Rioux: Quel «dérapage»? [on Premier Legault’s comments on social cohesion]

2022/09/19 Leave a comment

Le Devoir’s European correspondent Christian Rioux comparing EU social cohesion concerns with those of Premier Legault.

While recognizing the differences between Canada’s (and Quebec’s) immigration selection systems and integration programs and those of EU countries, he nevertheless reverts to the same social cohesion concerns without examining the effects of Quebec political discourse and legislation that have contributed to social exclusion, not social cohesion:

« Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurais voir », disait le Tartuffe. Convenons que ses héritiers modernes ont des formules moins élégantes que celles de Molière. Ces temps-ci, ils préfèrent parler de « dérapage ». Mais l’effet est le même. Il consiste à écarter du débat tout propos un peu dérangeant dès lors qu’il aborde une question litigieuse. L’étiquette vaut à elle seule condamnation.

Ainsi en va-t-il des récents propos de François Legault sur l’immigration. Pourtant, qu’y a-t-il de plus banal que d’affirmer comme l’a fait le premier ministre la semaine dernière qu’une forte immigration peut nuire à la « cohésion nationale » ?

On comprend que dans un pays « post-national » comme le Canada, où l’immigration a été sacralisée, ces propos créent la polémique. Mais, vu d’Europe, où le débat est ancien et plus nourri, il est évident que l’immigration massive pose partout et toujours un défi à la cohésion nationale.

Cela se vérifie à des degrés divers dans la plupart des pays européens. En France, sous l’effet d’une immigration incontrôlée et très largement issue du monde arabo-musulman, on a assisté depuis de nombreuses années à un véritable morcellement du pays. Dans toutes les grandes villes sont apparues des banlieues islamisées autrement appelées ghettos. Pas besoin de s’appeler Marine Le Pen pour le constater. Interrogé par des collègues du Monde en 2014, le président François Hollande lui-même n’avait pas hésité à le reconnaître. « Je pense qu’il y a trop d’arrivées, d’immigration qui ne devrait pas être là », disait-il. Et celui-ci de conclure : « Comment peut-on éviter la partition ? Car c’est quand même ça qui est en train de se produire : la partition. » (Un président ne devrait pas dire ça…, Gérard Davet et Fabrice Lhomme, Stock).

Certains diront évidemment qu’en France, ce n’est pas pareil. Soit. Tournons donc nos yeux vers un pays plus à notre échelle.

Avec ses 10 millions d’habitants, son économie de pointe, son climat boréal, son amour du consensus et son parti pris en faveur de l’égalité hommes-femmes, la Suède partage plusieurs points communs avec le Québec.

Il n’y a pas longtemps, dans ce petit paradis nordique, celui qui s’inquiétait de l’immigration massive était accusé de « déraper », quand il n’était pas traité de raciste. Les Suédois regardaient de haut des pays comme la France et le Danemark, soupçonnés de xénophobie. Jusqu’à ce que la réalité les rattrape. La flambée des émeutes ethniques, comme en France, et l’irruption de la violence dans les banlieues ont vite fait de les ramener sur terre. Aujourd’hui, de la social-démocratie à la droite populiste, les trois grands partis estiment qu’il en va justement de la « cohésion nationale ». C’est pourquoi ce pays, qui a toujours été particulièrement généreux à l’égard des réfugiés, a radicalement resserré ses critères d’admission et a multiplié les mesures d’intégration. L’élection sur le fil d’une majorité de droite, finalement confirmée mercredi, ne fera que conforter cette orientation.

Les belles âmes ont beau détourner le regard, en Suède comme en France, il est devenu évident qu’un lien existe (même s’il n’explique pas tout) entre l’immigration incontrôlée et la croissance d’une certaine criminalité. Les événements récents du printemps au Stade de France, où des centaines de supporters britanniques se sont fait détrousser à la pointe du couteau par des dizaines de délinquants, ont forcé le ministre de l’Intérieur à reconnaître ce dont les habitants de la Seine-Saint-Denis se doutaient depuis belle lurette.

La Suède aussi a connu une explosion de la petite criminalité et des règlements de compte entre gangs. Elle a notamment enregistré une croissance des morts par balle parmi les plus fortes en Europe. Aujourd’hui, même la gauche sociale-démocrate l’admet. Et elle s’est résolue à augmenter les effectifs policiers. Contrairement à la France, cette prise de conscience fait aujourd’hui un certain consensus dans la classe politique.

Cela n’a rien à voir avec la peur de l’Autre. Comme nombre de Français, les Suédois ont dû se rendre à l’évidence et cesser d’envisager l’immigration comme une simple question morale. Les peuples ont le droit de réglementer l’immigration sans se faire traiter à chaque fois de raciste par une gauche morale et une droite libérale qui en ont fait leur Saint-Graal.

Bien sûr, l’immigration n’est pas la même en France, en Suède et au Québec. À cause de son histoire et de sa position en Europe, la France connaît une forte immigration illégale et de regroupement familial. Naïvement et par générosité, la Suède a ouvert toutes grandes ses portes aux réfugiés et elle n’a jamais contrôlé son immigration économique. Le Québec, où l’équilibre linguistique est plus que précaire, subit des quotas d’immigration parmi les plus élevés au monde et une immigration temporaire hors de contrôle.

Il n’empêche que, malgré ces différences réelles, les mêmes causes produisent partout les mêmes effets. Ce n’est souvent qu’une question de temps.

Lentement, depuis une décennie, tous les tabous de la mondialisation se sont effrités. Ceux qui ont vécu les années 1980 se souviennent de l’enthousiasme et de la naïveté qui accompagnaient cette nouvelle phase d’expansion du capital. Nous n’en sommes plus là. L’immigration de masse demeure le dernier mythe encore vivace de cette époque.

Source: Quel «dérapage»?

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Tackling the health burden of anti-black racism and violence

2022/09/19 Leave a comment

As described, the new program seems more focussed on histories and ideologies than on practical measures to improve health outcomes for Blacks and other minorities, generally reflecting lower income levels, as the differential impact of COVID made clear:

As professors across Canada have been handing out syllabi and giving their first lectures of this school year, Professor Roberta Timothy has her eyes firmly set on next September, when the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto will welcome the first cohort into the two-year Master of Public Health in Black Health programme.

In addition to the regular public health curriculum, the 10 to 15 students will follow a programme that includes six courses devoted to black public health, including ones on the socio-historical context of black health, chronic diseases and reproductive health and decolonising theory and method.

“A masters in public health in the field of black health is needed,” says Timothy, who proposed the programme in 2021, “because of how the experience of anti-black racism impacts black health. There’s a correlation between what I call ‘anti-black violence’ and black health outcomes. 

“If we’re looking at factors such as higher diabetes rates, higher cancer rates, higher HIV rates and who has been impacted by COVID more, we see there’s a direct correlation with health outcomes and anti-black racism and violence.”

The fight for race-based data

In designing the programme, Timothy has, in large measure, drawn on her 30 years of being a public health practitioner because unlike, for example, the United States, Canada does not routinely collect race-based medical data.

“There are only two million of us, and most of us are located in Toronto, Montreal with smaller populations in Alberta. There’s this kind of notion that we don’t exist.

“We are a smaller population, we are absorbed,” Timothy told University World News, nodding to the fact that blacks account for only 3.5% of the Canadian population, while in the US blacks account for 13.4% and in states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia blacks account for more than 30% of the population. “We’ve been fighting to get raced-based data,” Timothy says.

After we spoke, she e-mailed me an April 2020 letter sent to the Ontario government that called for the collection of socio-economic and race-based health data. 

A total of 192 community-based health and advocacy groups and 1,612 individuals signed the letter, which underscored that “Ontario, like other provinces and territories in Canada, continues to deal with the ongoing legacies of colonisation, structural inequality and systemic racism. Responding to COVID-19 with the expectation that all people will experience the pandemic in the same way hurts the already marginalised people and communities.”

When I asked how health outcomes for blacks, who, as in the US and the United Kingdom, are disproportionately poor, differ from poor whites, Timothy noted that there is evidence that shows that in terms of HIV the black community is more impacted.

Further, she pointed to a 2015 study and one she has been working on dealing with COVID rates for two years. The 2015 study showed that in Montreal the maternal morbidity of blacks was three to four times higher than it was for whites. (Because of Canada’s universal medical system, this difference cannot be attributed to lack of access to medical care.)

“I’ve been collecting data on COVID among blacks for two years. If you look at these COVID numbers from the UK, the United States and Canada, we see the similarities in terms of how COVID has disproportionately impacted folks of African ancestry,” says Timothy.

As the students will begin learning next year in the socio-historical course, Timothy told me, this fact, as well as the higher rates of diabetes, HIV and other diseases among blacks in the US, UK and Africa, must be handled extremely carefully. This is because of the long history, going back to the early 1800s, of racialist biological determinism.  

“The connection between African folks [ie, those in Africa or the diaspora] and these disorders is not biological, not as explained by the ‘biological determinist perspective’, but rather from the impact of racism and colonisation globally for black folks. 

“It’s not about being black. It’s about anti-black racism and experiencing anti-black violence. It’s about the implications of that extreme grief, trauma, violence that you experience as a black person anywhere you travel. It’s about a lifetime of being treated that way that impacts our mental and physical health no matter where you are, even if you come from the African continent.”

Critiquing Eurocentric methodologies

By training Timothy is a ‘methodologist’. Accordingly, I asked her how the methodology course she is presently designing differs from a traditional methodology course. The answer does not lie in ignoring traditional methodology. 

Quite the opposite, the course examines the Eurocentric history of research methodologies – in order to critique them. One notorious so-called methodology was that used by George Gliddon (b 1809) and Josiah C Nott (b 1804) in their Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857) in which, via measurements of skulls and other pseudo-scientific methods akin to phrenology, they adduced a hierarchy of brain development that placed blacks between Caucasians and chimpanzees in terms of intelligence.

As well, students will learn about the horrid Tuskegee experiment in the US. In 1932, 400 black men, impoverished sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama, were infected with syphilis to “observe the natural history of untreated syphilis”. 

None was given penicillin after its invention in 1947. By 1972 when the study ended, 128 of the men had died either from syphilis or complications arising from it. Forty of the men’s wives had been infected and 19 children had been born with congenital syphilis. The violation of ethical norms and the human cost of the study is one of the reasons why many African Americans are vaccine hesitant.

The students in the programme will learn of the importance of looking at factors such as race, racism, class, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation when they collect data.

By way of example, Timothy turned our discussion to how she would approach a study of post-partum depression among black women. 

Noting the influence of Black Feminist Theory, she said, she would begin with such questions as, “How does the impact of anti-black racism impact the subject you want to inquire about? Does the question make sense to the population being studied?” An equally important question is, “How will the data from this study be used to advance the health care of black women?”

While white women also experience post-partum depression, Timothy notes, they are not burdened by the socio-historical narrative that burdens black women – a narrative that is informed by the experience of American slavery in which female slaves who had just given birth were expected to go back to the cotton fields, often within hours of giving birth. 

Further, because of the sundering of the black family during slavery and continued disruption of it because of the high incarceration levels of black males (which is part of the ongoing anti-black violence Timothy refers to), black women have historically been seen as the rock upon which the family relies.

“This false notion of the strong black woman is of one who is not human. We are not given human qualities. We are not allowed to be vulnerable or human.” 

The violence of the state

Yet, there is a second piece of the violence that is part of this stereotype. “It is the imagining of the violence of the state. It comes from the reality that you don’t have the right to be depressed or emotional because if you are a black person who is, there is a chance that your children will be taken away from you.”

(Timothy, who comes from a working-class background, holds a PhD and has worked in public health for decades and is now at the University of Toronto, exemplified this last point by telling me that when she has to bring her children to the doctor, they are dressed up. “You’d think we were going to church. But I do this because we are racially profiled on a daily basis, even in terms of our children.”)

Timothy’s students will also learn how the experience of being a black male in Canada contributes to diabetes and cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure.

“The question students will have to ask is how criminalisation (or the threat of it) and anti-black violence by the state contribute to these diseases in black men. The inquiry will show that no matter what their socio-economic status is, where they work or live, black men know that they are profiled on a daily basis and this creates anxiety, higher blood sugar levels and high blood pressure.”

Public health practitioners who provide health care to black men must be aware not only of the effects of being hypervigilant but also of the depression these men carry, of the intergenerational transfer of post-traumatic stress disorder and how systems of enslavement and colonisation violated black men’s masculinity, says Timothy. The heightened tension of being black in Canada does not vanish even when home.

“Your home is never really safe because you are never sure when the police are going to come in the door,” she says, referring to, among others, D’Andre Campbell, a 26-year-old immigrant with mental health issues, who was shot in his home by a constable belonging to the Peel Regional Police (near Toronto) after he had been tasered and was already on the ground.

Professor Akwatu Khenti, who teaches courses on the public health implications of anti-black racism and the criminal justice system, told University Affairs in late August that there is “a lot of epistemic violence that takes place as a sort of intellectual microaggression [that] devalues or invalidates other ways of knowing. For me, it means building appreciation for the epistemic approaches of different groups and [giving] more space to traditional wisdom that worked for thousands of years.”

Inoculation for smallpox, for example, was practised in Ethiopia and West Africa a century or more before Edward Jenner noticed that milk maids with cow pox scars appeared to be immune to smallpox. The first inoculation in America was in 1721 by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, who learned of the practice from his slave Onesimus, who had been kidnapped from Africa and whose Latin name meant useful, helpful or, tellingly, profitable.

Dismantling a system

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic two-and-a-half years ago, doctors and public health practitioners have been uncharacteristically vocal for the most part, advocating for masking, the safety of vaccines and for improving ventilation in schools before they re-opened. Timothy views the role of graduates of the Master of Public Health in Black Health programme to be similarly engaged.

“I know that I’m teaching at the University of Toronto. I’m very aware that this education system has a history of colonial violence. Yet, we are going to train people in terms of how to resist anti-black racism and other forms of violence. We’re creating a place where we create practitioners who know how the system works and, therefore, understand how to begin dismantling it.

“Obviously, we are not going to do that tomorrow. But we can begin the conversation about how being a public health practitioner is to be part of a decolonising process. It’s part of a movement towards justice, to dismantle systems that create violence.”

Source: Tackling the health burden of anti-black racism and violence

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Regg Cohn: Is discussion of the Queen problematic? Let’s talk about it

2022/09/19 Leave a comment

Good commentary on excessive “trigger” warnings and the lack of meaningful civics knowledge:

Everyone has an opinion on the Queen, right or wrong.

But in some schools, not every student should have a right to mourn her passing in public — not if other students might be “triggered.”

That edict came from a GTA public school board that instructed teachers to avoid the topic of Queen Elizabeth’s death — and the legacy of her life. In the classrooms of York region, the late monarch was not so much dethroned as deplatformed.

How can the Crown be cancelled in the classrooms of Ontario? How do state schools disavow the head of state?

Good questions. According to a memo distributed to all teachers this month by the York Region District School Board, the answers were strictly black and white.

Diversity of identity trumps diversity of ideas, to wit:

“School staff please refrain from developing tributes or activities to memorialize the death of the Queen,” the note admonishes.

“For some, the death of the Queen is very triggering. We are committed to maintaining neutral learning environments in our schools.”

Neutral? Even going halfway, with half-mast, seemed a stretch to the school board:

“Some students and staff may require support as a result of seeing the flags lowered,” the memo continued.

To be sure, the monarchy affects different people differently, notably if they or their ancestors lived under British colonization. Many believe in abolition or refuse absolution for the Crown’s past sins.

As a foreign correspondent, I covered the referendum on abolition in Australia, which would have succeeded but for the failure of voters to agree on what to replace it with. As a columnist, I’ve written about the absurdity of a foreign-born monarch presiding over our homegrown Canadian democracy while simultaneously juggling more than a dozen other foreign realms — from Antigua to Tuvalu.

I’ve long argued that the Crown has a case of conflicted multiple personality that defies credulity. Be that as it may, it will remain that way for years to come, for Canadians have no appetite for the domestic constitutional combat required to reconfigure our democratic infrastructure.

Like it or not, the ineluctable consequence is that the British King is to be Canada’s King until further notice. That’s a complication that requires education and elucidation, not the silent treatment for fear of offending.

Trigger warnings are cited five times in the school board memo, including this alert about the perils of press coverage: “Media coverage will be frequent … Try to offer a neutral space in your classroom to have a break from this potentially triggering media exposure.”

Remember when students learned media literacy, not sanctuary? Are schools now “safe spaces” from overexposure to newspaper funeral coverage?

The “tip sheet” counsels teachers on how to respond to students who dare to say out loud, “I’d like to honour the Queen.”

Recommended staff response: “Thank you for your idea… While this might feel important and helpful for you, for others in our class/school it might not feel this way … We need to be respectful of everyone.”

In other words: Forget it, kid — no mourning this morning.

Predictably, the memo triggered Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government. Education Minister Stephen Lecce issued a statement reminding school boards of the province’s “expectation (to) honour the Queen on the date of her funeral, and enrich students with a strong understanding of the values and enduring legacy of Canada’s constitutional democracy.”

All schools are expected to observe a moment of “silent reflection” (students are free to opt out) on Monday — designated a day of mourning (or holiday) across Canada — according to a note sent out by the deputy minister of education, Nancy Naylor.

What is most instructive about the peculiar memo from York’s school board is what it says about the state of educational instruction today. Basic civics — teaching students about the complications and contradictions in our constitutional system — can’t be taught if educators are told to duck controversy because of potential sensitivity.

Never mind the endless debates about ending debates — so-called “cancel culture.” Quarreling over the Queen’s legacy should be part of our democratic discourse.

Indigenous leaders from Canada will be at the Queen’s funeral in London, as will our first Indigenous vice-regal representative, Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon. Perhaps they understand it is possible, in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, to also reconcile contradictions — to call out the Crown’s historical blunders and blind spots while still paying respect to she who wore the crown.

It’s called context and critical thinking, as opposed to trigger warnings that compel conformity and uniformity lest anyone feel uncomfortable. Whatever one thinks of the monarchy, the point is to make people think — not to warn teachers against letting students think out loud in classrooms. 

When the schools of state forbid talk about the head of state, it’s time for a refresher course on civics.

Source: Is discussion of the Queen problematic? Let’s talk about it

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Paradkar: No, I do not mourn the Queen

2022/09/16 Leave a comment

Wonder how common this sentiment is among immigrants and their descendants from former colonies or other countries that suffered under British rule or influence. The November 2021 Angus-Reid survey showed relatively minor differences between visible and not visible minorities, but there is likely considerable variation among groups:

No, I don’t mourn the Queen. Like hundreds of millions of people around the world, I see no reason to.

But you’d hardly know from the hagiographical public discourse in Canada that the world is far from unified in grief over the death of a person under whose title a nation unleashed unspeakable violence, the wounds of which remain fresh. There is little room for the views of millions who vociferously reject Britain’s self-proclaimed greatness, and its royal family.

Condolences to those personally near and dear to Elizabeth. Sorry for their loss, human to human. By all accounts, she sounds like a person of dignity who took her duties seriously and untiringly.

The British monarch’s duties have been referred to as a service to the nation. But what were these duties? Were they merely innocuous ribbon-cutting ceremonies and charming royal walkabouts? Were those weekly meetings with the prime minister idle chit chats? What were these formalities servicing? A symbol, perhaps, but of what?

To many, the Crown is a symbol of economic and racial power and its consolidation in one family, in one institution, in one nation — and its offshoots. It’s the power to assent to laws, whatever their intent or consequence. The power to reside above the most powerful. The power to be unaccountable.

You won’t see a British ruler or a parliamentary leader hauled up before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity — neither in Kenya, nor in the Middle East neither India nor Argentina neither Ireland nor in the Caribbean or, heaven forbid, Canada. 

Through all this pillaging and bloodshed, leaders marauded under the royal banner while the monarch was positioned as an apolitical figurehead, made mystical by remoteness. It’s an ingenious sleight of hand. 

Still, if one accepts that the queen was merely a figurehead, free from any responsibility for what she symbolized, then exactly what are we mourning? That this figureheaded-ness was handled with grace? 

A range of justifications for the monarchy — divine ordination, tradition, continuity — have been used to keep the plebs from questioning the grandiosity of royalty too closely, with royals entitled to the thousands of gaudy, glittering baubles. Perhaps it still serves to keep us from questioning why Charles, the new King, can legally avoid paying estate tax, something even other obscenely rich people cannot, on inheriting parts of estate estimated at $500 million US from his mother.

The position of Queen afforded Elizabeth significant immunity from criticism. But when the title was criticized, the person was protected. 

She is eulogized as a paragon of progressive ideals. She was anti-apartheid! Nelson Mandela was her buddy! This, even though hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Koreans, Malayans were displaced and massacred during her reign.

It appears we must endlessly laud royals of great power and wealth, particularly this family, who took and took but contributed nothing to humanity. At least celebrities — actors, musicians, singers, artists, athletes, heck, even TikTok and Insta influencers — possess skills that entertain us, move us and enrich our understanding of the mysteries of life.

But hush. This is not the right time to criticize the Queen, we’re told. It’s insensitive. It’s impolite.

Polite, is it, to ask those who lost life and limb, land and wealth, ancestors and children, and even their own histories to mourn the very symbol of their suffering?

Sensitive, is it, to live in Canada and suggest the tyranny of British colonialism is a thing of the past, even while the Indian Act of 1876 in its various iterations and colonial philosophies continues to tragically upend Indigenous lives, an example of which played out as the James Smith Cree Nation torn apart just this month? I wonder how many of these mourners will show up as “allies” in orange shirts on National Truth and Reconciliation Day without recognizing their inconsistency.

How can British colonialism be a thing of the past when there never has been reconciliation with it? When the paternalistic attitudes (quite apart from greed and extraction in the name of exploration) that drove it still thrive? When, as the author John Newsinger wrote, the blood never dried?

If Tucker Carlson, that depthless denialist with a megaphone on Fox TV, is to be believed, we — the people of colonized lands — ought to be grateful to the colonizers.

“When the British pulled out of India they left behind an entire civilization, a language, a legal system, schools, churches and public buildings, all of which are still in use today,” he said this week, extolling British benignity. As if all of those things did not exist before the British set foot on the land. Yes, churches, too. Christianity has existed in India since 52 AD, as a one-second Google search shows. 

Carlson’s disinformation is low-hanging fruit for the bashing, but it is worth noting because many so-called centrists, the supposed not-crazies, believe colonialism at least modernized, if not civilized already ancient and sophisticated civilizations. Indeed, many among the colonized themselves affect a fondness for what was essentially an era of looting. After all, colonization could not have been carried out without the help of insiders. The colonizer-colonized relationship is neither linear nor a love/hate binary.

But there seems little space for nuance or critique around the death of this symbol of coloniality. Not only is it impolite to criticize the revisionist propaganda around the Queen, it’s now apparently dangerous to question the automatic ascension of Charles as king.

In recent days, U.K. police arrested at least four people for protesting the monarchy. One woman was charged for “breach of the peace” because she held a sign saying: “Abolish monarchy.” One was led away by police for holding a sign saying, “Not My King.”

Meanwhile, Charles himself appears set on defying the blatant efforts to rehabilitate his terrible image. Deliciously insightful videos of him with distinct “let them eat cake” vibes are circulating online. In one, he’s displaying his foul temper with an outburst at a leaky ink pen. In another, he appears to peremptorily and dismissively wave at stationary to be taken off his desk, rather than, you know, moving it himself. 

Here’s to Charles then, the crusty king of England, who might yet be our best bet for stirring revolt and revolution.

Source: No, I do not mourn the Queen

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Vancouver election chief challenges use of Chinese and Persian names on ballots

2022/09/16 Leave a comment

Of note. Tend to think better to only have Latin characters only for consistency and level playing field. Names in any case largely indicate ethnic ancestry:

Vancouver’s chief election officer has filed a court application seeking to declare that 15 candidates in upcoming municipal votes are not entitled to have their names on the ballot papers using Chinese, Persian or other non-Latin characters.

Rosemary Hagiwara filed the application to provincial court on Tuesday, naming respondents who include the Non-Partisan Association’s mayoral candidate Fred Harding, incumbent NPA councillor Melissa De Genova, and veteran Vision Vancouver school board trustee Allan Wong.

The application said all of the respondents submitted their “usual name” to be used on the Oct. 15 ballot papers in both Latin characters and either Chinese or Persian.

Ten are from the NPA, two from Vision Vancouver, and one each from Forward Together and COPE.

Hagiwara argued that none of the respondents who have previously stood for municipal elections used non-Latin versions of their names in the earlier nomination papers.

The matter is set to be heard by the provincial court in Robson Square on Thursday morning.

Harding said in an interview his Chinese name wasn’t something “plucked out of a hat.”

He said he has had a Chinese name for many years because half of his family on his wife’s side are Chinese.

“So telling me that this is not my usual name, you can understand this is like, ‘You really don’t know me,'” said Harding.

Hagiwara’s affidavit said that when Harding initially submitted his nomination on Sept. 6, he did not include Chinese characters in his usual name, but three days later he revised his nomination to add them.

She also said Harding did not include Chinese characters when he ran for mayor in 2018.

Harding said that although the NPA had access to lawyers, none could respond to the matter by Thursday morning.

Vision Vancouver said in a statement that Wong and council candidate Honieh Barzegar were dismayed by the possibility that their “unique and usual names” printed in non-Latin characters would be removed from ballot papers.

But the party also accused other candidates of using “cultural appropriation” by adopting Chinese names by which they are not commonly known, to seek an unfair advantage at the polls.

COPE school board candidate Suzie Mah said in a statement she felt “shock and disbelief” at being included among the respondents because her Chinese name was chosen by her parents and is part of her identity.

“The reason for using my Chinese name as well as my English name on the ballot is important to me. This is not about gaining extra votes with the Chinese community,” said Mah, adding she was not someone who sought to “make up a Chinese name” to use in the election.

Mah said in an interview her Chinese name was well-known among the Chinese-speaking community.

“I think that in the future if we want people to run for office and we want people to be part of democracy, voting has to be accessible. When you put in another barrier for people to take to run for office, it is very disturbing,” said Mah.

She said time was too short for her to seek legal advice before the hearing.

Hagiwara said in her affidavit that she is not aware of any candidate seeking to use non-Latin characters on ballot papers before 2014.

Only one candidate in each of the 2014 and 2018 polls had used non-Latin characters on the ballot, she said.

Source: Vancouver election chief challenges use of Chinese and Persian names on ballots

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ICYMI – Denley: Shifting gender pronouns, racial terminology aren’t doing much to unite Canadians

2022/09/15 Leave a comment

Interesting results from the ACS poll, suggesting that academic and bureaucratic terminology may not be resonating with people (not a surprise).
Personally, find terminology debates and discussions far less interesting than looking at what disaggregated data (categories) can tell us regarding socioeconomic outcomes of particular groups, recognizing variation within groups as well as between them.
The particular not necessity be at the expense of the commonality, but it is important to have both. Not for “defining” people but understanding them: 
Anyone who follows traditional or social media can be forgiven for thinking that Canadians are divided as never before. Perhaps the better term is “categorized.” There is enormous enthusiasm in government and academe to define people by race, gender and sexual preference.
It has become the norm in the media to refer to people as “racialized” and bend over backwards to make sure that everyone’s personal pronouns are respected. The latter leads to the grammatically puzzling situation where an individual whose name we know is referred to as “them.”

Source: Denley: Shifting gender pronouns, racial terminology aren’t doing much to unite Canadians

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Non-Francophone immigration a threat to ‘tightly woven’ Quebec cohesion: Legault

2022/09/14 Leave a comment

Not a dog-whistle, a megaphone, but unlikely to change the results:

Non-Francophone immigration is a threat to cohesion in Quebec, incumbent premier François Legault said Sunday.

The leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party had just delivered a speech to a few hundred supporters at the Le Dauphin hotel in Drummondville.

He addressed the importance of protecting the cohesion of the “tightly woven” Quebec nation, at the heart of which “there is our language, French.”

“Sometimes, this cohesion is shaken,” he said.

“The premier of Quebec, the only head of state in North America who represents a majority of Francophones, has a duty to stop the decline of French in Quebec,” he continued.

Asked in a press scrum who represented a threat to national cohesion, Legault pointed to the parties “who want to welcome 70,000, 80,000 newcomers a year.”

“It’s like math. If we want to stop the decline, for a certain period of time, we have to better integrate newcomers into French.”

François Legault’s CAQ has a goal of welcoming 50,000 immigrants annually, 80 per cent of whom would speak French upon arrival.

The Parti Québécois (PQ) would lower those thresholds to 35,000, while the Quebec Liberal Party would keep them at 70,000 and Quebec solidaire (QS) would raise them to 80,000.

Last Wednesday, Legault created a controversy when he spoke of Quebec values such as pacifism and respect, and equated immigration with violence and extremism.

He later said he was sorry if his remarks were confusing.

‘CLUMSY AND HURTFUL’

Quebec solidaire spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois called Legault’s words on immigration “clumsy” and “hurtful” on Sunday.

“I’m tired of François Legault always talking about immigration as a problem, as a threat, as something that weakens us as a nation,” he said.

His remarks were also criticized by Liberal leader Dominique Anglade.

“The Ukrainians who flee the bombs, the Italians, the Greeks, the Mexicans, the Portuguese, the Vietnamese, (…) is it a threat to our nation?” she questioned.

“It is your speech François Legault that threatens social cohesion,” she said.

PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon also criticized Legault for making “divisive statements” that were “not very responsible.”

“When we talk about threats, fear, we will play in an emotional register to try to make people forget that the CAQ is complicit and largely responsible for the decline of French,” he accused.

“The record of François Legault is that he will have welcomed 120,000 immigrants who do not speak French in his mandate,” St-Pierre Plamondon added.

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS

On Sunday, Legault disagreed with the incumbent MNA for Sherbrooke, Christine Labrie, who said that banning the veil was a form of oppression.

QS promises to end the ban on religious symbols for government employees in positions of authority, such as teachers.

“We should, if we talk about teachers, think about children,” replied François Legault. “I think that a six-year-old girl who has a teacher with a religious sign has the right to a certain neutrality.”

“If you look at it from the point of view of the person who gives the service, well, it is a constraint, but if you look at it from the point of view of the person who receives the service, I think that in Quebec, we are a secular society,” he continued.

“I find it unfortunate that QS wants to question this, like the Liberal party.”

Source: Non-Francophone immigration a threat to ‘tightly woven’ Quebec cohesion: Legault

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Swedish election puts anti-immigration Sweden Democrats centre stage

2022/09/14 Leave a comment

To watch:

Sweden’s right bloc appeared in pole position on Monday to form a government for the first time in nearly a decade, helped by a wave of voter anger over gang violence which could give an anti-immigration populist party a share in power for the first time.

Sunday’s national election remained too close to call on Monday with about 5% of electoral districts yet to be counted, but early results gave right-wing parties 175 of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, one more than the left bloc.

Overseas postal ballots were still to be counted and while they have historically tended to favour the right, this means a full preliminary result is not due until Wednesday. All votes are then counted again to provide a final tally.

If the results are confirmed, Sweden, which has long prided itself on being a bastion of tolerance, will become less open to immigrants even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine forces people to flee and climate change is pushing many to leave Africa.

Political observers say Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson is likely to become prime minister in a minority government supported by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats who are poised to become the largest party on the right and will have a big say on the new administration’s programme.

“The Sweden Democrats have had a fantastic election,” the party’s leader Jimmie Akesson said on Twitter.

“(We) hope the gap between the blocs remains through the Wednesday count. If so, we are ready to constructively participate in a change of power and a new start for Sweden,” he said.

What’s unlikely to change is Sweden’s path towards NATO membership, which has broad support in the wake of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as well as the country’s plans to boost defence spending.

Social Democrat Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who has yet to concede the election, pledged in March to increase the military budget to 2% of gross domestic product following what Moscow calls its “special operation” in Ukraine.

Preliminary results have shown the Sweden Democrats with 20.6% of the vote, up from 17.5% at the last election.

The party, which has white supremacists among their founders, is expected to stay formally in opposition, with many voters and politicians across the political spectrum uncomfortable with seeing it in government. However, their impact will still be felt.

“It is the Sweden Democrats who have driven the right-wing bloc along, both in terms of shaping the political content and in attracting voters to the constellation,” the independent liberal newspaper Goteborgsposten wrote.

“For Sweden, a new political era awaits.”

GAINING STATURE

When Kristersson took over as leader of the Moderates in 2017, the Sweden Democrats were shunned by the right and left. But he has gradually deepened cross-party ties since a 2018 election loss and the Sweden Democrats are increasingly seen as part of the mainstream right having moderated some policies such as dropping plans to leave the European Union. read more

Kristersson will now likely struggle to formulate his economic agenda as inflation runs at a three-decade high and energy costs soar, with the Sweden Democrats opposed to his flagship policy of benefit cuts.

“Intense negotiations are expected and it might take time to form a new government. Fiscal policy will likely remain expansionary regardless of which side wins,” Nordea Markets said in a note to clients.

Campaigning had seen parties battle to be the toughest on gang crime, after a steady rise in shootings that has unnerved voters, while surging inflation and the energy crisis have increasingly taken centre-stage.

While law and order issues are home turf for the right, gathering economic clouds as households and companies face sky-high power prices had been seen boosting Andersson, viewed as a safe pair of hands and more popular than her party. read more

She was finance minister for many years before becoming Sweden’s first female prime minister a year ago. Kristersson had cast himself as the only candidate who could unite the right and unseat her.

“In a fragmented, multiparty system, finding a stable, governing coalition is becoming increasingly difficult,” said Johannes Berg, research director for politics, democracy and civil society at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo.

“If the result we have now – a one-seat majority for the right – ends up being the final result, that is going to be a huge challenge for the Moderates to hold together.”

Source: Swedish election puts anti-immigration Sweden Democrats centre stage

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An anti-Semitism expert says that progressives ‘have the right to exclude Zionists’

2022/09/13 Leave a comment

Stern, one of the authors of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, has been consistent on the use and abuse of the definition:

A leading expert on anti-Semitism has said that university campus groups “have the right to exclude Zionists.” Writing in the Times of Israel, Kenneth Stern argued that, although it may be “hurtful” and counterproductive, the right of progressive groups to exclude advocates of the occupation state must be respected. Stern is the US attorney who took the lead in drafting the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

His intervention follows the growing debate around the exclusion of Zionist students from progressive spaces. Founded on the ethno-nationalist ideals of Zionism, Israel has long been viewed in progressive circles as a racist country that advocates settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. This view has become more widespread in recent times after major human rights groups accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.

With Zionism increasingly being viewed as a racist, imperialist ideology, groups advocating for equality, human rights, the rights of minorities and progressive values, in general, are more frequently excluding supporters of Israel from their spaces. This has happened despite protests that Zionism and affinity with the apartheid state are intrinsic parts of Jewish identity. Critics, however, have long questioned this argument and rejected the claim that a political ideology should be treated as a “protective category” in the same way as gender, religion and race are.

The recent row over the IHRA definition is largely a demand by pro-Israel groups for wider society to support their claim that Zionism and support for the state of Israel be accepted as such a category. It is a form of exceptionalist pleading which is rejected wholesale when other groups in society make similar demands. For instance, the political ideology of “Islamism” or the desire to create an “Islamic State” are not only violently opposed and condemned, but any Muslim who insists that their political views and religion be granted special protection is also dismissed out of hand, and rightly so.

A similar example would be if India’s far-right BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and advocates of Hindutva, said that it is racist and anti-Hindu to question their demand to create an exclusively Hindu state. As is becoming increasingly clear, in their quest to refashion India as a Hindu state, Hindutva extremists have placed themselves on a collision course with the country’s secular constitution. No amount of special pleading that India is the only Hindu state in the world should make any difference, but the goal is still no less than the reformation of India as an ethno-religious state affording special rights and privileges to Hindus within a multi-tier system of citizenship. The model state that such Hindus aspire to replicate is Israel. The parallel between the two ideologies is a powerful illustration of the special status granted to Zionism.

Israel and its supporters are granted a privilege that is not extended to any other political community. Public bodies and private institutions across the Western world have not only agreed to their demand, but have also adopted the supposedly “working definition” of anti-Semitism produced by the IHRA that conflates legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Jew racism.

Although Stern does not compare Zionism and its equivalent ideologies around the world, he insists on treating Israel and its founding ideology in the same way as any other political ideology and its followers. The right to criticise freely without being labelled a racist should be preserved, he maintains. He admits that Zionism itself is a contested term but, nevertheless, the feelings about what Zionism means personally for some Jews should not be an excuse to crack down on freedom of speech by labelling people “anti-Semites” for criticising Israel’s founding ideology.

Commenting on the different perceptions of Zionism and the reasons why progressives exclude supporters of Israel, Stern said: “Some progressive students may understand Zionism as a term for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians; others may understand Zionism as most Jewish students do – the right of Jews to self-determination in their historic homeland.”

He explained that a significant and growing number of Jews are “agnostic” about Zionism or are anti-Zionist, which appears to suggest that Zionism and affinity with Israel is not as important to Jewish identity as pro-Israel groups claim.

“Anti-Zionist students may feel that letting a Zionist work among them is the equivalent of overlooking whether someone is a Nazi,” said Stern, “just as some Jewish organisations might feel that letting Jews in who support the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is overlooking anti-Semitism.” He disagrees with both assertions, but people on campus must be allowed to define their politics.

Wrestling with the central question of the piece in the Times of Israel — whether it is anti-Semitic to exclude Zionists from progressive spaces — Stern defends the right of progressive groups to be selective. “If a group decides that in order to be a member, one has to have a particular view of Israel and Zionism, the right to make that decision must be respected. Those not invited in, even though exclusion hurts, can find other ways to express themselves, including by creating new groups and coalitions.”

Stern has been critical of the way that the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been employed by pro-Israel groups against critics of the apartheid state. His latest intervention is another defence of freedom of association and speech against what many say is a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices and the dangers of conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

“Jewish groups have used the definition as a weapon to say anti-Zionist expressions are inherently anti-Semitic and must be suppressed,” wrote Stern in the Times of Israel two years ago. Concerns raised by him then highlight the claim that the fight against anti-Semitism, as American Jewish commentator Peter Beinart believes, has “lost its way“.

Source: An anti-Semitism expert says that progressives ‘have the right to exclude Zionists’

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Members of some diaspora communities call for Canada to break ties to Crown

2022/09/12 Leave a comment

Shallow reporting, with very limited number sampled with no understanding of the complications involved, with the exception of Carleton professor Jonathan Malloy.

More thorough reporting needed:

Some Canadians from diaspora communities called for the country’s independence from the Crown on Friday, saying the death of the Queen is a chance to rethink its ties to the monarchy.

More than 50 countries with historical links to Britain are part of the Commonwealth, which Queen Elizabeth II was head of throughout her reign. Her death Thursday came as a growing number of nations debate their relationship with the British Crown amid demands that the country apologize for its colonial-era abuses and award its former colonies slavery reparations.

Parmod Chhabra, the president of the India Canada Association, said he respected the Queen as the sovereign of Canada but thinks it’s time for the country to break ties with the Crown.

“I think it is the time for the monarchy to go away,” said Chhabra, recalling atrocities committed against Indians when the British Empire ruled that country.

“We should start rethinking about it, and think about total freedom, instead of having the Queen as our head whom we don’t elect,“ he added.

That sentiment was shared by Monir Hossain, the president of the National Bangladeshi-Canadian Council, who said Canada should be a fully independent nation like other countries around the world.

“I think we all want independence these days,“ he said. ”The world is moving forward.” 

The Royal Family has faced multiple controversies this year surrounding the Crown’s continuing role in Britain’s former colonies as members travelled to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which marked her 70 years on the throne.

In March, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge were sharply criticized for being “tone deaf” and perpetuating images of Britain’s colonial rule during a tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

Though many people welcomed the royals, they were also greeted by protesters demanding an apology for Britain’s role in the enslavement of millions of Africans and reparations for the damage caused by slavery.

The following month, the Earl and Countess of Wessex — Edward, the youngest son of the Queen, and his wife Sophie — postponed the Grenada leg of a Caribbean tour on the eve of the seven-day trip after consultations with the Grenadine government and the governor general, the Queen’s representative on the island.

They had been likely to face similar calls for a British apology during their planned visit to Grenada, where activists had requested an audience with the royal couple.

Barbados cut ties to the monarchy in November and Jamaica has said it will follow suit.

In Canada, the Queen’s death will likely fuel conversations about getting rid of the monarchy, as well as responses that the country’s system works well and would be too hard to change, said Jonathan Malloy, a political science professor at Carleton University.

“The Queen’s longevity has allowed us to perhaps put off some conversations,” and some will see her passing as an opportunity for change, he said Friday.

The monarchy is anachronistic and represents values that no longer align with Canada’s direction, but the system “does actually work fairly well … and it would be extremely hard to change,” he said.

For instance, the Crown is at the heart of our legal and political systems, and cutting ties with it would, among other things, undermine treaties with Indigenous nations, he said.

Provinces probably also like the current system because it allows them to claim their own direct relationship with the Crown, and changing that would require them to overhaul their systems, Malloy said.

There would also be issues related to how to select a new head of state, and the risk that removing the Crown would open the door to other attempts to change the Constitution, he said.

“No government wants to be consumed by constitutional talks and changes,” he said, pointing to the constitutional crises of Meech Lake and Charlottetown several decades ago.

Not everyone in the diaspora community criticized the Queen and the British monarchy on Friday.

Reuben Wong, 73, who grew up in poverty in Hong Kong before immigrating to Canada in the 1970s, said he wouldn’t be where he is today without the Queen and the British system.

Hong Kong has not been a part of the Commonwealth since the 1997 handover to China, but some in its diaspora in Canada continue to embrace the monarchy.

“The Queen’s spirit lives in my blood,” the Richmond, B.C., retiree said Friday.

Wong said he grew up in a village with no water or electricity, and paid tribute to the free education provided by colonial British authorities that allowed him to immigrate and forge a career as a public servant. 

“When I look back, I feel thankful to the British system in Hong Kong and the Queen,“ he added.

Source: Members of some diaspora communities call for Canada to break ties to Crown

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