internal trade, suggested that interprovincial trade issues could be resolved in a month – a claim that overlooks decades of political gridlock. (Anand moved on to the innovation, science and industry portfolio under Prime Minister Mark Carney.)

It is a positive development that momentum is building to make progress on this file, but we need a long-term solution. More importantly, we need to think about this issue in relation to all the other major problems we are facing.

From fragmented fixes to a coherent vision

A royal commission doesn’t mean just kicking the can down the road. Clearly, Trump’s tariff threats need to be addressed now, not in three years, which is the usual time frame for a royal commission. Some actions can be, and should be, taken now.

But the reality remains that many of Canada’s serious structural issues are not isolated. Instead, they are deeply interconnected.

Tackling them hastily and separately risks inefficient, short-lived solutions. Instead, we need a unified, long-term approach – one that doesn’t focus just on the next election cycle but that envisions Canada’s economic future for generations to come.

Addressing these challenges requires something that seems increasingly rare: leadership with the humility to acknowledge that no single person or government has all the answers.

A government must be willing to say: We need time and different tools because the complexity of these issues demands a broader, society-wide approach. The leadership we need isn’t one that has all the solutions. It’s one that is willing to create the conditions to find them.

That’s why it might be time for the next federal government to dust off the old toolbox and bring back one of Canada’s most effective policy instruments: a new royal commission for the 21st century.

Source: Forty years later, we’re due for another big rethink about Canada’s future

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Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

2025/03/20 1 Comment

Successful in raising the profile and issue, but ultimately failed at court. And the plaintiffs assertion that “they deserve real change” discounts the overall improvement among Black public servants in terms of hirings, promotions and separations:

A Federal Court judge on Monday dismissed a motion to certify a proposed class action lawsuit that was launched by Black public servants in 2020 who alleged there was systemic racism within the public service.

In an “order and reasons” document, Justice Jocelyne Gagne said the case did not sufficiently meet the class action requirement that the claims raise common issues.

Gagne also said the scope of the plaintiffs’ claim “simply makes it unfit for a class procedure.”

Filed in 2020, the class action sought $2.5 billion in damages because of lost salaries and promotion.

The Black Class Action Secretariat, a group created as a result of the lawsuit, is seeking long-term solutions to address systemic racism and discrimination in the public service, including compensation and the appointment of a Black equity commission.

Gagne said the court acknowledges the “profoundly sad ongoing history of discrimination suffered by Black Canadians” and that plaintiffs have faced challenges in the public service.

However, she said the plaintiffs didn’t present an adequate litigation plan and that they failed to present a ground for the court to assert jurisdiction over the case.

The document also said there are several class actions against individual federal departments and agencies alleging racial discrimination, which “overlap significantly with the present action.”

Proposed class members, the judge said, “would therefore be included in the class definition of these other class proceedings.”

The Black Class Action Secretariat said in a news release Monday that the ruling was a “major disappointment, but it is not the end of our fight for justice.”

“For five years, this has been a David vs. Goliath battle, and while today’s outcome is frustrating, it only strengthens our resolve,” the organization said.

The news release said systemic anti-Black racism has long been recognized by the federal government and that the plaintiffs will meet with their legal team to “explore next steps.”

In 2023, a grievance ruling by the Treasury Board Secretariat found that the Canadian Human Rights Commission discriminated against its Black and racialized employees. In 2024, an internal report found that public servants working at the Privy Council Office were subject to racial stereotyping, microaggressions and verbal violence.

“For decades, Black public service workers have faced systemic discrimination, and today’s decision does nothing to change that reality,” Thompson said.

A Federal Court hearing took place last fall to help determine whether the class-action lawsuit could proceed.

At the time, the federal government filed a motion to strike, asking the judge to dismiss the case. The government argued that Black public servants could file grievances or human rights complaints.

The government also called to remove Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP members, as well as Department of National Defence and Correctional Service Canada employees as class members because of similar class action lawsuits against those departments.

Thompson says the government used procedural barriers to “avoid addressing the merits of this case, rather than standing on the side of fairness and accountability.” The government has spent around $10 million fighting the class action.

“Black workers deserve more than recognition of past harms — they deserve real change,” he said.

Source: Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

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May: Transition How-Tos [Zussman]

2025/03/17 Leave a comment

Good list, drawing from Zussman. Rings true from my experience under the Harper government (Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism):

Here are a few do’s and don’ts from seasoned bureaucrats who’ve weathered many a transition:

This is a test of impartiality and neutrality. Many public servants have only worked for a Trudeau government and this will be their first transition. A new government, especially under a new party, may want to undo, change or scrap policies, programs and your pet projects. Don’t be attached to the programs you worked on — it’s not your role.

Zussman argues deputy ministers must ensure employees are prepared for these shifts and get “past the mindset that they have formed over the last decade and to think in different terms.”

Time for the PS to shine. Be well-prepared, do your homework, know the platform, and show you’re a committed, non-partisan public service that can be relied upon. That builds trust. Have some “early wins” ready for them. Don’t say things can’t be done.

Keep it professional. Don’t greet a new government like an overeager puppy. Don’t try to be their best friend or badmouth the outgoing one. Your role is simple: work with them, understand and implement their agenda, and recognize the legitimacy of their agenda. (They are elected. Public servants aren’t.) If you can’t live with that, it’s time to move on and leave.

Let them lead. Some incoming governments have been watching, planning, and know the system better than public servants assume. Treating them like rookies can backfire — especially if they’ve seen the bureaucracy in committee, dodging questions. “Let them lead the dance,” said one bureaucrat. They know what they want, and the public service’s job isn’t to teach them “government 101” but to deliver.

Expect skepticism. New coach, new game. One former deputy minister likened a newly elected government to a new coach who comes in because the previous leadership was seen as not delivering. So, expect the new government to be skeptical that the public service is up to the job and can execute its agenda. This skepticism is justified. Acknowledge and adapt to it. Demonstrate you can work under the new leadership and deliver its priorities.

Don’t assume you know what the new government’s relationship with stakeholders will be.

Don’t recycle the last government’s or minister’s contact list of stakeholders to call. That could backfire.

Be cautious.

Let the incoming team define its own relationships without speaking for the stakeholders.

Source: May: Transition How-Tos [Zussman]

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Sullivan: The Return Of The McCarthyite Chill

2025/03/15 3 Comments

Accurate:

…This is “the first arrest of many to come,” says Trump. DHS is already searching dorm rooms.

Note the astonishing breadth of this legal formula. You could, for example, be a Ukrainian exile who furiously opposes the Trump administration’s new policy toward Russia. Under the Rubio standard, if you do not have citizenship, merely expressing your views in a way that jeopardizes US foreign policy interests is now a deportable offense. The Trump administration, unless a court stops them, has effectively removed the First Amendment from tens of millions of inhabitants of this country.

It’s actually worse: if you merely potentially could say such a thing, you can be deported for a pre-crime, or rather pre-noncrime. Every noncitizen in the US now has to watch what they say about foreign policy — or else. You may have just arrived from Putin’s Russia, and are now being told by Trump: don’t think you now have free speech just because you’re in America. The US government is monitoring your every word and can deport you if you say the wrong thing. You have to wait until you’re a citizen to be free.

If the law seems McCarthyite, that’s because it was passed in 1952 and aimed specifically at Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe suspected of communist sympathies. According to historian David Nasaw in The Last Million, “suspected Communists were denied visas while untold numbers of antisemites, Nazi collaborators, and war criminals gained entrance to the United States.” It is one of the sublime ironies of this that the ADL now supports a law that once persecuted Holocaust survivors. Back in 1950s, the ADL called it “the worst kind of legislation, discriminatory and abusive of American concepts and ideals.” Now that the ADL can use the law to go after its foes, it’s fine.

Has the law been used before to revoke visas? Yes, for the deportation of otherwise-protected diplomats who might impede relations with another country. Here’s the single lonely example of a precedent:

The case involved Mario Ruiz Massieu, the former deputy attorney general of Mexico who entered the United States in 1995 on a visa. That year, the U.S. government tried to send him back to Mexico, where he was wanted on money laundering and other charges. The secretary of state at the time, Warren Christopher, said deportation was necessary for foreign policy reasons. Allowing [him] to stay would undermine the U.S. push for judicial reforms in Mexico…

The law has never been used, so far as I have been able to discover, to target noncitizens’ free-speech rights. Take the case of Irish immigrants who, for decades, openly supported a designated terrorist organization, the IRA, and provided the majority of the material support, i.e. most of the money, to kill innocents in an allied country, the UK, which has long been America’s most reliable ally. The Dish hasn’t been able to find a single case where an Irish noncitizen was deported for seriously adversely affecting the foreign policy of the US.

I suspect, in fact, that the Trump administration chose this law precisely to avoid accusing Khalil of an actual crime. All they have to prove now is that they consider him a serious potential impediment to their conduct of foreign policy. And because they fear that a judge might test the reasonableness of that Rubio decision, they swiftly transported Khalil to a notorious jail in Louisiana, a state where a more pliant judge is likelier. For good measure, they prevented him from talking to his lawyers for days — and they still can’t speak privately. 

The White House mocked him from their X account: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” Take a second to absorb that monstrosity: the glib and spiteful use of a Jewish term for goodbye to a Muslim. And not from some nasty X nutter. From the president who is supposed to represent all of us, but is, in fact, a deranged, bigoted troll. 

I’m going to pause now for the unnecessary paragraph that is yet somehow necessary. I despise Hamas for its North Korean-level brainwashing of children, its Nazi-level anti-Semitism, and its barbaric use of women and children as human shields. I have absolutely no time for campus protests that go over the line into intimidation of other students. If crimes have been committed, I have no problem prosecuting. But offensive speech? It’s allowed in America. Handing out fliers? It’s how America began! A campus can (and should) discipline its students; but the federal government intervening to seize a legal resident and trying to deport him for speech — along with a dragnet for finding others to throw out — is an outrage in a free country. 

Can the Trump administration win this fight? I suspect they can. Rubio sayshe intends to deport any noncitizen who merely “supports Hamas” — not materially supports, but just supports Hamas — and not just in the past, but in the future.

But they seem to believe a visa is the same as a green card. JD Vance — who lectured Europeans on free speech online, while his own administration was using AI to police the web for dissent! — said on Fox that a green card holder “doesn’t have an indefinite right to stay in America.” The formal name for a green card is “Legal Permanent Resident”, Mr Vice President, not Legal Provisional Resident. They enter the US in the citizen line. And until now, every applicant for a green card has waited for that moment of relief when it’s finally granted, the knowledge that now you are safe and here for good. It remains one of the best days of my own life. Vance just stripped all of that away from all of us. Probably because, like the rest of these incompetent thugs, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and doesn’t much care.

For the sake of argument, let’s say all this is technically lawful, if obviously a massive stretch. A further question remains: even if it is technically legal, do we want to live in an America that tells any noncitizen that they can obey every law, and commit no errors in their immigration journey, but they are still not safe from deportation if they speak their minds … about Israel? Do we want to tell their American-citizen wives, husbands, and children that they have no right to keep their family intact because of problematic speech? 

And let’s not kid ourselves. The reason this is happening is because the government being assailed on American campuses and streets is not any government, and not even the American government, but the government of Israel. It’s part of a much broader campaign to chill criticism of the Jewish state. To give a simple example, the documentary No Other Land about the conflict on the West Bank just won an Oscar for Best Documentary. It has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100 percent for both critic and audience scores, which damn near never happens. But try and find a place to see it in this country. You can’t stream it; no one will distribute it; the few movie theaters that do show it are brutally punished.

Of course I understand why. Antisemitism is surging on the Trump right — just this week, Joe Rogan had a Churchill-hater and Holocaust-minimizer on his show. It’s endemic on the far left. October 7 was a reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust. On campus in America, Jews have been harassed, spat on, intimidated, demonized — and the pathetic college deans have caved. I understand the outrage at these grotesque double standards. I truly do. 

But there are emotions on the other side too. I am not defending Mahmoud Khalil’s worldview, but I can note that his grandmother was forced to leave her home near Tiberias during the first wave of Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948; she walked 40 miles to exile, giving birth along the way; and the family lived in tents in a refugee camp in Syria for decades. Now the grandson watches as Israel obliterates Gaza, with thousands of women and children dead, and the US wants to ship all the Gaza Palestinians elsewhere so Jared Kushner can set up some new White Lotuses.

I’m not asking you to agree with Khalil. I am asking you to extend the same empathy to him as you would a Jewish-American traumatized by the surge in hideous antisemitism. I’m asking you to treat him as a human being: flawed, maybe misguided, but human. Not Jewish not Arab but human. I’m not defending Khalil’s rights because I hate Israel. I am defending him because I love America. 

And stop changing the subject. The specific charge matters in a country with the rule of law: this case is not about terrorism even if you want it to be; it’s not about crime, even if you think it should be. It’s about a new McCarthyite apparatus to chill free debate on campus, make criticism of Israel legally hazardous to any noncitizen, and render every noncitizen in this country afraid to speak their mind on a vital matter. It is not a hard case. Rubio has made it a very simple one.

As for all those brave center-right defenders of free speech on campus these last few years? Just see if they are condemning this. And if they aren’t, never take them seriously on this subject again….

Source: The Return Of The McCarthyite Chill

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