CPC Petition: DEI spending and government waste needs to DIE

2025/10/16 Leave a comment

Virtue signalling for their base and fundraising as a party petition, not one to be tabled in the House of Commons:

Whereas the Liberals are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on bloated Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs;

Whereas the Liberal government has wasted $1.049 billion on DEI bureaucracy while Canadians struggle to make ends meet;

Whereas research funding must reward the best ideas – not identity checkboxes;

Whereas by tying research funding to identity politics, the Liberals are undermining academic freedom, silencing dissenting voices, and eroding trust in Canadian institutions;

Whereas this Liberal government is out of touch, wasting billions on bureaucracy and ideological projects while Canadians face the highest cost of living in decades.

Therefore, we the undersigned support the Conservative plan to restore fiscal discipline, end the billion-dollar DEI bureaucracies, and put taxpayer dollars into services Canadians actually need.

    Source: DEI spending and government waste needs to DIE, Star article Diversity, equity and inclusion are coming under scrutiny — and Pierre Poilievre is ready to push the conversation

    Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

    ICYMI – Chan: Religious literacy can help Quebec balance identity and inclusion

    2025/10/15 Leave a comment

    Of course, this works both ways, the religiously devote also need secular literacy to engage meaningfully in a a pluralistic society:

    …In a world where religious and ideological polarization is growing, with three in 10 countries experiencing high levels of restrictions or social hostilities involving religion, religious literacy is not an academic luxury; it is a necessity. Over 84 per cent of the global population identifies with a religion, and, even in Quebec where laïcitéis cherished, religion continues to shape values and policies. As the Bouchard-Taylor Commission warned, “Ignorance of religious traditions fosters misunderstanding and social tension.”

    Religious literacy enables devout Quebecers to deepen their faith, helps the religious understand their cultural heritage and equips the secular with tools to engage meaningfully in a pluralistic society.

    Religious literacy addresses Quebec’s challenges with integration and polarization. As the province welcomes newcomers from diverse backgrounds – Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and others – understanding their worldviews is critical for social harmony and cohesion. It helps deconstruct stereotypes surrounding religious and cultural practices and encourages constructive dialogue around accommodations. Through mutual understanding of the ABCs of belief systems, Quebecers can bridge divides, whether in cosmopolitan Montreal or rural regions with deep Catholic roots.

    To promote religious literacy, Quebec and Canada should integrate it into educational curricula and public awareness initiatives, empowering youth and adults to navigate diversity with empathy and awareness.

    W.Y. Alice Chan, PhD, is the executive director and co-founder of the Centre for Civic Religious Literacy, a non-religious, non-profit organization. She holds a master’s degree in teaching from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and a doctorate in education from McGill University.

    Source: Religious literacy can help Quebec balance identity and inclusion

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    Ahmad: Zohran Mamdani and How to Be a ‘Good’ Muslim in America

    2025/10/14 2 Comments

    Good long read on Mamdani and being Muslim in America:

    …But Muslims have been made to grin and bear it in America for more than two decades. Watching Mr. Mamdani stand unwaveringly in the face of a stream of anti-Muslim abuse is to witness the distillation of that dynamic in a single person. I’d be lying if I said I think his fate in this particular matter will improve over time. It is a certainty that Mr. Mamdani, if he wins the mayoralty, will have to contend with even more Islamophobic slurs, on a national scale.

    In the face of this, it’s easy to become cynical, even as his popularity marks a moment of triumph for Muslims. Mr. Mamdani sees it differently.

    “I used to be quite consumed by forever being a minority — of being an Indian in Uganda, Muslim in India, all of these things in New York City,” he said to me. It’s a sentiment he’s had to express often over the course of his campaign. It’s at once well rehearsed and heartfelt. “I remember my father telling me that to be a minority is also to see the truth of the place, to see promise and to see the contradictions of it.”

    Mr. Mamdani finds hope in that tension.

    “I was always left with a cleareyed sense of the world that I was in,” he said, “and how to ensure that the contradiction of that world didn’t leave you with a sense of bitterness.”

    Meher Ahmad is an editor in the Opinion section.

    Source: Zohran Mamdani and How to Be a ‘Good’ Muslim in America

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    Trudeau set a high bar on diversity in appointments. Will Carney match it?

    2025/10/06 Leave a comment

    I started collecting this data in early 2016 as I was curious to see how the “because its 2015” cabinet gender parity and the “government’s commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that Indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership” in ministerial mandate letters would translate in practice. This analysis demonstrates that this is one area where the Trudeau government delivered:

    The Trump administration’s assault on diversity in government appointments is undoing years of progress in the United States toward more equitable representation in key positions of power. It stands in sharp contrast to the trend established by the Trudeau government over the last 10 years, which saw diversity in Senate, judicial, governor-in-council and heads-of-mission appointments increase dramatically.

    Given this tension, it is fair to wonder what approach Prime Minister Mark Carney will adopt when it comes to diversity in government appointments. What is clear, as we explore below, is that the Trudeau government has given Carney an impressive challenge to match. But will he?

    Trudeau delivered on diversity

    Nearly a decade after the Trudeau government came to office promising gender parity in cabinet and a commitment to diversity, the data clearly shows that this was a promise largely kept.

    Diversity as currently defined and measured by the Government of Canada includes women, Indigenous, visible minorities and persons with disabilities. They also increasingly report on LGBTQ+. Here’s an overview of the Trudeau government’s key contributions to improving diversity in government appointments:

    • Women formed the majority of Trudeau Senate, judicial, and governor-in-council (GIC) appointments.
    • Visible minority representation quintupled among judicial appointments and more than doubled among GIC appointments, tripling for deputy ministers.
    • Senate visible minority appointments only increased slightly compared to the Harper government.
    • Indigenous representation more than quintupled among Senate appointments, more than doubled among judicial appointments and tripled among deputy ministers.

    Where readily available, this analysis also shows dramatic increases for LGBTQ+ and moderate increases for persons with disability.

    The general benchmark comparisons are the overall percentages of the population: 50.9 per cent women, 26.5 per cent visible minorities, and five per cent Indigenous Peoples. For appointments requiring Canadian citizenship (Senate, judges, the majority of governor-in-council, heads of mission), the benchmark for visible minorities who are citizens is 19.5 per cent.

    The following series of tables contrast the 2016 baseline with 2024 data….

    Source: Trudeau set a high bar on diversity in appointments. Will Carney match it?

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    ‘Allah will burn them’: What pro-Palestinian students and allies say when they think no one is watching

    2025/09/12 Leave a comment

    Deplorable posts and comments. But discussion of university response interesting and the administrators try to navigate an extremely divisive issue and student behaviour:

    …Before bringing their trove of information to the Post, the Jewish students tried to go through university channels to address the concerning rhetoric shared in the group chats.

    On Aug. 9, 2024, one of their lawyers, Jonathan Rosenthal, filed on their behalf a 17-page complaint to the university, distilling the nature of the comments on the group chat.

    Yet there was never a formal investigation because the Jewish students were unwilling to identify themselves as complainants.

    Western’s associate vice president of human resources, Jane O’Brien, confirmed receipt of the complaint. In a response several days days later she requested Rosenthal “identify the students involved” and outline any incident alleged to be “a breach of the Code of Student Conduct,” according to an email thread shared with the Post.

    O’Brien also informed Rosenthal that concerns about the Palestinian student club’s campus status should be directed to the student union, the University Students’ Council.

    “I will NOT be disclosing the names of the complainants,” Rosenthal replied Sept. 3, citing “safety concerns.” The lawyer said providing their names “is simply irrelevant” and requested the university investigate the matter promptly. Rosenthal emailed O’Brien the following week, but didn’t hear back until Sept. 13.

    “Though your email indicates that the complaint provides student names and phone numbers, no such information appears to be included. Furthermore, the supporting documentation is comprised solely of what appears to be copied text, the origins of which are not demonstrated,” Foster continued.

    Foster underscored that the university prioritizes the safety of complainants and “until such time as you provide the requested information, Western will not be able to proceed with your complaint.”

    Rosenthal tried to meet Foster in the middle.

    He shared a dossier with a trove of time-stamped data — WhatsApp messages, pictures, videos, phone numbers, screenshots and names — from the group chat but reaffirmed his clients would not publicly identify themselves.

    “The chats speak for themselves,” Rosenthal answered Foster on Sept. 17.

    Despite trading emails with the university for more than a month, Western wouldn’t budge.

    The university defended its handling of the situation in a written statement to the Post. Western spokesman Stephen Ledgley said the complaint, “lacked sufficient information to proceed with an  investigation, such as identifying any student connected to the alleged conduct.”

    He added that the “complaint and supporting documentation submitted were reviewed in detail to determine if an investigation could be pursued based on the information provided alone,” however, “there was insufficient information to proceed.”

    Rosenthal’s dealings with the University Students’ Council, the student union, followed a similar pattern. His unwillingness to name the complainants remained the key sticking point. In his email exchanges with both groups, each pointed him to the other, rather than deal with the substance of the complaint.

    He eventually shared the same dossier of information with Shari Bumpus, the union manager overseeing the student community, outlining several specific alleged violations of union policy dealing with fostering “an inclusive and welcoming environment” and anti-discrimination, but did not hear back.

    It’s a response the union defends.

    “The USC and Western University are two distinct entities with distinct jurisdictions,” spokeswoman Rebecca Rebeiro wrote the Post in a statement. “The USC was made aware of the anonymous complaint and conducted an investigation to determine if it fell within its jurisdiction. When it was determined this complaint was outside its scope, the USC referred the complaint over to Western University’s Student Code of Conduct Office.”

    It’s an approach one Jewish advocacy group says is unconscionable.

    “The content of the chats was shown to us. Based on what we’ve seen, we believe that the content is dangerous,” Richard Marceau, general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), wrote to the Post.

    “The individuals involved shared violent threats, antisemitic slurs, and grotesque conspiracy theories, all while joking about how to evade university accountability using disappearing messages,” he added, imploring Western to investigate the matter.

    Source: ‘Allah will burn them’: What pro-Palestinian students and allies say when they think no one is watching

    Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

    Employers And Immigrants May Fear Immigration Service’s New Powers

    2025/09/12 Leave a comment

    Valid concerns:

    Employers and immigrants may soon fear the expanded law enforcement authorities claimed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The new rule and the announcement that USCIS officers can carry firearms are the most recent steps to transform the agency into a different entity, away from one founded to adjudicate benefit applications and provide services to the public. In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing, new USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said, “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.”

    Rule Grants Immigration Service New Law Enforcement Authorities

    On September 5, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security amended its regulations to “codify certain law enforcement authorities delegated” by the DHS secretary to the USCIS director and “subsequently redelegated to particular officers or employees of USCIS.” According to the rule, “These authorities allow particular USCIS personnel to investigate and enforce civil and criminal violations of the immigration laws within the jurisdiction of USCIS. These authorities include, but are not limited to, the issuance and execution of warrants, the arrest of individuals, and carrying of firearms.”

    Immigration attorneys are alarmed at USCIS giving itself these new authorities under the DHS rule. “The recent changes at USCIS make the immigration process more intimidating,” said Dan Berger of Green & Spiegel in an interview. “Employers offer green card sponsorship as a recruitment and retention tool for key talent. That sponsorship increasingly involves an in-person interview, with the possibility of interacting with armed USCIS agents. This comes after months of images of masked ICE agents on television.”

    Chris Thomas of Holland & Hart said USCIS officers will now have the authority to execute warrants, make arrests and investigate civil and criminal violations of immigration law. He said in an interview that by operating more like Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement it opens “a new universe of potential exposure for employers and their lawyers.”

    A Department of Justice memo issued to all employees on February 5, 2025, directed federal prosecutors to prioritize and accept all immigration-related referrals or explain in “Urgent Reports” to headquarters why the cases were not pursued. Companies could face criminal charges in cases that the DOJ may not have pursued in the past.

    “Will the goal be to bring wild cases against companies and employers to chill benefits-related immigration, or will only the obvious and egregious cases be pursued? Only time will tell,” said Thomas.

    Thomas expects an increase in employee arrests, an expansion of onsite visits by USCIS Fraud Detection & National Security officers, including at the home office of employees working remotely, and an expansion of criminal liability and reputational exposure for employers. He recommends that employers review their policies, inform staff and prepare for site visits. He said one area USCIS could focus on is work performed at customer sites by individuals in H-1B status. In Donald Trump’s first term, USCIS officials issued memos and took unsuccessful regulatory action against such work.

    Source: Employers And Immigrants May Fear Immigration Service’s New Powers

    Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

    Multiculturalism has lost its meaning: Michael Bonner for Inside Policy

    2025/09/10 2 Comments

    Sort of a repeat of the criticisms of the 1990s. I think he underplays the importance of groups like Ukrainian Canadians who didn’t see recognition of their role in settling the West in the English/French narratives and that the original thinking in the Bi&Bi report, reflected in the policy and the 1988 Act, reflected a largely white, Christian Canada.

    Most of the accommodation issues pertain to religion which were largely undiscussed at that time. Since then, of course, immigration has resulted in much greater religious diversity.

    I think Bonner understates the integrative role of multiculturalism. Objectives like “full and equitable participation,” “equal treatment and equal protection,” “interaction between individuals and communities,” and “strengthening the status and use of the official languages” are fundamentally about integration.  

    So yes, back to its roots would be helpful as would correction of the excesses of the Trudeau government (which the expected cutbacks will likely impact).

    But citing first millennial Britain as an example, where mobility, communications and transportation were limited, not to mention no internet or social media, is odd to say the least:

    …We might conclude that multicultural policy has been pushed to an illogical extreme, or that an originally good and well-intentioned policy has been perverted. There is, however, a sense in which any official policy of multiculturalism is inherently superfluous and bound to fail. It is superfluous because all societies everywhere are multicultural in one sense or another. There is no country without local and regional diversity in culture, food, language, accent, dialect, and so on; and these differences tend to be robust over time. It is bound to fail because, in the long run, the general culture of a place will tend to become more and more homogenous.

    Those two observations are not contradictory. A demonstrative example is Great Britain: a place repeatedly invaded and settled by various peoples over the first millennium AD, which nevertheless developed a common British identity as well as multiple, subsidiary national and regional cultures long before 20th century mass immigration. Given enough time, a place like Canada would surely turn out much the same: rich in cultural and linguistic diversity, with a blended population of many Indigenous peoples and others distantly descended from immigrants, all united by a common Canadian identity centuries in the making: John Ralston Saul’s “Métis nation” at last. Many would applaud this outcome, but it would hardly resemble the contemporary ideal of multiculturalism.

    So it seems that, if we no longer understand the original meaning and purpose of multiculturalism – and if most Canadians object to the outcome of diversity for its own sake – then the concept itself is no longer useful. At the very least, the meaning and purpose of it should be redefined. If multiculturalism is to be of any further use it must be able to tell us both where we came from and where we are now; both who we are in particular and who we are in general. And if multiculturalism cannot do that, then it will not survive.

    Dr. Michael Bonner is a former Government of Ontario policy director, a historian of ancient Iran, and author of In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present. He is a contributor for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

    Source: Multiculturalism has lost its meaning: Michael Bonner for Inside Policy

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    Genocide resolution reveals conflicts between scholars over Israel’s war in Gaza

    2025/09/08 2 Comments

    Of interest:

    There was the allure of certainty in the headline: that an international association of genocide scholars had resolved that Israel was carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

    More precisely, “that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide” set out in the United Nations’ 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

    That is the verdict adopted by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a non-partisan group of about 500 academics, educators, activists, psychologists, lawyers and artists dedicated to research and teaching about genocide and genocide prevention.

    The association’s Aug. 31 resolution was adopted overwhelmingly by those who voted, with 109 for the resolution and 20 against, said Onur Uraz, the chair of the association’s resolution committee and an assistant professor of law at Turkey’s Hacettepe University. About 30 per cent of the association’s membership cast a ballot, he said.

    But interviews with several association members involved in the vote reveal a more cautious and conflicted approach to condemning Israel, a state that was founded after the genocide that killed six million European Jews during the Second World War.

    “So many of us got our beginning in Holocaust studies and are very sensitive to the massive scope of that world historical event and its impact,” said Andrew Woolford, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Manitoba and a former president of the association.

    “I don’t think it’s a resolution that anyone goes too easily into and I trust my colleagues reflected on it very seriously.”

    ‘Anti-Israel agenda’

    The passing of the resolution — which cited United Nations estimates (that are based on Palestinian Health Ministry statistics) of the killing of more than 59,000 adults and children, the forced displacement of more than two million Gazans, and the vast destruction of housing, schools, hospitals, archives and agricultural fields and food warehouses — has prompted fierce condemnation.

    Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the genocide finding “disgraceful” and “an embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard.”

    “For the first time, ‘genocide scholars’ accuse the very victim of genocide, despite Hamas’s attempted genocide against the Jewish people” the ministry wrote on X.

    Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz, a former defence minister and military chief of staff, said Israel’s attempts to avoid civilian casualties, deliver humanitarian aid and create humanitarian zones in Gaza serve as a powerful defence against the charge of genocide.

    A military that takes such steps “might be the most ‘incompetent’ perpetrators of genocide in history,” he wrote on X.

    “The cheapening and weaponization of the term ‘genocide’ to suit a shameless anti-Israel agenda must stop.”

    To denigrate and ridicule the association, one social media user signed himself up as a member using as a photo the image of a muscular man flexing in a skimpy pink bikini.

    Someone took out a membership in the name of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler — the most prominent practitioner of genocide in modern history — with the accompanying image of a masked Hamas militant.

    Public opinion war

    The intensity of the reaction points to the resolution’s impact in the public-relations battle pitting defenders of Israel against those voicing their support and concern for the plight of Palestinians.

    The draft resolution was circulated among association members several weeks before the vote. But the results were announced shortly after a report by a coalition of aid groups confirming the existence of famine conditions in Gaza.

    At the United Nations General Assembly meetings next week, Canada, France, Britain and several other countries are expected to formally recognize Palestinian statehood in a diplomatic push to resolve the conflict through a two-state solution.

    And while the declaration of 129 scholars may seem small in comparison, some see it as an important step in the campaign to condemn and isolate Israel’s government over its handling of the war.

    “Global public opinion is certainly influenced by something like this,” said William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law at London’s Middlesex University.

    A past president of the scholarly association, but no longer a member, Schabas said the resolution will also help broaden the debate over the war in Gaza, allowing discussion of positions that had been taboo and potentially career-ending not so long ago.

    “A year and a half ago, it was not a simple thing to talk about genocide being committed by Israel, and there were academics who lost their job for doing that. We were regularly accused of antisemitism,” he said.

    “It’s pretty hard to claim that someone’s an antisemite because they criticized Israel when an organization like the International Association of Genocide Scholars — by a very large majority, apparently — voted in favour of this resolution.”

    ‘Historians don’t act quickly’

    Woolford, of the University of Manitoba, voted in favour of the resolution, but his thinking on the matter has evolved over the course of the two-year war.

    Just eight days after the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and sparked the war, Woolford signed an open letter in which nearly 900 academics and legal scholars warned of “the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

    In December 2023, he backed another statement by concerned academics saying that “the starvation, mass killing and forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is ongoing, raising the question of genocide, especially in view of the intentions expressed by Israeli leaders.”

    As a sociologist, he said that his professional approach to genocide is different than that of an expert in international humanitarian law, but his belief that Israel was in fact engaged in a genocidal campaign against Palestinians was shaped by arguments presented before the International Court of Justice, where South Africa has alleged that Israel is in breach of the 1948 genocide convention.

    The ICJ, which is the principal legal forum for the United Nations, has not yet ruled on the allegations.

    Uraz, the chair of the association’s resolution committee, said that most initiatives are voted on by between 30 and 50 per cent of the membership.

    Alyssa Loggie, a communications instructor at Vancouver’s Columbia College, wrote in response to questions that she hoped the resolution would “add to the voices of those already speaking out” about the war in Gaza.

    “We did not need the (association) alone to tell us what is so readily apparent, and has already been spoken by many brave people around the world, and, most importantly, from the cries of Palestinians suffering themselves,” she wrote. 

    Some scholars don’t participate in resolution votes because they feel they lack the expertise, Uraz said. Others decline due to a lack of interest or a sense of inevitability, thinking that one additional vote for or against will hardly matter.

    Ahead of this resolution, though, some members complained to Uraz that the wording and condemnation was “not … strong enough, which could be another reason for some to be absent.”

    Hilary Earl, an assistant professor of history at Nipissing University in North Bay, abstained for a different reason.

    “Historians don’t act quickly,” she said, while insisting that it was clear in her mind that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

    “I’m just not ready to say that it’s a genocide,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be, and it doesn’t mean that it isn’t.”

    Earl said that Raphael Lemkin, the Polish law professor and Holocaust survivor who coined the term “genocide” in 1944, cast it not in terms of the impact on a victimized group, but on the intent of the perpetrator.

    “What is their intention? Do they want to destroy the group, or is the continuation of the group OK?” Earl said. “It’s an awful, fraught definition, the result of a compromise.”

    She said there was no question in her mind about the horrific suffering and impact upon Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

    “But outcome is not what genocide is about. It’s about intent. If it’s about outcome, then every war is a genocide, right?”

    Scholars or activists?

    Every conflict is, thankfully, not a genocide. But the association of genocide scholars has weighed in on numerous conflicts in which, in their opinion, warring parties have crossed that horrible line — even if it is sometimes decades after the fact.

    It has issued resolutions accusing the Islamic State of genocidal acts against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq; accusing Myanmar of genocide against its Rohingya minority; and accusing Pakistan of committing genocide against its Bengal minority during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.

    The association also condemned the threat by former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 to wipe Israel off the map and for denying the Holocaust. It called the comments an incitement to genocide and said that the Jewish state would be at “imminent” risk of genocide if ever Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

    The risky business of taking political positions has been at the heart of the scholarly association, something that sets it apart and which its members seem to appreciate.

    “This has been at the core of the organization for a long time: are we a scholarly organization or are we an activist organization?” said Earl, a member since 1996.

    “I think we’re both, and I think the organization is well within its rights, and I think we should have these discussions and debates regularly. The world is full of violence against civilians, so I would never want to silence that.”

    No nuance

    Shortly before his death in December 2024, Israel Charny, an Israeli psychologist who co-founded the association, wrote a rebuttal to a journal article that accused Israel of engaging in genocide in Gaza.

    In it, Charny admitted there had been “excessive” bombing in Gaza and that too many Palestinians had been killed. But he defended Israel’s actions as a legitimate response to Hamas aggression.

    Israel should stop the war as soon as possible, Charny insisted, but not before its legitimate war aims — particularly the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — had been achieved.

    This is the difficult nuance of the Israel-Hamas conflict that, in the opinion of Hily Moodrick-Even Khen, the genocide resolution failed to consider.

    “I don’t think that the association should avoid expressing academic views about what’s going on in the world — definitely it’s part of our mission as genocide scholars,” said Khen, a professor of international law and chair of the Center for the Research and Study of Genocide at Ariel University, which is located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    “The problem is that I think that our case is much more nuanced … and the very fact that Israel is fighting against the terrorist organization must be recognized.”

    Khen, who voted against the resolution, said that it failed to fully acknowledge this fact, while also relying on disputed figures about the injured and dead that are supplied by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza and circulated by the UN.

    “It just speaks against any academic integrity, to my mind.”

    But this does not mean that she and many other Israelis unconditionally support the right-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or that they agree with every aspect of how the war has been prosecuted.

    “I have my own criticisms about what’s going on,” she said. “But using the term ‘genocide,’ and using it in such an inaccurate and unprofessional way, is very destructive.”

    Source: Genocide resolution reveals conflicts between scholars over Israel’s war in Gaza

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    André Pratte: Quebec prayer ban would render freedom of religion meaningless  

    2025/09/08 Leave a comment

    Good commentary but the police need to more willing to use the tools to remedy street blockages and enforce bubble zones:

    …Yes, some of the demonstrations, tied as they are to the war in Gaza, are provocations. The demonstrators want to shock the public in the hopes of raising awareness to their cause. This is exactly the kind of unpopular behaviour that is protected by freedom of expression, as long as the demonstrators do not break the law, for instance by blocking traffic or intimidating others. If they cross those lines, the police already possess all the tools necessary to remedy the situation. An all-encompassing ban on prayers in public spaces is neither necessary nor reasonable.  

    Separatist intellectual Mathieu Bock-Côté, who inspired many of the CAQ’s nationalist policies, wrote in Le Journal de Montréal that Islamic street players are “symbolic aggressions”: “We are talking about a conquering Islam, that is to say, an Islam shaped by Islamism and carried by waves of migration that are transforming the demographic composition of our societies.” However, Islamists are in no position to “transform the demographic composition” of Quebec, where Muslims represent a mere five per cent of the population, compared to 54 per cent for Catholics and 27 per cent for those who have no religion.   

    For make no mistake: as with bill 21 banning the wearing of religious symbols by teachers, only one religion, Islam, is being targeted here. Other religious groups, including Catholics, have held ceremonies in public in Quebec for decades without anyone challenging their right to do so.   

    The promised legislation will very probably violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. It is not yet known for certain if the Legault government will pre-emptively invoke the charters’ notwithstanding clause, but we do know that they have done so for two previous pieces of legislation, bill 21, already mentioned, and bill 96 strengthening the protection of the French language. This abuse of the notwithstanding clause is extremely serious, for in effect it deprives Quebecers of the right to challenge rights-infringing measures adopted by the state. Citizens are left with no means of defence, as if the charters did not exist. 

    And so it is that Quebecers’ fundamental rights are being slowly but surely eroded. Sadly, that worrisome trend is met with an immense collective shrug.  

    Source: André Pratte: Quebec prayer ban would render freedom of religion meaningless  

    Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

    Browne: After 20 years working in Canada’s cultural sector, I can finally speak out without fear

    2025/09/06 Leave a comment

    Good long read and reminder of some of the excesses in the cultural (and other) sectors:

    …I believe I was a progressive type. I wanted to be inclusive. I wanted to help people who had a difficult time – for one reason or another – get started in the cultural world or be recognized so they felt equal and worthy to others in the community. I tried to reach out to diverse communities not comfortable with traditional institutions, and … a long list of other well-meaning ambitions. Maybe I was a Christian trying to make the world a better place, but I’d never say that. Then I realized I was always going to be wrong, somehow. Remaining silent was safe for me and the organizations where I was employed. And I did even when there were people who were clearly paying for the sins of their ancestors or unintended consequences beyond their control, including having graduated from a prestigious university. I should have spoken up.

    While I learned to say nothing out loud, I continued to have transgressive thoughts. In one training session, we began by confiding to the group what our pronouns were. Instead of he and him I wanted to insist on “sir” or “Mr. Browne” as monikers. (This is how my generation used to address older people they respected.) Needless to say, I didn’t blurt this out.

    The cultural world is full of enforcers in 2025: art schools, universities, arts associations and, most brutal and rigid, provincial and federal funders. All conspire to instill proper thinking. If you’ve applied for government grants you know that culture money is a not so subtle animator of social policy objectives. If you want government money, you twist your art to fit their agenda. Much of what is produced in this manner alienates and produces cynicism, not just for a mainstream audience but for complicit culture workers.

    Maybe the culture world needs an existential crisis to push us from so-called Canada to patriotism. One that moves culture from an exclusionary ideology that needs to keep finding people and ideas to disenfranchise or to be superior to … to what I’m not sure. Unsettling ideas are the raw cultural edge artists used to embrace; few sought the safety of consensus. This volatile, uncensored realm, not managed by academics or bureaucrats, can perhaps once again offer the possibility of revelation. 

    Maybe a new generation of curators and administrators will better separate art from advocacy. In my postretirement life, I’m returning to my teenage ambition to be an artist. I have such old-fashioned ideas about art I’m likely not going to provoke anyone, but I’d hope I’m encouraged by whomever runs museums to do just this.

    Kelvin Browne is a former vice-president at the Royal Ontario Museum and the former Executive Director and CEO of the Gardiner Museum

    Source: After 20 years working in Canada’s cultural sector, I can finally speak out without fear

    Filed under Multiculturalism, DEI Tagged with , ,

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