Cheng: What I Got Wrong About D.E.I.

2025/09/06 1 Comment

Good piece and reminder that the importance of the journey:

…Math is famous for its equations, but equations are more subtle than they first appear. A simple equation like 4 + 1 = 1 + 4 shows not just that two values are equal but also that there are two subtly different ways of adding the same numbers to produce the same result. A similar approach applies to more advanced and complicated forms of math, such as the study of shapes or paths through space. We make choices about how to determine equality.

This is relevant to how we evaluate what people have achieved and make predictions about how well they will do. We can get some insight into how we should make these evaluations from a mathematical field called metric spaces.

A metric is a way of measuring the distance between two points but not necessarily physical distance; it could be how much time it takes with traffic as a factor or how much energy will be expended, depending on whether you’re going uphill or downhill. A distance cannot be measured based on the position of a single point. It requires the effort of measuring the distance between two points. This may sound redundant, but it’s an important clarification: Metrics can be measured only by taking into account the starting point and ending point, as well as relevant features of the journey — the whole story.

When we evaluate people, we could do the same. Instead of looking at just what they have achieved, we could also look at where they started and be clearer about how we are measuring the metaphorical distance they have come and whether we are taking into account the support they had or the obstructions they faced.

If we are selecting sprinters for a track team, we might look at their best times for the 100-meter dash. But if someone had, for some reason, only ever run races uphill or against the wind, it would make sense to take that into account and not compare that runner’s times to others’ directly. We would be treating those people differently but only because their paths were different; really we’d be evaluating their paths fairly relative to their contexts.

Other forms of achievement are not as straightforward to measure, but the idea is analogous. If someone achieved a certain SAT score after months of tutoring and someone else earned the same score having never seen an SAT before, it would be reasonable to be more impressed with the latter result and think that the second test taker has more potential. We should think of D.E.I. efforts as the best versions of this and aim to design systems that can measure the fuller picture of someone’s professional journey, not just the current result.

It took me a long time to realize that when I began my career, I had probably worked much harder than I might have if I had had a different identity. I had to work against people telling me I would never be able to succeed. When I attended conferences, I dealt with inappropriate behavior from men senior to me. I had to find my way in my career having no mentors who looked at all like me. I am grateful for the support of some senior mathematicians, and I now realize that it wasn’t extra help because I was a woman; it was help in overcoming the extra obstructions I faced as a woman.

It shouldn’t be called sexist to help people overcome sexism, and it shouldn’t be called racist to help people overcome racism, but if we give this help too crudely, then we leave ourselves open to these criticisms. Math teaches us that D.E.I. initiatives should be about carefully defining the metrics we use to measure how far people have come and thus how far they have the potential to go. They should be about uncovering when some people are constantly running uphill or against the wind, which can inform us how to give everyone an equal tailwind and an equal opportunity to succeed.

Dr. Cheng is the scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Source: What I Got Wrong About D.E.I.

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Rioux | Drôles de prières

2025/09/06 Leave a comment

When is a prayer a prayer, and when is it more a political event. Other examples would arguably include the Annual March for Life and telling that most Christian religious figures oppose the ban:

…La France a toujours résisté à la tentation de légiférer sur ces prières, consciente que la religion a toute sa place dans les lieux publics pourvu qu’elle ne gêne pas l’ordre public et que sa présence ne relève pas de la provocation. Il n’est pas besoin d’être diplômé en théologie pour savoir que, dans nos pays, la prière n’est pas un banal instrument d’agit-prop. Ce prosélytisme exacerbé est en contradiction avec nos traditions culturelles et le sens même de la prière, celle-ci étant généralement considérée comme un geste intime et personnel qui exige le recueillement et ne saurait donc être confondu avec des slogans militants hurlés par une foule hystérique. Comment s’étonner dès lors que, en s’exhibant ainsi sur la voie publique, ces hommes (car les femmes en sont exclues) provoquent des réactions de rejet ? Et, à plus forte raison, s’ils le font un dimanche devant une église !

Pour peu que l’on daigne sortir de sa bulle, on constatera que ces prières publiques sont aujourd’hui instrumentalisées aussi bien sur Downing Street que devant la porte de Brandebourg. Si l’idée de la laïcité est étrangère à l’islam, se pourrait-il que, comme le voile, ces prières soient une façon pour lui de marquer son territoire ?

L’idée n’est pas nouvelle. On ne compte plus les intellectuels qui, durant tout le XXe siècle, et même avant, ont démontré le caractère conquérant de l’islam. Admirateur de la richesse de la culture musulmane, l’islamologue français Roger Arnaldez fut un ami du grand écrivain égyptien Taha Hussein, l’un des artisans de la renaissance intellectuelle arabe (la Nahda). Il considérait que « la conquête est pour les musulmans un moyen normal, voulu et conduit par Dieu, pour répandre la foi dans les pays des infidèles ». Cette conquête n’est pas toujours le fait des armes, écrivait-il dès 1994, mais « d’une volonté non seulement de convertir des individus, ce qui est normal, mais de prendre pied et position dans la vie sociale et politique des pays de l’ancien Dar al-Harb [où l’islam n’a pas triomphé]. Il n’est plus alors question de djihad armé, moins encore de terrorisme, mais d’un projet de conquête insinueuse qui n’en est pas moins une conquête ».

Tout en reconnaissant que ces thèses pouvaient être contestées, l’islamologue membre de l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques de France jugeait que « l’Islam, par beaucoup de ses traits et par son histoire passée, pose des problèmes que ne pose aucune autre des grandes religions. Il en résulte qu’on doit, à son égard, rester très attentif et garder une attitude de grande prudence »….

Source: Chronique | Drôles de prières

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Adam Pankratz: The NDP is here to rescue us from ‘cis’ men

2025/09/06 Leave a comment

Patrick Lagacé has the more serious yet witty take below this take by Pankratz:

…Among the various requirements to be approved to run for the poisoned chalice of NDP leader is a Nomination Signature Form, which must be signed by 500 members in good standing of the NDP. So far, so normal. Then, as is too often the case for the new left, normal leaves the room to be replaced by grievance and nonsense.

And so, to ensure common sense is entirely absent from the signature process, the NDP requires “at least fifty percent (50%) of the total required signatures must be from members who do not identify as a cis man,” and “a minimum of one hundred (100) signatures must be from members of equity-seeking groups, including but not limited to racialized members, Indigenous members, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and persons living with disabilities.”

If there were any lingering doubt, the party of the working class is now definitively the party of identity politics and grievance culture. This is the language that broadcasts to Canadians that the message the NDP got from their electoral drubbing is that they must be even more radical.

While the NDP’s tone deafness to public sentiment is remarkable, the manner in which it facilitates the exclusion of women is even more staggering. Nowhere, readers of the rules will note, is it specified that 50 per cent of signatories must be female, only not “cis man.” That is to say, a candidate can be approved with a combination of cis men and trans women, all natal males, without the need to seek the approval of a single female. While this scenario is admittedly unlikely, it is staggering that a party so hell bent on “inclusivity” and “equity” is so obviously comfortable with the erasure of women from its inclusion criteria. By refusing to mention the word “woman” anywhere, the NDP have signalled their virtue, all while displaying the electoral communications sophistication of trepanned gnat….

Adam Pankratz is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.

Source: Adam Pankratz: The NDP is here to rescue us from ‘cis’ men

Legacé: Le NPD domine dans UQAM—Les-Nids-De-Poule

…Le NPD déconne parce que l’immense majorité de la population canadienne est cisgenre. Ce n’est pas une opinion, c’est un fait : les non-cis – transgenres et non-binaires – composent très exactement 0,33 % de la population canadienne de plus de 15 ans selon le recensement de 2021, soit 100 815 personnes sur 30,5 millions de personnes.

Mais oui, limitons le nombre d’hommes cisgenres qui peuvent appuyer une personne désirant diriger le NPD, ça me semble une excellente façon d’élargir la tente politique de ce parti !

Là où le NPD déconne aussi, c’est pour la vérification de l’étiquette de tous ces signataires. Comment les instances néo-démocrates vont-elles vérifier si un signataire est cisgenre… ou pas ?

S’il est 2S, soit bispirituel autochtone ?

Et véritablement autochtone ?

J’ai un TDA diagnostiqué : suis-je en situation de handicap ?

Passage sublime du texte de Catherine Lévesque dans le Post : Le parti n’a pas répondu immédiatement à savoir comment les dirigeants du parti vérifieraient si les signataires s’identifient comme cisgenres ou faisant partie d’un groupe « en quête d’équité ».

Pour authentifier les cis, va-t-on demander aux signataires de baisser leur pantalon ?

Pour le 2S, euh, comment on vérifie cela ?

Je cesse de déconner : le NPD a bien le droit de faire ce qu’il veut, même divorcer formellement de la majorité des Canadiens qui ne sacralisent pas leur sexe, leur genre, leur sigle, leur orientation sexuelle, leur patrimoine culturel. Bref, la moyenne des ours-es.

Mais dans le rayon du signalement de vertu, ces règles sont presque aussi niaiseuses que le discours anti-raciste-anti-colonialiste-anti-patriarcal qu’on retrouve dans les associations facultaires les plus militantes de l’UQAM.

Le NPD est sorti des élections du 28 avril avec le pire résultat depuis sa fondation, tant dans le nombre de députés que dans sa part du vote populaire. Il a perdu le statut de parti officiel au Parlement. Son chef Jagmeet Singh a fini troisième dans sa circonscription.

Source: Le NPD domine dans UQAM—Les-Nids-De-Poule

… The NDP is messing around because the vast majority of the Canadian population is cisgender. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact: non-cis – transgender and non-binary – make up exactly 0.33% of the Canadian population over the age of 15 according to the 2021 census, or 100,815 people out of 30.5 million people.

But yes, let’s limit the number of cisgender men who can support a person wishing to lead the NPD, it seems to me an excellent way to expand the political tent of this party!

Where the NDP also messes up is for the verification of the label of all these signatories. How will the New Democratic bodies verify whether a signatory is cisgender… or not?

If he is 2S, or indigenous bispiritual?

And truly indigenous?

I have a diagnosed ADD: am I disabled?

Sublime passage from Catherine Lévesque’s text in the Post: The party did not immediately respond to how party leaders would verify whether the signatories identify themselves as cisgenders or part of a group “in search of equity”.

To authenticate the cis, will we ask the signatories to lower their pants?

For the 2S, uh, how do we check this?

I stop fooling around: the NDP has the right to do what it wants, even formally divorce the majority of Canadians who do not sanctify their sex, gender, acronym, sexual orientation, cultural heritage. In short, the average of bears.

But in the radius of virtue reporting, these rules are almost as silly as the anti-racist-anti-colonialist-anti-patriarchal discourse found in the most militant faculty associations of UQAM.

The NDP came out of the April 28 elections with the worst result since its foundation, both in the number of deputies and in its share of the popular vote. It has lost the status of official party in Parliament. His leader Jagmeet Singh finished third in his riding.

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

Globe editorial: Tweets and platitudes will not defeat antisemitism

2025/09/04 Leave a comment

Good points:

…It bears repeating: Whatever your view on Israel’s actions in Gaza, Jewish Canadians are not responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu government, any more than Muslim Canadians are responsible for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, or Russian Canadians are culpable for Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression.

That simple fact seems to elude the protesters who target the places that Jewish Canadians gather, including near the Ottawa grocery store where last week’s attack took place. Those protesters have a constitutional right to express their anger. But they also have moral responsibilities, namely to ask themselves whether the manner of their protest is fostering an atmosphere of hate….

Source: Tweets and platitudes will not defeat antisemitism

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Globe editorial: A premier goes out on wing and a prayer

2025/09/03 Leave a comment

Valid questions but some of the public prayers have been more political than spiritual in nature:

…It is already presumed that whatever law the government tables will infringe on an individual’s freedoms of expression, of religion, of conscience and of peaceful assembly, and then duck behind the notwithstanding clause. But how far will the government go?

What happens to a Quaker standing silently in a park? Is the government aware that this can constitute a form of prayer? Should the person be detained for questioning? 

What about someone doing yoga in a park? While yoga is generally a secular practice in Canada, it can for some be a devotional exercise and a communion with a higher power. How will the government know what intentions the person doing yoga al fresco has set?

What about doing tai chi in a park? It, too, is most often a secular, meditative practice in Canada. It is not a religion in and of itself, but it can be used as part of a spiritual journey by people of different faiths. Like yoga, it depends on intention.

What about Falun Gong, a modern religious movement devoted to a god-like leader that has been banned in China? Its practitioners are often seen outdoors in parks, and sometimes on sidewalks in front of Chinese consulates, their hands clasped in the prayer position. Will Beijing suddenly have an ally in the suppression of Falun Gong members? 

What about the annual Roman Catholic Good Friday procession in Old Montreal, an event involving public prayer? Will that still be allowed? It could make a secularist uncomfortable.

Or what about a soccer player who, smack in the middle of a public stadium, crosses himself before a game or when he scores a goal? Is that permissible?

If this seems ridiculous, it is no more ridiculous than the failing CAQ government taking a desperate swing at a divisive issue to save its skin.

How far Mr. Legault goes with this will be telling. Is it even possible to ban public prayer based on the actions of some Muslim protesters without also ensuring that people of other faiths and beliefs aren’t allowed to get away with the same infraction? 

Or is that the whole point – to again single out the one group that was most affected by Bill 21 and its ban on hijabs, and which has so often come under fire in Quebec?

Like yoga, it’s all about setting intentions. 

Source: A premier goes out on wing and a prayer

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Danella Aichele: Canada’s immigration policy must address the growing number of students who don’t speak English or French

2025/09/03 Leave a comment

Surely the provinces should ensure this input as part of the annual levels plan consultations. In general, Canada scores highly on PISA for immigrant integration and outcomes:

…A better approach would involve genuine intergovernmental coordination. If Ottawa intends to maintain high levels of immigration, it should consult with provinces and large urban school boards before announcing new targets. Federal funding should be aligned with provincial education budgets so that school systems can hire more ESL teachers, develop tailored curricula, and ease the transition for newcomers.

This wouldn’t be administratively burdensome. Immigration is heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of urban centres. The challenge isn’t complexity, it’s negligence.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has framed immigration as central to Canada’s growth strategy. He is right. But growth cannot come at the expense of cohesion. If immigration is to succeed, it must be matched by the resources and the planning required to make integration work.

That means Ottawa can’t simply drop new arrival numbers into the system and hope for the best. It needs to start in the classrooms where integration is lived and learned every day. Immigration targets should reflect not just national ambitions but the realities in Brampton, Calgary, and Montreal schools.

Canada’s future prosperity and social cohesion depend on getting this balance right. Immigration works best when it is ambitious and realistic—when it opens doors but also equips schools, teachers, and communities with the tools they need. Anything less risks undermining public confidence and shortchanging the very students who will shape the country’s future.

Danella Aichele is a former teacher with the Calgary Board of Education with a Master’s of Public Policy from the University of Calgary.

Source: Danella Aichele: Canada’s immigration policy must address the growing number of students who don’t speak English or French

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Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system

2025/09/03 2 Comments

Willful blindness:

The Quebec government has turned down federal funding aimed at combatting systemic racism in the criminal justice system, saying it doesn’t agree with the program’s approach.

The federal government first offered $6.64-million in funding to provinces and territories in 2021 to improve fairness in the courts. Spread out over five years, the money was aimed at addressing the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system by promoting the use of race and cultural assessments before sentencing. 

These assessments – known as Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, or IRCAs – analyze how a convicted person’s experience of systemic racism contributed to their criminal charges.

While most provinces have accepted the federal funding aimed at supporting defendants or to cover the costs of assessments through their legal aid programs, Quebec has been opposed to providing this type of support.

“We are not party to any funding agreement involving Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, as Quebec doesn’t subscribe to the approach on which the funding program is based, namely systemic racism,” Marie-Hélène Mercier, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Justice Department, told The Canadian Press in an e-mail….

Source: Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system

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Polk: Canadian business needs to walk the walk on productivity

2025/09/02 1 Comment

Welcome commentary on the role and responsibilities of the private sector:

It is an annual rite of passage stretching back 30 years. Canadian business leaders sound a warning klaxon about the threat of Canada’s declining productivity. Then they will present a detailed list of policy asks to the federal government that, if implemented they say, will empower Canadian business to reverse our downward productivity trend. 

In many ways, federal governments — Conservative and Liberal — have answered the business call. Need free trade with the United States and Mexico? Done. Need to balance the federal budget to avoid national bankruptcy? Done. Need a low federal debt to GDP ratio? Done. Need corporate taxes rates that are competitive with the G-7? Done. Need business to be supported through the COVID-19 pandemic? Done.

Yet, year after year, Canadian productivity growth stagnates or declines. And year after year, the federal government is blamed by business and business media for failing to deliver a policy suite that will solve the productivity conundrum.

One could perhaps forgive a certain eye-rolling cynicism about business alarmism. And it sometimes seems to federal policymakers that businesses tend to shift the productivity policy goal posts for success in an effort to keep Ottawa the focus of criticism. 

On the flip side, there are quite legitimate business frustrations and complaints about how Ottawa operates. Canada’s inadequate depreciation rules, regulatory uncertainty, and slower project approvals can make capital projects less attractive. Programs like the SR&ED tax are rightly criticized as bureaucratic and more useful for tax planning than for encouraging real risk-taking.

Generational failure

At most, however, the federal government can create a pro-productivity framework. Improving productivity requires not just government policy shifts but also decisions made in boardrooms, shop floors, and offices across the country. On this score, while businesses have talked the talk on productivity for a generation, they have continually failed to walk the walk.

Canada has world-class researchers and scientists, yet business spending on research and development (R&D) is among the lowest in the OECD. Too often, Canadian companies rely on imported technologies rather than creating or adapting their own. This dependency leaves them vulnerable to foreign competitors and stifles the domestic innovation ecosystem.

A related difference between Canadian firms and their international peers lies in technology adoption. Businesses in Canada tend to delay or avoid major investments in automation, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and advanced analytics. This hesitancy often stems from cost concerns, risk aversion, or a “wait and see” mentality. But by holding back, firms are limiting their ability to produce more with the same resources.

Productivity is not only about machines — it is also about people. Workers equipped with up-to-date skills are far more likely to generate innovative ideas, master new technologies, and adapt to evolving markets. Unfortunately, Canadian businesses spend significantly less per employee on training and development than U.S. and European counterparts.

The point here is not to score governmental debating points against Canadian business in a seemingly endless passing of the productivity buck back and forth. The government-business productivity dialogue to which we have become accustomed is a luxury we can no longer afford in light of rising American economic nationalism.

Canada’s economic history has been defined by its privileged relationship with the two globally predominant economies of the last 150 years: the United Kingdom and the United States. Some may think that President Donald Trump’s assault on the global rules-based economic system will pass when he leaves the scene. However, it may also be the case that Trump has tapped into a political vein that has considerable staying power among Americans who feel dispossessed by globalization.

Profound shock

Prime Minister Mark Carnery has recognized this possibility and is trying to jolt Canadians into making big choices at a time when the nation may well be losing its privileged place under the American economic umbrella. This would be a profound shock to federal policy-making and to the way that Canadian companies do business.  

Carney has signalled what is coming federally by the breakneck speed with which he secured the Building Canada Bill Act, which seeks to remove the typical bureaucratic encumbrances that have held back major economy-building projects. His choice of Michael Sabia as a new Clerk of the Privy Council signals he will reward risk-taking and innovation above all else and penalize mere process management.  

Canadian businesses must meet this moment with equally bold thinking and action in a new, more uncertain economic reality. They must invest in a culture that rewards productive investment and upskills its workers. They must reward experimentation and tolerate calculated risk. They must uncover more efficient ways of doing things rather than copying existing models. Above all, they must adopt a true, globally competitive mindset beyond the comfortable habits ingrained during the now declining economic Pax Americana.

In other words, Canada is at an economic crossroads. The federal government seems to recognize this. 

But whether we travel the right road ahead will depend very much on whether Canadian businesses stop talking the talk on productivity and finally walk the walk.

Ken Polk is a public affairs counsellor at Compass Rose. Previously, Ken served as chief speechwriter, deputy director of communications and legislative assistant to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Source: Canadian business needs to walk the walk on productivity

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In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

Not that surprising:

When President Trump started dismantling federal agencies and dismissing rank-and-file civil servants, Peggy Carr, the chief statistician at the Education Department, immediately started to make a calculation.

She was the first Black person and the first woman to hold the prestigious post of commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. As a political appointee, she knew there was a risk of becoming a target.

But her 35-career at the department spanned a half dozen administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first term, and she had earned the respect of officials from both parties. Surely, she thought, the office tasked with tracking the achievement of the nation’s students could not fall under the president’s definition of “divisive and harmful” or “woke.”

But for the first time in her career, Dr. Carr’s data points didn’t add up.

On a February afternoon, a security guard showed up to her office just as she was preparing to hold a staff meeting. Fifteen minutes later, the staff watched in tears and disbelief as she was escorted out of the building.

“It was like being prosecuted in front of my family — my work family,” Dr. Carr said in an interview. “It was like I was being taken out like the trash, the only difference is I was being taken out the front door rather than the back door.”

While tens of thousands of employees have lost their jobs in Mr. Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal work force, experts say the cuts disproportionately affect Black employees — and Black women in particular. Black women make up 12 percent of the federal work force, nearly double their share of the labor force overall.

For generations, the federal government has served as a ladder to the middle class for Black Americans who were shut out of jobsbecause of discrimination. The federal government has historically offered the population more job stability, pay equity and career advancement than the private sector. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal government aggressively enforced affirmative action in hiring and anti-discrimination rules that Mr. Trump has sought to roll back.

The White House has defended Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the federal government as an effort to right-size the work force and to restore a merit-based approach to advancement In July, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump could continue with mass firings across the federal government.

In a statement, Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Trump was “ushering in an economy that will empower all Americans, just as it did during his first term.” He added that “the obsession with divisive D.E.I. initiatives reverses years of strides toward genuine equality.”…

Source: In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit

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Thousands in Australia march against immigration, government condemns rally

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Hopefully will not be replicated in Canada:

Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country on Sunday that the centre-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis.

March for Australia rallies against immigration were held in Sydney and other state capitals and regional centres, according to the group’s website.

“Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the website says. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration”.

The group also says it is concerned about culture, wages, traffic, housing and water supply, environmental destruction, infrastructure, hospitals, crime and loss of community.

Australia – where one in two people is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas – has been grappling with a rise in right-wing extremism, including protests by neo-Nazis.

“We absolutely condemn the March for Australia rally that’s going on today. It is not about increasing social harmony,” Murray Watt, a senior minister in the Labor government, told Sky News television, when asked about the rally in Sydney, the country’s most-populous city.

“We don’t support rallies like this that are about spreading hate and that are about dividing our community,” Watt said, asserting they were “organised and promoted” by neo-Nazi groups.

March for Australia organisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the neo-Nazi claims.

Laws banning the Nazi salute and the display or sale of symbols associated with terror groups came into effect in Australia this year in response to a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

COUNTER-PROTESTERS EXPRESS ‘DISGUST, ANGER’

Some 5,000 to 8,000 people, many draped in Australian flags, had assembled for the Sydney rally, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported. It was held near the course of the Sydney Marathon, where 35,000 runners pounded the streets on Sunday, finishing at the city’s Opera House.

Also nearby, a counter-rally by the Refugee Action Coalition, a community activist organisation, took place.

“Our event shows the depth of disgust and anger about the far-right agenda of March For Australia,” a coalition spokesperson said in a statement. Organisers said hundreds attended that event.

Police said hundreds of officers were deployed across Sydney in an operation that ended “with no significant incidents”.

A large March for Australia rally was held in central Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, according to aerial footage from the ABC, which reported that riot officers used pepper spray on demonstrators. Victoria Police did not confirm the report but said it would provide details on the protest later on Sunday.

Bob Katter, the leader of a small populist party, attended a March for Australia rally in Queensland, a party spokesperson said, three days after the veteran lawmaker threatened a reporter for mentioning Katter’s Lebanese heritage at a press conference when the topic of his attendance at a March for Australia event was being discussed.

Source: Thousands in Australia march against immigration, government condemns rally

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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