Abela | Of course my employers need certain private information — but their questions are getting more uncomfortable, and I think I know why

2026/07/20 Leave a comment

Good distinction between census and employer questions:

…All in, one could perhaps be excused for thinking the right way to answer my employer’s question concerning my “pattern of sexual, emotional, and/or romantic attraction to men, women, and/or people of other genders” is not to tick the “I prefer not to answer” box but to opt instead for a respectful “none of your business” write-in.

Are there places where the reservations I’ve suggested don’t come into view?

Yes: the Canadian census, for example, asks some similarly probing questions — but from my perspective, it has a different standing. The information it requests is part of the relationship of citizenship, in which the government has obligations to the citizenry, and the citizenry has reciprocal obligations to the government. Census data can be crucial for governments to effectively discharge their democratic obligations, as well as to materially and legally protect personhood and dignity. And this data is, in the aggregate, also made available to the broader public.

No such symmetry of right and obligation in an original social contract exists between employees and employers. Within the enabling constraints of law, I sell labour to my employer — nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps we have here a case of competing interests colliding, with no easy reconciliation in sight between protecting the personal sphere and creating a more just working environment. Even still, we owe it to ourselves not to be blind to the casual erosion of the personal sphere.

Paul Abela is an associate professor of philosophy at Acadia University.

Source: Opinion | Of course my employers need certain private information — but their questions are getting more uncomfortable, and I think I know why

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As Canada modernizes Senate appointments, it can also broaden how it understands Black representation

2026/07/16 Leave a comment

True, the Black community is very diverse in terms of countries of origin, period of immigration etc, more so than any other group perhaps save Muslims. StatsCan did a good analysis of this diversity. Most communities have considerable ideological diversity which is largely unmeasured. However, operationalizing in employment equity would be a challenge:

…The implications extend well beyond the Senate. Governments, universities, corporations and public agencies increasingly rely on diversity metrics to measure progress toward equity. Counting the number of Black people in leadership positions is an important first step. But it should not be the final measure of success.

More detailed and separate data on the wide array of Black communities in Canada, more nuanced reporting and broader engagement with different Black communities would help institutions understand which communities have access to leadership opportunities, which remain under-represented and which perspectives may be missing from decision-making.

Canada’s commitment to equity has never been simply about filling seats. It has been about ensuring that public institutions benefit from a wide range of lived experiences and perspectives.

As Canada modernizes how senators are selected, it also has an opportunity to broaden its understanding of representation. That means asking not only whether Black Canadians are represented, but also whether the diversity of Black Canada is reflected in the voices helping shape the country’s future.

Sheri Adekola, Sessional Instructor, Migration and Labour Markets, University of Guelph

Source: As Canada modernizes Senate appointments, it can also broaden how it understands Black representation

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‘Something concrete’: Why Asian-Canadians were moved to denounce antisemitism

2026/07/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

In the emerging movement of non-Jews speaking out against rampant antisemitism in Canada, Fo Niemi and his coalition of Asian community groups in Montreal stand out as veterans.

When a city synagogue was firebombed last month, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) brought together a coalition of Asian communities – ranging from Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino – to denounce antisemitism and support the Jewish community.

These were, in his words, “small steps to heal, bond and build solidarity.”

Niemi, a co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit, said the goal was “to do something concrete. We don’t want to just talk. We want to build things that could be lasting, so it can be better evidence of how much we have in common.”

CRARR, whose mandate is to promote racial equality and combat racism, also held a multi-faith, multi-ethnic dedication service on June 30, to honour Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, killed while responding to a June 22 shooting in Côte-des-Neiges, and 68-year-old bystander Michel Moshe Mizrahi, who was killed in the same incident….

Source: ‘Something concrete’: Why Asian-Canadians were moved to denounce antisemitism

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Hamed Esmaeilion: We will never forget what Iran did to Canadians

2026/07/14 Leave a comment

Understandable reaction and feeling neglected but perhaps unrealistic expectations regarding PM time and that governments have broader interests than specific community ones, “the world as it is.” Not unique to Iranian Canadians or other totalitarian regimes:

…Over the past 18 months, the prime minister has not attended a single event dedicated to the victims of the Islamic Republic’s crimes. Other members of his government attended the sixth anniversary commemoration of the downing of Flight PS752, but he chose not to be there. During the events of Jan. 8 and 9, the Iranian-Canadian community did not receive the solidarity it needed from him.

Now, while the blood of many victims stains the streets of cities across Iran and thousands of families around the world face endless grief, he speaks of the need to engage with this regime and restore diplomatic relations in order to protect Canadians’ rights.

The families of Flight PS752 victims continue to be targeted by the regime. Even now, they face intimidation and persecution, including arrest and the confiscation of their passports.

Had the government used the legal tools at its disposal and sought provisional measures in the two active proceedings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Islamic Republic would never have dared to go this far.

We have called neither for war nor for negotiation. Our demand is simple: a fair and impartial trial that establishes the truth and delivers justice.

Rather than advocating an impossible proposition that we, the victims’ families, will oppose with all our strength, the prime minister should attend memorial ceremonies for the victims of this regime. There, standing among grieving Canadian families, he may better understand what is at stake and find the resolve to press for accountability before international courts.

Anything else will mean trampling truth and justice under a naïve notion of diplomacy, one that has failed for half a century because it refuses to confront the Islamic Republic’s murderous ideology and inhumanity.

Source: Hamed Esmaeilion: We will never forget what Iran did to Canadians

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PEN America: A Free-Speech Meltdown

2026/07/14 Leave a comment

Sad:

…Maybe the most revealing aspect of this eruption, though, is just how little it took to set it off. Thursday’s article nodded to the curtailed freedoms of Israeli and Jewish writers without taking any ideological side. It was far from a battle cry or a shift in priorities. It was just a way of acknowledging, in the measured but principled language common to PEN America, that the past three years of discourse have had an effect on a large group of writers. For anyone who has spoken to Israeli or Jewish artists—as I have—this is undeniable; you hear it everywhere. This reality does not neutralize the cause of pro-Palestinian writers or the suffering in Gaza and elsewhere. The fact that the article was perceived that way, and that it led to the resignation of a president, tells us all a great deal about the hair-trigger moment we live in, and about the precarity of the liberal principles on which PEN America was founded.  

Source: A Free-Speech Meltdown

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Canadian Perspectives on Multiculturalism and Diversity

2026/07/13 1 Comment

Encouraging large scale public opinion research highlighting that concern over immigration levels has largely not affected overall support for diversity and multiculturalism. But support for multiculturalism is less for “deeper” multiculturalism when it involves separate group institutions:

Summary recommendations: When asked what multiculturalism means to them, 64 percent of Canadians provide a response that describes multiculturalism positively, saying, for instance, that it means having an accepting society that welcomes people from different cultures. Only six percent describe multiculturalism negatively. However, 30 percent opt not to provide a response.

  • A majority of Canadians (66%) agree that “multiculturalism has contributed positively to the Canadian identity.” One in four (25%) disagree.
  • Even among white or non-immigrant Canadians, the proportions agreeing that multiculturalism has contributed positively to the Canadian identity outweigh those disagreeing by a margin of roughly two to one.
  • Even among Canadians who currently hold more negative opinions about immigration, a majority (about 3 in 5) has a positive opinion about the impact of multiculturalism.
  • There is widespread agreement among Canadians that people should not be discriminated against based on their race, ethnicity or culture. There is also agreement among a majority of Canadians that there are benefits to living in a diverse society. But disagreement outweighs agreement when it comes to setting up separate institutions in areas such as education to accommodate ethnic or religious minorities. While there are differences in the extent of agreement with each of several statements about diversity among Canadians of different backgrounds, what is notable is that the gradient in opinions just described applies for all groups.
  • One in five Canadians express wholly positive opinions about immigration: they are not concerned about the current number of immigrants coming to Canada, and they see welcoming immigrants as part of their vision of the type of country that Canada should be. A larger group (36%) has mixed views, expressing concern about the number of immigrants currently arriving, but nonetheless agreeing that Canada should be a country that fully welcomes immigrants from around the world. A similarly-sized group – about one in three – expresses wholly negative opinions: they believe immigration levels are too high and do not want Canada to be fully welcoming to immigrants from all over the world. Among non-immigrants, the proportion with wholly negative opinions reaches 41 percent….

Source: Canadian Perspectives on Multiculturalism and Diversity

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McWhorter: Euphemism Won’t Save Young Black Men’s Lives

2026/07/13 Leave a comment

Plain speech rather than euphemisms or ignoring reality (e.g., pregnant people):

…Euphemism can feel so right. We imagine that if we create a new term for something we can get people to think about it differently. Surely more will understand that a “bum” isn’t a reprobate if we refer to him as “homeless.” I’m just old enough to remember when “homeless” was the new default in the 1980s — it sounded so polite, open-minded. But before long, sentiments associated with “bum” transferred to “homeless.” We now have the dismissive slang term “homelessy.” So we’re supposed to say “unhoused.”

Hence “gun violence.” The key contrast is that if someone said “knife violence” we’d feel like they were trying to hide something. It’s the same with “gun violence.” We seek euphemism, maybe to avoid thinking about who is doing the shooting. “Gun violence” encourages us to see Black men who shoot one another not as self-destructive killers, but as people beset by a larger force unrelated to blame.

But we need not euphemism, but action, so that eventually there isn’t anything more to euphemize about.

We should think more of initiatives like Save Our Streets, part of a nationwide movement in which former gang members and others who have committed crimes are enlisted to act as experienced mediators between young people on the verge of using guns. A study by the sociologist Patrick Sharkey and co-authors Gerard Torrats-Espinosa and Delaram Takyar has shown that nonprofit organizations that focus on crime and community life can help reduce murder rates. Precision policing or focused deterrence, zeroing in on the tiny percentage of people in a neighborhood committing crimes, rather than canvassing the entire population, has been shown to reduce homicides.

The tragic effects of these shootings, including the convulsive grief of thousands of mothers, demands stark honesty that treats the lives of poor young Black men as reality, not as an abstraction. This includes talking about them rather than around them.

Source: Euphemism Won’t Save Young Black Men’s Lives

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Clark: Carney opens the Senate doors wider to partisans

2026/07/10 2 Comments

Most of the commentary has understandably focussed on the formal removal of non-partisanship in appointments. But little has been said regarding the diversity of appointments, whether of minority groups, sectoral or ideological. While the initial four appointments are too few to establish a trend, half are political, three-quarters are men, one visible minority but no Indigenous. The two non-political appointees appear to be more centrist than some of the activist senators appointed under the Trudeau government:

The chamber of sober second thought is apparently too sober for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s liking, and tends to waste all kinds of time in second thought. What it needs, we are told, is more party loyalists.

So Mr. Carney appointed his principal secretary and campaign manager, Tom Pitfield, to the Senate, alongside Conservative MP Richard Martel, 65, who bolted from Pierre Poilievre’s joyless Conservative caucus for another nine years and eight months of job security.

But the PM also changed the appointment process for new senators to remove the nominal requirement of non-partisanship, thus opening the door wide to former politicians, aides and fundraisers.

It seems strange for a Prime Minister with so little partisan history of his own, but it was not the first time Mr. Carney has removed restrictions on partisanship in power. Last year, he loosened rules on the government spending on partisan ads – and now Mr. Carney’s Canada Strong campaign slogan is often heard in TV commercials.

Source: Carney opens the Senate doors wider to partisans

And Stephen Maher’s take:

…Trudeau was wise, I thought, to stop putting hacks, fundraisers and failed candidates into the upper chamber, and he never had to deal with any blowback.

The backroom fixers in the Liberals and Conservatives are glad to see Carney set aside Trudeau’s reforms, offering thin arguments about political tradition, but that is because they and their friends want to get in there.

It looks dirty, and Carney will wear it if these appointments go wrong.

Source: Opinion | With his Senate appointments, Mark Carney is undoing one of Justin Trudeau’s smartest decisions

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Gail Asper isn’t visibly angry about ‘Nakba’ exhibit. But she’s resolute about fixing the rights museum

2026/07/08 Leave a comment

More on the CMHR Nakba controversy:

…“As a national federal museum,” she says, “there’s a very high standard here. This isn’t a community-centred exhibit. I fought for the designation, for this to be a federal institution with all the imprimatur and gravitas that title entails, because I wanted to show Canadians that this isn’t just the opinion of Izzy Asper or, you know, me or anybody else. This is something that matters to Canadians, that human rights are so important to Canadians, and Stephen Harper was the prime minister that finally delivered this as the national federal museum.

“It feels intentional that the Jewish voice and connection to this museum is deliberately being diminished,” she observes. Her phone and inbox have been “exploding” since the announcement. Supporters who trusted the Aspers to create something intellectually honest feel betrayed.

“The whole point of the museum is to bring people together,” she explains. “The whole point is to have dialogue and debate. So the whole point of this exhibit, as I said to everybody, was that there are hard truths on both sides. Let’s have all the hard truths and let’s have the rational, quiet, respectful debate the museum was intended to inspire.”

“But when you obliterate one side of the narrative so egregiously, obviously, and so ideologically and intentionally, you lose that trust from one part of the participants. And that’s where I really am so disappointed in the museum. They didn’t have to do it this way.”

She made repeated efforts to steer things differently, including a presentation to the board six weeks before opening. As an honorary board member, she reminded them of the museum’s mandate and warned about fanning antisemitism at a fraught time. There was no meaningful response.

“I just thought this is heartless,” she says. “There is no compassion for the place that we have now found ourselves in the Jewish community.”

Then, one week before opening, the sole Jewish board member, Mark Berlin, resigned. “I think he was gaslit,” Gail says. Berlin, a respected human rights lawyer who had lived and worked in Ramallah, called her before stepping down. “It was a very sad conversation,” but she understood.”…

Source: Gail Asper isn’t visibly angry about ‘Nakba’ exhibit. But she’s resolute about fixing the rights museum

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Restaurateur Francis Deck ran the legendary Toronto diner chain Fran’s

2026/07/07 Leave a comment

Blast from my past growing up in Toronto where one of my high school hang-outs was a Fran’s at Yonge and Eglinton.

But more significantly, Fran’s reflected the old Toronto that my parents settled in after the war as captured in the following quote:

…“In the early 1960s, Fran’s was the restaurant of record for Rosedale meals out. Toronto didn’t eat out much then, and Fran’s offered comfort,” former Globe and Mail food critic Joanne Kates said. “It was all about superbly managed expectations. The innards of the slightly dry club sandwich never wavered from one year to the next. The food was bland – the way staid old Hogtown liked it. When the food scene in Toronto exploded in the 1970s, Fran’s became an object of gastro-derision. It was a sad day for an institution of such reliability.”…

Source: Restaurateur Francis Deck ran the legendary Toronto diner chain Fran’s

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