Burton: Trudeau government at a crossroads in its dealings with China

2019/11/30 Leave a comment

Burton, McCuaig-Johnston, Mulroney, Glavin and others have been making these points for some time, and questioning the government’s response to date:

The new Trudeau government’s approach to China’s Communist Party regime is rife with dilemma. Support the business and political interests of the Laurentian élite, who are entwined in and conflicted by a Beijing engagement approach that eschews established norms of trade and diplomacy? Or adhere to Canadian middle-class values that make Canada the harmonious and tolerant society it is: decency, fairness, reciprocity, honesty, openness?

Canada’s policy on China was evidently too sensitive to handle during the recent election campaign; the Munk Centre’s scheduled foreign policy debate was cancelled after Justin Trudeau refused to appear.

But now it is new beginnings for a new government, time to reflect on the horrendous failures of our past engagement with China, time to do the necessary re-set in Canada’s national interest.

Against this desperate need for an open national debate, it is disappointing to see our government engaging in closed-door policy discussions led by Peter Harder (the government leader in the Senate), current and former senior officials of Global Affairs Canada, academics who favour engagement on Beijing’s terms, and business leaders with lucrative connections to Chinese Communist business networks closed to public scrutiny.

Now it is new beginnings for a new government, time to reflect on the horrendous failures of our past engagement with China, time to do the necessary re-set in Canada’s national interest.

On Nov. 19, the Public Policy Forum (lead partner: government of Canada) charged stakeholders in Canada-China relations $900 to access a one-day workshop and dinner in Ottawa, called “China and the Policy Implications of a new Cold War.” The pricey registration fee would be well beyond the budget of Canadian Tibetan, Uyghur or China human rights NGO activists, or Canadian media outlets. That would effectively mute voices who would like to know how Canada will address the cultural genocide of Turkic Muslims in China’s northwest, or the fate of the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong, or when Canada will take strong measures to convince China to release Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.

The PPF’s mandate is to “write a more sophisticated narrative for Canadians,” leading to “a more nuanced engagement” — evidently a mysterious doctrine best developed without wider participation.

The narrative that PPF is developing is that “the rise of China is bending the arc of history,” so Canada must “adjust rapidly to changing geopolitical realities arguably as profound as anything since the rise of the United States challenged the dominance of the British Empire in the late 19th century.” This rhetoric is certainly not based on sound comparative historiography, but it is in perfect harmony with that articulated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He demands that Canada join China’s “community of the common destiny of mankind” and support China’s rebuild of global trade infrastructure by participating in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” because as the U.S. declines, China will become the new global hegemon.

In other words, Canada should get with the program, because, as former Liberal cabinet stalwart Martin Cauchon said regarding Huawei’s expansion, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” But China does not have a record of trust in upholding international agreements. Once Huawei is installed, billions of dollars later, any Chinese commitment to allow Canadian monitoring of Huawei systems to ensure they are not being used to purloin data, or threaten Canadian critical infrastructure, is likely to be revoked. And there won’t be much we can do about it.

On Nov. 20, the day after the workshop, François-Philippe Champagne was appointed minister of Global Affairs, and Mary Ng was named minister of International Trade. Both are extensively on the record saying trade should be Canada’s priority for engaging China. What about concerns over China’s espionage and covert political influence activities in Canada, and Canadians’ alarm about engaging with a régime complicit in human rights violations against its own people, violating sovereignty in the South China Sea and using economic leverage to serve Beijing’s authoritarian political and strategic purposes? Such concerns must go by the wayside, because China has made clear it will not expand trade with Canada otherwise.

So now, the same policymakers who got it so very wrong on China in the past are setting Canada’s China agenda for the future. The question begs: What more does the Chinese Communist régime have to do to convince us that our “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” appeasement of China is actually disastrous to Canada’s domestic and global interests?

What we need is uncompromised, Canadian, level-headed good sense to be brought into play. Let’s hope that happens before it is too late.

Source: Burton: Trudeau government at a crossroads in its dealings with China

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HASSAN: The burka and niqab are giving Islam a bad name

2019/11/30 Leave a comment

Hassan has a point:

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s comments on Muslim dress caused a tsunami last year, and the ripples are still being felt. He asked why Muslim women should wear a burka or niqab, which makes them look like “letterboxes”.

It certainly wasn’t prudent for a prime minister to poke fun at Muslim women, and some alleged his analogy caused a spike in anti-Muslim sentiment. In his defense, Johnson did support a Muslim woman’s right to wear whatever she chooses, but his implied question remains a pertinent one: Why choose such a garment when all it ever does is give Islam a bad name?

Predictably, the “letterbox” jibe drew out Muslim activists. They defended the niqab as a personal choice or as something that makes women feel secure. Yet, no matter how they try to defend it, such Muslim garb is cumbersome, patriarchal and even dangerous, and it limits opportunities for women in otherwise free and open societies.

An article by Sarah Baxter on this issue in The Times of London this week caught my eye. It was entitled I am no snowflake, but the niqab scares me. To Baxter, if the niqab symbolizes anything it is the unsettling reminder that women in much of the world are still repressed, and the past century’s progress in women’s emancipation in developed countries may be “just a blip in history”.

Baxter’s disdain and fear are justified. Why create a walking barrier between the wearer and the confidently unmasked rest of the world? Concealment is what the niqab does best; its very reason for being is to conceal that female allure. But can’t it also conceal a whole lot more, even weapons?

The faithful offer endless justifications, apart from the standard one about looking unsexy: to “attain closeness” with Allah, to make a political statement, and to ensure Islam’s precepts are being fully observed. Advocates here in Canada have even offered the specious argument that, far from being patriarchal, donning the niqab is a feminist choice for a woman. Perhaps they are implying that in this #MeToo era, swaddling medieval clothing will keep them safe!

Retreating behind a mask is an odd action to call feminist. The most extreme Muslim garment, the burka, reflects ultra-conservative interpretations by men. It is valued by cruel misogynists like the Taliban as a convenient means of repressing women. The moderately less restrictive niqab serves to marginalize women in Saudi Arabia. All of this garb is nothing but an endorsement of the chauvinism and patriarchy that defined seventh-century Arabia.

And it has nothing to do with Islam. In fact, covering the hair and face is a practice uncritically inherited from the patriarchal cultures that preceded Islam. Women who don the niqab should take a closer look at the requirements of their faith. The recommendation is merely to dress modestly. The language of the Quran is vague and always followed by a reassurance of forgiveness if its injunctions on the matter cannot be met.

In fact, the main principle behind Islam’s modest attire is not to draw attention to women. But the political statement women make by wearing the niqab has the opposite effect. If they care about the reputation of the faith they profess to love, they should consider how the burka and niqab, as recognized symbols of separation and oppression, continue to give Islam a bad name.

Source: HASSAN: The burka and niqab are giving Islam a bad name

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Amid political gamesmanship, some Quebec Muslim women enticed by offer to move to Manitoba

2019/11/30 Leave a comment

Cheeky of Manitoba but Premier Pallister has been one of the most principled Canadian politician on Bill 21:

As a political spat plays out between Manitoba and Quebec over Bill 21, some Muslim women affected by the province’s ban on religious symbols say they are tempted by the offer to move to the Prairie province.

“If this persists, and as a result of this there are more hate crimes against me and my people, then why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I go somewhere where I feel welcome?” said Chaachouh, who wears a hijab.”I know that if I go there, they will look at my skills rather than what I am wearing on my head.”

The ad campaign launched Thursday is aimed at Quebecers who feel limited by the province’s secularism law, which prohibits public servants in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. These include the hijab, skullcap and turban.

In a nod to Bill 21, the ad lists 21 reasons why Manitoba is an appealing place to move, ranging from its diverse population to its plethora of provincial parks.

There isn’t, in fact, much history of movement between the two provinces. In 2018, for example, only 341 people moved from Quebec to Manitoba (and 799 went the other way).

A better solution: no Bill 21

Chaachouh is under no illusions a government ad means she would be safe from discrimination in Manitoba.

At the very least, though, Chaachouh said it is encouraging to see a province take a stand against the legislation, while Ottawa has shied away from doing the same.The Manitoba government’s campaign was dismissed as a political ploy by Premier François Legault and much of the opposition in Quebec City.

Legault said Bill 21 will ensure secularism in the public sector, and that the law is “a decision to be taken by Quebecers and Quebecers only.”

But Shahad Salman, a lawyer who runs a public relations firm in Montreal, said the message appealed to her as well.

“The fact that they used 21 reasons — that made me laugh,” she said.

“I think it’s an interesting move from another province: They take something bad happening somewhere else and turn it into a good thing for them.”

Salman, 32, said she would consider such a move. But a better solution? “Not having Bill 21,” she said.

The legislation is facing multiple legal challenges.

Critics say it infringes on a person’s right to practice their religion, and disproportionately targets Muslim women who wear a headscarf.

In a Quebec Court of Appeal hearing earlier this week, civil rights groups argued the law is causing immediate and irreparable harm.

“People’s lives are being ruined. People are being forced to leave their professions. People are being forced to leave this province,” Catherine McKenzie, a lawyer representing the groups, told the court.

Fighting inside Quebec

Nour Farhat, a 28-year-old Montrealer who recently completed a master’s in criminal law, is involved in one of the legal challenges.

She says the law thwarted her dream of becoming a Crown prosecutor in Quebec.

She said the Manitoba ad was like “a breath of fresh air,” and such a move is appealing.

But Farhat, who works in litigation, has no plans to leave.

“Why can’t I be this person here, where I was born and raised? Why do I have to go to the other side of the country to realize my dream?” she said. “This is why I won’t go to any other province — because I want to be able to do this here in Quebec.”

Source: Amid political gamesmanship, some Quebec Muslim women enticed by offer to move to Manitoba

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Jason Kenney denounces ‘useful idiots’ amid uproar over university lecturer’s Holodomor denial

2019/11/30 Leave a comment

A very Kenney comment, and warranted:

A day after Ukrainian students vented their fury at a University of Alberta lecturer who called the Holodomor famine “a lie,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney slammed the “useful idiots” who engage in genocide denial.

Dougal MacDonald, who is listed as a lecturer in the university’s education department, said on Facebook that the Holodomor was a myth perpetuated by the Nazis. His comments led the Ukrainian Students’ Society to call them “harmful and false beliefs” that are unacceptable for an employee of the university.

“Sad to see some in Canada still engaged in this genocide denial,” Kenney said on Twitter on Thursday morning although he didn’t mention MacDonald by name.

Kenney also posted a video of a speech he gave about Holodomor, which was a fierce condemnation of “Western, supposedly-progressive voices who were complicit in one of history’s great cover-ups.”

“These were the useful idiots of whom Lenin wrote. Westerners who purposefully lied about one of the great acts of mass murder in human history,” said Kenney.

The speech was delivered last week at a Holodomor commemoration in Calgary and the video was posted in full on Thursday morning as the scandal around MacDonald erupted.

MacDonald’s comments were originally reported by The Gateway, the student newspaper at the U of A, and MacDonald responded to the paper’s story with a statement decrying the “irrational assertions” and “defamation” directed at him.

The term Holodomor means “to kill by starvation” and refers to the famine in Ukraine that killed millions of people in 1932–33. The genocide has been recognized by the Canadian Parliament and provincial legislatures, including in Alberta.

In his Facebook post, which was archived online by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, MacDonald describes the Holodomor as a myth perpetuated by the Nazis to discredit the Soviet Union.

“In Canada, former Nazi collaborators and their spawn have long led the phony Holodomor campaign,” wrote MacDonald.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress urged its members to contact the university and demand the dismissal of MacDonald, even providing suggested text for an email to the school’s president.

“This is a stark reminder that, even in 2019, we cannot afford complacency in Holodomor education and awareness,” the organization’s website reads.

MacDonald was a candidate for the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding, which NDP candidate Heather McPherson won. MacDonald tallied 77 votes. His banner photo on Facebook is an advertisement to subscribe to the Marxist-Leninist Party’s online bulletin and his profile picture is a photo of Fidel Castro. His photos on Facebook are a collection of historical leftist leaders, like former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Che Guevara and former North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, who MacDonald describes as a “great leader of the Korean people.”

Although the university did not respond to a request for comment before press time, it said in a statement to the Gateway that the university is “balancing many interests and obligations” while it is “carefully monitoring this matter.”

The university has a commitment to freedom of expression and academic freedom for its staff, which includes “the right to comment (and) to criticize without deference to prescribed doctrine.”

In responding to the Gateway’s questions, deputy provost Wendy Rogers noted that MacDonald was making the comments as a private citizen and that they did not reflect the university’s views.

“The University of Alberta actively fosters an inclusive culture committed to the expression of, exposure to, and debate of diverse points of view,” a draft statement on freedom of expression on the school’s website reads. “Our campuses are forums for rigorous debate.”

Source: Jason Kenney denounces ‘useful idiots’ amid uproar over university lecturer’s Holodomor denial

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Coptic Christian woman wins court case against Egypt’s Islamic inheritance law

2019/11/29 Leave a comment

Of note:

A Coptic Christian woman has won a major legal victory against Egypt’s Islamic inheritance law that greatly favors men.

Christian human rights lawyer Huda Nasrallah announced that a Cairo court ruled in her favor Monday, deciding that, as a Christian, she has a right to the same share of her father’s inheritance as her brothers.

The decision follows a nearly yearlong legal fight that has seen two other judges rule in favor of Egypt’s Islamic inheritance law that grants male relatives twice as much share of a family member’s inheritance as female relatives.

The Associated Press reported last week that when Nasrallah presented her case to a higher court she based her argument around a Coptic Christian doctrine that calls for an inheritance to be distributed equally.

On Tuesday, Nasrallah told AP that she is “thrilled” by the verdict and hopes it will serve as an encouragement to women in her country.

According to Texas Tech University law professor Gerry W. Beyer, recent cases and sentiment on the issue in Egypt did not bode well for Nasrallah. Additionally, leaders at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, regarded as the most prominent Sunni religious institution in Egypt, have rejected equal inheritance proposals.

Samuel Tadros, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C., called the decision a “significant development” in a Twitter thread, but stressed that “only time will tell about its scope.”

“On the other hand, we still don’t have the court’s reasoning,” Tadros, the author of Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity, added. “In Hoda’s case, there was no contest. Her brothers joined her in her demand. So if the court simply found no objection and hence ruled in her favor, the case’s scope would be very limited.”

Although Nasrallah’s brothers were on her side in the case, complaints have been raised in the past about how Coptic men “usurp the inheritance of women.” The Coptic Church has also been accused of overlooking the inheritance issue.

Tadros explained that if the court’s reasoning cited the constitutional clause that grants Copts “the right to resort to their own laws in governing their personal status affairs, then this is a huge thing.” However, he stressed the decision could bring both “positive and negative developments.”

“On the positive side, obviously the rights of Coptic women to equal inheritance. It would also be interesting to see what else would the courts consider as Christian personal status. Adoption?” He asked.

“On the other hand, this means that there is unlikely to be any movement on marriage and divorce issues. In those cases, while @PopeTawadros made significant practical moves on them (ones that got him curses from the old guard), these changes remain tied to him and not long term.”

Tadros assured that “any such movement should be understood as a return to the Dhimmitude framework.” He explained it is a framework in which “non-Muslim communities were allowed to govern their own internal affairs, but in which they are not equal citizens.”

Nasrallah is not the only Coptic woman to have successfully sued in the past for their right to equal inheritance. The AP reported earlier this month that Nasrallah was inspired by a 2016 Cairo court ruling in favor of a Coptic woman who fought the inheritance laws.

“It is not really about inheritance, my father did not leave us millions of Egyptian pounds,” she told AP at the time. “I have the right to ask to be treated equally as my brothers.”

Source: Coptic Christian woman wins court case against Egypt’s Islamic inheritance law

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Is Jeremy Corbyn an Anti-Semite? It No Longer Matters

2019/11/29 Leave a comment

One of the more interesting takes:

A lot of things about Britain today are what psychologists might describe as complex. Brexit? Don’t get me started. The social care crisis? A mess. Addressing the climate emergency and homelessness? Neither is straightforward.

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem doesn’t belong in this category. No venerable commission of experts is required to deliberate at length and produce an authoritative report on what to do. You don’t have to balance weighty arguments on both sides. This should be easy: Zero tolerance; one strike and you’re out.

And yet for reasons on which we can only speculate, it hasn’t been simple for Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader’s failure to get a grip on anti-Semitism prompted an extraordinary intervention this week from Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who normally stays removed from politics. Corbyn has tried to dismiss the complaints and change the subject to the National Health Service, but his record is impossible to ignore. It now threatens to contribute to a “Never Corbyn” vote that takes the Dec. 12 election away from the battleground of inequality where Labour would prefer to be fighting — something that might ease Boris Johnson’s path to Downing Street.

It is striking that Her Majesty’s Opposition is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission over anti-Semitism. Nine Labour MPs have quit in protest over Corbyn’s leadership on Brexit and anti-Semitism. The Jewish Labour Movement says there are more than 100 outstanding cases of anti-Semitism the party hasn’t investigated, a figure Corbyn disputes.

Corbyn himself has shown a disregard for the message his own actions convey. His scorn for Western imperialism, his criticism of the Israeli state and the the sea of Palestinian flags at Labour Party conferences all create an impression of bias he does little to dispel. Nearly half of Jews say they would “seriously consider” emigrating if Corbyn were elected, according to a poll by Survation commissioned by the Jewish Leadership Council, while 87% believe he’s an anti-Semite.

A BBC investigation in July featured former party officials who claimed that senior Labour figures interfered with a supposedly independent disputes office on the issue. Each time the problem bubbles over, Corbyn has the same response: All racism is evil and wrong and his party won’t tolerate it. But it has.

Whether or not Jeremy Corbyn himself holds anti-Semitic views is now beside the point. All of this has happened on his watch. Either Corbyn is unable to deal with the problem, which suggests he lacks the leadership skills to do so, or he doesn’t regard it as the grave problem that nearly everyone else does. Either way his position is untenable.

In a remarkably tin-eared televised interview with Andrew Neil this week, Corbyn refused to apologize for anti-Semitism within the party and claimed he’s doing everything possible to tackle it. Such claims, wrote the Chief Rabbi, are a “mendacious fiction.”

Mervis couldn’t have been blunter when he said the “very soul of our nation is at stake.” He wasn’t out on a limb here either. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Hindu Council of Britain all released statements of support. It may now be incumbent on members of a minority group, or any voter who cares about minority rights, to shun Labour at the polls — although it must be said that Johnson’s Conservatives have had their own troubles with charges of Islamophobia. The Tory leader, who has compared burqa-wearing women to bank robbers and letterboxes, apologized on behalf of this party on Wednesday.

It’s impossible to say how the anti-Semitism row will affect an election that’s primarily about Brexit and public services. Jews make up about half a percent of the U.K. population and, of course, don’t vote as a block. A closely watched YouGov poll released Wednesday night, using methodology (known as MRP) that was remarkably accurate in 2017, predicted a Tory majority of 359 to 211 seats for Labour, a substantial gain for Johnson.

The YouGov projections have the Conservatives comfortably holding heavily Jewish Finchley and Golders Green in London, but puts the Labour vote more than eight points higher than another recent poll in that constituency and so may be overestimating the Jewish support for Corbyn’s party. In another area with a significant Jewish community, Chipping Barnet, the YouGov poll has Labour and the Tories even, but data scientist Abigail Lebrecht suspects the Labour vote may be overstated there too.

There’s also some evidence from focus groups by Tory tycoon and pollster Michael Ashcroft in leave-voting areas that the anti-Semitism charges may be hurting. People might not cast their votes on Dec. 12 on the issue alone, but it has an impact on how voters view Corbyn and the Labour brand.

Corbyn has been a pivotal figure in modern British history without ever being in government. Had another leader been at the helm of the Labour Party over the past four years, Leave might not have won the Brexit referendum in 2016 (remember Corbyn was largely AWOL during the Remain campaign he supposedly supported). If not for his unpopular leadership and radicalism, Labour would probably be mounting a serious challenge to form a majority government after nine years of Tory rule.

Britain certainly wouldn’t be embroiled in a discussion of anti-Semitism. Corbyn has put the word on the radar. “A year ago people didn’t know what anti-Semitism was,” says James Johnson, who conducted hundreds of focus groups for former prime minister Theresa May. “If you brought it up people were unsure. They thought it had something to do with Jewish people and racism but weren’t clear what it means. Now people know what it means. They know Corbyn is associated with it.”

Corbyn’s indulgence of anti-Semitism has at least heightened public awareness. What impact it has on the vote two weeks from now is hard to separate from Brexit and other issues. But it’s certainly damaged the Labour brand and raises serious questions about how long Corbyn’s leadership can last.

Source: Is Jeremy Corbyn an Anti-Semite? It No Longer Matters

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , , ,

Negative attitudes about Muslims in Australia remain high, survey finds

2019/11/28 Leave a comment

Good overview of the Scanlon Foundations latest annual survey:

The vast majority of Australians agree multiculturalism has been good for Australia, but a significant minority still express negativity towards Muslims, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The findings come in the 12th annual Scanlon Foundation report into social cohesion which also found a major increase in the percentage of people concerned about climate change.

The 2019 Mapping Social Cohesion survey, an annual report produced by Monash University researchers, shows support for multiculturalism remains high at 85 per cent, and over 90 per cent of respondents also said they feel a sense of belonging in Australia.

But despite the optimism about multiculturalism, ‘negative’ or ‘very negative’ attitudes towards Muslims remain high with a stark contrast between respondents who were interviewed over the phone and those who self-completed an online survey.

When people were asked about negative attitudes towards different faith groups, 21 to 25 per cent of those interviewed said they held negative views about Muslims, but the rate in the self-completion survey was almost double at 40 per cent.

In 2018, asked whether they felt positive, negative or neutral towards Muslims, 23 per cent of those polled said they felt ‘very negative’ or ‘somewhat negative’, increasing to 39 per cent when answering anonymously. Results were similar in 2017.

Professor Andrew Markus from Monash University in Melbourne is the report’s author.

“The finding on Muslim Australians and that big difference was not a surprise the first time we did it. But we have now done it three times at 2017, 2018, 2019 and basically obtained the same result. So that level of difference is quite unusual,” he told SBS News.

“If I look at the self-completion survey for the other groups, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, it’s in the range of five to 10 per cent … but the Muslim figure is four times that level at 40 per cent.”

There were a total of 3,500 respondents to the survey – 1,500 via telephone interviews and 2,000 via the self-completion survey, which asks some 90 questions. All participants are anonymous.

Professor Markus said the result around attitudes towards Muslims indicated an underlying concern with some topics that people are reluctant to disclose if they are talking to an interviewer.

Increasing rates of discrimination

On the question ‘have you experienced discrimination over the last 12 months on the basis of your skin colour, ethnicity or religion?’ rates have consistently increased since the first survey in 2007 from about 10 per cent to 19 per cent in more recent surveys.

People who identify as Muslim or Hindu reported much higher rates of discrimination at 42 per cent for Muslims and 38 per cent for Hindus.

Between 2006 and 2016, the number of people identifying as Muslim in Australia increased from 340,400 to 604,200.

Mohammad Al-Khafaji, CEO of the Federation of The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia, said anti-Muslim sentiment is an issue the government needs to address.

“That should be a warning sign for all of us, and especially for our political leaders, to make sure that we address this issue before it becomes a bigger problem,” he said.

“We know that there was a recent study released by the Islamophobia Register that has quantified some of those complaints and some of those attacks on people from Muslim backgrounds.

“We need to make sure that there are policies and social cohesion programs in place that facilitate a meeting between people so they understand each other’s differences, each other’s faiths, each other’s cultures.”

Climate change concern almost doubles

Since 2011, the survey has also sought to determine the issues that are of greatest concern in the community, asking the open-ended question: ‘What do you think is the most important problem facing Australia today?’

While concerns about the economy and unemployment have consistently topped the list, concern about environmental issues was the biggest change recorded from one year to the next, up from 10 per cent to 19 per cent in the telephone administered survey and from five per cent to 17 per cent in the self-completion survey.

Professor Markus said the movement of an issue from quite far down in the middle of the list to ranking second is unusual in the history of the survey.

He added other findings also highlight changing public perceptions about environmental issues.

“In the past, 2010 to 2011, there were a lot of people indicating that what they were concerned about was that people talking about climate change was overblown. There was too much of it, they didn’t believe it, they were sceptical,” he said.

“And 2019, almost no one is indicating that they are concerned because the issue is being overblown.”

Nearly half of those aged 18-24 reported being the most concerned about climate change, with much smaller rates seen in those over 65.

….

Immigration good for the economy

Professor Markus said the survey shows high, positive results on questions about the economic benefits of immigration and whether it is good that immigrants bring new ideas and cultures, with between 75 and 85 per cent agreeing it’s a good thing for Australia to have immigration.

But, he said, the results are less favourable on other immigration-related issues.

“When we ask people ‘do you think that the government is managing population growth well and are you concerned that immigration has got an impact of quality of life on overcrowding, on house prices, on the environment?’ … What we’re picking up is in the self-completion survey is 60 per cent or more of people are indicating concern,” he said.

The survey found concern about the level of immigration marginally declined from 43 per cent in 2018 to 41 per cent this year, with 53 per cent saying the intake is about right or too low.

The Scanlon Foundation said less concern about immigration levels has been found in three other 2019 surveys with a similarly worded question, including a Lowy Institute poll finding those of the view that the intake was ‘too high’ fell from 54 per cent in 2018 to 47 per cent this year.

Hass Dellal, the executive director of the Multicultural Foundation and the chairman of SBS, said the discussion around immigration had become better informed.

“I think there has been some excellent research, particularly the Deloitte one with SBSwhere we actually showed the economic benefits of social cohesion. I think people get a better understanding of the values of not only the economic contributions and factors around immigration but also the benefits into social cohesion,” he said.

“A lot of the media are now being able to tell the stories of families and narratives of migrants and the contributions they make. I think there is a much more informed sense of understanding of immigration and I think that helps with that acceptance.”

On the issue of happiness, 84 per cent of respondents said they had been ‘very happy’ or ‘happy’ over the past year, but there has been a steady increase in levels of pessimism since the survey began with youngest people reporting the highest rates, increasing 10 per cent since 2007.

Source: Negative attitudes about Muslims in Australia remain high, survey finds

Report: View report

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Conservative author Douglas Murray on immigration, Islam and why he doesn’t want to talk about Trump

2019/11/28 Leave a comment

I think the only points I agree with is the need to read widely, particularly those one disagrees with or who challenge us, and the need to travel outside one’s area:

…This particular Mr. Murray, 40 years old, is both a man who is read (his newly released book is The Madness of the Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity) and one who reads, and so the conversation this late afternoon almost inevitably begins with an inquiry about what is on his night table these days. It turns out that he’s dipping back into The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver (‘’I thought I finished it weeks ago but I hadn’t’’) and is deep into The Faber Book of Utopias(edited by John Carey, the Oxford literary critic and sworn enemy of elitism).

His journalistic inquisitor and tablemate this late afternoon has been making his way through the massive biography of Napoleon by Andrew Roberts, a British historian and – who knew? – a friend of Murray’s. “I pretended to him that I’ve read it, but I haven’t,” he said. “I bluffed.”

Ordinarily Murray is no bluffer, though he prefers not to talk about Donald J. Trump. But like everyone else in Great Britain and Canada, he can’t help himself, and in this case he is talking about why he doesn’t want to talk about Trump.

“I never talk about Trump because everyone does,” he begins. “I never talk about Brexit either. I don’t think they’re as interesting as everybody thinks they are. I’m sad everyone is shouting hopelessly into the wind about these topics. I just don’t think it is useful for everyone to devote themselves to these two subjects. No one’s opinion on either of them is all that interesting, and basically no one can change anyone’s views on either.”

So much for that. Murray – here in Montreal on a flying visit, just two days, in part to promote his latest book, at this moment understated in a cranberry sweater with a metal zipper at the neck – would rather talk about Canada. (You’d perhaps rather hear what he says about that anyway.)

“You’ve become one of those nations where you had one story and are moving to another story,” he says, and his listener (and perhaps you readers) begins to sense that maybe we are onto an interesting riff. “The sense of what Canada was is different from the sense of what Canada is….The interesting way to get through this is to say that Canada [now wants] to be a welcoming, pluralistic, multicultural place, open and tolerant, while you talk up LGBTQ and women and ethnic minorities.”

There’s no way this conversation can go in any direction but…immigration.

So here we go. “People know immigration has different consequences depending on the numbers, the speed and the identity of the immigrants. Any one of these is explosive. All three together is dangerous. Everyone knows this.”

We are not remotely finished with this topic.

“The interesting question is: Who don’t we want,” he goes on. “We’re very bad at this question. We should be able to answer it. The problem with immigration that makes it very difficult – and I’ve gone to a lot more refugee camps than my critics have – is that it is very hard for first-world countries to say why we have such luck and others don’t.”

“Such luck” meaning the bon chance to live in Canada, or America, or any one of the industrial countries with freedoms and prosperity.

Do we dare bring up climate change? Do we dare not? (It’s not his “thing,” as he puts it, which is the thing that could make this so interesting.)

“I have only one thought,” he says, and suddenly his inquisitor breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s the obvious, undisguisable way that it has become clear that this is a replacement in the West for religion for fairly well-off, white, educated people. I don’t know the science, but it has all the manifestations of a new religion.”

What can he possibly mean by that?

“It has every single component of religion – original sin, guilt, the need for atonement. But it also has the mechanism for getting out of the [problem]. The answer is to never drive or fly again, to never buy new clothes and to live your life carefully so that you’ll save this planet, having harmed nothing. Tell your children to seek to be harmless! If it weren’t for them the moss and the trees would be getting on fine!”

Murray is an atheist, though one who did not come by that creed – the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2013 that the term “creed” applies to it – naturally. It was (and here we go) Islam that made him an atheist, not that that was his religion to start with. Now he’s talking a bit about the subject that has put him into perhaps the most trouble: “Canada and America were not founded by Muslims. If they had been, we’d have a better way of understanding where the crazies emerge from. We are less literate in that religion. The second problem is that there are problems in Islam that we haven’t seen in Christianity in a long time: There’s a church/state problem. There’s a problem with extremist groups. …Where exactly is [Islam’s] cutoff line on extremism? Do the fanatics become fanatics from absolutely nowhere? It’s a very lively debate about where it comes from.”

Then this, and likely his critics will agree with at least the first sentence: “My stupidity is to tell what I think on this. I can’t pretend the Koran is a social-justice document.”

Murray has been flayed for saying that Hungarian tyrant Viktor Orban was a better representative of European values than the financier George Soros. He may be the only person outside the cabinet room in Budapest with that view. A New York Times reviewer scorched Mr. Murray’s lament for the Europe of the past for being “as fundamentally incoherent as its late-19th-century originals,” adding, “It never strikes him, or other secondhand vendors of fixed and singular identities, that nowhere in the world have individuals been the exclusive heirs of a single culture or civilization.”

Back to books before we close. What should Canadians be reading?

“My own books, obviously.”’ Well, of course. But what else should be on the Canadian bookshelf?

“People should read as widely as possible in authors they know they will disagree with,” he says, surely hoping to widen his own book sales among readers – you know who you are – who find his views contemptible. “I hate people who read by tribe. In America both political parties have their own libraries. The aim of this is to prove that your political party is always right, to say that your party got anti-Nazism, the Civil War and civil rights correct and the other side had got it wrong. That’s a danger. History is a mess for everyone.”

Just one more. Murray is a persistent and peripatetic traveler. Where should we mere middlebrows visit? “Any place in the world you haven’t visited is interesting,” he says, “even if nothing happens there.” He is not, he wants to assure you, talking about Canada.

Source:                         Conservative author Douglas Murray on immigration, Islam and why he doesn’t want to talk about Trump Subscriber content                                                

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In wake of blackface scandal, actual Black Canadians left in out-of-cabinet cold

2019/11/28 Leave a comment

Along the lines of the previous post, just phrased more sharply but more rhetorical and easier than reviewing the record and making specific criticisms or proposals:

Justin Trudeau doesn’t care about Black people.

In a post-blackface Canada, with a post-blackface prime minister, Black representation in the House of Commons, the Senate, and the judiciary—much less cabinet—remains abysmal, with only a smattering of chocolate in a sea of mayonnaise. After all of the ostensibly remorse-filled, Lena Dunham-esque apologies, peppered with activist language such as “intersectionality” and “privilege,” one would think Justin Trudeau would’ve learned something. He did not. It was all a ruse to get Black votes, only to shut them out of the important decision-making positions.

He continues to perform in blackface.

The 2015 election seated the most ethnically diverse House of Commons in Canada’s history: five Black MPs were elected, all Liberals, three of whom were newly elected. This election held the total steady, but with four Liberals and one New Democrat. Given that the Liberals usually elect the most Black candidates, and they were the ones caught in blackface, it is more incumbent upon them to practice what they preach. And preach they do. Like Kanye at Joel Osteen’s bible study.

After Time Magazine revealed who our prime minister was, the need to put this behind them was paramount. So what does one do when faced with the revelation of such racially heinous act? You call your Black friend. Enter Greg Fergus.

In the last Parliament, MP Fergus twice held the position of parliamentary secretary, first to the to the innovation minister and then to the Treasury Board president. In the wake of the blackface scandal, Fergus was called upon to do his duty and he did so with alacrity; his was the most prominent Black face imploring Canadians to forgive and move on. He even had the support of prominent cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, who stood by his side, nodding, at a press conference. It was a grotesque display of whiteness, to have a Black man tell other Black people how they should feel about the PM committing such a racist act, flanked by a white woman.

In that moment Greg Fergus made himself an agent of colonialism and allowed himself to be used as window-dressing, or the Black face of a scandal involving blackface.

And what did he get for it? Why wasn’t Fergus awarded a cabinet position like his white counterparts for his unwavering loyalty, especially as someone who has been in the Liberal trenches since he was a tyke (he was president of the Young Liberals of Canada from 1994 to1996)? Tap dancing for whiteness never brings prosperity, especially in the ignominious position Fergus put himself in.

But here is where Black people must take some responsibility.

After Trudeau was caught with his face singed, a private meeting was held between the PM and a myriad of “Black leaders” (whoever they are) to enact Part 2 of the apology tour. While it is not known all of what happened at this meeting, what we do know is that apologies were given, Trudeau was forgiven (by them), and Black people in the 905 and 416 subsequently came out to vote Liberal. Like Greg Fergus, these “leaders” allowed themselves to be used. And that is the problem with Black leadership in this day and age: they are too happy with the crumbs from Massa’s table and are too quick to give up the currency of political power—the vote. And what did these old wise men (and I do mean men) negotiate for the Black community in exchange for their continued votes? Not a damn thing.

And this is where Black people are: no currency, no power, no payoff. We sold out our negotiating power—along with our souls—by keeping that meeting private. The lack of transparency gave Trudeau an out. Since he didn’t have to be accountable to anyone, they got played, meaning the entire community got played.

However, all is not lost. Many of the strides made by the Liberal government came about due to an extraordinary amount of advocacy work done by Black organizations, and not because Trudeau cares about the plight of Black people. Within a minority Parliament situation, Black Canadians have more power and it’s time to toss out these old dudes who can’t figure out the cloud and add younger, more diverse leadership in the Black community—including women, LGBTQ, disabled, poor, and working-class people. We can lift others up instead of the few in Black “leadership” who only act as gatekeepers to power, while rewarding themselves.

Black organizations need to start seeing other people. Every party should be lobbied by Black advocates (except the PPC, because screw them) because loyalty to the Liberal Party has just gotten Black people to the back of the bus.

There needs to be a targeted lobbying plan to address the ministries who have a hand in policies that primarily affect Black people. These ministries need to be diversified and adjusted to benefit Black needs, Black aspirations, and Black dreams. And once these dusty Black leaders finally find the exit, the community may get somewhere because not all skinfolk is kinfolk.

Source: In wake of blackface scandal, actual Black Canadians left in out-of-cabinet cold

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‘Disappointing’ cabinet picks show Trudeau still needs to address diversity ‘blind spot’, say advocates

2019/11/28 Leave a comment

It is always interesting to listen to the advocates. In 2015, if I recall correctly, the complaint was over representation of South Asians (four) and no Black Canadians. In 2019, the complaint is only one Black Canadian without really acknowledging the lack of representation of other groups (e.g., Filipino Canadians, Arab Canadians).

By my count, the current cabinet has four South Asians, one Chinese, one Black, one West Asian and one Latin American (formally speaking, Argentine origins are not classified as visible minorities but nevertheless are perceived as such by the Latin American ethnic media).

The above chart provides a breakdown of MPs by visible minority groups and party (no visible minority Bloc or Green MPs). South Asians form over half of Liberal visible minority MPs.

However, Caesar-Chavannes does acknowledge the geographic, gender and other constraints that are intrinsic in cabinet making.

Aziz, on the other hand, ignores the increased diversity among judges and GiC appointments which is more reflective of the government’s record.

And while I would. be the last to maintain that Cabinet representation is unimportant, I think it is more important to focus on the government’s accomplishments and commitments where the government has a decent record to build upon (e.g., appointments, the increased funding for multiculturalism and anti-black racism and associated initiatives).

Lastly, in terms of benchmarks, the percentage of visible minorities who are also citizens, and thus able to vote and run for office, is 17.2 percent, arguably a better benchmark to use than the total number of visible minorities (:

The latest cabinet picks were disappointing for some advocates of better representation for racialized Canadians in positions of power, including former Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes who offered a plea to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to demonstrate he is correcting an admitted blind spot.

She said that didn’t happen during the Nov. 20 cabinet shuffle, which saw one Black minister named among the seven visible-minority cabinet members, and one Indigenous MP receive a post after a seven-month gap since former justice minister-turned Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, B.C.) left cabinet in February last year.

Though Ms. Caesar-Chavannes said she understands it’s sometimes “a numbers game” with few elected to pick from—in this case four Black MPs in the Liberal caucus—she said Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) missed an opportunity and has yet to demonstrate through his actions that he’s addressing the damage caused in the wake of the racist images of him that emerged during the campaign.

Perhaps he thought naming a second Black MP to cabinet would have been “too obvious” or “fake,” but it would have “symbolized an understanding of the tremendous barriers that still exist within these communities,” she said, invoking Mr. Trudeau’s own assessment of his past decisions to don blackface and brownface, including as a 29-year-old teacher.

Former Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes says the prime minister has yet to demonstrate he’s learned from his past, but she’s still hopeful the government will address issues that affect racialized communities and address representation in positions of power. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

“Please pay attention to the blind spot that you said was created by your privilege and do something to correct it,” she said.

During his second attempt addressing the scandal on Sept. 19, Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) acknowledged “a massive blind spot” he said was born from his upbringing in “a place of privilege.”

Cabinet is only one area to address that, she said, and she still has hope the government will “do things differently.” That includes appointing more persons of colour to senior positions in the public service, and considering who is staffed in the inner circle. It’s “nonsense,” for example, that the government had only one Black chief of staff, Marjorie Michel, who was named in 2019.

Former Liberal foreign policy adviser Omer Aziz, who wasn’t available for a phone interview, offered a blunt assessment of the cabinet over email.

“White men at Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Justice. White men in the inner circle. An overwhelmingly white political staffer class. But there’s not even a pretence of genuine diversity anymore, which I suppose is a positive development since we can all stop pretending,” he wrote, noting it’s “sobering” to think that the Conservatives “would be even worse, but I still believe we can do a lot better.”

Mr. Aziz has been critical of the Liberal government since leaving in January 2018, saying he constantly felt “sidelined” in discussions during his time, and that minority staff voices in government, in general, were not being empowered and listened to.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s late-campaign endorsement “was determinative to Trudeau’s victory,” added Mr. Aziz, but the former president also had a Black attorney general, national security adviser, and homeland security secretary. “Perhaps [Mr.] Trudeau could learn something from the former president about representation and power.”

While this cabinet wasn’t a repeat of 2015, when no Black MPs were named, Black Vote Canada’s Velma Morgan said she was “extremely disappointed” that Families, Children, and Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen (York South–Weston, Ont.) remains the only Black minister.

The United Nations Decade for People of African Descent (UNDPAD) Push Coalition, which advocates for Black people living in Canada and was created to push for budget commitments to that effect, has said the cabinet choices leaves it questioning the Liberal government’s commitment to improving the lives of Black Canadians.

“Our community is not monolithic. We can’t have just one person speaking on behalf of us,” said Ms. Morgan, echoing the call for better representation to occur in the federal service and political staffer class.

Proportionality is not enough to address inclusion: LeMay 

In 2015, Mr. Trudeau declared the creation of “a cabinet that looks like Canada,” but several who spoke with The Hill Times said that’s still not the case. The seven visible-minority MPs represent 19.4 per cent of the cabinet, compared with 22.3 per cent of the Canadian population that identifies that way. He also named one Indigenous person, or 2.7 per cent of cabinet. The Indigenous population of Canada is closer to five per cent. Over Mr. Trudeau’s first four years in office, he appointed seven racialized and two Indigenous MPs to his cabinet. Under former prime minister Stephen Harper’s nearly 10 years, he appointed five visible minority and three Indigenous cabinet ministers.

Of the 61 visible minority and Indigenous MPs elected on Oct. 21, 44 are in the Liberal caucus and the only demographic (of those elected in the Liberal caucus) not represented in cabinet are MPs of Arabic descent.

The cabinet includes four women of colour: Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion, and International Trade Mary Ng (Markham–Thornhill, Ont.), Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Ont.), Minister of Public Services and Procurement Anita Anand (Oakville, Ont.), who became Canada’s first Hindu minister, and Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development Maryam Monsef (Peterborough–Kawartha. Ont.), who became Canada’s first Muslim minister in 2015. Cabinet veterans Families Minister Ahmed Hussen  (York South–Weston, Ont.), Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan (Vancouver South, B.C.), and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains (Mississauga–Malton, Ont.) were also reappointed.

All but Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal (Saint Boniface-Saint Vital, Man.)—who is Métis and the lone Indigenous person in cabinet—and Mr. Sajjan are from Ontario in a cabinet that is skewed toward Canada’s biggest provinces, with 11 in Quebec, and 17 in Ontario.

“Our politics suffers from the lack of proportional representation and this cabinet is an example of that,” said Anita Singh, a Canadian political analyst and expert in Indian diaspora politics, noting the one Asian, one Black, and one Indigenous minister, though all three communities “are much larger and much more diverse than the cabinet shows.”

From an inclusion standpoint, one is never enough, said Rose LeMay, CEO of the Indigenous Reconciliation Group, who also writes a column for The Hill Times.

“Too often, in an inclusion debate, when there’s only one person of colour or a different culture, that person unfortunately becomes just becomes a token,” she said. “We will need more than just proportional around the table. We need our voice to be heard strongly and that will not occur even if we have a similar number around the table—we actually would need more to make the change that we need to see.”

That only one of the six Liberal Indigenous MPs were named to cabinet is concerning, but not surprising, she said, especially after a campaign that “hardly touched on reconciliation.”

Given Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s experience and journey trying to “maintain her credibility,” both with First Nations across Canada and in cabinet, Ms. LeMay suggested a role representing the Crown carries “a significant risk” for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit MPs.

“I wonder how difficult that would be for an Indigenous [person] in cabinet, how to maintain, with integrity, both of those roles,” she said.

‘Top-tier’ posts not given to people of colour

The most frustrating part of this cabinet for Ms. Singh is the posts persons of colour take on, she said, echoing Mr. Aziz’s issues.

All but one of the “top-tier” posts—finance, foreign affairs, trade, environment, justice, defence—remain with a white minister. Some contended Mr. Sajjan at defence, though a big file, isn’t as high-profile.

Similarly, there are gaps in portfolios that control the purse strings and involve “high-profile policy making,” like health, transport, and infrastructure, she said.

“We also see that Trudeau continues the tradition of putting inexperienced visible minority MPs in some of the toughest files and under-appreciated files,” she said pointing to rookie Ms. Anand, where she will oversee the Phoenix pay debacle and fighter jets procurement file, in concert with National Defence. Ms. Monsef, initially in charge of democratic reform in the last Parliament, was an example of that in Mr. Trudeau’s first cabinet, she said.

Others, like Ms. Morgan, don’t see it that way, saying a seat at the table is what’s most important.

Though some have viewed Mr. Hussen’s move from Immigration to Families as a demotion (an assessment he disagreed with at the swearing-in), Ms. Caesar-Chavannes pushed back and said she sees it as a high-impact post that directly affects racialized communities.

Angela Wright, a political analyst and former Conservative staffer, saw the move as a red flag and said she’s “not very optimistic” with the cabinet choices, especially given the Immigration and Public Safety portfolios—two files that disproportionately affect racialized people—are overseen by white men.

It was “shocking” to see Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Ont.) elevated to Public Safety Minister, added Ms. Wright, given his reputation in the community from his time as Toronto’s police chief, where he defended the service’s use of carding.

“That’s a very odd choice,” she said, while Ms. Singh said it’s “continually frustrating that his cabinet does not reflect the actual needs of the communities that require them the most—immigration, Indigenous services, even international trade—continue to be held by MPs that do not come from communities of colour.”

Ms. Singh also noted the regional breakdown, saying it suggests the Liberals are “playing from a 1990s playbook,” targeting “ethnic neighbourhoods” to recruit candidates, but not giving the successful MPs a voice in leadership positions, she said, pointing to Brampton and Scarborough in Ontario, and Surrey, B.C. Compare that to Toronto city ridings “as a microcosm,” where she said there were no people of colour on the Liberal roster, with white MPs in Davenport, Danforth, Spadina–Fort York, Toronto Centre, Beaches–East York, and Toronto–St. Paul’s in a city where 50 per cent of all people are visible minorities.

Source: ‘Disappointing’ cabinet picks show Trudeau still needs to address diversity ‘blind spot’, say advocates

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