Take pride that Parliament reflects the face of Canada – The Globe and Mail

2016/01/14 Leave a comment

Election 2015 - VisMin and Foreign-Born MPs.002Michael Adams and my take on the composition of the new Parliament:

So what is new about the 42nd Parliament, aside from altered partisan composition and a gender-balanced cabinet? In fact, not too much, considering that the previous Parliament was quite diverse. But the Liberal government is doing more to make diversity – and an aspirational vision of an inclusive Canada – central to its agenda, and there is no doubt that some of the energy that came out against the Conservative government during the election campaign was a renunciation of tactics that pitted Canadians against each other along ethnic and religious lines.

So when it comes to the composition of the legislature itself, the 42nd Parliament is not so much a watershed as it is one more significant, if incremental, step in a long move toward a national legislature that represents the identities, experiences and perspectives of all Canadians.

Source: Take pride that Parliament reflects the face of Canada – The Globe and Mail

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Examen des dépenses: Ottawa a négligé les langues minoritaires, dit un rapport

2016/01/14 Leave a comment

Not totally surprising that this kind of collateral damage took place given the various constraints and choices to be made:

Ottawa a négligé ses obligations en matière de langues officielles lors de l’examen des dépenses qui a mené à d’importantes coupes dans l’appareil gouvernemental.

Le commissaire aux langues officielles, Graham Fraser, signale dans un rapport publié mardi que les communautés en langue minoritaire n’ont pas systématiquement été prises en compte lors de cet exercice.

Résultat: les coupes budgétaires ont fait des «dommages collatéraux» dans les services à ces communautés.

En 2011, les troupes de Stephen Harper avaient annoncé une révision exhaustive des dépenses afin d’imposer des compressions budgétaires dans l’ensemble des ministères.

M. Fraser rappelle que le Secrétariat du Conseil du trésor du Canada, responsable de l’examen des dépenses, doit se plier à la Loi sur les langues officielles, à défaut de quoi les groupes minoritaires peuvent en pâtir.

C’est d’ailleurs ce qui s’est produit, selon lui.

«Je pense qu’on a eu suffisamment de plaintes vis-à-vis la restructuration de certaines institutions, l’élimination de certains services» pour l’affirmer, note-t-il en entrevue.

Rien n’indique que le gouvernement avait une stratégie pour s’assurer que les langues officielles soient respectées lors de la révision des dépenses. M. Fraser évoque par ailleurs une «certaine confusion» concernant qui était chargé de s’assurer que les obligations linguistiques soient respectées. Il déplore également un manque d’accès aux documents demandés par son équipe.

Source: Examen des dépenses: Ottawa a négligé les langues minoritaires, dit un rapport | Fannie Olivier | Politique canadienne

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All Pearson, no Pierre: Inside Trudeau’s inner circle – The Globe and Mail

2016/01/11 Leave a comment

Good series of articles and profiles of the 12 in PM Trudeau’s inner circle.

Applying the usual diversity measures, two-thirds are male, and one is visible minority (13 percent).

Will be interesting, once staffing is complete in PMO and Ministerial offices, to analyze the full picture, as staffers are one of the recruiting pools for future candidates (and the Liberals had recruited more visible minority candidates than other parties (16 percent compared to 13 percent for the CPC and NDP).

Source: All Pearson, no Pierre: Inside Trudeau’s inner circle – The Globe and Mail

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Canada, the country that nationalism side-swiped: Salutin | Toronto Star

2016/01/11 Leave a comment

Salutin on the perverse, counter-intuitive nature of Canadian nationalism:

Here’s where it starts to get paradoxical. Stephen Harper, during his reign, tried to become the voice of Canadian nationalism in the traditional, exclusivist sense. He promoted militarism, including symbols like the Highway of Heroes, and shopworn imperial imagery like the Royal Family. He promoted undercurrents of xenophobia, nativism and racism in his policies toward immigrants and especially refugees, who were despicably treated. These became overcurrents during the election, with his attacks on Muslim headgear, the “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line and revocable citizenship.

What’s fascinating is that Justin Trudeau didn’t oppose him by declaring he was anti-nationalist, as you’d have to in, say, Serbia or Hungary. He fought back as a Canadian nationalist, defining it in terms of tolerance or even, the glory of diversity — a sharp rebuttal to most contemporary nationalism. It also had weird echoes. Justin’s dad, Pierre, rejected Quebec nationalism as parochial but embraced Canadian nationalism as a way to fight it. When he ran against Tory leader Joe Clark in 1979, Trudeau père scorned Clark’s notion that Canada was just a “community of communities,” for being wishy-washy and contentless.

Yet that’s essentially what his son endorsed. Now picture Harper: beaten not only by the son of his most reviled Canadian predecessor; but by the son’s embrace of the vision of Harper’s most loathed Conservative antecedent, Joe Clark. It’s beyond Shakespearean. Who says we don’t have a colourful history?

If we’d been more successful in creating a robust, conventional Canadian nationalism, who knows — the country mightn’t have as handily beaten back the nasty nativism cultivated by Harper. It could have provided unintended grist for his mill. So the real strength of Canadian nationalism might turn out to be its relative weakness. We’re the land that nationalism side-swiped. Lucky us.

In his book, Benedict Anderson quoted Walter Benjamin’s passage on the angel of history — based on a Paul Klee print. The angel stands looking backward sadly as history’s failures and disasters pile up at his feet. So, as history’s wind blows him into the future, he can’t see, behind him, the progress that may be about to arrive. You could call it, back to the future, in a literal sense.

 Source: Canada, the country that nationalism side-swiped: Salutin | Toronto Star

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Behind the sunglasses: Harjit Sajjan’s rise to cabinet

2016/01/09 Leave a comment

Good profile on Harjit Sajjan (Canada’s new defence minister for foreign readers) – extract on immigration but long-piece worth reading:

In his early weeks as Trudeau’s defence minister, immigration figured prominently for Sajjan. His first pressing assignment was making sure the Canadian Forces contributed to the new government’s signature goal of bringing thousands of Syrian refugees to Canada quickly. Others might wonder how those Syrians will adjust, but Sajjan professes to have no doubts. “They’re going to be up and on their feet so fast—that’s how I remember it,” he says. “It’s not just about skills. It’s about the kind of people you bring in.” He sees the Syrian refugees as certain to be hard working, and their children as “the real immigration strategy.”

To hear him enthuse about the benefits of immigration for Canada, and the near certainty of newcomers achieving the Canadian dream, it’s possible to imagine that his own path might have been—those early berry-picking mornings notwithstanding—a smooth rise to success. That hasn’t been the case. Sajjan is a turban-wearing member of British Columbia’s Sikh minority, a community that has often attracted more than its share of bigotry from outside and been riven by more than its share of strife from within.

Sajjan talks of facing overt racism, particularly when he was training as a reservist in the Canadian military. As well, his entry into politics in 2014 as Liberal candidate in the Vancouver South riding revealed fault lines between Sikhs, although he says those tensions eased in 2015. He is one of four Sikhs in Trudeau’s cabinet—a remarkable contingent for a minority that represents only about 1.4 per cent of the country’s population. The others are Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Amarjeet Sohi and Small Business and Tourism Minister Bardish Chagger.

In his early weeks as Trudeau’s defence minister, immigration figured prominently for Sajjan. His first pressing assignment was making sure the Canadian Forces contributed to the new government’s signature goal of bringing thousands of Syrian refugees to Canada quickly. Others might wonder how those Syrians will adjust, but Sajjan professes to have no doubts. “They’re going to be up and on their feet so fast—that’s how I remember it,” he says. “It’s not just about skills. It’s about the kind of people you bring in.” He sees the Syrian refugees as certain to be hard working, and their children as “the real immigration strategy.”To hear him enthuse about the benefits of immigration for Canada, and the near certainty of newcomers achieving the Canadian dream, it’s possible to imagine that his own path might have been—those early berry-picking mornings notwithstanding—a smooth rise to success. That hasn’t been the case. Sajjan is a turban-wearing member of British Columbia’s Sikh minority, a community that has often attracted more than its share of bigotry from outside and been riven by more than its share of strife from within.Sajjan talks of facing overt racism, particularly when he was training as a reservist in the Canadian military. As well, his entry into politics in 2014 as Liberal candidate in the Vancouver South riding revealed fault lines between Sikhs, although he says those tensions eased in 2015. He is one of four Sikhs in Trudeau’s cabinet—a remarkable contingent for a minority that represents only about 1.4 per cent of the country’s population. The others are Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Amarjeet Sohi and Small Business and Tourism Minister Bardish Chagger.

….But given his background—from berry picking, to overcoming bigotry, to battling criminals and insurgents—Sajjan’s perspective is unique in many ways. If that first glimpse of him in a snapshot piqued our interest, it’s the layers behind the sunglasses and beneath the camouflage that make Sajjan a figure to watch as the Trudeau era unfolds.

Source: Behind the sunglasses: Harjit Sajjan’s rise to cabinet

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Why a coin celebrating female suffrage glosses over uncomfortable truths

2016/01/09 Leave a comment

Like all such debates, the value lies in the educational and learning value about history. But the coin is a welcome change from the previous government’s removal of any women (save the Queen) on paper money:

This week, a minor fracas erupted over perceived delays in the approval of new 2016 $1 coin celebrating a landmark in female suffrage in Canada: the 100th anniversary of Manitoba women being granted the right to vote in provincial elections. Approval of the Canadian Mint’s plans were apparently stalled in Cabinet in July under the Harper government before the federal election and were finally rubber-stamped by the new Trudeau cabinet in early December. Ignored in the ado is a bigger point: that, as wonderful as a coin celebrating female suffrage is, this new shiny token can’t help but gloss over the uncomfortable truth of just how racist, sexist and hard-won that achievement was.

A more accurate “historically commemorative” recognition of female suffrage in Canada would require the Mint to issue a boxed set of at least a dozen coins reflecting vast discrepancies, provincially and federally, in who received the vote and when. That, one would hope, would finally dispel the myth that Canadian women won the right to vote federally in 1918, which is both true and false. Inuit women weren’t given the federal vote until 1950. And wasn’t until 1960 that Ottawa extended the franchise to First Nations men and women. That means any coin properly commemorating all Canadian women being able to vote federally couldn’t be issued until 2060—hardly a shining beacon of a progressive Western democracy (by comparison, Australia was the first country in the world to give women both the right to vote in federal elections and the right to be elected to parliament on a national basis in 1902; New Zealand granted women the right to vote in 1893; the United States gave all female citizens the right to vote federally and in state elections in 1920).

Far more consoling is the feel-good takeaway from a coin that will boast “WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE”, in both official languages, and “1916-2016.”  Celebrations have been twinned to the release of five million commemorative coins in a few months’ time, Canadian Mint spokesperson Alexandre Reeves told Maclean’s: “Themes we choose often coincide with special commemoration plans of the government, which is certainly the case with women’s right to vote.”

Nancy Peckford, national spokesperson for Equal Voice, an Ottawa-based national multi-partisan organization dedicated to electing more women, welcomes the coin as an symbolic gesture that could usher in what she calls “an important and revealing conversation about women in this country.” The journey of women’s franchise in Canada in the provincial and territorial level is quite complex, says Peckford. “There is no one single anniversary, but 1916 was a watershed.”

In true provincial Canadian fashion, the right to vote reflects regional politics and values. That women in the Prairies were first to break provincial voting barriers (Manitoba was quickly followed by Saskatchewan and Alberta) is seen to reflect recognition of their equal involvement in settlement and homesteading. However, women in Quebec wouldn’t vote provincially until 1940—24 years later—the result of enduring opposition by legislators and prominent Catholic clergy.

Female suffrage federally provides another history lesson in perceived female status. The Wartimes Election Act of 1917 extended  the vote to women close to World War I front lines—nurses, women in the armed forces, and female relatives of military men. (Simultaneously, thousands of citizens naturalized after 1902 were disenfranchised.) The next year, all female “citizens” aged 21 and over became eligible to vote (whether or not they could vote provincially), provided they adhered to conditions set by Elections Canada: “age 21 or older, not alien-born and meet property requirements in provinces where they exist.” That firmly excluded Aboriginal peoples. (According to Elections Canada: “With the exception of veterans, The Dominion Franchise Act of 1934 explicitly disqualified First Nations persons living on reserves and Inuit people from voting in federal elections.”)

Source: Why a coin celebrating female suffrage glosses over uncomfortable truths

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StatsCan to unveil new ‘efficient’ long-form census for 2016

2016/01/08 Leave a comment

Good example of the public service doing its job and preparing for a possible change:

When the Liberals were sworn into office in November, one of their first orders of business was to announce the reinstatement of the long-form census.

The timeline seemed very tight — the first forms are to go out to residents in the North in February.

But Marc Hamel, the census program director general, says the agency had planned for risks associated with the 2016 census. One of those risks was if a new government decided to bring back the long questionnaire.

“It had already been in the public sphere that opposition parties last year were saying, if they were elected, they would bring back the mandatory long-form census, so we had started to look at how that would be possible,” Hamel said in an interview.

The agency decided to design the questionnaire in a more adaptable format.

Rather than sending selected households separate pieces of mail with the short form and then the National Household Survey, the questionnaires were integrated into one document.

“That design was going to be efficient and it was going to work for both approaches,” said Hamel. “From that perspective, no redesign was required. We were simply able to move ahead with the same questionnaires that we had already designed for 2016.”

Also, because most Canadians fill out the census online — 64 per cent in 2011 — changing details in a computer system was not a major overhaul.

The letter that accompanies the questionnaires will allow the agency to underline that the long part is mandatory again. Census staff will also drive home the message.

Fewer people will have to fill out the long form than last time, one in four households rather than one in three with the NHS. Statistics Canada has had to print more short-form questionnaires as a result of the change.

The agency doesn’t think it will save money with fewer people getting the bigger package. It expects it will have more responses to process because of the return to the mandatory format.

The main challenge will come from adjusting to the data logistics of bringing back the long-form census. Bar codes help the agency keep track of where they drop off which forms and some of that work will have to be rejigged.

There will also be a public awareness campaign to make sure that people realize they need to fill out the forms. Hamel says the agency never really emphasizes the penalties associated with not filling out the forms — a $500 fine or up to three months in jail, or both.

“Census information is really important, and that’s where we put the focus,” said Hamel.

“What do we use the census information for, why is it important for communities, and why is it important for people to participate.”

Source: StatsCan to unveil new ‘efficient’ long-form census for 2016 – The Globe and Mail

And one of the new challenges:

Quinn Nelson wants to be counted in the 2016 long-form census, but when it comes to the question of gender identity there’s a problem: Nelson is transgender and identifies as neither male nor female.

“As a non-binary person, often when I fill out forms there’s only two options given to me and that’s not enough for me,” Nelson said in an interview on CBC’s Power & Politics.

In November, Nelson wrote an email to Navdeep Bains, the minister responsible for Statistics Canada and the census. Nelson didn’t want to violate the law by not filling out the questionnaire.

The University of Calgary sociology student also wanted to make sure Statistics Canada was going to provide an accurate reflection of the country.

The census assumes that 100 per cent of the respondents can answer that they are either male or female, “and that’s not accurate,” Nelson said.

“The census is used by a lot of policy makers, sociologists and government officials to make decisions. They really need to know what their population is. That’s the point of the census.”

….Bains hasn’t responded to Nelson, but Statistics Canada did. Deputy chief statistician Connie Graziadei said the 2016 census questionnaire had already been approved and published, but there is an option for Nelson.

“I was told to answer neither, to leave the question blank; also to answer in the comments why I found the question inadequate.”

Transgender student says some Canadians need 3rd option for gender on census

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Diversity of Senate Appointments – Comparing Chrétien and Harper

2016/01/06 Leave a comment

Senate Appointments.001Given the push for gender parity and greater diversity in upcoming Senate appointments (see Trudeau urged to create gender-balanced Senate), I thought it might be interesting to compare the Chrétien and Harper records with respect to diversity.

Chrétien, with his 75 appointments, achieved close to parity for women, with aboriginal peoples slightly over-represented. Visible minorities were under-represented, however.

Harper with his 57 appointments, in contrast, slightly over-represented visible minorities while under-representing women and aboriginal peoples (the fewer number of appointments over a comparable time period reflects his decision to stop appointing senators in response to the Duffy and other scandals).

Will see what PM Trudeau and the advisory body come up with.

John Ibbitson’s take on how gender parity would result in a more ‘progressive’ Senate:

 The other reason Trudeau would want gender parity in the Senate 

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Justin Trudeau Urged By Advisers To Be Innovative In Era Of Big Change

2016/01/06 Leave a comment

Not easy challenges:

Justin Trudeau’s advisers are warning that the federal government needs to do a better job of connecting with Canadians — especially online — in order to keep pace with ever-evolving public expectations.

The new landscape is being shaped by policy complexity, rapid technological change, limited finances and increasing demands for citizen involvement, say internal briefing memos prepared for the prime minister.

More and more, people expect the government to include them early and often in the design of policy and programming choices that affect them, say the notes, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
“There is a gap in Canada between how citizens communicate with each other and with private sector service providers (e.g. banks) and their experience with the federal government,” says one memo.

In order to remain relevant to Canadians, the government needs to focus on delivering high-quality, factual digital content.

However, government is often bogged down by red tape, the need for signoffs from various layers of management and barriers to effectively spending money and assigning people to tasks, the notes say.

The memos point out other problems and hurdles:

  • the access-to-information system that allows people to make formal requests for government files is “time-consuming and expensive to administer”;
  • Canadians are “broadly concerned and uncertain” of how the government uses their personal information, whether it be for law enforcement, national security or other purposes;
  • the government is grappling with cyberthreats to its information holdings from so-called ‘hacktivists,’ criminals and others.

The notes suggest updating the outmoded 2006 federal communications policy to reflect the “voracious demand” from Canadians for online information and the rising use of mobile devices.

Information published on the prime minister’s website and social media accounts must be factually accurate and non-partisan — tenets that should be enshrined in a new communications policy, the advisers say.

Government advertising is seen to be “partisan in nature” at times, another shortcoming that must be addressed in the revised policy, the notes stress.

The Conservative government was pilloried by critics for lavish multimillion-dollar ad campaigns that seemed to convey little useful information.

The Privy Council Office is already working with Treasury Board officials to ensure potential amendments to the policy include “clear accountabilities for non-partisanship” when it comes to ads.

Source: Justin Trudeau Urged By Advisers To Be Innovative In Era Of Big Change

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ICYMI: How the federal government centralized under the Tories

2016/01/06 Leave a comment

Potential reasons for the increased centralization:

Several months before then-prime minister Stephen Harper called the 2015 federal election, the size of the federal workforce dipped below 314,000 — practically the same level as during the earliest months of his nearly decade-long reign.

But there was nothing remotely stable about what happened in between, when federal departments and agencies swiftly added more than 65,000 workers, then just as quickly cut the positions that had been created.

The topsy-turvy environment did little for efficiency, morale or clear thinking. But one unexpected result was a pronounced centralization of government in the National Capital Region.

It was a surprise because the Conservatives are strongest in the regions and outside the urban core, and might have been expected to shift some government operations away from the capital.

Yet the percentage of federal government employees working in Ottawa-Gatineau jumped to 39.3 per cent of the total last May from 33 per cent in May 2006, according to data supplied by Statistics Canada. The numbers are unadjusted for seasonal influences, but they are compiled using three-month moving averages to smooth out fluctuations.

Since May, the centralizing trend has reversed somewhat, but this reflects the one-time impact of the Oct. 19 federal election — which featured a mini-hiring boom of election helpers, mostly outside the capital region. Even so, the number of federal government workers in Ottawa-Gatineau — 131,500 in November — was 38.4 per cent of the total.

The question is: Why did the concentration here rise? It’s unlikely top bureaucrats deliberately set out to achieve this result.

….This is in sharp contrast with the situation in the late 1990s, when the federal government last embarked on a major downsizing. At the peak of the tech boom, the percentage of the federal government workforce based in Ottawa-Gatineau slipped to just 30 per cent of the total, as many former government employees jumped to fast-growing firms in the private sector.

Another factor that might have supported the recent centralizing pattern has to do with the internal politics of federal departments. Employees close to the head office are likely better able to safeguard positions here — or to identify other positions in the capital that might soon come open.

Whatever the reasons for the move to the government core, it presents the new Liberal administration with an interesting choice. The government’s spending plans suggest more hiring is in store for federal workers. Liberal cabinet ministers might find it difficult to resist the urge to steer new hiring to where the economy is weakest.

I would not underestimate the internal politics or dynamics which tend to guard headquarters more than regions.

Source: How the federal government centralized under the Tories | Ottawa Citizen

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