Statscan to spend $172-million over five years to improve how it captures data on race, gender, sexual orientation

2021/05/08 Leave a comment

Always good to have more and better data:

Canada’s national statistics agency will spend $172-million over five years improving the way that it captures data on race, gender and sexual orientation – a move aimed at filling long-standing gaps that have historically left the experiences of millions of Canadians invisible.

The funding, announced in the federal budget, is among the largest investments in a new initiative that the agency has seen in recent history, the country’s Chief Statistician Anil Arora told The Globe and Mail.

The plan is to expand existing research surveys with questions designed to paint a fuller picture of the population, Mr. Arora said.

Statistics Canada did this with its Labour Force Survey last year. Knowing that the economic fallout of the pandemic was affecting certain communities differently, the agency added questions about race, as well as working from home, job loss, capacity to meet financial obligations and applications to federal COVID-19 assistance programs.

“It’s not just about the average or what the ‘quote-unquote’ typical Canadian looks like,” said Mr. Arora, who is the head of Statistics Canada. “Canadians have been saying: ‘We want to see our diversity, as we see it in our society, reflected in our story – our statistics.’ … Better data, used responsibly, should lead to better outcomes.”

The census – which Canadians have been receiving in their mailboxes this week – does collect detailed demographic information, but it’s conducted only every five years. The goal, said Mr. Arora, is to incorporate more disaggregated data in other research projects.

The Globe has been chronicling the country’s data deficit for several years, examining its impact on businesses, citizens and government decisions.

This year, The Globe published an investigation called The Power Gap, which married dozens of publicly available datasets that had never before been linked to reveal how women working in the public service have struggled to advance past middle management. In the series, it was possible to assess the work force by gender, but not other indicators, such as race, because the information is not available.

(The Globe was able to determine the number of racialized women among the top 1 percentile of earners – it was about 3 per cent – by individually contacting and researching the backgrounds of hundreds of women in this bracket.)

In announcing the funding, the federal government acknowledged that the current system is inadequate.

“At present, Canada lacks the detailed statistical data that governments, public institutions, academics and advocates need in order to take fully informed policy actions and effectively address racial and social inequities,” the budget read.

“Journalists and researchers have long worked to tell the stories of where and why disparities in our society exist – whether among racialized groups or the power gap that exists between men and women that leads women’s careers to stall,” the document continued. “Better disaggregated data will mean that investigative efforts or research projects like this will have more and better data to analyze.”

Wendy Cukier, the founder and director of Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute, said she would like to see the federal statistics agency use the new resources to connect existing datasets. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of government agencies collect information on Canadians, but they exist as silos.

For example, regional development agencies distribute government funding to small businesses, but there is no easy way to measure how many jobs these loans and grants create or the extent to which certain groups have more access to this money. If the data could be cross-referenced with information from the Canada Revenue Agency, it would allow policy-makers to better determine the impact of the investments, she said.

“They’re all government agencies. Why are there not standardized reporting mechanisms around innovation and economic development? And ideally disaggregated, so we know which percentage is going to women, to Black-owned businesses,” Prof. Cukier said. “I would love to see Statistics Canada as the central repository.”

Mr. Arora said linking existing data is one of their key priorities and it’s something the agency has already been working on.

“We know that if you’ve got an issue in the justice system, when you go back and trace [it] there are issues of housing, there are issues of health and education,” he said. Within those records, there may be pieces about the individuals – such as whether they’re from a rural or urban community or whether they have a disability – that will make it possible to evaluate trends.

Sharing information between entities and across jurisdictions does raise privacy considerations, he said, but it can be addressed by stripping the information of names and replacing them with identifying numbers that would be consistent across datasets.

“Data isn’t going to miraculously make us inclusive, but it will help illuminate where the troubles and issues and gaps are,” Mr. Arora said. But he cautioned that there are always going to be holes in information.

“As soon as you understand something, you ask a better question. And once you ask that question, you need more data.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-statscan-to-spend-172-million-over-five-years-to-improve-how-it/

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Canada will not participate in Durban IV conference amid anti-Semitism concerns

2021/05/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather says the federal government will not be taking part in 20th-anniversary events for an international conference where Israel was singled out for condemnation.

In a Twitter post today, the lawmaker says Ottawa confirmed it will avoid the gathering in South Africa known as Durban IV, which he says “continues to be used to push anti-Israel sentiment and as a forum for anti-Semitism.”

The United States and Australia have also stated they will steer clear of events commemorating the 2001 Durban Declaration.

The coming event, slated for Sept. 22 and authorized by the United Nations, will mark 20 years since the World Conference on Racism in Durban.

The initial conference was consumed by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, prompting the U.S. and Israel to walk out during a meeting over a draft resolution that censured Israel and likened Zionism to racism.

B’nai Brith Canada chief executive Michael Mostyn says he is “very encouraged” that Ottawa continues to boycott what his group calls a “profoundly flawed” process tinged with anti-Semitism.

Source: Canada will not participate in Durban IV conference amid anti-Semitism concerns

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La parité en emploi n’est pas encore acquise pour les immigrants

2021/05/08 Leave a comment

Good critique and discussion regarding Jean-François Lisée column arguing that parity has been achieved and Lisée’s response:

Dans sa chronique du 1er mai, M. Jean-François Lisée soutient qu’au Québec, les immigrants et personnes des minorités racisées ont atteint la parité avec les personnes nées au Canada concernant leur situation sur le marché du travail. En s’appuyant sur le dernier rapport sur l’état du marché du travail de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ 2021), il conclut que, bien que des progrès soient encore nécessaires, les immigrants et membres des minorités visibles sont des « Québécois à part entière » pour ce qui concerne leur intégration professionnelle.

Bien que nous souhaiterions qu’il en fût ainsi, des recherches sur le sujet et un examen des données contreviennent à de telles interprétations.

En premier lieu, relativement à la participation au marché du travail, M. Lisée soutient que la présence en emploi des personnes immigrantes dépasse celle des natifs. Qu’en est-il exactement ? Les économistes retiennent habituellement deux indicateurs pour mesurer la participation au marché du travail : le taux d’emploi (proportion de personnes en âge de travailler ayant un emploi) et le taux de chômage (proportion de personnes en âge de travailler à la recherche d’un emploi). Pour ce qui concerne le taux d’emploi, en 2020, bien qu’il soit effectivement supérieur pour les immigrants, il chute de façon très importante chez les immigrants ayant une période de résidence au pays de 5 à 10 ans en comparaison à celui des personnes nées au Canada (-5,8 % contre -3,7 %). Ces données illustrent un phénomène amplement démontré : en période de crise, les personnes immigrantes perdent davantage leur emploi que les personnes nées au Canada. Cela signifie que les gains en termes d’égalité mentionnés par M. Lisée restent fragiles lorsque le contexte économique change. Peut-on alors parler de réelle égalité sur le marché du travail ?

Concernant le taux de chômage, le portrait est plus nuancé encore : en 2020, si le taux de chômage de l’ensemble des immigrants est effectivement supérieur de 2,5 % à celui des natifs, il est en revanche supérieur de 8 % chez les immigrants très récents (16,6 % contre 8,3 %) et près d’une fois et demie supérieur chez les immigrants récents (11,5 % contre 8,3 %). Ces chiffres restent malheureusement conformes aux tendances déjà décrites il y a 30 ans par le sociologue Jean Renaud : à terme, les immigrants « sont d’ici » (pour reprendre le titre de son article paru dans les années 1990), mais cela leur prend 10 ans ! Peut-on, là encore, parler de pleine égalité sur le marché du travail ?

En second lieu, M. Lisée soutient que la discrimination salariale envers les immigrants a presque disparu. Or, les chiffres montrent là encore qu’il faut 10 ans aux personnes immigrantes pour rejoindre la rémunération horaire des personnes nées au Canada. Les immigrants arrivés depuis 5 ans ou moins gagnent 88 % du salaire horaire des personnes nées au Canada. Or, ce chiffre masque une réalité plus troublante encore : les personnes immigrantes admises au Québec sont nettement plus diplômées que les personnes nées au Canada et elles sont sélectionnées sur le critère de l’expérience professionnelle dans leur pays ! Cette rémunération plus faible signifie donc que leurs qualifications et expériences acquises à l’étranger ne sont pas reconnues. C’est la démonstration la plus évidente de l’existence d’une réelle discrimination envers les immigrants sur le marché du travail.

Enfin, M. Lisée examine la situation des personnes issues des minorités visibles et conclut, là encore, à l’égalité. Or, les données de l’ISQ révèlent que la participation des minorités visibles sur le marché du travail est beaucoup plus sensible à la conjoncture économique que celles des personnes qui n’appartiennent pas à ces groupes. Leur taux de chômage s’élève à 18 % en juillet 2020 (contre 7,5 % pour les personnes non autochtones ou pour les minorités visibles), c’est-à-dire au plus fort de la crise, et diminue à 10,5 % (contre 6,6 %) au moment de la reprise économique en mars 2021. Les personnes des minorités visibles ont donc (comme les immigrants) une situation économique bien plus dépendante de la conjoncture économique — et donc précaire — que les personnes qui n’appartiennent pas à une minorité racisée.

La pleine participation économique des immigrants et membres des minorités visibles n’est malheureusement, au Québec, ni réalisée ni acquise, loin de là. Une lecture attentive des données démontre que le marché du travail reste hautement discriminatoire envers ces personnes. Comme M. Lisée le souligne, « la lutte pour l’égalité entre tous les Québécois est un fait essentiel de notre vie contemporaine ». Reste qu’il est trop tôt pour célébrer la victoire : sur le marché du travail, le défi de l’égalité de tous et toutes est encore à relever.

***

Réponse du chroniqueur :

Merci pour cette contribution utile. Cependant, l’ensemble des débats publics récents sur l’immigration laissaient l’impression que les écarts entre les immigrés et les autres Québécois étaient scandaleux. Ce n’est plus le cas. Ma chronique a mis en lumière cette information généralement inconnue qu’en moyenne, pour la participation à l’emploi et pour la rémunération, l’égalité est enfin atteinte chez nous et que la situation est supérieure à ce qui prévaut en Ontario, et encore davantage pour les femmes immigrées.

Vous avez raison, lorsqu’on s’éloigne de la moyenne et que l’on procède à des découpes plus fines, on peut retrouver des écarts qui, lorsqu’ils seront comblés, donnent des raisons supplémentaires de réjouissance. Permettez-moi en retour de chipoter sur votre utilisation du taux de chômage pour 2000, puisque l’an dernier, la proportion d’immigrants de moins de 5 ans en emploi était supérieure (102 %) à la proportion de natifs. Le fait que davantage de ces immigrants soient, en plus, en recherche d’emploi signifie simplement qu’ils sont encore davantage intéressés par le travail que les autres Québécois. C’est tout à leur honneur, mais ce n’est pas une indication que les portes de l’emploi leur sont fermées.

Bien cordialement,

– Jean-François Lisée

Source: La parité en emploi n’est pas encore acquise pour les immigrants

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The ‘hijab penalty’: Feminist backlash to Muslim immigrants in Germany | Penn Today

2021/05/07 Leave a comment

Of note. Interesting experiment:

Why do some Europeans discriminate against Muslim immigrants, and how can these instances of prejudice be reduced? Political scientist Nicholas Sambanis has spent the last few years looking into this question by conducting innovative studies at train stations across Germany involving willing participants, unknowing bystanders and, most recently, bags of lemons.

His newest study, co-authored with Donghyun Danny Choi at the University of Pittsburgh and Mathias Poertner at Texas A&M University, is forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Scienceand finds evidence of significant discrimination against Muslim women during everyday interactions with native Germans. That evidence comes from experimental interventions set up on train platforms across dozens of German cities and reveals that discrimination by German women is due to their beliefs that Muslims are regressive with respect to women’s rights. In effect, their experiment finds a feminist opposition to Muslims, and shows that discrimination is eliminated when Muslim women signaled that they shared progressive gender attitudes, says Sambanis, who directs the Penn Identity and Conflict Lab (PIC Lab), which he founded when he came to Penn in 2016.

Many studies in psychology have shown bias and discrimination are rooted in a sense that ethnic, racial, or religious differences create distance between citizens, he says. “Faced with waves of immigration from culturally different populations, many Europeans are increasingly supporting policies of coercive assimilation that eliminate those sources of difference by suppressing ethnic or religious marker, for example, by banning the hijab in public places or forcing immigrants to attend language classes,” Sambanis says. “Our research shows that bias and discrimination can be reduced via far less coercive measures—as long as immigration does not threaten core values that define the social identities of native populations.”

“The Hijab Penalty: Feminist Backlash to Muslim Immigrants” is the fourth study in a multiyear project on the topic of how to reduce prejudice against immigrants conducted by Sambanis and the team. The study’s co-authors, Choi and Poertner, started working on this project as postdoctoral fellows at the PIC Lab.

The new paper builds on the first leg of the project which was publishedin the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019 and which explored whether discrimination against immigrants is reduced when immigrants show that they share civic norms that are valued by native citizens. That study found evidence that shared norms reduce but do not eliminate discrimination. The new study explores the impact of norms and ideas that are important to particular subgroups of the native population, and finds stronger effects when such norms are shared by immigrants.

The findings have implications for how to think about reducing conflict between native and immigrant communities in an era of increased cross-border migration, Sambanis says.

He and his co-authors conducted the large-scale field experiment in 25 cities across Germany involving more than 3,700 unknowing bystanders.

“Germany was a good case study because it has received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe since 2015, a result of the refugee crisis created by wars in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia,” Sambanis says. “Germany has had a long history of immigration from Muslim countries since the early post-war period, and anti-immigrant sentiments have been high as a result of cultural differences. These differences are manipulated politically and become more salient.”

The intervention went like this: A woman involved in the study approached a bench at a train station where bystanders waited and drew their attention by asking them if they knew if she could buy tickets on the train.

She then received a phone call and audibly conversed with the caller in German regarding her sister, who was considering whether to take a job or stay at home and take care of her husband and her kids. The scripted conversation revealed the woman’s position on whether her sister has the right to work or a duty to stay at home to care for the family.

At the end of the phone call, a bag she was holding seemingly tears, making her drop a bunch of lemons, which scatter on the platform and she appeared to need help gathering them.

In the final step, team members who were not a part of the intervention observed and recorded whether each bystander who was within earshot of the phone call helped the women collect the lemons.

They experimentally varied the identity of the woman, who was sometimes a native German or an immigrant from the Middle East; and the immigrant sometimes wore a hijab to signal her Muslim identity and sometimes not.

They found that men were not very receptive to different messages regarding the woman’s attitude toward gender equality, but German women were. Among German women, anti-Muslim discrimination was eliminated when the immigrant woman signaled that she held progressive views vis-à-vis women’s rights. Men continued to discriminate in both the regressive and progressive conditions of the experiment.

It was a surprise that the experimental treatment did not seem to make a big difference in the behavior of men towards Muslim women.

“Women were very receptive to this message that we had about Muslims sharing progressive beliefs about women’s rights, but men were indifferent to it,” says Sambanis. “We expected that there would be a difference, and that the effect of the treatment would be larger among women, but we did not expect that it would be basically zero for men.”

The experiment makes gender identity more salient and establishes a common identity between native German women—most of whom share progressive views on gender—and the immigrant women in the progressive condition. This is the basis of the reduction of discrimination, Sambanis says, and it does not require coercive measures like forcing Muslims to take off the hijab. “You can overcome discrimination in other ways, but it is important to signal that that the two groups share a common set of norms and ideas that define appropriate civic behaviors.”

The results are surprising from the perspective of the prior literature, which assumed that it is very hard for people to overcome barriers created by race, religion, and ethnicity. At the same time, this experiment speaks to the limits of multiculturalism, says Sambanis. “Our work shows that differences in ethnic, racial, or linguistic traits can be overcome, but citizens will resist abandoning longstanding norms and ideas that define their identities in favor of a liberal accommodation of the values of others,” he says.

Nicholas Sambanis is a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences, chair of the Department of Political Science, and director of the Penn Identity and Conflict Lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

Source: The ‘hijab penalty’: Feminist backlash to Muslim immigrants in Germany | Penn Today

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France grants citizenship to over 2,000 foreign workers for Covid-19 response

2021/05/07 Leave a comment

Faster than Canadian and Quebec programs to regularize the “anges guardians:”

Marlene Schiappa, junior interior minister in charge of citizenship, said that 2,009 people, including 665 minors, had been fast-tracked for naturalisation for “showing their attachment to the nation”.

Schiappa had instructed the authorities in September to speed up the citizenship applications of essential workers who had “actively contributed” to the fight against Covid-19.

She had ordered that they be allowed to apply for citizenship after just two years in France, instead of the usual requirement of five years.

Those involved include health workers, security guards, checkout workers, garbage collectors, home-care providers and nannies.

Over 8,000 people have applied for citizenship under the scheme, Schiappa’s office said, adding that all requests were being given “the greatest consideration”.

In 2020, 61,371 people acquired French citizenship, a decline of 20 percent compared with 2019.

Source: France grants citizenship to over 2,000 foreign workers for Covid-19 response

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B.C. gives $2M to Japanese Canadian seniors as step toward righting internment wrongs

2021/05/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

British Columbia is offering tangible recognition of the historical wrongs caused by the province when it helped to intern thousands of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

The province has announced a $2-million fund for the Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society to enhance programming for seniors and local communities.

A statement from the Ministry of Attorney General says the fund will be used to develop and deliver health and wellness programs to Japanese Canadian internment survivors.

The society and the National Association of Japanese Canadians will also spread the funding to other organizations supporting survivors.

The ministry statement says the grant is a first step toward fulfilling a provincial promise to honour Japanese Canadians by recognizing the traumatic internment of almost 22,000 people beginning in 1942.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says the funding will allow internment survivors to connect with others in their community, helping them stay healthy and remain independent.

“The terrible loss suffered by thousands of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s is still impacting the community today, with many experiencing lasting health issues and trauma,” Dix says in the statement.

The Canadian government detained thousands of Japanese Canadians in early 1942 under the War Measures Act. They were held in crowded internment camps in B.C.’s Interior or were offered the option to work on sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba for the remainder of the Second World War.

Their homes, farms, businesses and other property were sold off by the government and the proceeds were used to pay the cost of their detention.

Ruth Coles, president of the Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society, says many Japanese Canadian seniors were forced to rebuild their lives outside B.C. and now have “unique needs stemming from internment, forced uprooting, dispossession and displacement.”

Many still feel “shame and a lack of resolution” caused by the internment that have led to a lifetime of challenges, she says.

Then-prime minister Brian Mulroney formally apologized in 1988 for Canada’s role in the internment of Japanese Canadians and British Columbia recognized the discrimination and tremendous losses they suffered when it issued its own apology in the legislature in 2012.

Source: B.C. gives $2M to Japanese Canadian seniors as step toward righting internment wrongs

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Pelletier: La polarisation numéro 1 [Loi 21]

2021/05/06 Leave a comment

Of note:

La réputation consensuelle du Québec en prend pour son rhume. Les reportages publiés dans Le Devoir depuis une semaine démontrent que la chicane habite bel et bien nos cabanes, à cette différence près : on se divise, oui, mais en se donnant des « câlins ». En minimisant la discorde dans la mesure du possible. Ce n’est pas tant la chicane qu’on n’aime pas, en fait, c’est son étalage. À cet égard, les réseaux sociaux sont bien arrimés à la psyché québécoise. Sur les plateformes numériques, on fesse, on crache, on insulte, mais sous couvert de l’anonymat. Le mythe d’un Québec consensuel et harmonieux peut donc continuer comme si de rien n’était.

Il n’y a pas meilleur exemple d’un supposé consensus, pourtant pétri de discorde, que la question de la laïcité. « Au Québec, c’est comme ça qu’on vit », disait fameusement François Legault, lors de sa défense télévisée de la loi 21. Comme si, à ce sujet, nous regardions tous dans la même direction. La décision récente du juge Marc-André Blanchard reconnaissant la constitutionnalité de la loi, tout en soustrayant les commissions scolaires anglophones de son application, est venue, bien malgré lui, consacrer cette notion du Québec francophone tout de go derrière l’interdiction des signes religieux. Ce verdict permettait de conclure que seuls les gens de l’extérieur de la province ou encore les minorités religieuses et anglophones s’opposent à la loi.

Rien n’est plus faux, évidemment. Si on a souligné à gros trait la participation du Conseil canadien musulman à cette contestation juridique, rappelons que la Fédération autonome de l’enseignement du Québec, et d’autres, en faisait également partie. Au moment de l’adoption de la loi, en 2019, deux autres centrales syndicales, la CSN et la CSQ, se sont également opposées, sans oublier les commissions scolaires, le Barreau du Québec, la Ligue des droits et libertés, la Commission des droits de la personne, le Parti libéral et Québec solidaire ainsi que de nombreux artistes et intellectuels québécois.

Non, le Québec, même francophone, n’est pas d’un même avis sur cette question. Seulement, c’est tout comme. Il est de plus en plus difficile d’argumenter contre la Révolution tranquille, contre la société distincte, contre la nécessité pour le Québec de défendre sa façon de faire et, par extension, sa survivance. Il est quasi impossible d’opposer des arguments purement rationnels à quelque chose d’aussi profondément émotif — le jugement Blanchard le rappelle de plus belle.

Après avoir redoré le blason de trois partis politiques — l’ADQ de Mario Dumont en 2007 jusqu’à la CAQ de François Legault en 2018, en passant par le PQ et sa charte des valeurs en 2013 —, l’interdiction des signes religieux est désormais perçue comme l’ultime acte de résistance de la nation francophone. Peu importe si le geste est démesuré, voire inutile — il n’y a pas de problème de religion au Québec depuis plus d’un demi-siècle ! — le vrai « leadership », clamait M. Legault récemment, exige qu’on défende le Québec l’arme au poing. Il ne faudrait surtout pas avoir peur d’utiliser la clause dérogatoire, dit-il. Loin d’en avoir honte, cette mesure serait devenue un véritable badge d’honneur, la mesure du vrai patriote.

Déjà très polarisée, la décision du juge Blanchard a invariablement polarisé la question de la laïcité encore davantage. Le débat se pose désormais en ces termes : se laisser dicter nos règles de l’extérieur ou pas. Va-t-on laisser ceux qui ne nous comprennent pas (lire la Cour suprême) nous dire quoi faire ? Il y a ici un véritable enjeu démocratique, c’est vrai. Seulement, il n’est pas celui que l’on pense. Le danger n’est pas que le Québec perde de son autonomie législative, le danger est l’affaiblissement à long terme des droits et libertés pour l’ensemble du Québec.

Rappelons, d’abord, ce qui se perd de plus en plus dans ce débat à sens unique : pourquoi il nous faut des chartes des droits et libertés et pourquoi celles-ci bénéficient d’un statut « supralégislatif ». La Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme, la première à voir le jour en 1948, et toutes celles qui ont été adoptées par la suite, comme au Québec (1975) et au Canada (1982), sont là pour assurer que personne, indépendamment de son sexe, son ethnie, sa religion ou son orientation sexuelle ne soit traité différemment. C’est la règle la plus sophistiquée, la plus civilisée, dont dispose l’humanité depuis la nuit des temps. C’est également un code qui, par définition, doit transcender l’enceinte politique. On ne peut pas laisser le sort des plus vulnérables (les minorités) entièrement dans les mains des plus puissants (les majorités), c’est la grande leçon du XXe siècle. Par conséquent, il n’y a que les tribunaux, consacrés à l’arbitrage impartial, qui peuvent y voir.

Rappelons aussi que la loi 21 suspend non seulement la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés mais également la Charte québécoise, nous laissant orphelins en la matière. À force de jouer la carte du salut de la nation, pour des raisons opportunistes, strictement politiques, le Québec est en train de se peinturer dans un coin sombre.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/600085/la-polarisation-numero-1?utm_source=infolettre-2021-05-05&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Germany Sees 72 Percent Increase in Anti-Immigrant Crimes

2021/05/06 Leave a comment

Of note:

Germany recorded a 72.4 percent increase in anti-immigrant crimes in 2020 – up to 5,298 total cases – as officials warned Tuesday that the country is experiencing a dangerous rise in far-right violence.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said in total, far-right crimes rose 5.65 percent in 2020, and accounted for more than half of all “politically motivated” crimes.

“This shows again that right-wing extremism is the biggest threat for our country,” Seehofer said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

In February 2020, the country saw its deadliest anti-immigrant attack when nine immigrants were killed near Frankfurt, Germany, after a gunman opened fire and called for the “complete extermination” of many “races or cultures in our midst,” the AP reported.

Authorities have since raised concerns that the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AFD, which placed third in the country’s 2017 election and has grown in influence, has played a role in stoking a climate of hatred toward immigrants and the government.

German security agencies have warned of the growing threat of violent far-right extremism. In July 2019, a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s party was killed by a neo-Nazi; three months later, a gunman tried to force his way into a synagogue on Yom Kippur, killing two people.

Seehofer said antisemitic crimes in Germany were up 15.7 percent in 2020 over 2019 with 2,351 total incidents — 94.6 percent of which were committed by a far-right suspect.

Of the total, 62 were acts of violence while the majority were antisemitic hate speech and other related crimes, frequently on the internet or over social media, Seehofer said.

“This development in Germany is not only troubling, but in view of our history, deeply shameful,” he said.

Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said the German numbers highlighted a broader issue.

“This is a wake-up call, not just for Germany, but for the whole world,” he said. “These figures should ring alarm bells, because we are seeing similar trends across the Western world.”

Many in the AfD have expressed support for, and participated in, the regular protests in Germany against lockdown measures, organized by the Querdenker movement. The demonstrations have become increasingly violent, and the country’s domestic intelligence service last month said it had put some members of the movement under observation.

The protests have brought together a broad range of demonstrators, including people opposing vaccinations, those who deny the existence of the coronavirus, mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and others.

Seehofer said the protests have also attracted neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists, and have regularly become violent, targeting police and the media. Seehofer said of the 260 reported crimes against journalists, 112 were related to protests against coronavirus restrictions.

“I want to say here very clearly: These acts of violence are no longer about exercising a constitutional right (to demonstrate), but are acts of violence of a criminal nature that I condemn in the strongest possible terms,” he said.

Source: Germany Sees 72 Percent Increase in Anti-Immigrant Crimes

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Census 2021: Canadians are talking about race. But the census hasn’t caught up.

2021/05/05 Leave a comment

A good, nuanced discussion regarding nomenclature and methodology issues.

Census data, which links birthplace, generation, ethnic origin, visible minority status, citizenship to socioeconomic data provides a wealth of data that are used to highlight how outcomes vary between groups and cohorts, as well as providing a more quantitative assessment of systemic differences.

With more disaggregated data available (e.g., labour force survey, public service employment equity reports), the gaps are less significant than before.

Discussions around nomenclature can sometimes be easier than addressing the issues that the existing data sheds light on:

This May, Canadians will again be asked if they identify as a visible minority when filling out the long-form census. But it’s a concept and term increasingly out of step with the times.

The pandemic has laid bare racial inequalities, and racial justice activist groups, like Black Lives Matter, have put anti-Black racism high on the public agenda. Systemic racism, rather than visible minority status, is at the centre of debate. While Canadians are now talking more explicitly about race, the census has yet to catch up. 

“We’re going to have to ask ourselves, what do we want to do with that category now?” says Michael Haan, a demographer and member of a committee that advises Statistics Canada on ethnocultural diversity. According to him, the committee has had many internal debates about terminology. 

Indirectly asking questions

Canada’s anti-racism strategy, which draws on decades’ worth of research, states that race is a social construct. There is no basis for classifying people according to race, but racial bias and discrimination have very real effects. 

The question is: How do we get relevant data from the census and other surveys on the impact of systemic racism?

Statistics Canada tries to gather this information without directly asking about race. Race-based data is needed, says Jean-Pierre Corbeil, a diversity specialist at Statistics Canada. But he wonders whether that actually requires referring to race on the census.

Historically, the government has been reluctant to ask directly about race, which has led to a lack of disaggregated data. After the Second World War, the census used indirect methods of estimating the non-white, non-Indigenous population through racial proxies like language or ethnocultural origin.

That changed in 1996, says political scientist Debra Thompson, when Statistics Canada began asking Canadians whether they identified as a visible minority. The term, Thompson notes, makes it seem “that things are not about race when of course they absolutely are.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/YnGOR_W7Ca0?wmode=transparent&start=0Statistics Canada advertisement explaining the 2021 census.

Identifying as a visible minority

The question on visible minorities was added to the census because of the Employment Equity Act. In order to measure how the white versus the non-white population fares in the labour market as required by this law, the government needed to know who is a visible minority.

For the purposes of the Employment Equity Act, says Haan, the question works. But he acknowledges the drawbacks: “Is it a perfect facsimile of race or racialization? No, it’s not.”

Many criticized, and still criticize the government’s approach. The United Nations has repeatedly pointed out that the term “visible minority” lumps together diverse communities and threatens to erase differences among them. Corbeil says Statistics Canada is well aware of the criticism.

Not easily done

However, changing the terminology is politically sensitive. Moving away from it would likely require changing the Employment Equity Act, says Fo Niemi, head of Montreal-based Center for Research-Action on Race Relations.

Instead, Statistics Canada is trying to respond to the demand for more race-disaggregated data through special crowdsourced surveys and increasing sample sizes of marginalized people to allow for enhanced analysis. 

For example, with support from the federal Anti-Racism Secretariat, it has produced a socio-economic analysis on the Black population.

During the pandemic, census data has also been combined with other statistics to show that mortality rates are higher in neighbourhoods where visible minorities live.

“What people want is really to have information on Black Canadians, to have information on South Asians or Latin American Canadians,” says Corbeil. But those categories are controversial too. White, South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean or Japanese are options non-Indigenous Canadians can choose from on the census. “Other” is also an option, but many feel unrepresented by the list. 

Expand or shorten the list?

The population groups, as Statistics Canada calls them, have remained largely unchanged since 1996. The agency uses the list, which was developed through an inter-departmental process in the 1980s — according to Thompson, how the groups were chosen is “a bit of a mystery.”

They are now part of Canada’s national statistical standards and are widely used by the federal government, including in the monthly labour force survey, which began recording visible minority status as of July 2020. 

Statistics Canada has considered changing the list. One alternative was to expand it, but that risked making the answers too similar to the separate ethnocultural origin question. Another was to shorten the list and provide broader categories. Statistics Canada even tested this approach in a 2019 trial run of the census. Respondents had to choose their “descent” from seven options: North American; Latin American; European; North African; African, Afro-Caribbean or African-Canadian; Middle Eastern or West Asian; and Other Asian. 

But according to Corbeil, the problem there was that Statistics Canada couldn’t identify who was Black because Black Canadians are highly diverse and come from all over the world. That’s important, because the agency’s consultations indicate that “many people want to identify as Black Canadians,” says Corbeil. Because the test was inconclusive, the options have not been changed for the 2021 census.

Changing the census isn’t so simple

Dr. Andrew Pinto, a public health and preventive medicine specialist and family physician, is a researcher with The Upstream Lab, which has studied the collection of racial data by health-care providers, says that if patients understand that disclosing their race will be used to address systemic racism, they are willing to provide the information.

For now, Statistics Canada is reluctant to refer directly to race anywhere on the census. The agency is cautious and for good reasons, says Haan. In order to compare data over time, the questions and the answers need to stay the same. “The census is the gold standard,” he says, “so any modification is carefully considered.”

Thompson also cautions that simply having the data won’t solve the problem of systemic racism.

“Yes, we need disaggregated racial data. [But] we also need governments that are brave enough to create targeted policies.”

Source: https://theconversationcanada.cmail19.com/t/r-l-tltiqlt-kyldjlthkt-c/

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Is Australia’s India travel ban legal? A citizenship law expert explains and a critique of the ban

2021/05/05 Leave a comment

The lack of a charter with mobility rights compared to Canada:

There is a growing public and political outcry over the federal government’s sudden decision to ban Australians from coming home from India.

But as everyone from Indian community leaders to human rights leaders, famous cricketers and Coalition MPs calls on the government to rethink the policy, is it legal? Is a High Court challenge an option?

What is citizenship?

In terms of common law, citizenship is a relationship between an individual and their nation, where each owes fundamental obligations to the other. In broad terms, the citizen’s job is to be loyal to the nation. The nation’s job is to protect its citizens.

Last year, a record number of people pledged allegiance to Australia and became citizens. The largest group of new citizens were Indian migrants, with over 38,000 becoming Australians in 2019-20.

Now, under the Australian government’s tough new travel ban, 9,000 Australians remain stranded in India, which is currently battling a deadly COVID-19 second wave and oxygen and vaccine shortages.

Some were granted permission to travel to India to see dying relatives or attend funerals. Others travelled there pre-pandemicand have since been unable to return to Australia.

Despite having done nothing wrong, these Australians have been left unprotected by a government that has failed to hold up its end of the citizenship bargain.

How does the travel ban work?

The ban makes it unlawful for anyone, including Australian citizens, to enter Australia if they have been in India in the past 14 days. It was made under sweeping powers conferred on federal Health Minister Greg Hunt by the 2015 Biosecurity Act.

Section 477 of the act allows Hunt to issue “determinations” imposing any “requirement” that he deems necessary to control the entry or spread of COVID-19. These determinations cannot be disallowed by parliament. Thanks to a provision aptly known as a “Henry VIII clause”, they also override any other federal, state or territory law.

If a person breaches the travel ban, for instance by transiting through a third country, the Biosecurity Act states they may face criminal penalties of five years imprisonment, a $66,000 fine, or both (even if Prime Minister Scott Morrison says jail time is unlikely).

Hunt says the ban is a “temporary pause”. It will lapse on May 15. However, if he deems it necessary, he could use his broad powers to reintroduce it, or impose similar restrictions.

As political pressure builds to remove the ban early, the government says it is “constantly” reviewing it.

Is the ban legal?

Another basic principle of citizenship is citizens may freely return to their countries. Under common law, this stems from the Magna Carta. It is also an important principle of international law, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In March, two Australians stranded in the United States took their case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. They argued government policies blocking their return contravene international law.

The committee has not reached a decision, but in April it asked Australia to ensure their prompt return, noting they faced “irreparable harm”.

What about our domestic law?

Whether the ban is legal under Australian domestic law is a different question. Although the Department of Home Affairs says Australian citizens can “apply for an Australian passport and re-enter Australia freely”, there is no codified right of return under Australian law. This sets us apart from many countries that have a bill of rights, and include this right.

A High Court challenge is an option, but there is no clear path to success.

The High Court has said little on the subject. A 1908 case suggests citizens may have a common law right to return to Australia, provided this has not been taken away by parliamentary law. The Biosecurity Act of course thoroughly displaces any such right.

Due to the deep links between citizenship and the right of return, it has been suggested citizens may have an implied constitutional right to enter Australia. There is no case law on this yet — just a single, vaguely worded sentence in a 1988 High Court case — and there are good reasons why it might be a difficult case to argue in Australia.

Implied rights must be derived from the text and structure of Australia’s Constitution, which says nothing about Australian citizenship, and little about the relationship between the government and the people, besides providing for democratic elections.

Does it breach the Biosecurity Act?

Another argument might be the travel ban is unlawful on the grounds Hunt failed to comply with the conditions for making a determination under section 477 of the Biosecurity Act.

These conditions require him to be satisfied, before imposing the ban, that it was “likely to be effective” in stopping the spread of COVID-19, “appropriate and adapted” to this purpose, and “no more restrictive or intrusive” than the circumstances required.

Importantly, it is Hunt personally who must be satisfied of these conditions. This means if he reached that conclusion on reasonable grounds, he has not broken the law, even if a different approach might have been available.

Yesterday, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly’s advice to Hunt in advance of the travel ban was released. Kelly’s advice emphasises the significant risk quarantine leakage poses to the Australian community and says a travel ban on arrivals from India until 15 May would be effective, proportionate and limited to what is necessary.

In light of this, it seems likely that a court would see the determination as a reasonable exercise of Hunt’s power.

Beyond the law, what about moral arguments?

But, legality aside, let’s return to the idea that Australia has a fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens. In February 2020, Hunt acknowledged this, pointing to two related national priorities: to contain the virus and protect citizens at home, and protect and support Australians abroad.

There may be circumstances in which these priorities conflict with each other. But it is hard to see the conflict in this situation. Quarantine and effective contact tracing have seen those within Australia substantially protected against COVID-19. We have not needed blanket bans on returns from the US, the United Kingdom or other countries that have experienced virus surges.

Kelly’s advice points to potential strain on quarantine, and Morrison has said the ban ensures that “our quarantine system can remain strong”. But the federal government could protect more people in Australia and abroad (not to mention ease pressure on countries experiencing COVID-19 strain), if it worked to bring citizens home while devoting more resources towards strengthening the quarantine system.

Yet the government has resisted this, despite a clear constitutional power over quarantine, the recommendations of public health experts and a national review.

Meanwhile, 9,000 Australians in India are anxiously waiting for a change to the law, which would at least legally permit them to try and return home.

Source: Is Australia’s India travel ban legal? A citizenship law expert explains

Strong commentary by Tim Soutphommasane, former Australian race discrimination commissioner, arguing against the ban:

It has come to this: a government pulling up the drawbridge on its own citizens trying to make it home. Last week’s announcement of a ban on return flights from India marks a drastic escalation of “fortress Australia”.

Yes, it isn’t the first time during the pandemic that Australia’s borders have been closed to people arriving from certain countries deemed high risk. This happened, for example, with China in February 2020.

But this new measure goes beyond a temporary closure of borders. It also involves harsh criminal penalties imposed on people seeking to return from India, including fines and even imprisonment.

There’s something seriously wrong about this. Citizenship is meant to guarantee its bearers certain rights and liberties. The right to vote. The right to expression. The right to live without interference. The right to enter one’s country.

Clearly, we can’t take our basic rights and liberties for granted. It’s no exaggeration to say that this policy undermines the very status of citizenship. The principles of democratic liberalism are under assault.

After all, citizenship means little if you can’t exercise your right to return to Australia in a time of need. Liberal democracy is diminished when your government doesn’t protect you when you’re in present or impending danger.

On every Australian passport, there is a page that bears a request of other governments and people that they “allow the bearer, an Australian Citizen, to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him or her every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need”. Those words now ring hollow. How can we expect people abroad to do that, if our own government won’t do the same to its citizens?

Equal citizenship

Closer to home, this move inserts some doubts as to whether all citizens can presume they enjoy equal citizenship.

It hasn’t escaped many of us that there have been different standards of treatment given to citizens and residents returning to Australia during this pandemic. Last year, when Covid was rampaging through the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, the government took no step to close our borders to those places, let alone impose criminal penalties on those arriving from there.

The government says it has introduced this policy based on medical advice. Yet, according to the commonwealth chief medical health officer, Paul Kelly, “no advice was given” in relation to the imposition of fines or jail terms for those seeking to circumvent the India travel ban. Moreover, numerous leading public health experts have questioned why a ban has been introduced.

It wouldn’t be the first time an Australian government has engaged in cynical racial dog whistling. As the Australian Human Rights Commission has stated, the government “must show that these measures are not discriminatory and the only suitable way of dealing with the threat to public health”. Because right now they do look discriminatory. And they are far from the only way to deal with any public health threat.

Here’s how we should be dealing with things. There remain about 35,000 Australians stranded overseas, including about9,000in India. We – and by we I mean the government that acts in our name – must act urgently to bring these Australians home, wherever they are. The way to do that is obvious: charter flights to bring them back, and create dedicated quarantine facilities across the country to make sure it happens safely.

How breathtaking it is that this hasn’t yet happened. We are more than one year into the pandemic. There has been plenty of time to think this through, make plans and deliver.

A choice between two Australias

Then again, you can understand why government hasn’t done this. This pandemic has confronted us with a choice between two Australias: between being an open, confident, internationalist country and being a closed, fearful, parochial nation. Increasingly, it seems as though people are choosing the latter.

There has been a strange acceptance of, maybe even enthusiasm for, a retreat into a hermit nation. Our politicians know all too well that closing borders and imposing lockdowns seem to bring some solid electoral payoffs: just ask Annastacia Palaszczuk and Mark McGowan.

For too many people, including those who may like to consider themselves progressive, border closures have become a fetish. It was weird enough that the pandemic was generating a competition among some premiers to close borders to other states. Now we’ve got to the point where we’re happy to have our national borders closed off to our own people and fellow citizens. At least some of them, anyway.

Covid has confirmed some timeless political truths. Amid threat, fear is a formidable beast to counter. And in tough times, minorities very rarely fare well. Covid has generated a significant rise in anti-Asian racism. Consider too, the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on migrants and international students.

But now the government is taking things into dangerous territory. Citizenship has been the bedrock of Australia’s multiculturalism: whatever background you’re from, you can be assured formal membership of the community. This latest move signals that, in the eyes of government, some of us are more Australian than others.

Tim Soutphommasane is a political theorist and professor at the University of Sydney. He was Australia’s race discrimination commissioner from 2013 to 2018

Source: Criminalising citizens returning from India signals some are more Australian than others

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