A more independent Canadian foreign policy requires embracing bilingualism

2021/11/26 Leave a comment

While I will leave to others to comment on the foreign policy aspect,  was struck by this para:

“No doubt, Canadians of diverse backgrounds have important contributions to bring to the foreign service. If a candidate brings energy and intellectual heft to the table but cannot speak one of the official languages, this should not constitute an absolute barrier to employment. But those recruits should be required to spend the first year or two of their careers focused almost exclusively on language training.”

Grudging in tone and ignorant in substance. All foreign service officers must be bilingual (CCC) or undertake language training to become so. One can, of course, debate whether CCC is truly bilingual but the requirement is clearly there.

Knowledge of other languages is an asset given the cost of language training, particularly for more difficult languages (I benefitted from Arabic language training during my time at GAC but only achieved an beginner-to-intermediate level):

In the recent controversy over Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau’s language skills, his defenders have advanced the usual arguments: English is the language of international business; knowing French is an asset, but not essential.

Of course, at issue is not whether a unilingual anglophone can be an effective CEO; it is that an inadequate embrace of bilingualism is a national failure. However, a less often appreciated fact is that Canada’s place on the world stage also depends on us embracing our bilingual history and character. More than ever, Canada’s national sovereignty in a changing world needs to be expressed both domestically and internationally, in French and in English.

Many Canadians may feel relieved by the declining visibility of last century’s tortuous national unity debates. However, this has come at the cost of our commitment to conceive of Canada as a shared political community. Our future as a country depends on the ability of francophones to feel that all of Canada is their home.

Moreover, Canada’s core national unity and identity dilemma remains a challenge. But today, it must be addressed in the context of a more complex international environment

Canada’s decades-long national unity struggles unfolded against a mostly consistent international backdrop: the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, during which our country was fortunate to be neighbours with the world’s unquestioned hegemon. By contrast, in today’s world, change is the norm. The rules that will inform the international order of the coming decades are currently being contested and are far from being settled.

In this new and uncertain era, our interests will not always align with those of our southern neighbour. While Washington may wish to compete with Moscow and Beijing in a bid to maintain its position as the world’s pre-eminent power, Ottawa may legitimately fear that unbridled great power competition will destabilize the rules-based international institutions that have buttressed Canada’s economic prosperity and international position for decades.

By embracing its bilingual identity on the world stage more fully, Canada would distinguish itself from its American neighbour and counter its growing reputation as a “vassal state” of the United States.

Canada requires a more independent foreign policy – one in which we are allied to the US but not necessarily aligned on every file of importance. This, in turn, warrants a term-setting mentality: rather than reacting to threats as they unfold, we must identify and stand by our own interests and vision for international order, even at the cost of occasional disagreements with our allies.

We currently lack the foreign policy framework necessary to develop and sustain such an approach. Looking ahead, a renewed commitment to bilingualism – both in Ottawa and among the population at large – can help to change that. And while some assert that the task of enhancing the diversity and representativeness of Canada’s federal institutions should supersede bilingualism, these goals are not mutually exclusive.

No doubt, Canadians of diverse backgrounds have important contributions to bring to the foreign service. If a candidate brings energy and intellectual heft to the table but cannot speak one of the official languages, this should not constitute an absolute barrier to employment. But those recruits should be required to spend the first year or two of their careers focused almost exclusively on language training.

If individuals wish to join our foreign service, or the federal public service more broadly, they must be willing to advance the interests of Canada. Fostering an independent foreign policy is one such interest – and one that cannot occur in a vacuum. It will rely upon the development of a national strategic approach and school of thought fit for a world in transition, replete with its own vocabulary.

Such a task must, in large part, be pursued through the use of both of our own distinctive national languages. The growing Americanization of our political and intellectual culture – owing to factors such as the gravitational pull of U.S. media and the dominance in policy circles of American concepts – casts doubt on whether a Canada that only thinks in English will ever be able to think for itself.

At a time of significant global change, a strengthened commitment to bilingualism would not only infuse our national project with renewed energy at home, but also signal that Canada is willing to set the terms of its international position.

Jean Charest is a partner at McCarthy Tétrault and was premier of Quebec from 2003 to 2012. Zachary Paikin is a research fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, a Toronto-based international affairs think tank. Stéphanie Chouinard is associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College and a fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Source: A more independent Canadian foreign policy requires embracing bilingualism

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Far-right groups like The Base will radicalise Australians until we confront their beliefs

2021/11/26 Leave a comment

Perspective of interest:

As one of the reporters who worked to uncover the operations of white power accelerationist group, The Base, I view the Australian federal government’s listing of them as a proscribed terror groupthis week as a belated but important recognition of the danger presented by white supremacist organisations.

But the national security state is a blunt instrument, and the apparatus of anti-terrorism is no substitute for making anti-racism principles central to a more inclusive democracy.

At its height, The Base was a transnational network of white nationalists who were seeking to collectively plan and prepare for what they saw as the inevitable collapse of liberal democracies they saw as decadent and corrupted by the values of feminism and multiculturalism.

In the Guardian US, I was the first reporter to identify Rinaldo Nazzaro, an American former US intelligence contractor now based in Russia, as the group’s founder and leader.

Previously he had only been known by the aliases Norman Spear and Roman Wolf.

An infiltrator gave me unprecedented access to the group’s internal communications. There I saw that although their group claimed only to be preparing for disaster, their conversations functioned to further indoctrinate members in a poisonous ideology of racial hatred, and the group’s relentlessly repeated fantasies of terroristic violence, for some of them, translated into real-world acts of destruction.

Members of the group are now facing trial for offences ranging from vandalising synagogues to assassination plots

Late last month, one member, former Canadian serviceman Patrik Mathews, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison for engaging in a terror plot with other members of the group.

Later, I showed how The Base’s efforts to recruit in Australia had led to them vetting Dean Smith in 2019, who was a federal election candidate for One Nation in Western Australia the same year. Smith ended up withdrawing his application and there is no evidence he has engaged in or planned any violence.

Source: Far-right groups like The Base will radicalise Australians until we confront their beliefs

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Human rights hearing on allegations of racial profiling of migrant workers caught in mass DNA sweep begins

2021/11/25 Leave a comment

Of interest:

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear Monday from migrant workers who allege they were racially targeted by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) as part of a DNA sweep in connection to a 2013 sexual assault investigation.

The 54 applicants argue that the indiscriminate manner in which the DNA sweep was conducted violated their rights under Ontario’s Human Rights Code.

The OPP swabbed 96 Black and brown migrant farm workers from mostly Caribbean countries working on at least five farms in Elgin County, in southwestern Ontario, in 2013 as officers searched for a suspect in a sexual assault.

But human rights lawyer Shane Martínez, who is representing the migrant workers pro bono, says most workers who were swabbed did not fit the physical description of the suspect except for the colour of their skin.

“Workers were West Indian, workers were black from Jamaica, workers with long dreadlocks, ones who were bald — one worker had gold teeth,” Martínez said. “They were as diverse a group as you could potentially imagine.”

“When they tried to provide explanations as to [where they were] and they provided alibis, the police completely disregarded those and wanted nothing more than to collect their DNA because of how they looked.”

The suspect, meanwhile, was described as between 5-10 and six feet tall, black, with no facial hair and a low voice that might have a Jamaican accent.

The sexual assault survivor told police her attacker was muscular and possibly in his mid-to-late 20s. She said she was confident the perpetrator was a migrant worker and believed she’d seen him near her home in rural southwestern Ontario.

‘I didn’t want to risk my livelihood’

Dwayne Henry recalls being asked to provide a DNA swab eight years ago.

Hailing from Jamaica, Henry says while he was nervous, he initially felt assured when the police approached him.

“We were scared, but knowing this was Canada, this was the first world, I thought I was doing something keeping with the law,” said Henry. “We know what police can do back in our country.”

Henry, who now lives in Stratford, Ont., said he was with his girlfriend at the time of the assault and had dreadlocks that did not match the suspect’s description. But he says that made no difference in the investigation.

Now that he’s a permanent resident, Henry says he could clearly see that both his employer and the police pressured him to comply.

“I think at that time they were taking advantage of us just because we were migrant workers,” said Henry. “We were scared that we were going to be sent back home. This is the place [where we are the] breadwinner for our family, you know?”

Henry says the investigation continues to follow him and his reputation, even back in his home country. That’s why he became part of the human rights claim.

“To this day, it still has a dent in my life.”

Samples didn’t match DNA from scene

Police would later tell an independent review into what happened in 2013 that due to the seasonal agricultural worker program, they felt they had to act fast to find the perpetrator before he left the country.

On Nov. 30, 2013, Henry Cooper, a migrant farm worker from Trinidad and Tobago was arrested after suspicions around his unwillingness to provide a DNA swab and conversations with his employer led to the OPP surveilling him in hopes of getting a discarded sample of his DNA.

He eventually pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and uttering death threats and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In 2016, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) released its report based on a complaint put forth by Justicia for Migrant Workers, a volunteer-run collective that advocates for the rights of migrant workers.

At least 11 other stakeholders made submissions to be considered during the review, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

The report found that while the investigation failed to “recognize the particular vulnerabilities of the migrant worker community targeted by the DNA canvass,” it was not motivated by racial prejudice.

It also questioned whether the “consents obtained were truly informed and voluntary.”

In his report, Gerry McNeilly, the police review director at the time, recommended the OPP adopt a policy on canvassing for DNA that could also be used by other police services.

When asked if the OPP had implemented this recommendation — and the report’s six others, which included training for officers on DNA canvassing and communication surrounding the collection and destruction of DNA — OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson said it “reviewed [the report’s] contents and continues to address the recommendations that were made in the OIPRD review.”

When pressed about what that meant, he replied as follows: “Any further comment would be inappropriate in order to preserve the integrity of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario hearing.”

Martínez says despite acknowledgement of the OPP’s shortcomings, the independent police review did not match the standards of a human rights tribunal in determining racial discrimination — which is one of the reasons the workers moved ahead with their claim.

All of the officers interviewed by the independent police review director said they had told the migrant workers that their decision to participate in the DNA swabbing was voluntary — and that the decision would be kept confidential from their employers so as not to affect their job security.

But the report found the officers failed to do that.

After learning that a few workers had refused to do the DNA test, the main employer “made the decision that none of these men would be invited back to work for our company in the future unless they consented to take [the] test,” the report found.

Case delayed for years

The application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario was filed in 2015.

While the COVID-19 pandemic created some delay in getting to a hearing, Martínez alleges the OPP also tried to have the case quashed.

Martínez says the OPP tried to have the application dismissed because it was filed two years after the DNA swab instead of within the typical one-year deadline.

But he said a pre-tribunal hearing found that the filing delay was “sustained in good faith” and it noted that the applicants are part of a vulnerable population.

A class-action lawsuit on behalf of anyone whose DNA was taken by the OPP in relation to these types of investigations has also been certified.

The lawsuit alleges the Centre of Forensic Sciences has retained DNA profiles in a database, even though the material gathered did not match that of the suspect in the criminal investigation.

Although the 2016 independent police review states that all of the migrant workers’ samples were destroyed in 2014, a spokesperson for Justicia for Migrant Workers says the workers don’t have faith the samples and their profiles are gone — and were never made aware their DNA profiles would be entered into a database.

“These are widespread issues of privacy, of privacy infringement, of racial injustice that I think all of us in the community need to be concerned [about],” said Chris Ramsaroop. This is a systemic practice and policing that’s flawed.”

Fighting for recognition

According to Justicia for Migrant Workers, the case is the first human rights hearing of its kind in Canada to examine allegations of systemic racial profiling and discrimination by the police of migrant farm workers.

“Many of the workers wanted to just basically put this incident past them, and there were other workers who were still fearful of repatriation,” Ramsaroop said. “But the fact that we had 54 of the 96 workers take part in this I think is phenomenal. This speaks to the level of outrage that exists within this community.”

Henry says he’s fighting for recognition, compensation and justice so that other people don’t have to go through something similar.

“We are taking a stand to protect the rights of migrant workers who are coming,” Henry said. “I’m doing this not just because of us; I’m doing this for other migrant workers also.”

Source: Human rights hearing on allegations of racial profiling of migrant workers caught in mass DNA sweep begins

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism, Racism

Khan: A quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosque

2021/11/24 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When Tasneem Noor got on the stage at the Women’s Mosque of America in Los Angeles, she felt butterflies in her stomach. Facing about fifty women on praying rugs, ready to deliver a sermon – khutba in Arabic – she took a deep breath.

During the prayers, the women would follow Noor’s lead, but several would pray four more times after it ended, to make up for any potentially invalid prayers. That is the result of a 14-century-old disputed hadith, that leads some to believe women are forbidden to lead prayers and deliver sermons.

“I don’t mind,” Noor told me later. “Some people function better with rules.”

Noor, 37, is part of a quiet revolution in America: at the all women’s mosque, she was celebrating its five year anniversary of practicing the female imamat, a rare and often controversial practice in Islam.

Women aren’t even allowed to pray in many mosques across the world. In some mosques in the US, women may enter, but are often forced pray in separate rooms – leading some to call it the “penalty box”. Spiritual leaders that have pushed boundaries – by running mixed congregation mosques or running an LGBTQ mosque – have received death threats.

But at the Women’s Mosque of America, women are using their sermons to cover previously untouched topics like sexual violence, pregnancy loss and domestic violence.

One of Noor’s most memorable sermons happened in 2017 – a surprise, considering it was largely an improvisation. After a scheduling hitch left Noor with less than half of the 45-minutes she should have had, she shortened her talk and changed tack: leading the congregation into a meditation.

Source: A quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosque

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

New Parliament has some fresh, diverse faces, but is it enough?

2021/11/23 Leave a comment

Some good commentary by Erin Tolley. Agree with her that it would be preferable for the Library of Parliament to collect and maintain this data, as they do for women, Indigenous and those born outside Canada:

The number of visible minority MPs and of other historically marginalized communities in Canada’s 44th Parliament, which resumes Monday, Nov. 22, has notably increased, but some analysts question the depth of the changes. 

The number of Indigenous MPs went from 10 in 2019 to 12. There will be a total of eight Black MPs, including the five incumbent from the 2019 Parliament and three new additions.

Based on the validated and judicial recount results posted on Elections Canada website, the Liberals have 160 seats (up by three from 2019), the Conservatives 119 (down two), the NDP 25 (up one), the Bloc Québécois an unchanged 32, and the Greens two.  

Despite seemingly little change on the surface, the election yielded a relatively high turnover — bringing a total of 52 new MPs from all parties who will take their seats in the House of Commons for the first time. 

Critical twists

In at least six ridings where visible minorities were either incumbents or contenders, there were critical twists and turnarounds. 

Liberal Parm Bians unseated the Conservative Kenny Chiu in the riding of Richmond East. Paul Chiang unseated the Conservative Bob Saroya in Markham-Unionville. George Chahal defeated Jagdeep Kaur Sahota in Calgary Skyview, thus swaying an important seat for Liberals in the province of Alberta. Conservative Nelly Shin lost to the NDP candidate in Port Moody-Coquitlam, and the Conservative Michelle Ferreri defeated Maryam Monsef in Peterborough. 

The sixth important riding where visible minorities lost out to a third candidate was Kitchener-Centre, where the dropping out of the race of Raj Saini led to an easier win for the Green party candidate Mike Morris.      

Election 44 reflected the greatest diverse pool of candidates in any election thus far, and as a result, the new Parliament will have greater representation for many historically neglected communities. 

The new Parliament will have 103 female MPs, three more than the previous one, and women MPs in total now make up 30.5 per cent of the House of Commons, a slight increase from 29 per cent. 

For comparison, in 2015, there were 88 women MPs. The Liberal Party has increased its number of female MPs since then from 52 to 57. The NDPs have gone from nine to 11. For the Conservatives, the number of women remained steady at 22, as did the number for the Bloc Québécois at 12 and for the Greens at one. The 44th Parliament likewise marks an increase in LGBTQ2S+ MPs, with eight openly LGBTQ2S+ MPs elected, double the number from 2019.  

In the runup to the September election, a team of Carleton University researchers led by Erin Tolley, Canada research chair in gender, race and inclusive politics, launched a project to track candidate’s diversity. 

The dataset collected includes information about their gender, race, Indigenous background, age, occupation, and prior electoral experience, as well as riding, party, and province. 

Slow and incremental

But while there is visibly increased diversity, Tolley says the progress has been slow and incremental.  

“The snap election and short campaign likely had some impact on who ran for office this time around,” she told New Canadian Media. 

“We know that it takes longer to find and convince women, racialized and Indigenous candidates to run, not because they don’t want to but because politics historically has been inhospitable to them.”

Without being proactive, she says, another election might come sooner than we think. 

“If parties are serious about diversifying politics, they should already be laying out the groundwork, identifying promising candidates, encouraging them to run, and giving them the support they need to do so,” she says. 

Tolley also points out that, based on the observation of successive election cycles, racialized and Indigenous candidates remain somewhat pigeon-holed in a select number of ridings, mostly those with large racialized or Indigenous populations. This, according to her, creates a ceiling in terms of how many can be elected to Parliament. 

“We know that racialized and Indigenous candidates can win in a number of ridings, regardless of the riding’s demographic composition. Parties should think more broadly about the contexts in which they recruit diverse candidates so as not to limit their opportunities,” Tolley suggests. 

Reflecting on the makeup of the new Parliament, Andrew Griffith, a media commentator, policy analyst and the fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, likewise sees it as a “slow and steady progress,” both in terms of the number of visible minority candidates and elected MPs.  

He also considers that growing diversity is reflected in the new Cabinet that was announced on Oct. 26, and expects this to extend into Parliamentary secretaries. 

Not enough data 

Of the 338 candidates during the election, Liberals had 147 women running for office, 25 Indigenous,18 Black and another 50 visible minority candidates and 17 who identify as LGBTQ2S+.  

The Conservatives, out of 338 candidates in total, had 114 female candidates, their largest number so far. Of those, eight were Indigenous and Metis candidates. The Conservatives also had four LGBTQ2S+ candidates in this election. 

There were also 14 Black and 60 visible minority candidates, bringing the total of the non-white candidates to 74. The NDP had 177 women, 29 of them Indigenous. It had 104 visible minority candidates and 69 LGBTQ2S+ candidates. The Bloc Québécois had a total of 78 candidates, including 37 women, and 13 visible minority candidates, which albeit small, in comparison to others, was the most in the Party’s history. 

Based on the final tally of the candidates, the Liberals once again have the highest number and percentage of MPs, with 43 elected to serve. The Conservatives have six visible minority MPs. The NDP has three. One visible minority MP, a former Liberal candidate, won as an independent. 

Such figures, however, are not readily available as neither the Parliamentary Library nor the political parties put them out. 

Tolley is especially critical of the lack of institutionalized collection of demographic data on candidates or the racial backgrounds of MPs.  

“The Library of Parliament does publish information on women and Indigenous MPs, but nothing related to race. This leaves journalists and researchers without reliable and systematic data on diversity in parliament. That makes it difficult to track progress or hold parties accountable”, she says. 

The first item of business when Parliament resumes will be the election of the Speaker.

Source: https://newcanadianmedia.ca/new-parliament-has-some-fresh-diverse-faces-but-is-it-enough/

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

Montreal: Les Autochtones et les minorités visibles surreprésentés

2021/11/23 Leave a comment

Of note (longstanding, as in other municipalities):

La proportion de citoyens issus de minorités visibles tués par des policiers du Grand Montréal est presque aussi élevée que celle des personnes blanches, alors qu’ils ne constituent que 14 % de la population, selon une analyse des dossiers du coroner de 2001 à 2021 effectuée par Le Devoir. Ils représentent 44 % des décès, contre 48 % pour les personnes blanches.

L’histoire de Jean René Junior Olivier n’est pas sans faire écho à d’autres décès qui ont eu lieu au cours des deux dernières décennies, impliquant des personnes issues des minorités visibles en situation de crise, connues pour des problèmes de santé mentale ou ayant exprimé des idées suicidaires.

Rien qu’au cours des sept dernières années sur le territoire du Grand Montréal, la moitié des hommes abattus par les policiers étaient noirs et déstabilisés. Alain Magloire, René Gallant, Pierre Coriolan, Nicholas Gibbs, Sheffield Matthews et plus récemment Jean René Junior Olivier, tous ont été tués lors d’une intervention policière.

« On revient toujours à la question : est-ce que la vie des Noirs compte ? Oui, Pierre Coriolan était en détresse. On était devant un homme en crise. Mais c’était aussi un homme noir », lance Nargess Mustapha, cofondatrice de Hoodstock, un organisme communautaire créé dans la foulée du décès de Freddy Villanueva, un jeune latino de 18 ans abattu par un policier à Montréal-Nord en 2008.

La mère de Jean René Junior Olivier, Marie-Mireille Bence, se demande si l’intervention auprès de son fils a été « teintée du racisme systémique, inconscient et institutionnalisé ». Elle envisage de déposer prochainement une plainte de racisme systémique auprès de la Commission des droits de la personne et une autre en déontologie policière contre les agents impliqués.

Un rapport produit cette année par des chercheurs du département de sociologie de l’UQAM et de l’École de criminologie de l’Université de Montréal révèle que les personnes noires sont près de trois fois plus susceptibles que les Blancs d’être interpellées par les policiers de Repentigny.

La cofondatrice de l’organisme Hoodstock estime que les améliorations apportées à la formation des policiers en matière d’interventions auprès de personnes en crise sont un pas dans la bonne direction, mais restent insuffisantes pour régler la situation. « Quand la direction policière n’aborde pas la question de profilage racial au sein même de leur institution, je ne sais pas trop comment ça va s’améliorer », déplore Nargess Mustapha.

Un accès inégal aux services ?

Le manque d’accessibilité aux services en santé mentale reste un enjeu de taille dans de nombreux quartiers périphériques de Montréal. À Montréal-Nord, Mme Mustapha observe le phénomène depuis plusieurs années et le considère comme faisant partie des inégalités systémiques auxquelles doit s’attaquer le gouvernement. Mais il ne doit en rien servir à justifier les cas de violence policière.

« Pour les communautés de Montréal-Nord, qui sont majoritairement afro-descendantes et racisées ou issues de l’immigration, c’est sûr que l’accès est beaucoup plus difficile. Oui, il y a des services spécialisés, mais il y a tout l’enjeu de la mobilité qui a aussi un impact. Des enjeux de précarité viennent s’ajouter à ça », souligne-t-elle.

Selon Fama Tounkara et Ernithe Edmond, les fondatrices du site My Mental Health Matters, les personnes issues de l’immigration et les minorités visibles ayant besoin de soutien en santé mentale auraient également moins tendance à aller chercher de l’aide. « Fama et moi avons grandi dans des contextes familiaux où c’était difficile de trouver de l’aide de nos parents pour consulter des professionnels de la santé mentale. C’était vraiment tabou. Dans la génération de nos parents ou celle juste avant, quand quelqu’un avait des troubles de santé mentale, on considérait ça comme une malédiction ou on pensait qu’il était possédé par des esprits », explique Ernithe Edmond, dont la plateforme sur les réseaux sociaux tente d’éduquer les jeunes et de les sensibiliser aux enjeux de santé mentale.

Situation critique au Nunavik

Comme les minorités visibles, les communautés autochtones sont surreprésentées dans la proportion des personnes tuées par la police.

Pour l’ensemble du Québec, les Autochtones (4,5 % de la population) représentent plus de 13,5 % des décès.

Le Devoir a dénombré 11 Autochtones parmi les personnes décédées sous les balles des policiers. C’est ainsi la communauté la plus touchée et surreprésentée.

Et le service de police du Nunavik se place en troisième position des corps policiers les plus meurtriers après la Sûreté du Québec et le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal avec sept civils tués, dont trois entre 2016 et 2018.

L’ex-directeur adjoint de la police de Longueuil Jean-Pierre Larose a accepté en février 2018 de devenir chef de la police du Nunavik pour changer la donne.

« C’est majeur comme défi », lance-t-il d’entrée de jeu au Devoir. « Je me suis attaqué aux décès lors d’interventions à mon arrivée et je suis fier de dire que depuis, il n’y en a pas eu ! » précise le chef Larose.

Ce dernier a mis à disposition de tous ses patrouilleurs des armes à impulsion électrique. Et d’ici le mois de décembre, ils seront tous dotés d’une caméra corporelle en tout temps. Une équipe mixte d’intervention mobile composée d’un policier et d’un intervenant social a aussi été implantée à Puvirnituq, un village nordique du Nunavik situé sur la côte est de la baie d’Hudson. « C’est un autre franc succès. On réduit la judiciarisation dans 80 % des cas. Ma volonté serait de l’implanter dans toutes les communautés. On a déjà ciblé un autre village », précise-t-il.

« Je pense que ce sont des outils qui ont contribué à diminuer l’emploi de la force, à diminuer les interventions policières qui causent des blessures ou la mort », ajoute le chef de la police du Nunavik, qui se dit tout de même inquiet du manque de 30 policiers permanents au sein de son équipe.

Source: Les Autochtones et les minorités visibles surreprésentés

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

India’s surprise about-face on farming laws a ‘monumental moment’ for diaspora in Canada

2021/11/22 Leave a comment

Of note given the Indo-Canadian activism on the proposed farming laws:

A sudden announcement by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the highly contentious farm laws in that country is being met with cautious optimism by many diaspora Indians in Canada. But some say they won’t feel relief until the laws are formally repealed.

The surprise move comes over a year after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government instituted the laws, first by ordinance and then passing them without consultation with either farmers’ unions or state governments.

The farm acts sparked a year of massive protests in India — at times deadly — during which tens of thousands of farmers took part in a movement to march to the capital.

Demonstrations were also held in Canada, including rallies in front of the Indian consulate in downtown Toronto, where hundreds turned out in solidarity with Indian farmers, who were in many cases their own family and friends.

Opponents of the laws said they meant an end to guaranteed pricing, forcing farmers to sell crops to corporations at cheaper prices and leave them with no right to take disputes with those corporations to court, with conflicts instead settled by bureaucrats.

Friday brought an about-face from Modi, who promised that the laws will be repealed beginning in December.

“I want to say with a sincere and pure heart that maybe something was lacking in our efforts that we could not explain the truth to some of our farmer brothers,” he said in a televised speech.

“Let’s us make a fresh start.”

‘A crack’ in the edifice

At the Shromani Sikh Sangat Temple in Toronto’s east end, Gurshan Singh, who comes from a farming family, was wary of the announcement.

“I don’t consider it done yet because the prime minister has announced that it will be repealed but the procedure still has to happen,” Singh said in Punjabi, speaking to CBC News through an interpreter.

Singh said his entire village went out to protest against the laws.

“People were martyred … people lost their children,” he said.  And while some 700 people are believed to have died in the process, he said he’s thankful his own family is safe.

“I’m happy,” he said. “But I’m still not sure.”

For Sanjay Ruparelia, a professor of politics and public administration at Toronto’s Ryerson University, the sudden news is part of a much larger story about the rise of autocracy in India over the last seven years.

“I think a lot of people are wanting to see whether this movement now has made a crack in that edifice,” he said.

But farmers have good reason to be skeptical after the lengths the government went to sideline protesters, going so far as to suggest they had been infiltrated by Sikh separatists, he said.

“There’s no truth to these claims. The government just wanted to delegitimize and undermine the protests, and that really inflamed the situation and sowed even greater distrust among the farmers’ unions,” said Ruparelia.

“They already felt that they weren’t consulted on these laws, they already felt that the laws would harm their interests and now they were being painted as terrorists and anti-national forces.”

In recent years, opposition parties have won victories in some state elections but have been unable to “really weaken the dominance of the party and particularly its Hindu nationalist program,” he said.

In that sense, he says, this victory could be a turning point, Ruparelia said.

‘You can’t subtract the politics out of it’

Between a perceived mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the controversial farming laws and civil society groups being maligned, trust in India’s federal government is fractured, Ruparelia said. And with elections coming up in two important states — Punjab and Uttar Pradesh — the government may well have feared it might lose its grip on power.

As for the impact in Canada, he says, the reaction here is sure to be divided.

“There are many, many citizens and residents of Canada who are part of the larger diaspora with very strong connections to the parts of the country, which have really led this movement,” he said.

Jaskaran Sandhu, director of administration with the World Sikh Organization, agrees.

“You can’t subtract the politics out of it,” said Sandhu. “At the end of the day it’s hard to trust Modi, it’s hard to trust someone who has been fighting you tooth and nail for a year … it’s hard to trust a government that refused to consult with you from the beginning.”

Over the past year or so, Sandhu says he’s watched the the protests through the eyes of his own friends and family on the ground, while focusing his own efforts in Canada on advocacy. One of his own initiatives, he says, was to co-found and launch the platform Baaz News, which made it a priority to shine a light on farmers’ stories.

Sandhu says he awoke to dozens of messages from family and friends sharing congratulations over the move on Friday morning.

“This is an underdog story. To see them victorious, it’s hard to put it into words,” he said. “I think it’s a monumental moment for the diaspora.”

But amid that sense of victory is also trepidation.

“No one’s getting up and leaving just yet.”

Source: India’s surprise about-face on farming laws a ‘monumental moment’ for diaspora in Canada

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Wiseman: Taking on Quebec’s nationalists

2021/11/20 Leave a comment

Refreshing and courageous questioning:

The inability of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to speak French should raise a bigger question: why is Air Canada headquartered in Montreal? Based on the volume of flights, Air Canada’s de facto hub is Toronto. If geography is a consideration for a head office, Air Canada might want to think about relocating to Winnipeg where most of the corporation’s overhaul and maintenance work was done before being shifted to Montreal by Pierre Trudeau’s government in 1968. Outrage followed, damaging national unity: police had to clear a path for Trudeau as the airline’s Winnipeg employees swarmed around him, shouting anti-Quebec slogans at a Liberal fundraiser.

When Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives in 1987 awarded the lucrative CF-18 fighter maintenance and overhaul contract to a Montreal firm rather than to a Winnipeg firm whose bid was cheaper, technically superior, and recommended by the neutral federal bureaucracy, some westerners began to refer to Mulroney as Pierre Elliot Mulroney; he had broken his promise to award contracts based on business principles and not political expediency as he said the Trudeau Liberals had done.

Mulroney’s decision led directly to Preston Manning’s launch of the Reform Party, the first step leading to the demise of the Progressive Conservative party. In 1988, Mulroney’s government conditioned Air Canada’s privatization on its headquarters remaining in Montreal. Decisions by the Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, their caucuses top heavy with Quebec MPs, discriminated in favour of Quebec.

After the Parti Québécois gained power in 1976 and the Quebec National Assembly passed the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101), making communicating in French with French-speaking staff at companies such as Sun Life Assurance mandatory, the company announced it was moving its headquarters from Montreal to Toronto. A political storm erupted; Michael Cassidy, the soon-to-become Ontario NDP leader called on Ontario’s Conservative minister of industry to resign for welcoming Sun Life’s relocation, while Trudeau said Bill 101 undermined Montreal’s historic role as a financial and commercial centre for national and international companies.

And that is what happened. Although both the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal kept their official “head office” in Montreal, not wanting to incur the wrath that Sun Life’s departure did, they shifted their management operations and “corporate headquarters,” their de facto head offices, to Toronto and to where their chief executives live. Trudeau warned that other companies might follow Sun Life’s lead if Bill 101 was not changed.

Justin Trudeau, who became Liberal leader and prime minister by the leverage his father’s name gave him, is not on the same page as his father.

Now, Quebec-based SNC-Lavalin CEO Ian Edwards has postponed a speech he was scheduled to give to Montreal’s Canadian Club. He knows that he will be pilloried as Rousseau has been for his deficiency in French, incurring a similar public relations nightmare. Rousseau and Edwards have said they will study French, but at their age—Rousseau is 61, Edwards 57—they will gain little practical command of it as a working language.

Although most of CNR’s operations are in Western Canada, its head office is also in Montreal. CNR CEO Jean-Jacques Ruest is a francophone but is soon to step down. Will candidates to replace Ruest be required to demonstrate that they are bilingual? Memphis-born Hunter Harrison, famous for introducing precision scheduled railroading and leading the CNR to record profits, promised to learn French when he was the corporation’s CEO, but there is no record of his ever having spoken it.

When the Official Languages Act was introduced in the 1960s, the Trudeau government assured Canadians that it simply entitled them to deal with and be served by the federal government and its crown corporations, like Air Canada and the CNR at the time, in their preferred official language. The law does not require their CEOs or board members of federally regulated industries to have a working command of both official languages.

The French language is not in danger in Quebec as Quebec nationalists would have you believe; the percentage of Quebecers speaking French at home has not declined. However, Quebec’s share of Canada’s population has been steadily shrinking, accelerated by François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government which has cut the number of immigrants to the province.

Unilingual anglophones like myself have noticed how the federal political parties have tip-toed around Quebec and the CAQ’s positions, such as the ban on schoolteachers’ and public servants’ religious headgear, violations of the Charter of Rights. And there is Bill 96 which claims to unilaterally change the Canadian Constitution, which Pierre Trudeau said would last for a thousand years. Where, oh where is Justin Trudeau?

Had Erin O’Toole taken on Quebec’s nationalists, perhaps his Conservatives would have done better in the election. Kow-towing obviously didn’t work.

Nelson Wiseman is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto.

Source: Taking on Quebec’s nationalists

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Khan: Muslims can improve our communities on our own. We just have to be willing to speak out

2021/11/19 Leave a comment

Indeed. And good initiative to address equality and equity issues:

Some years ago, I learned that our local mosque refused to allow women to serve on the board. This sexist practice was also entrenched in the bylaws of the British Columbia Muslim Association for nearly four decades. Only Muslim men, it turned out, could be elected to the board, and only by Muslim men. When I asked the mosque and the BCMA if they would change their policies, they unequivocally refused.

But when I began to prepare a column about the issue, a lawyer reached out, asking me to refrain from speaking out. Why? There was concern that then-prime minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government would use this information to go after mosques. “Not now – give us time,” came the plea.

“So, once the Liberals are elected, mosques will open their boards to women?” I asked. We both knew the answer.

Rather than address the discrimination within, some organizations have found it easier to simply ignore internal criticism, while silencing whistle-blowers with emotional blackmail: You’ll hurt the community by airing dirty laundry. The problem is that the laundry is piling up and the stench is getting unbearable, while those who can access the washing machine continue to refuse to do their chores.

The situation is especially acute for victims of violence and abuse. They are often pressed to keep matters quiet, and not file charges, so that the community won’t look bad in the eyes of the public. Meanwhile, there is little accountability of perpetrators. Those who do speak out are shamed as traitors, enablers of Islamophobia, or worse, as self-hating Muslims. Often, it is the voices of women that are silenced by these heavy-handed tactics. Consequently, justice is thrown under the bus of community self-censorship.

It’s why well-meaning institutions overreach in their attempts to stamp out a quantum of Islamophobia. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), for instance, has yet to decide whether it will allow teenaged girls to participate in a book club event featuring Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was enslaved, tortured and raped by members of the Islamic State. This courageous young woman refused to remain silent, and has even won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to seek justice for her people. That she was assaulted by sadistic individuals acting under the cover of an inhumane interpretation of Islam is part of her truth, as is the fact that Muslims worldwide repudiate the Islamic State. The TDSB apparently fears that impressionable teens may not be able to distinguish between an extremist group and ordinary Muslims who are their friends and neighbours.

But here’s a thought: The Muslim community can simultaneously fight Islamophobia and address the ills within it. It is not, and should not be, a zero-sum game. Just as Muslims desire from others safety, freedom from discrimination, access to justice and the opportunity to thrive, they should work hard to ensure the same principles apply to those who are themselves Muslims. One cannot make demands and then plead indifference when asked to fulfill those same demands. As the Quran states in the chapter titled “Women”: “Oh you who believe. Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even though it is against yourselves, your family, the rich or the poor.”

Here’s another thought: Muslim women have the agency to improve their own lives. Their own history is replete with illustrious paradigms, including that of Khawlah bint Tha’labah, who challenged a cruel marital custom in 7th-century Arabia when no one else dared; her courageous stand led to its abolition. She is known as “al-Mujaadilah,” or “the woman who pleaded,” in the 58th chapter of the Quran. For 14 centuries, Khawlah has been a model for unwavering commitment to justice within.

In the coming weeks, the Mujaadilah Centre – founded on the noble example of Khawlah – will be launching. Its goal is to unapologetically address harms faced by Canadian Muslim women within their communities. This will include an in-depth analysis of the gender make-up of mosque boards across the country. And in 2022, the centre will address the controversial practice of polygamy here in Canada, by providing new legal research of the Criminal Code along with documentation of harm suffered by women and children.

There is hope on the horizon. A new generation of Muslims is demanding greater accountability of leadership. They will not turn a blind eye to discrimination and abuse within, since they understand that wrongdoings left unaddressed will only lead to worse outcomes. Too many lives have been destroyed for this to continue. This cohort is taking the lead on addressing taboos head-on. They will make a difference for the better.

In the meantime, let’s all strive for a better society – standing up for what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, across all communities.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-muslims-can-improve-our-communities-on-our-own-we-just-have-to-be/

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Nicolas: Voir “clair”

2021/11/19 Leave a comment

Good critique of different appearance-based classifications compared to the official visible minority group classifications:

Avez-vous le teint pâle, clair, moyen ou foncé ? On apprend cette semaine que, selon les Services correctionnels du Québec (SCQ), la question est une manière tout à fait utile de classifier les personnes ayant été incarcérées dans la province. L’information a été rendue publique dans une note de l’Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques (IRIS), grâce à une demande d’accès à l’information.

La ministre de la Sécurité publique, Geneviève Guilbault, a défendu la pratique à la suite de la publication de l’étude. Elle aurait déclaré au Soleil ne déceler aucun signe de racisme dans la pratique et assuré que ce ne sont que des informations collectées et utilisées à l’interne, avec d’autres caractéristiques physiques, « pour des situations très particulières où l’on doit absolument identifier quelqu’un, exemple une évasion ou un risque d’évasion ».

Prenons la ministre au pied de la lettre. Il pourrait aussi être utile, selon cette logique, de classifier aussi la texture des cheveux des prisonniers sur une échelle similaire à quatre niveaux : les cheveux droits, les ondulés, les bouclés et les crépus. On pourrait même créer une échelle pour les nez, d’aquilin à camus. Et si l’État collectait les tailles de soutien-gorge des prisonnières pour mieux les distinguer de profil, en cas d’évasion ou de risque d’évasion ?

La pratique des SCQ est absurde, mais pas seulement ça : on a aussi affaire à de l’obscurantisme. Il est en effet important d’avoir des données démographiques précises sur les personnes judiciarisées au Québec pour savoir sur quelles parties de la population les effets du système pénal sont les plus importants. Lorsque Statistique Canada collecte des données sur différentes « minorités visibles », il ne s’agit pas de mesurer des caractéristiques biologiques comme le teint, mais bien de comprendre des identités et des différences sociales. Les données du recensement nous montrent où se concentrent la pauvreté et la richesse dans le pays, par exemple, et comment la discrimination influence les inégalités.

Il serait pertinent de savoir quelles communautés racisées sont les plus ciblées par la justice criminelle au Québec. Mais parce que les SCQ ont inventé leur propre système plutôt que de suivre le recensement, on ne peut qu’en arriver à des approximations. Il y a 13 % de minorités visibles au Québec et 33 % de « moyens » et de « foncés » parmi les personnes ayant été incarcérées au Québec, selon l’étude de l’IRIS. Si les deux catégories étaient équivalentes, on pourrait calculer que les minorités visibles sont 2,6 fois plus représentées dans nos prisons. Mais puisqu’il y a très certainement des minorités catégorisées comme « claires », on a là affaire à une grossière sous-estimation de la réalité. On sait donc que la justice criminelle cible disproportionnellement les minorités au Québec, mais pas à quel point, ni précisément lesquelles. Hourra pour la pseudoscience sociale !

Quelle différence cette imprécision fait-elle ? On le voit en se penchant sur les chiffres plus justes rendus publics sur les personnes autochtones, lesquelles font l’objet d’un recensement statistique à part. Toujours selon l’étude de l’IRIS, on voit que les personnes autochtones constituent 6,6 % des admissions en services correctionnels alors qu’elles ne forment que 2,3 % de la population. Elles sont donc 2,9 fois plus représentées parmi les personnes judiciarisées, une donnée qui permet de contextualiser tous les témoignages sur les relations difficiles entre les policiers et les communautés autochtones collectés lors de la commission Viens, par exemple.

Avec les données précises par communauté, on peut aussi voir que 40,5 % de tous les Autochtones judiciarisés sont des Inuits. Il semble donc y avoir un problème particulièrement criant dans les rapports entre les communautés inuites et le système de justice criminelle. La surreprésentation vient-elle de pratiques policières particulièrement agressives dans le Nunavik ? La judiciarisation accrue des personnes en situation d’itinérance à Montréal a-t-elle eu un impact majeur sur cette donnée ? Il faudrait fouiller, poser plus de questions. Avec cette statistique effarante, il y a matière à s’inquiéter, voire à enquêter.

De même, l’étude montre que le système pénal punit disproportionnellement les personnes déjà précaires. Ainsi, 85 % des nouveaux admis aux SCQ sont peu scolarisés (niveau primaire ou secondaire seulement). De plus, 50 % des hommes et 68,5 % des femmes nouvellement judiciarisés en 2019-2020 tiraient leurs revenus de l’assistance sociale, alors que seulement 5 % de la population générale en bénéficie. Ces chiffres, qui ne sont pas nouveaux, devraient nous inciter à réfléchir de toute urgence aux conséquences de la concentration de la surveillance policière auprès des pauvres.

Les statistiques nous permettent aussi de comprendre l’effet réel de la discrimination à l’emploi selon le casier judiciaire sur la capacité des anciens détenus à se réinsérer avec succès en société après leur incarcération. Les taux de récidive étant nettement plus élevés chez les personnes judiciarisées qui n’arrivent pas à se retrouver un emploi, on peut se demander si les préjugés des employeurs envers les personnes qui ont un casier ne constituent pas carrément un problème pour la sécurité publique. Surtout que 85 % des condamnations au Québec ne visent pas des « infractions contre la personne » : l’association automatique entre personne criminalisée et personne « violente », qui subsiste dans l’imaginaire, ne passe donc pas l’épreuve des faits.

Ah, les faits ! Lorsqu’on les collecte de manière sensée, comme la réalité sociale nous apparaît plus « claire » ! Vous m’excuserez pour le mauvais jeu de mots.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/648126/voir-clair?utm_source=infolettre-2021-11-18&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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