Nicolas: Cohérence recherchée [on affirmative action], Lisée: Les mauvais génies de l’égalité

2022/04/08 Leave a comment

Appears to be a strong rebuttal to Lisée’s column, reprinted below:

Qu’est-ce que c’est, au fond, la discrimination positive ? Il s’agit de favoriser, dans certains cadres, un ou des groupes de personnes qui subissent de la discrimination ou des désavantages systémiques afin de rétablir une égalité des chances.

Parfois, ça peut se faire sous forme d’encouragements, d’incitatifs à offrir des postes à certaines personnes issues de groupes qui risqueraient d’être autrement sous-représentés. Parfois, on va plus loin et on exige un seuil minimum de représentation.

La Loi sur la Cour suprême du Canada, par exemple, stipule que trois des neuf juges en poste doivent venir du Québec. Cette loi a été écrite par des gens qui ne croyaient pas que tous les gouvernements fédéraux, peu importe leur inclination idéologique et la provenance de leurs députés, s’assureraient d’une représentation des experts en droit civil québécois à la Cour suprême, simplement par bonne volonté et par reconnaissance de leurs compétences. Par crainte de biais systémiques qui nuiraient aux candidatures québécoises, notamment, on leur a réservé des postes.

La Loi sur la radiodiffusion, qui donne entre autres son mandat au CRTC et à CBC/Radio-Canada, a aussi abondamment recours à des mesures de discrimination positive. Partout au Canada, on craint — depuis l’invention des médias de masse, essentiellement — que le contenu américain noie les ondes et empêche notre industrie radiophonique et télévisuelle de se développer. Face à Goliath, on a armé David de quotas. Nos médias généralistes ont l’obligation de produire ou de diffuser de 40 % à 60 % de contenu canadien pour conserver leur permis du CRTC.

Pour protéger la culture francophone, on va encore plus loin. La loi exige que les stations de radio de langue française consacrent au moins 65 % de leur programmation hebdomadaire de musique populaire à de la musique en français. Ces quotas donnent nécessairement un bon coup de pouce à la visibilité des artistes francophones, et ont joué un rôle important dans le développement de l’industrie culturelle québécoise. Malgré ces mesures, on ne remet pas en question la « compétence » des musiciens dont les œuvres passent constamment à la radio. On comprend que, pour répondre aux avantages injustes (notamment financiers) qui propulsent la carrière des artistes anglo-américains, la discrimination positive a un rôle à jouer.

La loi 101, elle aussi, carbure largement à la discrimination positive. Dans un contexte de discrimination systémique importante contre les francophones dans un ensemble de secteurs d’emploi, le gouvernement du Québec a adopté des mesures musclées. Depuis, une grande partie des emplois offerts au Québec sont réservés aux candidats qui maîtrisent le français. Il est indéniable que la loi a joué un rôle majeur dans l’amélioration des perspectives économiques des Franco-Québécois ces dernières décennies.

Au fédéral, la Loi sur les langues officielles permet aussi d’exiger le bilinguisme dans plusieurs postes de la fonction publique. Et puisque les francophones sont plus nombreux que les anglophones à être bilingues, la mesure peut largement être assimilée à une forme de discrimination positive. Cette législation arrive-t-elle à complètement corriger le déséquilibre des forces entre le français et l’anglais à Ottawa ? Non, pas du tout. Le collègue Boris Proulx fait notamment un travail important pour mettre en lumière le désavantage systémique qui subsiste malgré la loi. Il a d’ailleurs montré que le problème semble particulièrement criant à Affaires mondiales, où les francophones demeurent pratiquement absents de la haute direction.

Cette situation illustre bien que la discrimination positive en emploi peut être contournée assez facilement par des élites déterminées à se reproduire entre elles, surtout si on fonctionne par encouragements et incitatifs à l’embauche plutôt que par exigence réglementaire. Elle montre aussi qu’elle ne mène certainement pas à un « régime de domination inversé » du groupe historiquement discriminé. Au mieux, la discrimination positive limite une partie des « dommages » à l’égalité des chances causés par les inégalités structurelles.

Les commentateurs qui montent aux barricades contre la discrimination positive depuis quelques jours ont certes bâti leur carrière en faisant face à beaucoup moins d’obstacles que bien des femmes et que bien des personnes racisées, autochtones ou handicapées qui ont pourtant autant de talent et de compétences qu’eux, sinon plus. Ils ont aussi tiré profit (directement ou indirectement) de cette infrastructure légale complexe de discrimination positive échafaudée au siècle dernier pour corriger une partie des inégalités systémiques entre francophones et anglophones. Sans les exigences du CRTC, sans la loi 101, sans bien d’autres réglementations encore, la vie culturelle, médiatique, politique et économique du Québec et du Canada serait méconnaissable.

Cette réalité indéniable, on la passe sous silence : c’est bien plus commode. Des chroniqueurs réclament donc que les unilingues anglophones soient exclus d’emblée de certains postes (comme celui de p.-d.g. d’Air Canada), d’une part, puis disent toute leur horreur du principe même d’exclure les plus privilégiés de certains concours (en parlant d’une chaire de recherche à l’Université Laval), d’autre part. Leur crédibilité repose sur l’espoir qu’on ne se rende pas compte de ce manque flagrant de cohérence.

La seule issue possible d’un débat aussi mal posé, c’est l’hypocrisie et le deux poids, deux mesures. On peut tout à fait discuter de la pertinence des mesures de discrimination positive les plus contraignantes selon le contexte. Mais il est difficile de le faire avec des gens qui, après avoir utilisé une échelle pour que leur propre groupe social accède aux sommets, cherchent à en interdire la construction de nouvelles pour ceux qui sont encore en bas. 

Source: Cohérence recherchée

And the original article that likely provoked Nicolas:

Les nouvelles sont un peu moches pour les jeunes universitaires en histoire de la région de Québec. S’ils souhaitaient parfaire leur parcours, à la maîtrise ou au doctorat, avec l’appui d’un enseignant de pointe et des budgets qu’offre une chaire du Canada, l’occasion leur a filé entre les doigts à 16 heures le lundi 8 novembre dernier. À ce moment, aucun candidat acceptable n’avait postulé pour diriger à l’Université Laval les chaires d’histoire de l’Amérique latine, d’histoire romaine, d’histoire du Canada-Québec et d’histoire de l’art du Québec et du Canada.

Comme chacun le sait désormais, les hommes blancs non handicapés ne pouvaient pas aspirer à occuper la direction de ces chaires, comme celle de biologie dont on parle depuis la semaine dernière. Toutes les facultés montent des projets et tentent de trouver des porteurs non blancs pour atteindre la cible et figurer, en juin, parmi les finalistes. Beaucoup tombent au combat dès la première étape.

Pour comprendre pourquoi l’Université Laval se trouve dans ce pétrin, procédons à une vérification statistique simple. Pour avoir droit à la manne fédérale, les universités doivent atteindre des seuils stricts en matière de diversité. Pour les femmes et les handicapés, leur proportion est répartie équitablement dans le pays. Mais la cible que l’université doit atteindre pour ce qui est des « minorités racisées » est de 22,3 %. C’est la moyenne canadienne. Quelle proportion occupent ces minorités à Québec ? Statistique Canada est précis : 6,5 %. (Et c’est exactement la proportion présente au sein du corps professoral de l’Université Laval.) Et quelle est-elle à Toronto ? 51,5 %.

Bref, les universités torontoises peuvent combler leurs chaires du Canada en n’affichant que la moitié de la diversité présente sur leur territoire et n’ont qu’à se pencher pour trouver, localement, des professeurs répondant au portrait-robot. Québec (ou Rimouski, Sherbrooke ou Chicoutimi) doit recruter loin, très loin, et s’adonner à de grandes séductions.

Pour bien savourer la situation, supposons qu’un apôtre de l’accession à l’égalité ait déterminé qu’historiquement, les Canadiens français ont souffert de discrimination dans les études supérieures. J’invente, je sais, mais on jase, là. Pour redresser ce tort, il sommerait toutes les universités du pays d’embaucher leur juste part de profs canadiens-français, soit 23 %, la moyenne canadienne, sous peine de perdre leur financement. On gage que l’Université Laval n’aurait aucune peine à recruter, mais que la chose serait pénible à Toronto et à Edmonton ?

Voilà des subtilités qui ont échappé à ceux qui ont pris la décision de mettre nos universités dans cet entonnoir. Répondant à des plaintes d’universitaires mécontents de la sous-représentation des minorités dans le Programme des chaires de recherche du Canada, la Commission canadienne des droits de la personne a accepté d’emblée qu’il fût juste et bon que les titulaires de ces chaires soient dans un délai assez court représentatifs de l’arc-en-ciel des différences qu’on retrouve, en moyenne, dans la société canadienne, concluant que les retardataires seraient privés de financement, point à la ligne. La Cour fédérale a estampillé ces accords et leur a donné force de loi.

On voit un peu partout une mobilisation forte pour l’augmentation de la présence de membres des minorités en emploi, dans des postes de décision et de grande visibilité. J’applaudis. Il est indéfendable qu’on trouve encore trop peu de minorités visibles dans les corps policiers, chez Hydro et à la SAQ dans la région montréalaise, où la peau de 34 % de nos concitoyens n’a pas la pigmentation qui dominait jadis en Normandie. Mais à Rimouski, où ils sont moins de 2 % ?

La question est : jusqu’où doit-on aller, comment et à quelle vitesse ? Les pédagogues nous enseignent par exemple que la sous-représentation masculine au primaire et au préscolaire est un déterminant de la sous-performance des garçons, en manque de modèles. Utilisons la méthode des chaires et retirons en 10 ans le financement des garderies et des écoles primaires qui ne comptent pas 50 % d’éducateurs et de professeurs mâles ! C’est raide, mais c’est pour la bonne cause. N’êtes-vous pas scandalisés par les taux d’échec et de décrochage des garçons (seuls 68 % obtiennent un diplôme d’études secondaires à temps) ?

Penchons-nous avec la même méthode déterminée sur l’industrie de la construction. La paie est excellente, l’emploi abondant, mais on n’y trouve pas 3 % de femmes, et cela ne progresse qu’à pas de tortue. Annonçons que, d’ici 2029, les seuls entrepreneurs pouvant postuler pour des travaux publics devront démontrer que la moitié de leurs travailleurs sont des travailleuses !

Si ces propositions vous semblent excessives, ou du moins précipitées, le cas des chaires est, à mon avis, pire encore. Car lorsqu’on réfléchit à la pyramide des compétences, n’est-il pas curieux que le lieu où on exige désormais une représentation stricte soit sur la pointe, là où il s’agit de faire franchir, par les meilleurs cerveaux, les frontières actuelles de la connaissance humaine ? Les chercheurs ont trouvé une façon pour éliminer les préjugés dans la distribution de subventions de recherche. Ils déposent leurs dossiers « à l’aveugle », c’est-à-dire sans inscrire leur nom ou celui de leur établissement. Les candidats pour ces chaires ne devraient-ils pas être aussi choisis ainsi ? Et tant mieux si l’excellence est incarnée par une Autochtone handicapée ?

Comme il y a, dans les filières universitaires, une sous-représentation des étudiants venant de certains milieux, n’est-ce pas là qu’il faut multiplier les passerelles pour les attirer ? Sachant que le Québec fait déjà mieux que le reste de l’Amérique pour tous les revenus modestes, avec les droits de scolarité les plus bas et les prêts et bourses les plus généreux.

Nous sommes donc aux prises avec des apprentis sorciers de l’égalité. Ils nuisent à la fois à la science, à l’éducation et à la cause qu’ils estiment servir.

Source: Les mauvais génies de l’égalité

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Blogging break

2022/04/08 Leave a comment

Traveling. Blog will resume in May.

Filed under Multiculturalism

Douglas Todd: The painful demographics of homelessness

2022/04/07 Leave a comment

Some interesting data:

They are injured construction workers who need to kill the pain, ex-soldiers with trauma, spouses escaping conflict and First Nations members who can’t get housing on their reserves.

Such histories are common among the men who make up 68 per cent of all homeless in British Columbia, according to Judy Graves, who spent three decades as a champion for people forced onto the street and into shelters, including as the city of Vancouver’s full-time homeless advocate.

“Many men become disposable at certain times in their lives,” said Graves. They wind up surviving in shelters, in tents or couch surfing because their jobs or families have fallen apart and they have been struck down by despair or succumbed to addiction.

Graves put forth many reasons why men are so overrepresented in B.C.’s latest homeless count, which was released this month and focused more than in the past on demographics. The count discovered 8,665 people in the province without shelter, a rise of 11 per cent from 2018.

Many of the men, according to 25 counts across the province, come from the unusually high proportion of Indigenous people, former military personnel and Black Canadians who are homeless.

Almost two of five homeless residents are Indigenous, even though Indigenous people make up only one in 20 of the population. Six per cent served with the military or the RCMP, which makes them “vastly overrepresented” among those without a home.

For the first time, the provincewide count included data on race. While it found 63 per cent of the homeless are white people, which is roughly equivalent to the overall ratio, it discovered three per cent were Black people, even though only one per cent of B.C.’s population is Black.

South Asian people comprised only two per cent of the homeless, which is much lower than the overall cohort of 11 per cent. And East Asians, including ethnic Chinese, accounted for just two per cent, even though they make up 12 per cent of all residents. Graves owed such findings in part to “strong cultural support for families.”

As someone who has taken part in many homeless counts and continues to meet with street people across Metro Vancouver, Graves has talked with men from a range of ethnic backgrounds and nationalities who have ended up desperate for provisional shelter.

Many had become addicted to opioids after becoming repeatedly injured in construction, the military, policing or other physically dangerous jobs, which are mostly held by men, she said. “They get caught between their pain and being out of the workforce.”

A lot of men she’s come to know have also left their homes because of conflict with a spouse or partner, which is the reason 14 per cent of B.C. residents reported they’re homeless. “That’s a really big one.”

While there is already a large amount of government housing provided exclusively for women, including transition shelters for those facing domestic violence, Graves said there is none specifically for men, including for fathers and their children. She believes there should be.

“I think marriage break up is actually harder on men than women,” she said, explaining that many women quickly gain support from their social network, while men often turn to drinking alone. “Men really need support and counselling right after a domestic conflict.”

The Ministry of Housing did not respond directly to many Postmedia questions about homelessness, including why there are no shelters distinctly for males given the government’s emphasis on putting every policy through a “gender lens.”

Instead, spokesperson Sarah Budd maintained the NDP government believes homeless women are undercounted; so it wants to provide them with more housing.

Graves calls Victoria’s approach “reverse gender politics.”

One of the reasons, Graves added, that such a large proportion of Indigenous men and women end up on the streets, living in tents or in shelters is a lack of housing on reserves across Canada.

“A lot of the housing on reserves was built 40 years ago and is falling apart,” she said, noting First Nations people on reserves aren’t permitted to own their own dwellings.

“It was also built only for families and is often unbelievably crowded.” There are, she said, almost no small housing units on reserves for single people, who are the most likely to need a place to live.

The number of foreign-born people who are homeless in B.C. almost doubled compared to the last count in 2018, rising to eight per cent of the total.

But that is far below their provincial average, which has immigrants, refugees and those seeking permanent resident status making up one out of three residents. Graves suggested that foreign-born homeless people might be undercounted since those who have “uncertain immigration status” would tend to hide from counters.

“People have to be trained on where to look.”

The Housing Ministry said in this year’s budget spending on “housing and homelessness supports reached more than $1.2 billion a year for the next three years — three times the level of funding in 2017.”

Source: Douglas Todd: The painful demographics of homelessness

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Richard: La loi sur la laïcité de l’état marque un progrès pour la société

2022/04/07 Leave a comment

An example of Quebec rhetoric in favour of Bill 21:

Bientôt, la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État sera à nouveau débattue en cour. Au crépuscule de ma vie et à l’occasion de mes 88 ans, permettez-moi d’appuyer publiquement cette loi amplement justifiée et visant un meilleur vivre-ensemble. On accuse la loi 21 d’être contre les religions. Elle est pourtant un instrument de paix, car la laïcité unit alors que les religions divisent. L’Histoire le prouve. Ceux qui sont contre la loi 21 font passer les religions avant la laïcité par ignorance.

Il n’y a pas que les Québécois de souche qui veulent la loi 21. De nombreux musulmans et musulmanes le veulent aussi. Ferid Racim Chikhi, un Algéro-Canadien immigré au Québec, connaît bien l’islamisme. En tant que musulman, il veut voir et vivre la laïcité au Québec. Dans son tout récent livre Fenêtre sur l’Islam, ses musulmans, ses islamistes, M. Chikhi sonne l’alarme et donne l’heure juste quant à l’aveuglement de nos gouvernements en ce qui a trait à une infiltration des islamistes qui est voulue et sournoise, avec en tête un plan défini pour imposer un jour à la société d’accueil rien de moins que la charia ! En 2005, Fatima Houda-Pepin, d’origine musulmane et alors députée libérale de La Pinière, était intervenue à la Chambre des députés pour que la demande pour la charia soit refusée.

La nécessité de la laïcité et de la loi 21 est une évidence. Refuser la loi 21, c’est s’opposer au progrès de la société, c’est revenir aux siècles passés, où le pouvoir des décisions était entre les mains des chefs religieux comme les imams, les rabbins et les évêques plutôt que sous la responsabilité des gouvernements élus par le peuple. Si c’est cela que le Canada veut, pas le Québec, qui, au prix d’une longue lutte, a réussi à séparer l’Église et l’État. Il n’est pas question de retourner en arrière !

Un des problèmes est aussi le préambule de la Constitution canadienne, qui évoque la suprématie de Dieu. C’est une honte ! Un texte d’une telle importance pour la nation doit être inclusif et respecter le fait qu’au Canada et dans toutes les provinces, il n’y a pas que des croyants, mais aussi des agnostiques et des athées.

Ce que l’on ignore aussi, c’est que, bien qu’il y ait des femmes qui revendiquent le droit de porter le voile pendant les heures de travail, il y a aussi des femmes musulmanes qui espèrent pouvoir enfin l’enlever grâce à l’application de la loi 21. C’est ce que plusieurs d’entre elles auraient confié secrètement à une autorité scolaire. Et cela, elles ne peuvent le dire ouvertement sous peine de représailles.

Le maire de Brampton, Patrick Brown, qui se présente comme candidat dans la course à la direction du Parti conservateur du Canada, a organisé une levée de fonds pour financer la contestation de la loi québécoise sur la laïcité. Il soutient qu’un jour, au Canada, un premier ministre sera forcé de présenter des excuses officielles pour l’adoption et l’application au Québec de la loi 21. Or, si un jour, l’ignorance fait place au savoir, il se pourrait fort bien que ce soit lui qui doive s’excuser auprès du peuple québécois pour avoir tenté de l’empêcher de l’appliquer !

Les opposants à la laïcité disent ne pas vouloir briser le rêve d’une femme voilée, mais ils sont prêts à briser l’espoir de millions de citoyennes et de citoyens du Québec, dont le mien.

Pourquoi favoriser une société théocratique, laquelle est contraire à la vérité de la science, plutôt que de consentir au gain sociétal apporté par la loi 21 ? La laïcité comporte une neutralité commune consentie par les Québécoises et les Québécois, qui construit lentement mais sûrement la paix du Canada, dont tous pourront bénéficier.

Source: La loi sur la laïcité de l’état marque un progrès pour la société

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Expert says genocide is part of humanity, often result of propaganda

2022/04/07 Leave a comment

Unfortunately true, as recent history illustrates, whether Rwanda, China in Xinjiang, or as Russia is trying to do in Ukraine:

As the images of mass graves and murdered civilians in Ukraine flash across our screen, we think of those who commit genocide as pure evil.

But a man who has dedicated his life to fighting the bigotry that causes genocide and has discovered more than 3,100 execution sites and interviewed more than 7,400 victims around the world knows better.

“A human being has the capacity to heal people, to save people, but also the capacity to do the worst crimes,” Father Patrick Desbois said. “The first thing to accept is that genocide is inside humanity.”

Desbois, an author and founder of Yahad-In Unum (Together In One), a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering genocidal practices, spoke Monday night inside the Arizona Ballroom of the Memorial Union as part of Genocide Awareness Week, put on by Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.

Desbois, who has received several awards for his work documenting the Holocaust, including the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, said the perpetrators of genocide often are ordinary people who become embroiled in extraordinary situations.

He cited the case of Sabrina Harmon, a former U.S. Army reservist who was convicted of war crimes for her involvement in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Baghdad during the Iraq war.

“I always say to my students (at Georgetown University) that I’m sure she was a normal girl,” Desbois said. “I’m sure she was not a monster. Genocide is not in a hell place away from everything. It’s not true.”

Genocide often is the result, Desbois said, of propaganda feeding brainwashed minds. It was that way in Nazi Germany, in Angola in the 1970s, in Sudan and in Ukraine, where Russian president Vladimir Putin justified his country’s invasion with the propaganda that Ukraine is “openly pro-Nazi.”

“Hitler never missed people to do the job,” Desbois said. “There is no country where Hitler said, ‘Oh, nobody wants to do the job for killings. He found people to do everything, to dig the mass graves, to fill the mass graves, and even if Jews are not dead, they are buried alive, to take the belongings and sell them by auction, etc. etc.

“Because when you brainwash people, when you make propaganda to designate a target, you wake up the criminals. And you find clients for everything … Why are young soldiers coming from Russa doing awful things in public, under cameras from CNN? Why can Putin deny it every day?

“Propaganda is still strong. Propaganda has a capacity to whitewash the brain. And when people are brainwashed, any violence is possible … Everybody can be a victim. Everybody can be a killer. It depends where you are.”

Desbois said propaganda – and the resulting Neo-Nazi movement — is in part responsible for the rise in anti-Semitism around the world, including the United States. According to FBI statistics in 2020, Jews living in America are the target of 58% of all religiously motivated hate crimes.

Desbois said that when he posts something about the Holocaust on his Facebook page, “there’s always somebody who denies it, for any reason.”

“I will never forget the first time I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “I took a cab from the airport and had an Arab driver. I gave the address, and he brought me to the museum. After I went to pay, he told me, ‘You go to a place which shows the genocide that never existed.’”

That attitude, Desbois said, is why it’s important to teach high school and college students about the Holocaust. Already, he said, the Holocaust is not taught in schools in Mexico, Asia, China, India, Russia, most African countries and most Arab countries.

“I see year after year students (at Georgetown) know nothing about the Holocaust,” Desbois said. And the young generation, they will have very few chances to meet a (Holocaust) survivor. They will meet people who say, ‘Ha, it never existed. It’s a Jewish trick to make money to build Israel.’

“So, it’s a strong responsibility to teach, to train a generation of leaders and to do it so that they have the capacity to resist the huge movement of hate.”

“Holocaust by Bullets,” a program and exhibit by Yahad-In Unum, can be seen in the Hayden Library through April 17. Members of the ASU community can access the free exhibit any time during library hours. Non-ASU community members can access the exhibit during docent-led tours from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays.

Source: Expert says genocide is part of humanity, often result of propaganda

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

America’s culture wars distract from what’s happening beneath them

2022/04/06 Leave a comment

Interesting take. Culture wars as the opium of the people in contrast to some of the underlying structural factors:

The neoliberal order that triumphed in America in the 1990s prized free trade and the free movement of capital, information, and people. It celebrated deregulation as an economic good that resulted when governments could no longer interfere with the operation of markets. It hailed globalization as a win-win position that would enrich the west (the cockpit of neoliberalism) while also bringing an unprecedented level of prosperity to the rest of the world. A remarkable consensus on these creedal principles came to dominate American politics during the heyday of the neoliberal order, binding together Republicans and Democrats and marginalizing dissenting voices to the point where they barely mattered.

Somewhat paradoxically, this broad agreement on matters of political economy nurtured two strikingly different moral perspectives, each of them consonant with the commitment to market principles that underlay the neoliberal order. The first perspective was ‘neo-Victorian’, celebrating self-reliance, strong families, and disciplined attitudes toward work, sexuality, and consumption.

These values were necessary, this moral perspective argued, to gird individuals against market excess – accumulating debt by buying more than one could afford and indulging appetites for sex, drugs, alcohol, and other whims that free markets could be construed as sanctioning. Since neoliberalism frowned upon government regulation of private behavior, some other institution had to provide it. Neo-Victorianism found that institution in the traditional family – heterosexual, governed by male patriarchs, with women subordinate but in charge of homemaking and childrearing.

Such families, guided by faith in God, would inculcate moral virtue in its members and prepare the next generation for the rigors of free market life. Gertrude Himmelfarb, Irving Kristol, George Gilder, and Charles Murray were among the intellectuals guiding this movement, the legions of evangelical Christians mobilized in Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority its mass base.

The other moral perspective encouraged by the neoliberal order was cosmopolitan. A world apart from neo-Victorianism, it saw in market freedom an opportunity to fashion a self or identity that was free of tradition, inheritance, and prescribed social roles. In the United States this moral perspective drew energy from liberation movements originating in the new left – black power, feminism, multiculturalism, and gay pride among them.

Cosmopolitanism was egalitarian and pluralistic. It rejected the notion that the patriarchal, heterosexual family should be celebrated as the norm. It embraced globalization and the free movement of people, and the transnational links that the neoliberal order had made possible. It valorized the good that would come from diverse peoples meeting each other, sharing their cultures, and developing new and often hybridized ways of living. It celebrated the cultural exchanges and dynamism that increasingly characterized the global cities – London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami among them – flourishing under the aegis of the neoliberal order.

The existence of two such different moral perspectives was both a strength and a weakness for the neoliberal order. The strength lay in the order’s ability to accommodate within a common program of political economy very different constituencies with radically divergent perspectives on moral life. The weakness lay in the fact that the cultural battles between these two constituencies might threaten to erode the hegemony of neoliberal economic principles.

The cosmopolitans attacked neo-Victorians for discriminating against gay people, feminists, and immigrants, and for stigmatizing the black poor for their so-called “culture of poverty”. The neo-Victorians attacked the cosmopolitans for tolerating virtually any lifestyle, for excusing what they deemed to be deplorable behavior as an exercise in the toleration of difference, and for showing a higher regard for foreign cultures than for America’s own. The decade of the neoliberal order’s triumph – the 1990s – was also one in which cosmopolitans and neo-Victorians fought each other in a series of battles that became known as the “culture wars”. In fact, a focus on these cultural divisions is the preferred way of writing the political history of these years.

Just beneath this cultural polarization, however, lay a fundamental agreement on principles of political economy. This intriguing coexistence of cultural division and economic accord manifested itself in the complex relationship between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. In the media, they were depicted (and depicted themselves) as opposites, sworn to each other’s destruction. Clinton offered himself as the tribune of the new America, one welcoming of racial minorities, feminists, and gays. He was thought to embody the spirit of the 1960s and something of the insurgent, free-spirited character of the new left. Gingrich presented himself as the guardian of an older and “truer” America, one grounded in faith, patriotism, respect for law and order, and family values. Gingrich publicly pledged himself and his party to obstructing Clinton at every turn. Clinton, meanwhile, regarded Gingrich as the unscrupulous leader of a vast right-wing conspiracy to undermine his presidency.

Yet, despite their differences and their hatred for each other, these two Washington powerbrokers worked together on neoliberal legislation that would shape America’s political economy for a generation. They both supported the World Trade Organization, which debuted in 1995 to turbocharge a global regime of free trade. Their aides jointly engineered the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which did more than any other piece of legislation in the 1980s and 1990s to free the most dynamic sector of the US economy from government regulation.

Major pieces of legislation deregulating the electrical generation industry and Wall Street followed closely in the telecom bill’s wake. Clinton and Gingrich also worked together to pare back the welfare state, sharing a conviction that the tough, disciplining effects of job markets would benefit the poor more than state-subsidized “handouts”. Clinton’s collaboration with Gingrich had facilitated the neoliberal order’s triumph.

That order is now on the wane, its once unassailable principles of free trade, free markets, and the free movement of people now disputed on a daily basis. Meanwhile, public attention focuses on yet another chapter in the culture wars, with the American people divided, irredeemably it seems, over vaccination, critical race theory, and whether Donald Trump should be lauded as an American hero or jailed for acts of treason.

Yet, beneath the churn, one can detect hints of new common ground on economic matters emerging. Trump and Bernie Sanders have both worked to turn the country away from free trade and toward a protectionist future promising better jobs and higher wages. Senators Josh Hawley and Amy Klobuchar have both been warning the American people about the dangers of concentrated corporate power and the “tyranny of high tech”; and bipartisanship is driving movements in Congress to commit public funds to the nation’s physical infrastructure and to industrial policies deemed vital to economic wellbeing and national security. It is too soon to know whether these incipient collaborative efforts indicate that a new kind of political economy is in fact taking shape and, if it is, whose interests it will serve. But these developments underscore, once again, the importance of looking beyond and beneath the culture wars for clues as to where American politics and society might be heading.

Gary Gerstle is a Guardian US columnist. Excerpted and adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (Oxford University Press, 2022)

Source: America’s culture wars distract from what’s happening beneath them

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Canada’s big six banks almost came together to help Black entrepreneurs – but then they went their separate ways

2022/04/06 Leave a comment

Of note. Visions are easier than implementation:

The Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund started with a vision: bring government and financial institutions together to provide a pool of money that would help Black business owners, who disproportionately face systemic barriers to accessing capital.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched the program on May 31, 2021, he was joined by members of his government, representatives of financial institutions and leaders in the Black business community. No one from Canada’s big six banks spoke, but Small Business Minister Mary Ng said the banks were on board and were putting up $128-million to help fund the program – nearly half its budget.

Although the banks had been at the table for months, they had all walked away just days before the launch. And the millions of dollars they had supposedly committed to the fund never arrived.

Instead of a single fund, what has evolved is a patchwork system, where it’s largely public money that is at stake and the big six banks – Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank – offer their own individual programs that vary widely in how generous they are and how vigorously they try to get funding into the hands of Black entrepreneurs who need it.

Those who cheer the current system say Black business owners are given a wider choice of loan programs than they would have been offered under a centralized government program. And they argue that, if all the private money that has been promised is spent, there will be a larger total amount of funds available.

But, others say, the scattered approach means there is no national standard for how to reform access to credit – a long-standing concern of Black entrepreneurs – and little transparency concerning what the various programs have to offer.

When the pandemic started, in spring 2020, Tiffany Callender was executive director of the Côte-des-Neiges Black Community Association, in Montreal. At the time, she said, she and other leaders at nonprofits serving the Black business community watched the federal government roll out the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), a loan program for companies affected by COVID-19. She worried that the loans – which were backed by the government but distributed through banks – would be just as inaccessible to Black entrepreneurs as traditional bank loans were.

“The criteria that were set, we knew innately that a lot of Black entrepreneurs would not qualify,” Ms. Callender said.

Black business owners have long said lack of access to capital is one of their biggest challenges. Last year, in an Abacus Data survey of more than 300 Black entrepreneurs, nearly eight in 10 said it would be difficult or impossible to find even $10,000 to support their companies. Fewer than one in five said they trusted banks to do what is right for them.

Black Canadians have a much lower rate of homeownership than the national average, which means they are less likely to be able to use houses as collateral on businesses loans. And, according to Statistics Canada, more than half of Canada’s Black population is made up of first-generation immigrants, many of whom have low credit scores simply because they haven’t had much time to build up their credit history in this country.

Ms. Callender said she and representatives of other Black-led community organizations met with MPs during the early months of the pandemic. George Floyd had just been murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minn., and there was widespread public discussion about racial discrimination. Institutions wanted to make changes to address those issues, and be seen to be making changes.

Ms. Ng became the lead minister on the file. Her office recruited representatives from Canada’s big six banks to sit with members of the Black business community and craft an ambitious lending program that would make an unprecedented amount of funding available to Black entrepreneurs.

What followed were months of talks that, participants said, included frank discussions about the barriers Black entrepreneurs face, and also about the constraints banks in the heavily regulated financial sector felt they were up against in making change.

“The kinds of conversations that took place over that year were, really, between the Black entrepreneurs and the financial institutions, with the federal government at the table. It was really to begin to understand where some of those challenges really were,” Ms. Ng said.

A key issue for the banks was what level of risk they were prepared to take on if, for example, they were to accept loan applicants with credit scores lower than their usual minimums.

Four sources with knowledge of or involvement in the talks said the financial institutions wanted the government to guarantee the loans. The government had done so with CEBA, but did not want to extend similar protections to the Black entrepreneurship program.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations publicly.

One of the sources, a senior government official, said the minister’s office was concerned that, if the changes were linked to full loan guarantees, they would last only as long as the guarantees were in place. The official said the government did explore options for guaranteeing portions of the loans, but did not settle with the banks on how that would work.

As talks continued for months, the banks grew more uncomfortable with collaborating with one another and with the government.

Ultimately, with the public announcement of the program just days away, the banks raised concerns about whether they could co-operate on a lending program without violating the law, four sources said.

The Competition Act contains criminal and civil provisions that prohibit collusion between financial institutions. But the act also spells out some circumstances in which financial institutions can collaborate. For example, one exception allows banks to work together on guaranteed loan programs created by Parliament – such as CEBA. Another exception allows the federal finance minister to endorse a collaboration if it is in service of a financial policy.

The government did not want to guarantee the loans, so the first option was out. The senior government official said the government considered the second option. But it had never been used before, and officials were reluctant to set a precedent.

The banks pulled out. The government quickly instructed the Business Development Bank of Canada, a Crown corporation, to provide $130-million to back the loan program, along with $33-million from the government itself. The government publicly said the banks would join in a second phase of the program and provide $128-million, so that the total budget of the fund would be $291-million.

The second phase was never announced. For much of the past year, the government’s website continued to say it was coming.

When The Globe began to inquire about that claim in late February, the government said the banks were still considered the program’s partners. But it was at this point that the website changed. Mention of the big banks was removed. And the overall budget of the program, once touted as $291-million, was revised down to $160-million, meaning the bank money was no longer being counted.

The Globe contacted each of the big six banks, but all declined to explain why they left the program.

The Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund launched in two parts: a large loan program, and a microcredit program.

The large loans provide up to $250,000 to each applicant, with financial backing from the government. The microcredit stream provides privately funded loans of between $10,000 and $25,000, and is run through two credit unions: Alterna, in Ontario, and Vancity, in British Columbia.

The microloan programs are modelled after similar programs the two credit unions have run for years, which aim to get money into the hands of people who might be denied traditional bank loans.

Bill Cunningham, Vancity’s vice-president of community, business and real estate, said his organization will consider low credit scores by looking at what contributed to them. He said there is a difference between an applicant whose low score is because of negative factors – such as a bankruptcy – and someone whose score is low because they are a new Canadian who hasn’t had time to build up their credit history.

The large loans are reviewed and administered by the Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE), a Black-led organization created for the purpose and led by Ms. Callender. It’s a coalition of five Black business groups: the Côte-des-Neiges Black Community Association and Groupe 3737, in Montreal; the Black Business and Professional Association, in Toronto; the Africa Centre, in Edmonton; and the Black Business Initiative, in Halifax.

The launch was rocky. The announcement and the promised millions of dollars for Black businesses led to thousands of applications. But FACE, which had just been built from scratch, was woefully understaffed and unprepared for the surge. The organization is still digging through the backlog.

Cheryl Sutherland, a Toronto entrepreneur who owns an e-commerce stationery business called PleaseNotes, said she applied for a loan shortly after the program launched and still hasn’t received an update on her file, more than nine months later.

She said the BBPA, one of the groups that helped found FACE, recently sent out a mass e-mail to loan applicants inviting them to a webinar. But the organization forgot to hide the addresses of recipients, which led to a group e-mail chain full of complaints

“It’s kind of, unfortunately, indicative of what ends up happening for a lot of things that they create for people of colour,” she said, referring to government programs in general. “It’s like, yeah, we’re doing something, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

FACE said it has received 16,000 applications and approved $14-million in loans.

One of the recipients is Margaret Adekunle, the founder and chief executive officer of City Lending Centres, in Edmonton. Her company provides credit cards and credit-education services to Black Canadians and immigrants in the area.

Ms. Adekunle, who has a background in financial services, said she faced skepticism from banks when she began to inquire about a startup loan in 2021. She said she felt much more supported when she applied for the federal loan.

“I think they understood what I was trying to do for the community and they believed in it from the beginning,” she said.

In the year since the federal loan fund launched, the big six banks have pursued their own programs.

National Bank said it had made a $1.25-million donation to the Black Opportunity Fund, an endowment started in 2020 by a group of Bay Street executives, and that it had also partnered with the BOF to create a $5-million investment fund. The bank said it had also given $10-million to EVOL, a Quebec-based organization that supports diverse business ownership.

Scotiabank said it is spending $500-million over 10 years on its ScotiaRISE initiative, which aims to direct money toward underrepresented groups, including the Black community.

TD said it would donate $10-million to the BOF over five years. The bank said it is focusing on its Black Customer Experience Strategy, which aims to improve relations with Black clients.

Three banks have unveiled programs similar to the federal one.

In October, RBC launched the RBC Black Entrepreneur Business Loan, which provides up to $250,000 to each applicant. RBC said the program is part of a five-year, $100-million commitment the bank made in 2020 to supporting Black communities.

In January, CIBC launched the CIBC Black Entrepreneur Program, which provides loans of up to $250,000 as part of a $15-million investment. The bank said it was working with the BOF and the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce.

And in February, BMO launched Business Within Reach: BMO for Black Entrepreneurs, which provides loans of up to $250,000 as part of a $100-million commitment. The bank said it was also working in partnership with the BOF.

All the federal and bank loans are repayable in 10 years. The federal loans have interest rates of between 6 and 8 per cent. CIBC said its interest rate is the bank’s prime rate plus 1.25 to 3 per cent. RBC and BMO wouldn’t reveal their interest rates.

None of the three banks would say how many applications they have received so far, or how many loans they have disbursed.

Craig Wellington, executive director of the BOF, said his organization has spoken to hundreds of Black entrepreneurs about the financial barriers they face and has shared those lessons with some of the banks.

He said the BOF is working closely with CIBC on its program, and he encouraged Black business owners who had previously been denied loans to try again.

“Because they were declined a year, a year and a half ago by CIBC does not mean they will be declined from this current program,” he said.

But some entrepreneurs say any change hasn’t gone far enough.

Before launching her business last year, Ms. Adekunle had worked as a branch manager for three different banks over the course of 20 years. She said she looked into the terms of the banks’ Black entrepreneur programs and spoke to former colleagues to get a better sense of how they worked.

“What I was trying to figure out was, what really makes what they’re offering a Black entrepreneurship program? What is different? What is new?” she said.

She came away with the impression that the only thing different was the word “Black” in the names. “It’s the same criteria,” she said.

Source: Canada’s big six banks almost came together to help Black entrepreneurs – but then they went their separate ways

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Australia: ‘Beyond the pale’: PM rocked by new claims

2022/04/05 Leave a comment

Difference of interpretation or dog whistle?

Scott Morrison has been hit with fresh claims he sought to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment, with two witnesses to a shadow cabinet meeting in 2010 insisting there was a “blow up” with Malcolm Turnbull over the issue.

The Prime Minister has previously confirmed the discussion in an interview with The Project’s Waleed Aly, but insisted he sought to cool voter concerns over Muslim migration, not exploit it.

However, two people who attended the meeting on December 1, 2010 have told news.com.au they did not believe he raised the issue purely to address voter sentiment.

“Malcolm Turnbull genuinely ripped into him. Said it was ‘beyond the pale’,” a Liberal source said.

Another Liberal shadow cabinet member at the time told news.com.au: “He absolutely did talk about the Muslim migration.”

“He flagged it and I remember Phillip Ruddock was very scathing about it,” they said.

Reports of the meeting first emerged in 2011, with claims Mr Morrison urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate.

Then-opposition leader Tony Abbott was not at the meeting, but deputy leader, Julie Bishop, and the former immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, strongly disagreed with the suggestion, pointing out the Coalition had long supported a non-discriminatory immigration policy.

Liberal sources said at the time Mr Morrison told the shadow cabinet meeting on December 1 at the Ryde Civic Centre that the Coalition should ramp up its questioning of “multiculturalism” amid deep voter concerns.

Three years ago, when the claims surfaced again, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described them as “a disgusting lie”.

Mr Morrison abruptly shut down a press conference when he was asked, “Those that did attend the meeting told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011, quote, that Scott said, ‘What are we going to do about multiculturalism?’”

“I’m going to stop you there. I’ve already addressed this issue today. It is an ugly and repugnant lie,” Mr Morrison said.

“I reject it absolutely 100 per cent and my record of working with the Muslim community in Sydney in particular speaks volumes for my track record. Any suggestion to the contrary, I find utterly offensive. Thank you.”

But just 24 hours later, he confirmed he had raised concerns over the “anti-Muslim” sentiment of voters during a 2010 shadow cabinet meeting, but insisted it was only to “address them, not exploit them”.

Mr Morrison confirmed the discussions with The Project’s Waleed Aly in March 2019.

It was the first time the PM has admitted the discussions on “anti-Muslim” sentiments occurred, after describing claims he had sought to capitalise on the fears as “an ugly and disgusting lie” just 24 hours earlier.

In the interview, Aly asked: “Who is lying? You say that this never happened. You’ve called it a smear and a lie. Who is lying?”

Mr Morrison then blamed two “unnamed sources” in shadow cabinet – Liberal MPs – for twisting the truth of the meeting into “a lie”.

“What is suggested is that I said that we should exploit – exploit – concerns about Islam in the community to our political advantage,” Mr Morrison said.

“Well, I was the shadow immigration minister at the time. And I was very concerned about these issues and the way people were feeling in the community.”

In 2011, Liberal finance spokesman Andrew Robb confirmed that “Scott did talk about the strong feelings in the general community about Muslim immigration and he said that we as a party had to engage with that sentiment”.

“But I’m sure he meant we should engage in a constructive way,” Mr Robb said.

The story first emerged after Mr Morrison questioned the cost of asylum-seeker funerals in 2011. Mr Morrison later apologised for the “timing” of his comments, saying it was “inappropriate” and “insensitive”.

When Aly asked the Prime Minister about Mr Robb’s on-the-record confirmation that he had discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, Mr Morrison confirmed he had discussed it in the meeting.

“I was concerned that we needed to address them. Which is what I have been doing inside and outside of the Parliament for the last 10 years of my life,’’ he said.

“Yes – to lower them. I was acknowledging that there were these fears in the community and we had to address them, not exploit them.”

“I want to rule a line under this issue. It never happened. I have always been deeply concerned about attitudes towards people of Muslim faith in our community.”

Mr Morrison ended the interview with a plea for voters to respect his sincerity on fostering good relationships with the Muslim community.

“Don’t pre-judge me. I know what my values are,” he said.

Source: ‘Beyond the pale’: PM rocked by new claims

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Helping Hollywood Avoid Claims of Bias Is Now a Growing Business

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

Business will find a way…

In the summer of 2020, not long after the murder of George Floyd spurred a racial reckoning in America, Carri Twigg’s phone kept ringing.

Ms. Twigg, a founding partner of a production company named Culture House, was asked over and over again if she could take a look at a television or movie script and raise any red flags, particularly on race.

Culture House, which employs mostly women of color, had traditionally specialized in documentaries. But after a few months of fielding the requests about scripts, they decided to make a business of it: They opened a new division dedicated solely to consulting work.

“The frequency of the check-ins was not slowing down,” Ms. Twigg said. “It was like, oh, we need to make this a real thing that we offer consistently — and get paid for.”

Though the company has been consulting for a little more than a year — for clients like Paramount Pictures, MTV and Disney — that work now accounts for 30 percent of Culture House’s revenue.

Culture House is hardly alone. In recent years, entertainment executives have vowed to make a genuine commitment to diversity, but are still routinely criticized for falling short. To signal that they are taking steps to address the issue, Hollywood studios have signed contracts with numerous companies and nonprofits to help them avoid the reputational damage that comes with having a movie or an episode of a TV show face accusations of bias.

“When a great idea is there and then it’s only talked about because of the social implications, that must be heartbreaking for creators who spend years on something,” Ms. Twigg said. “To get it into the world and the only thing anyone wants to talk about are the ways it came up short. So we’re trying to help make that not happen.”

The consulting work runs the gamut of a production. The consulting companies sometimes are asked about casting decisions as well as marketing plans. And they may also read scripts to search for examples of bias and to scrutinize how characters are positioned in a story.

“It’s not only about what characters say, it’s also about when they don’t speak,” Ms. Twigg said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, there’s not enough agency for this character, you’re using this character as an ornament, you’re going to get dinged for that.’”

When a consulting firm is on retainer, it can also come with a guaranteed check every month from a studio. And it’s a revenue stream developed only recently.

“It really exploded in the last two years or so,” said Michelle K. Sugihara, the executive director of Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, a nonprofit. The group, called CAPE, is on retainer to some of the biggest Hollywood studios, including Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros., Amazon, Sony and A24.

Of the 100 projects that CAPE has consulted on, Ms. Sugihara said, roughly 80 percent have come since 2020, and they “really increased” after the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021. “That really ramped up attention on our community,” she said.

Ms. Sugihara said her group could be actively involved throughout the production process. In one example, she said she told a studio that all of the actors playing the heroes in an upcoming scripted project appeared to be light-skinned East Asian people whereas the villains were portrayed by darker-skinned East Asian actors.

“That’s a red flag,” she said. “And we should talk about how those images may be harmful. Sometimes it’s just things that people aren’t even conscious about until you point it out.”

Ms. Sugihara would not mention the name of the project or the studio behind it. In interviews, many cited nondisclosure agreements with the studios and a reluctance to embarrass a filmmaker as reasons they could not divulge specifics.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of GLAAD, the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, said her group had been doing consulting work informally for years with the networks and studios. Finally, she decided to start charging the studios for their labor — work that she compared to “billable hours.”

“Here we were consulting with all these content creators across Hollywood and not being compensated,” said Ms. Ellis, the organization’s president since 2013. “When I started at GLAAD we couldn’t pay our bills. And meanwhile here we are with the biggest studios and networks in the world, helping them tell stories that were hits. And I said this doesn’t make sense.”

In 2018, she created the GLAAD Media Institute — if the networks or studios wanted any help in the future, they’d have to become a paying member of the institute.

Initially, there was some pushback but the networks and studios would eventually come around. In 2018, there were zero members of the GLAAD Media Institute. By the end of 2021, that number had swelled to 58, with nearly every major studio and network in Hollywood now a paying member.

Scott Turner Schofield, who has spent some time working as a consultant for GLAAD, has also been advising networks and studios on how to accurately depict transgender people for years. But he said the work had increased so significantly in recent years that he was brought on board as an executive producer for a forthcoming horror movie produced by Blumhouse.

“I’ve gone from someone who was a part-time consultant — barely eking by — to being an executive producer,” he said.

Those interviewed said that it was a win-win arrangement between the consultancies and the studios.

“The studios at the end of the day, they want to produce content but they want to make money,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy organization Color of Change. “Making money can be impeded because of poor decisions and not having the right people at the table. So the studios are going to want to seek that.”

He did caution, however, that simply bringing on consultants was not an adequate substitute for the structural change that many advocates want to see in Hollywood.

“This doesn’t change the rules with who gets to produce content and who gets to make the final decisions of what gets on the air,” he said. “It’s fine to bring folks in from the outside but that in the end is insufficient to the fact that across the entertainment industry there is still a problem in terms of not enough Black and brown people with power in the executive ranks.”

Still, the burgeoning field of cultural consultancy work may be here to stay. Ms. Twigg, who helped found Culture House with Raeshem Nijhon and Nicole Galovski, said that the volume of requests she was getting was “illustrative of how seriously it’s being taken, and how comprehensively it’s being brought into the fabric of doing business.”

“From a business standpoint, it’s a way for us to capitalize on the expertise that we have gathered as people of color who have been alive in America for 30 or 40 years,” she said.

Source: Helping Hollywood Avoid Claims of Bias Is Now a Growing Business

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Immigration Canada acts to end racism, cultural bias among employees

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

Of note:

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is conducting a study to explore potential cultural bias shown by its employees when it comes to processing visa applications at the country’s points of entry, according to a department spokesperson.

The study comes in response to a survey examining workplace racism at IRCC released last year that revealed multiple reports of racist “microagressions” by employees and supervisors.

Participants interviewed said that some of the overt and subtle racism they have witnessed by both employees and decision makers at IRCC “can and probably must impact case processing.”

The department has also made it mandatory for employees and executives to take unconscious bias training, and instituted a requirement for senior staff to take a specific course on inclusive hiring practices as a prerequisite for obtaining their delegated authority to sign financial and staffing decisions.

In addition, said spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald, IRCC is appointing anti-racism representatives in each sector of the department to support the work of a newly-established Anti-Racism Task Force and has created a Black Employee Network to ensure Black voices are heard in driving change.

“We must actively fight racism and continue to work tirelessly to foster a culture of inclusion, diversity, and respect…but actions speak louder than words,” MacDonald told New Canadian Media through email.

MacDonald said IRCC will be hiring an independent firm to do an Employment System Review (ESR). The ESR will identify new solutions in core areas such as people management practices and accountability.

IRCC also plans to release its Anti-Racism Strategy and action plan later this year.

IRCC’s steps to combat racism and cultural bias come in the wake of critics arguing that that’s precisely what is contributing to a growing backlog of visa applications while exacerbating issues of racial discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Jasraj Singh Hallan, a Calgary-area MP who serves as the Conservative Party’s shadow minister on immigration, told NCM the IRCC isn’t only plagued with racism and cultural bias when dealing with visa applications, but it is also struggling to stamp out racist workplace behaviour.

“I have been asking IRCC for several months now to reveal the number of disciplinary actions and investigations it has taken against employees, but have been unable to get answers,” he told NCM.

“The impact of racism and cultural bias in IRCC is contributing to massive backlogs in visa applications, refugee processing times and increased cost to the taxpayer.” The latest IRCC numbers show there are 1.84 million people waiting on decisions in its inventory as of mid-March.

Even as Canada struggles to address the processing delays, the country’s 2022–2024 Immigration Levels Plan aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of about one per cent of Canada’s population. This includes 431,645 permanent residents in 2022 (an increase of about 21,000 people from its original plan), 447,055 in 2023, and 451,000 in 2024.

Respondents to the survey released last year pointed to the differences in visa refusal rates by country as an indicator that some form of bias must be at play.

The study also showed there’s growing concern that increased automation of visa processing will embed racially discriminatory practices in a way that will be harder to see over time.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has filed a policy grievance against IRCC on behalf of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU) based on the disproportionate and adverse treatment of racialized members.

The grievance was filed on March 15, ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

“In this case, IRCC has shown they are incapable or unwilling to proactively address issues of racial discrimination and harassment when they arise, such as excluding racialized employees from hiring and promotional opportunities,” said the PSAC.

PSAC and CEIU are seeking several corrective and concrete measures to eliminate discrimination in the workplace and prevent discriminatory practices in the future. The unions are also calling for all affected members to receive compensation for damages.

PSAC is also supporting a Black Class Action Lawsuit brought by 12 federal public service workers, who identify as Black, Caribbean or of African descent.

The lawsuit reaches back 50 years, arguing the federal government perpetuated Black employee exclusion: the systemic practice of limiting skilled Black workers from career advancement opportunities.

The lawsuit has now grown to represent 1,300 plaintiffs, including past and present IRCC employees, who are seeking over $2.5 billion in damages.

Meanwhile, an internal IRCC memo, obtained by Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, shows that taxpayers are doling out between $9,915 and $33,738 depending on the determination of the eligibility of an asylum claim.

“The lower cost is incurred in cases where the asylum claim is accepted at the first hearing, while the higher cost relates to claims which are initially denied, and the claimant exhausts all appeal options and is ultimately removed from Canada,” the memo stated.

“You can expect the processing costs to go up given the increasing backlog,” Kurland told NCM.

“When the government doesn’t put in the necessary resources to process applications properly and in a timely fashion, Canadians end up paying for it anyway,” Kwan told NCM.

Kwan noted that in 2021, 23 per cent of appeals of Refugee Protection Division (RPD) decisions were overturned by the Refugee Appeals Division (RAD), with an additional 8.5 per cent sent back to the RPD to reassess their decision.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Refugee Appeal Division decides appeals of decisions of the Refugee Protection Division to allow or reject claims for refugee protection. A person whose claim is rejected by the RPD can ask the RAD to review this decision to assess whether the RPD was wrong.

“That’s a very high error rate and this doesn’t include federal reviews which will uncover even more judgement errors,” said Kwan.

Source: Immigration Canada acts to end racism, cultural bias among employees

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