Elkouri: Laïcité de l’ÉtatCe qui répugne à Gérard Bouchard

2026/11/11 2 Comments

Moi aussi:

…Rappelons que le rapport Bouchard-Taylor recommandait d’interdire le port de signes religieux non pas à n’importe quelle personne considérée comme en situation d’autorité, mais uniquement aux agents publics détenant un pouvoir de coercition et autorisés à exercer une violence à l’endroit d’un citoyen.

Que des étudiantes portant un foulard soient aujourd’hui forcées d’abandonner leur projet de travailler dans une école illustre une dérive dont les conséquences sont graves, croit le sociologue.

« Je me demande si les auteurs de la loi et ceux et celles qui l’ont adoptée se rendent bien compte des conséquences désastreuses que cela peut avoir sur la vie personnelle de citoyens et de citoyennes qui sont parfaitement légitimes, qui veulent s’intégrer au Québec et qui, un jour, occuperont des postes de responsabilité dont nous avons bien besoin. »

Pour Gérard Bouchard, l’appareil théorique et législatif qui a conduit à une telle dérive est vraiment « vicié ». « C’est tout à fait inacceptable. C’est même un peu révoltant quand on voit où ça peut conduire. »

Bien qu’il soit contre la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État, sur laquelle la Cour suprême devrait bientôt se prononcer, Gérard Bouchard ne renie en rien ses convictions souverainistes. « Même si le jugement de la Cour suprême allait dans le sens de mes positions, je serais quand même toujours très opposé à ce qu’une instance fédérale se mêle de nos affaires. »

Le sociologue considère que le scandale de l’école Bedford était « très évidemment un prétexte malicieux pour saisir l’occasion de donner un tour de vis à une politique qui était déjà discriminatoire et qui l’est donc encore davantage ».

Rappelons que parmi les professeurs mis en cause à l’école Bedford, on comptait des hommes musulmans qui ne portaient aucun signe religieux, ce qui, visiblement, n’a garanti ni leur neutralité ni leur professionnalisme. Rappelons aussi qu’il s’est écoulé sept ans avant que les premiers signaux d’alarme concernant l’incompétence et le zèle idéologique d’enseignants de cette école poussent les autorités scolaires à sévir. Une nonchalance insensée qui ne s’explique pas par un manque d’outils légaux en matière de laïcité, mais bien par un manque de courage.

Qu’une politique encore plus discriminatoire prive désormais des jeunes femmes désirant travailler dans une école de contribuer à la société comme elles le voudraient rebute Gérard Bouchard.

Source: Laïcité de l’État Ce qui répugne à Gérard Bouchard

…Let’s recall that the Bouchard-Taylor report recommended banning the wearing of religious signs not to any person considered in a position of authority, but only to public officials holding coercive power and authorized to exercise violence against a citizen.

The fact that students wearing a scarf are today forced to abandon their plan to work in a school illustrates a trend whose consequences are serious, the sociologist believes.

“I wonder if the authors of the law and those who adopted it are fully aware of the disastrous consequences that this could have on the personal lives of citizens who are perfectly legitimate, who want to integrate into Quebec and who, one day, will hold positions of responsibility that we really need. ”

For Gérard Bouchard, the theoretical and legislative apparatus that led to such a drift is really “corrupted.” “It is completely unacceptable. It is even a little revolting when you see where it can lead. ”

Although he is against the State Secularism Law, on which the Supreme Court is expected to soon decide, Gérard Bouchard does not deny his sovereigntist convictions in any way. “Even if the Supreme Court’s judgment goes in the direction of my positions, I would still be very opposed to a federal body interfering in our affairs.” ”

The sociologist considers that the Bedford school scandal was “very obviously a mischievous pretext to seize the opportunity to give a blow to a policy that was already discriminatory and is therefore even more so”.

Let us remember that among the teachers implicated at Bedford School, there were Muslim men who did not wear any religious symbols, which, obviously, did not guarantee their neutrality or professionalism. We should also recall that it took seven years before the first alarm signals regarding the incompetence and ideological zeal of teachers at this school prompted the school authorities to take action. This senseless nonchalance cannot be explained by a lack of legal tools regarding secularism, but rather by a lack of courage.

Gérard Bouchard is now disgusted that a more discriminatory policy is now preventing young women who want to work in a school from contributing to society as they would like.

Filed under Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Su | GTA election results show how immigrants are shaping communities

2026/11/10 Leave a comment

I think the lack of significant differences among generations, including non-immigrants and “old-stock” Canadians is one of the more significant findings:

…The swing back suggests a welcoming country that has lost confidence in how the system was being run, after years in which population growth outpaced housing and services. And the data support this. Among those who still say there is too much immigration, the most common explanations are that it is poorly managed by the government and that it hurts the economy. Meanwhile, 3-in-4 Canadians say immigration has a positive economic impact.

On the numbers, the generations barely differ. Between 46 and 52 per cent of first-generation immigrants, and their Canadian-born children say there is too much immigration, close to the national figure.

On values, they split. Asked whether too many newcomers are not adopting Canadian values, 63 per cent of first-generation immigrants agree, more than any other generation. Among the second generation, it is 52 per cent.

This is an old pattern. Immigrants who chose Canada often believe in it more fiercely than people born here. A Statistics Canada study found immigrants more likely than the Canadian-born to say Canadians share values like human rights and diversity, while those who arrived as children see things much like everyone else.

Anyone raised in an immigrant family, like I was, will recognize the result. Newcomers who worked hard to belong hold new arrivals to standards they set for themselves. Their children, who grew up in classrooms where diversity was ordinary, take it for granted. Every generation of newcomers becomes, in some measure, the gatekeeper for the next.

Future gatekeepers

What is changing is who those gatekeepers will be. Statistics Canada projects that by 2041, immigrants and their Canadian-born children will make up 52.4 per cent of the population under its main scenario, up from 40 per cent in 2016. Those projections were made before Ottawa announced cuts to immigration levels in 2024, so the crossover may come later. But the composition has already shifted.

In 1971, 12 per cent of recent immigrants were born in Asia, including the Middle East. By 2021, 62 per cent were. By 2041, Statistics Canada expects 1-in-4 Canadians to have been born in Asia or Africa. The immigrant-origin majority of the 2040s will look very different from the one that produced Lastman and Crombie.

Yet, Canada’s future majority will not be a voting bloc. It will be a conversation between generations, with different memories of arrival and differing ideas of what belonging requires.

Chow, Tedjo and Brown are living proof of what welcome makes possible. But leaders are not the whole story. When my children are old enough to answer the Environics survey, I hope they remember that someone once had to make room for each side of their family, and that it will soon be their turn to make room for others.

Source: Opinion | GTA election results show how immigrants are shaping communities

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Renzetti | DEI wins the midterms

2026/11/06 Leave a comment

Nice turn of events after all the nastiness:

…It’s not surprising that the women who won gubernatorial races ran on platforms of restoring public education and opposing data centres. They listened to constituents who are worried about their children’s futures and feel powerless to stop big money rushing in to buy up land in their states. Each of the candidates promoted a people-centred vision of what the future could look like.

These candidates didn’t run solely on their identities. They might even disavow the term DEI, which has been effectively degraded to the status of a leper’s bell — but they represent its value anyway. They ran on economic populism, affordability, the price of groceries, protecting reproductive choice, shoring up education. Each of them spent years in the trenches of public service — serving on school boards, public-health agencies, municipal councils. Not one of them is a billionaire. That’s identity too.

The last decade has been exhausting, watching our southern neighbours turn on each other, and on their most vulnerable. We’ve been forced to watch Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue on an endless loop. It seemed like jackal politics might be in the ascendant forever.

That’s why it was so joyful to wake up to new faces, and new possibilities. Big money got defeated in this election, alongside big tech. Expertise, hustle and lived experience won. A different vision of power won.

Source: Opinion | DEI wins the midterms

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Using ChatGPT to analyze open data immigration tables

2026/11/05 Leave a comment

For my quarterly updates, I have been working on how best to compile and analyze the various tables in a more time-efficient manner. Next quarter report will largely use ChatGPT for data tables rather than my previous manual approach.

As an example, the prompt I use for country of citizenship analysis is the following:

Using the following excel file INSERT LINK, prepare a table of quarterly statistics, header row to be quarter, header column to be country, organized from highest to lowest in 2018. Top row should be Canada total. Create separate data table for the top 25 countries, 2018 basis. Create subsequent tables that shows year over year percentage change and one that shows two-year changes. Prepare additional table showing annual comparisons in numbers, and same year-over-year and two year comparison.

Prepare a comparative annual year-to-date table as well.

Ensure thousand separators for numbers with percentages to one decimal place.

Freeze header columns and rows (Country and Canada).

Create one separate table that provides a regional summary, where the six rows are Canada, Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe, Oceania, with the top rows being numbers and below rows by percentage of Canadian total. No separate individual region views.

And here is the result:

IRCC_IMP_CITZ_quarterly_and_annual_tablesDownload

One of the better uses I have found for AI. Saves me from learning python (and yes, ChatGPT also creates python scripts).

Filed under Multiculturalism

Belleville synagogue members call for increased focus on counter-radicalization

2026/11/05 2 Comments

Not surprising. Given the relative number of “lone wolves,” not sure which approaches would be most effective:

…The government released a strategy on countering radicalization to violence in 2018.

The implementation of it falls to the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. The Canada Centre, as it is known, has distributed millions in grants for counter-radicalization programming in the last eight years.

But the funding streams for the programs appear scheduled to soon dry up.

The Public Safety Department’s 2026-27 departmental plan, for example, notes the “maturation” of funding for the Canada Centre as being linked to the loss of 17 full-time equivalent positions.

Noah Shack, the chief executive officer of the advocacy group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said at the news conference that he hopes Thursday’s federal budget renews and increases the funding.

He said those who work in counter-radicalization efforts say a common thread among those susceptible to violent extremism is hatred of Jews.

“So we know that in confronting antisemitism, we are getting at the root of a larger problem,” he said.

Source: Belleville synagogue members call for increased focus on counter-radicalization

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Fighting accent bias is everyone’s job, not just accented speakers’

2026/11/03 Leave a comment

Of note. Reasonable recommendations although it may be harder for some in certain vulnerable situations like healthcare:

…Because there are few practical tools available, we conclude with three steps anyone can take:

Focus on what people are saying, not how they’re saying it.Asking an accented speaker where they’re from, or commenting on their accent, may seem harmless. But both shift attention away from the speaker’s message.

Listen with patience and empathy. Even if a person speaks with an accent, you can probably understand them. And if there is a word or phrase that you don’t catch, just ask.

Get to know accented speakers. The more you interact, the better you’ll understand them.

How would you respond when you experience accent bias?

Source: Fighting accent bias is everyone’s job, not just accented speakers’

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

LoP: Employment Equity in Canada’s Federal Public Service

2026/10/30 Leave a comment

Useful primer. Revising the EE Act appears to be lessor priority for government:

Employment equity is the principle of correcting disadvantages and removing barriers that certain groups face to entering, remaining in or advancing in the workforce. Since 1996, the Employment Equity Act (the Act) has been the main tool for advancing this principle in Canada’s federal public service.

Among other measures, the Act requires monitoring the representation of four “designated groups” in the federal public service: women, “Aboriginal peoples,” “persons with disabilities,” and “members of visible minorities.”

Criticisms of the Act include the fact that it is limited to these four designated groups, uses outdated language in describing them and does little to encourage analysis of how multiple aspects of one’s identity may affect workplace experiences.

Recent data show progress in promoting all four groups within the public service. These data also suggest that all designated groups except people with disabilities have consistently been hired at rates that exceed their workforce availability.

However, the salaries of employees of designated groups are generally lower than those of other public servants. In addition, the groups and metrics chosen by the Act can mask other forms of inequality, including intersectional impacts within subgroups – such as specific ethnic groups within the broader “visible minorities” category – or inequalities faced by groups about which the Act is silent, such as two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and other sexually and gender‑diverse employees.

A 2023 report commissioned by the Minister of Labour issued 187 recommendations for modernization of the Act, including several significant legislative changes. The report was followed by similar recommendations by the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Despite initial agreement by the government at that time on several of these recommendations, no legislative changes have since been made.

Source: Employment Equity in Canada’s Federal Public Service

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Jewish community in Canada facing unprecedented threats, security officials warn

2026/10/30 Leave a comment

Of note:

Senior Canadian national-security officials are warning that the Jewish community in Canada is facing unprecedented and unparalleled threats, both in severity and number, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

The officials told The Globe and Mail that the speed of radicalization in this country is creating risks to the Jewish community at a pace not seen since after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Officials from CSIS, the RCMP, Public Safety Canada and the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre said a convergence of threats now faces the Jewish community: white nationalists, people inspired by Islamic terrorist groups, threats from Iran, and online communities that specifically target young people to persuade them to carry out violent acts.

The Globe is not naming the officials because of the sensitive and often classified nature of their work….

Source: Jewish community in Canada facing unprecedented threats, security officials warn

Filed under Multiculturalism, Antisemitism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Rob Breakenridge: Danielle Smith bans DEI hiring, daring the NDP to oppose

2026/10/30 2 Comments

Virtue signalling as much as substance:

In the current political climate, it’s not likely a coincidence that the Alberta government is prioritizing the fight against woke, progressive politics — specifically, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

As we’ve observed through previous policy initiatives, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is no fan of DEI ideology. Tuesday’s announcement that the government has tabled Bill 33, the justice statutes amendment act, is the latest — and most significant — step to rid the public sector and other government agencies of woke policies.

Among other things, it mandates merit-based hiring within the public sector and other regulated provincial bodies — including post-secondary institutions, municipalities and, potentially, organizations that receive government funding.

The Alberta Human Rights Act will be amended to remove Section 10.1, which currently allows for hiring practices aimed at “the amelioration of the conditions of disadvantaged persons or classes of disadvantaged persons.”

Instead, hiring and promotion decisions will be based on merit and job requirements, with certain, limited exceptions — basically a situation where a specific characteristic is deemed to be a bona fide occupational requirement….

The United Conservatives are more than happy to engage on this political turf, and they’re almost daring the NDP to oppose this bill and to publicly align themselves with DEI policies. It remains to be seen whether the Opposition will take the bait, but it could put New Democrats on the defensive if their aim is to restore such hiring policies and mandates.

Again, the government would seem to have public opinion on its side, and the pendulum is already swinging away from the more aggressive implementation of these policies in recent years.

In fact, that backlash may be so pronounced that the push-back against Bill 33 could turn out to be relatively muted. That would mean a smoother implementation of what the government sees as better policy, but it would also defuse the potency of this issue as a culture war rallying cry for Smith and the UCP.

Source: Rob Breakenridge: Danielle Smith bans DEI hiring, daring the NDP to oppose

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Globe editorial: The PQ sees a dire threat: schoolchildren

2026/10/29 2 Comments

Sigh. Same misguided thinking as per parent volunteers:

…Many Quebeckers could view it as an oppressive federal decision that threatens their autonomy and culture. It would be a gift to the PQ as it attempts to hold an independence referendum, says Western University history professor Jeffery Vacante.

Muslim groups have spoken out against the proposed ban. Other religious groups and civil society organizations should also make it clear that targeting children for their religious beliefs is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, escalating intolerance has become the norm inside the PQ in recent years. When Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon launched his PQ leadership campaign in 2016, he criticized the party’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which aimed to prohibit public servants from wearing religious symbols, saying that the PQ should apologize for its actions and become a party for all Quebeckers, regardless of their mother tongue or religion. He would be wise to reflect on the wisdom of his own words.

Quebec’s culture and language are important, and measures need to be taken to ensure they stay strong. But the PQ doesn’t need to do so by repressing cultures and religions that are part of the province’s fabric. And especially not by targeting schoolchildren.

Source: The PQ sees a dire threat: schoolchildren

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