Analysis: The Long Arm Of China And Free Speech

2019/10/11 Leave a comment

More evidence as if we did not know:

Doing business in China comes with major strings attached. This week it became evident that a few provocative words can cause those strings to tighten.

A single tweet by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong unleashed massive retaliation from China that put the team and the entire NBA on notice. China’s state TV cut off preseason games and ominously announced it would “immediately investigate all co-operation and exchanges involving the NBA.” Tencent, a major Chinese social media company with a reported $1.5 billion streaming deal with the NBA, said it will no longer stream Rockets games, even though the team is immensely popular in China.

China’s message to foreign companies and their employees is clear: Watch what you say on matters sensitive to our country if you want to do business here. This hardball response to Morey and the NBA fits a pattern of threats and reprisals against foreign organizations wading (even unintentionally) into the country’s sensitive internal politics.

Facing boycott threats this summer, Western fashion brands apologized for T-shirts that suggested that Taiwan and Hong Kong were independent countries rather than territories that are part of China. It isn’t just top executives who have paid a price for speech that offends China’s sensibilities. Last year, a Marriott employee earning $14 an hour used a company account to like a post on Twitter from a Tibetan separatist group. A Chinese tourism organization demanded an apology and urged Marriott to “seriously deal with the people responsible.” The employee was fired. When China threatens a foreign business, compliance typically prevails over resistance.

China’s efforts to impose speech controls on international companies and their workers have largely succeeded. Morey deleted his tweet. The NBA put out a statement saying the tweet doesn’t represent NBA or the Rockets, which led to an uproar in the U.S. and another statement from the NBA.

The league’s initial response provoked a torrent of criticism in the United States; in a rare show of unity, leading Democrats and Republicans rebuked the NBA for caving to China and failing to stand up for Morey’s free speech rights.

American companies have grudgingly accepted all kinds of Chinese rules for years. They may bristle about how they are forced to transfer technology in exchange for access to China’s market and about Chinese cyber spies who threaten their intellectual property. But the potential rewards — all those consumers, a middle class that’s expected to reach 550 million by 2022 — are just too great to spurn. And that means playing by China’s rules.

One notable recent exception: South Park, the sardonic, boundary busting Comedy Central cartoon. Last week’s episode, “Band in China,” appeared to offend authorities so much that all traces of the show — episodes, clips, discussion groups and social media posts — vanished from major platforms in China.

South Park‘s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, seized on the moment to issue a fake apology mocking China’s President Xi Jinping and the NBA:

OFFICIAL APOLOGY TO CHINA FROM TREY PARKER AND MATT STONE.

“Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn’t look just like Winnie the Pooh at all. Tune into our 300th episode Wednesday at 10! Long live the Great Communist Party of China! May this autumn’s sorghum harvest be bountiful! We good now China?”

In fairness to the NBA, South Park thrives on political agitation. The basketball league has painstakingly built a thriving connection with hundreds of millions of Chinese fans.

The NBA has notably supported players and coaches who express their political views on subjects ranging from police violence to guns and President Trump. But Daryl Morey’s seven-word tweet “Fight For Freedom Stand With Hong Kong” puts the league’s progressive image to its sternest test. On Tuesday, the well-regarded NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sought to clarify the league’s position, saying it would “protect its employees’ freedom of speech,” while at the same time apologizing to the league’s fans in China.

The apology failed to defuse the league’s crisis. China’s state-run television network said it was “strongly dissatisfied” with Silver’s remarks. And it bluntly declared that any speech challenging China’s “social stability” doesn’t fall within the realm of freedom of speech.

The Chinese message is loud and clear: Your free speech ends at the water’s edge.

Source: Analysis: The Long Arm Of China And Free Speech

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Syrian family closes restaurant, confirms son was target of death threats after political protest

2019/10/10 Leave a comment

So unfortunate and a reminder that Canada is hardly immune from this kind of behaviour and social media stirred up hate:

Eleven days ago, Alaa Alsoufi attended a political protest in Hamilton wearing a face mask. Less than 24 hours later, a Twitter user in Ottawa identified the young man as a Syrian “terrorist” who reportedly harassed an elderly woman as she approached Mohawk College to hear the People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier speak at a fundraiser.

Social media users across North America and Europe ran with the narrative, launching death threats against the Toronto man, his parents and their business.

And so a downtown Toronto restaurant founded by Alsoufi’s family, which had been widely lauded as a success story of Canada’s refugee resettlement program, abruptly closed on Tuesday in the wake of escalating online attacks.

“We could not put our family members, staff and patrons in danger,” the Alsoufis said in a public statement on Tuesday night that defended their son as a humanitarian and the victim of a vicious, politically motivated smear campaign by alt-right crusaders.

The family of Dorothy Marston, 81, the woman at the centre of the viral video, came to the Alsoufis’ defence and condemned the vigilantism by “social justice warriors on both sides.” The video shows Marston using her walker on Sept. 29 when she is confronted by a wall of masked protesters blocking her way, some calling her “Nazi scum.”

David Turkoski, Marston’s son, said he was heartbroken and disgusted by the attacks on the Alsoufi family.

“I’m absolutely ashamed of anybody who called and threatened them. That’s how polarized Canada is becoming. We have lost our ability to see reason,” Turkoski said on behalf of his mother. “We don’t like war and persecution of anybody.”

The Alsoufis, who opened Soufi’s on Queen Street West in 2017, said Alaa “did not in any way verbally or physically assault the elderly woman” and “offered to apologize personally for not doing more” to stop other protesters from harassing Marston.

They said Alaa was physically assaulted on Friday, several days after the event, and doxed, an Internet-based practice in which social media users unite to expose a person’s private records and launch threats.

While the family expressed “deep gratitude” toward the “loving, welcoming people” of Toronto, they said “the magnitude of hate we are facing is overwhelming.”

In addition to physical violence, a torrent of death threats prompted their decision to close the popular restaurant.

Messages on Facebook and Twitter illustrated the attacks on the Alsoufis over the course of a week.

On Oct. 1, a Facebook user in Philadelphia, who describes himself as a former U.S. Navy Submarine Service employee, posted photos of Alaa to his personal page with a message inviting his friends to “Meet Alaa Soufi Dalua (sic), one of the antifa scumbags that harassed an elderly couple while they tried to cross a street. … We have everything on him. Everything!”

A user in New York commented on the post, writing: “Pay his parents a visit, make an example of them!”

From British Columbia: “Your (sic) going back in a box or not your going back.”

From Belgrade, Serbia: “Hey little muslim b—-h. You know you’re gonna get f—–d right.”

In an email to the Alsoufis’ restaurant, an anonymous sender writes: “Keep it up and your family, and those who defend your family’s terrorist actions will suffer immensely.”

Hamilton police told the Toronto Star its investigation of the Sept. 29 protest “remains ongoing” and stated in an email: “There is no information to support that the conduct of the protesters was in violation of Section 318 (1) of the Criminal Code of Canada — Hate Propaganda.”

Toronto police would not confirm whether they were investigating or if the Alsoufis had notified them of the death threats.

Videos posted online show Alaa attending a variety of rallies in support of LGBTQ rights and protesting racism against migrants.

He was described in his family’s statement as “standing up for the rights of oppressed communities in Canada and worldwide.”

Husam and Shahnaz Alsoufi came to Canada after they and their three children were sponsored by a community group in 2015. The family opened the restaurant two years later, touting its Middle Eastern food as a culinary offering “from Syria with love.”

Soufi’s was among the restaurants profiled in a New York Times story last year showcasing the budding Syrian culinary scene in Greater Toronto. It has also been featured in Toronto Life, Now Magazine and the Star.

On Tuesday, staff at Soufi’s blocked the restaurant’s storefront window with printouts of the closing notice and the company’s signature yellow T-shirt while they were cleaning and clearing the premises as reporters gathered outside trying unsuccessfully to talk to the owners.

Members of the Queen West business community said they were shocked by the abrupt closing of the restaurant.

“Soufi’s has become a local staple. As a young business, it’s been growing and has a consistent following. It’s a success story,” said Zane Aburaneh, who runs a fashion and accessory boutique across the street and has hired the restaurant for catering. “It’s so unfortunate that someone has to close down their business because of threats.”

Julie Skirving, who operates Logan & Finley, a nearby eco-conscious general store, said she was a regular of the restaurant.

“They (the Alsoufis) are lovely people and must be devastated,” said Skirving. “It’s such a loss to the community.”

“This is horrifying and appalling. This is not Canada. There are rules of law. There are procedures to deal with situations like this,” added Jon Spencer, a patron of the restaurant, after leaving a heart-shaped note of support for the family that said “I’m so sorry to hear the awful news.”

Source: Syrian family closes restaurant, confirms son was target of death threats after political protest

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

How much hate crime does Canada have? Without a standard definition, no one knows for sure

2019/10/10 Leave a comment

I don’t fully understand the Alberta Human Rights Commission’s point given that the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system used to identify and report on hate crimes and is used by police forces and Statistics Canada for annual reporting.

There may well be consistency issues between officers and police forces, or inadequate guidelines, but complete absence?

Police departments across Canada have different ideas of what constitutes a hate crime, a new CBC investigation shows.

As a result, experts say it’s impossible to have accurate numbers that show which communities are struggling.

Police departments use different definitions of hate crime, which means how crimes are identified as hate-motivated differs from region to region and even among police officers investigating complaints. Some municipalities have comprehensive definitions that include gender identity and expression, while others have no formal definition at all.

The lack of a countrywide definition means Canadians don’t have an accurate reflection of how prevalent hate crime really is, says Stephen Camp, president of the Alberta Human Rights Commission’s hate crimes committee.

That means the federal government, he says, has no idea where to put resources to stop it.

Statistics Canada numbers show there were 1,798 hate crimes in Canada last year, Camp said, but there were likely more than that.

“What needs to occur for a number of reasons, not just for statistical gathering, is to have a national definition of hate crime incorporated into the Criminal Code,” he told CBC News.

Without a standard definition, he said, the current statistics are “not an accurate number of what’s going on in Canada.”

Consideration in sentencing

The Criminal Code of Canada has sections around hate propaganda, specifically advocating for genocide. It has sections for the public incitement of hatred and mischief relating to religious property. But it only considers “hate crime” as part of how someone is sentenced, not in the initial charge itself.

The current statistics, Camp said, show “the leaders in our society that the problem is not as bad as it sometimes is purported to be,” he said. “Then that equals insufficient resourcing and insufficient policies and legislation.”

Some services, like the Ottawa Police Service, define a hate crime as one motivated by “hate/bias or prejudice based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor.”

Quebec provincial police, meanwhile, don’t have a formal definition at all.

Of the 19 police services that provided their definitions to CBC News, eight of them mention gender identity. Only a handful mention discrimination based on someone’s “real or perceived” race or religion.

Both of those are important, says Irfan Chaudhry, a hate crimes researcher at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

The absence of gender expression, he said, means the definitions police services are using haven’t caught up to Canada’s Human Rights Act.

As for “real or perceived” race or religion, there may be cases where a culprit targets someone based on a misconception, Chaundhry said. A Sikh, for example, might be targeted by someone who mistakes the person as Muslim.

Different instructions

Without a standard definition, police services even give different instructions to their frontline officers about how to identify and investigate hate crimes, Camp said.

If this is a priority for Canada, he said, then it should be reflected with a uniform Criminal Code definition officers would use when laying a charge.

“The Criminal Code is a reflection of our ethics, morals and values in society, and Canada continues to purport to be a society that is pluralistic and inclusive, and safe,” he said. “So why is there not a hate crime section in the Criminal Code to reflect that?”

CBC News reached out to the major political parties to see who would be committed to establishing a uniform hate crime definition after the Oct. 21 federal election.

The Liberal Party said it would “improve the quality and amount of data collection Statistics Canada does regarding hate crimes in Canada.”

A Liberal government would also “create effective and evidence-based policies to counteract these crimes,” the party said in an emailed statement.

The Conservatives said in an email that the party believes “in making criminal justice policy based on evidence.”

“If the information being made available is not accurate,” the party said, then “a Conservative government will certainly look into addressing the issue.”

Looking for an accurate picture

The NDP says there are still some major Canadian cities without hate crime units and that if the party is elected on Oct. 21, it would provide money and resources to make sure every city has one.

“We will also work with provinces, experts and law enforcement to determine a clear and consistent definition of hate crimes so the data we collect and use is more accurate,” a party spokesperson said in an email.

The People’s Party of Canada says it would “look into if there is a need to make data collection uniform and better allocate resources.”

The Green Party said it would “ensure all police forces understand Canada’s hate laws.”

Camp said governments and police agencies owe it to the public to have an accurate picture of the location and prevalence of hate crimes.

“Without that,” he said, “we’re not doing our job as public servants.”

Source: How much hate crime does Canada have? Without a standard definition, no one knows for sure

Police reported hate crimes definition (StatsCan): Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2017 – Statistics Canadahttps://www150.statcan.gc.ca › pub › article › 00008-eng

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Trudeau’s weasel words on Bill 21 are more than his opponents can say

2019/10/09 Leave a comment

Indeed. Sad:

Jagmeet Singh felt that it was so plain where he stood on the ban on turban- or hijab-wearers in Québec’s public-service, he used “obvious” twice in a span of seven words. “It’s probably pretty obvious to folks that I am obviously against Bill 21.” He laid out his personal hurt, his sadness, his channeled frustrations that a Muslim in hijab cannot teach, or a Jew in yarmulke can’t be a judge.

Which is why, Singh eventually declared, he will … address affordability by taking on powerful corporations. This was, it bears mentioning, in response to debate co-moderator Althia Raj’s question on why he lacked courage to act in any way against the religious symbol law that so saddened him.

It’s not quite accurate to call the section on Bill 21 the most passionate part of the debate, but it was the segment with the most protestations of passion. The vigorously shaking heads of the leaders said no to the law. The lips curled into disapproving frowns. But the eyes of the leaders—unwilling, worried or merely politically calculating—told a different story: they were cast downward, in resignation.

For those who think climate change is this election’s great intractable issue, the broadcast consortium presented you Monday with the leaders’ filibusters on Bill 21. Andrew Scheer spent many of his ticking-down seconds praising Jagmeet Singh’s poise in the wake of the Justin Trudeau brownface revelation, before reassuring Quebec voters who like Bill 21 that he won’t intervene—and, while Scheer knows nobody was seriously worried about this, Canadians can rest assured that a Conservative government won’t pass a federal version of the law. (He did not assure us that the Québec’s French-only legislation will sweep the nation either, so now maybe we should wonder.)

Green Leader Elizabeth May latched on to Scheer’s great time-eater by praising Singh herself, with an odd little riff on white privilege, then added she doesn’t want Ottawa to step  into the debate Québecers are having.

Singh used his rebuttals to talk about “polarization”—not a segue to Bill 21, somehow! Instead, that became a way for him to key on his canned lines about housing costs and corporations.

Bloc Québecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet channeled the absent Premier François Legault and mentioned the don’t tread-on-us popularity of Bill 21 in the province—65 to 70 per cent, and nearly half the population “strongly” backs it.

Trudeau, the only person on stage who seemed to want to handle a Bill 21 question, carved into Singh for sounding like all the leaders onstage who haven’t lived a full life with racial discrimination.

“It’s a question of yes, it’s awkward politically, because as Mr. Blanchet says it is very popular,” the Liberal leader began. “But I am the only one on the stage who has said yes,” he paused on yes, to build up his grand crescendo… “a federal government might have to intervene on this.” Might? That’s his big zinger to defend minority and women’s rights?

Trudeau loaded up again for what seemed like another attempted sock-o against the NDP leader: “So why not act on your convictions and leave the door open to challenging it.” One of those old-timey revolvers in cartoons that actually produced a daffodil, not anything harmful.

The Liberals triumphed in Québec last time as the one party taking a firm stand against a Harper measure on niqabs, when others were squishier in deference to sentiment among Québec voters and caucus members. The field is so much more mealy-mouthed on Canada’s most racist legislation in recent memory that even by standing for not much, Trudeau stands clearly on his own on this one—for non-Quebecers and the minority of people within the province who despise the law.

Trudeau managed to get out his mini-jab about Singh’s convictions while the two were cross-talking, and as the Liberal leader’s words ended, the NDPer finished his own point. To be sure, his final phrase wasn’t directed at Trudeau. Yet it seemed, in a strange way, to be Singh’s way of admitting that he has put political triangulation ahead of principle: “I want to be your prime minister.”  

Source: Trudeau’s weasel words on Bill 21 are more than his opponents can say

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Beware of Automated Hiring It won’t end employment discrimination. In fact, it could make it worse.

2019/10/09 Leave a comment

Some interesting ideas to reduce the risks of bias and discrimination:

Algorithms make many important decisions for us, like our creditworthiness, best romantic prospects and whether we are qualified for a job. Employers are increasingly turning to automated hiring platforms, believing they’re both more convenient and less biased than humans. However, as I describe in a new paper, this is misguided.

In the past, a job applicant could walk into a clothing store, fill out an application, and even hand it straight to the hiring manager. Nowadays, her application must make it through an obstacle course of online hiring algorithms before it might be considered. This is especially true for low-wage and hourly workers.

The situation applies to white-collar jobs too. People applying to be summer interns and first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs have their résumés digitally scanned for keywords that can predict success at the company. And the company has now embracedautomated interviewing.

Automated hiring can create a closed loop system. Advertisements created by algorithms encourage certain people to send in their résumés. After the résumés have undergone automated culling, a lucky few are hired and then subjected to automated evaluation, the results of which are looped back to establish criteria for future job advertisements and selections. This system operates with no transparency or accountability built in to check that the criteria are fair to all job applicants.

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Bernier challenged over ‘extreme multiculturalism’ tweet during leaders’ debate

2019/10/09 Leave a comment

For the record:

People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier was directly challenged during the federal leaders’ debate over his past comments about “extreme multiculturalism” and the effects diversity has on Canada.

Debate moderator Lisa LaFlamme read several of Bernier’s past tweets about immigration and diversity aloud, challenging the leader over his use of the words “ghettos” and “tribes” in describing new immigrants to Canada.

LaFlamme also pressed Bernier over his concerns that newcomers bring with them “distrust” and “potential violence.”

“Are these the words of someone with the character and integrity to lead all Canadians and represent us on the world stage?” LaFlamme asked.

“You must tell the truth to Canadians if you want to be the leader of this country,” Bernier said.

“What I’m saying about extreme multiculturalism, it is not the way to build this country. Yes, this country is a diverse country and we must be proud of that, but we don’t need legislation like the Multiculturalism Act to tell us who we are.”

Bernier has campaigned on a promise to significantly reduce immigration levels to Canada. He says the number of people allowed to enter the country as permanent residents should be cut in half — to about 150,000 new immigrants a year.

“We must have fewer immigrants in this country to be sure for these people to participate in our society,” he said.

Other leaders respond

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was quick to attack Bernier on his past positions regarding immigration, calling his tweets “pretty horrible.”

“It should come as no surpise to you that I believe a leader is not someone who tries to divide people or to pit people against each other. A true leader is someone who tries to find bridges, bring people together,” Singh said.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer also criticized Bernier.

“What Mr. Bernier fails to understand is that you can absolutely be proud of Canada’s history, you can be proud of our identity, be proud of the things we’ve done and accomplished in the world, while at the same time welcoming people from all around the world,” he said.

Scheer also said Bernier had changed from someone who used to believe in an immigration system that was fair, orderly and compassionate to someone who bases his policies on the number of likes and retweets he gets on social media from the “darkest parts of Twitter.”

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May also called Bernier’s past comments about immigration “completely appalling,” while Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet asked Bernier if he realized that his own family decended from immigrants.

Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau said polarization and fear over immigration issues has become “easy currency for politicians who do want to strike up uncertainties in peoples hearts.”

He said Bernier is “playing a role” to make people more fearful about migration, globalization and what it means to be Canadian.

Bernier, meanwhile, defended himself against the other leaders, saying he’s not a “radical” because he believes in lower immigration levels.

Source: Bernier challenged over ‘extreme multiculturalism’ tweet during leaders’ debate

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The Woke Will Always Break Your Heart [on Trudeau and the left]

2019/10/08 Leave a comment

Good column. What struck me with the various commentaries on Trudeau’s blackface, was just how few of them, on the right or particularly the left, completely ignored any discussion or analysis of the Liberal record on “diversity and inclusion.” (See, for example, my Taking stock of Ottawa’s diversity promises):

The 2019 election is a test for Canadian progressives: style or substance. The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is the most successful progressive government in the world. It instituted a carbon tax and legalized marijuana. Last year, for the first time, Canada settled more refugees than any other country. Because of higher government benefits, child poverty is at its lowest level in history. Economic growth this year reached 3 percent. That is what Trudeau has done. He also appeared in brownface at an Aladdin-themed costume party in 2001 at the age of 29.

Canadian progressives, like progressives all over the world, must decide whether they care more about the pursuit of social and cultural change, through the eradication of racist and sexist imagery, or the pursuit of transformative policies. In 2015, Trudeau promised both. He was the shining ideal of maximum wokeness, imposing a gender-equal cabinet and offering as the explanation, “Because it’s 2015.” Well, it’s 2019 now.

How racist Trudeau’s appearance in brownface was, and therefore how forgivable, is subject to debate. People of color in Canada—by no means a contiguous body or voting bloc—have differences of opinion about the gravity of Trudeau’s browning up. Sunny Khurana, a Sikh man who appears in one of Trudeau’s photos from the “Arabian Nights” theme party at West Point Grey Academy, did not find his appearance there racist in the slightest. “He wasn’t trying to demean anybody who was a person of color, and from what I can recall from that function, it never came across as that, not at all,” he said recently. “I mean, I didn’t even think twice of it. It was a good party. We had fun.”

Others read the costume as symptomatic of Canada’s racist history generally, and in particular its history with minstrel shows, which is more extensive than you might think. (The composer of Canada’s national anthem performed in blackface.) Others, such as the society gossip columnist Shinan Govani, have acknowledged personal conflicts: “It is the season of moral gymnastics, here in Canada,” he wrote in the Daily Beast.

Needless to say, dispassionate debate about the significance of Trudeau’s costume—parsing his intentions and the context—is not possible, given that we’re in the middle of an election. The picture went viral; that’s what counts. Liberal Party candidates have been struggling. “It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now,” Harjit Sajjan, the defense minister, told the CBC. “But I’m also here to talk about the person I know, in terms of how much he is standing up for people.”

Whatever Canadians may think about the photograph itself, it closes off a major line of attack for Trudeau. Live by the sword of political correctness, die by the sword of political correctness. You can’t argue that your opponents are a bunch of embarrassing antiquities living in the political past—by, say, replaying the Conservative leader’s 2005 speech opposing gay marriage, which the Liberals were doing right up until this story broke—when the internet is rife with your face in brown makeup.

The Trudeau scandal points to a larger problem: The woke will always break your heart. It’s not just that nobody’s perfect, and it’s not just that times change, and it’s not even that the instinct to punish that defines so much of the left is inherently self-defeating. If people want to sell you morality, of any kind, they always have something to hide.

The main criticism from Trudeau’s opponents on the right has usually been that he’s a spoiled brat—a son of privilege—not up to running the country. A faker. The brownface debacle has now become, on the left, a symbol of his lack of real commitment to progressive values. But the cross-party consensus that Trudeau is slight and phony doesn’t survive even a cursory examination of his record. An independent assessment by two dozen Canadian academics found that Trudeau has kept 92 percent of his campaign promises, fully or partially, the most by any Canadian government in 35 years. He is measurably, demonstrably the most sincere and effective prime minister in living memory. He is the rare case of a man whose virtue-signaling has distracted from his real virtues.

Only the left struggles with these standards of style. Right-wing political opponents in Canada and elsewhere have a completely different understanding of acceptable behavior. In the United States, President Donald Trump’s supporters take his brand of nastiness, his aggressive rejection of even the most basic social norms, as a sign of authenticity. Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren is still apologizing for her Cherokee-ancestry claim.

This imbalance matters, because the left’s aesthetic vulnerability comes at a moment of real threat for progressives. Multiculturalism as a project is dying globally, and not because of a sudden outbreak of brownface performances. The “Howdy Modi” event in Houston revealed how the world is turning: populism, xenophobia, the bragging stupidity of ethnic pride. During the last election, Trudeau’s main opponent, the Conservatives, promised “barbaric cultural practices” hotlines and “Canadian values tests” alongside a two-tiered citizenship system under which dual citizens and immigrants could have their citizenship revoked while natural-born Canadians could not. If voters who believe in multiculturalism cannot forgive face paint, the multicultural project as policy may not survive.

In this context, it’s unclear whether the extreme blandness of Trudeau’s main opponent, Andrew Scheer, helps or hurts the prime minister’s chances for reelection. Scheer does not bother with costumes. He’s not photogenic enough. He, too, is embroiled in a scandal, however—about whether he was properly accredited to claim he worked as an insurance broker for a few months. This may be not just the most boring scandal in this election, and or in Canadian history, but the most boring scandal imaginable. I cannot imagine a duller one. Nobody thinks about Scheer much. But perhaps Canadians want a prime minister they don’t have to think about much.

“The fact of the matter is that I’ve always—and you’ll know this—been more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate,” Trudeau acknowledged in the first of a seemingly endless series of apologies. Progressives loved Trudeau’s best costume: Captain Woke. We’ll find out in October whether they were with him for his policies or his poses. They can’t have both. But they can have neither.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/trudeaus-progressive-style/599203/

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Liberals keeping Cape Breton candidate despite past racist, sexist remarks on social media

2019/10/08 Leave a comment

Hard to defend keeping this candidate apart from the need to save a safe Liberal seat.

In contrast, the Conservative decision to dump their candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour was easier, as the Conservatives ran third, albeit with 28 percent of the vote in 2015:

Justin Trudeau says past racist and sexist social-media posts from a Liberal candidate in Cape Breton were “unacceptable,” but the party is not dropping Jaime Battiste from its election campaign roster.

Sunday marked the first time Mr. Trudeau has publicly commented on Mr. Battiste’s remarks since Friday, when the Toronto Sun revealed past Facebook and Twitter posts in which the Liberal candidate for Sydney-Victoria made offensive remarks about women, Indigenous girls, gay men and Chinese people with accents. Mr. Battiste has since apologized for the posts, which date back as far as 2011, saying he wrote the posts during “difficult times” in his life.

Speaking to reporters in Plainfield, Ont., Sunday, Mr. Trudeau was asked if he felt he was limited in the action he could take against other Liberal candidates because of past photos of him in blackface and brownface, but he didn’t answer the question directly.

“We recognize that Jaime Battiste … took responsibility for his actions and has apologized,” Mr. Trudeau said.

In response to an interview request for Mr. Battiste, the Liberal Party referred to his apology instead.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer had the day off on Sunday, but his party took to Twitter to ask if Mr. Trudeau needs to “see more before he finally fires him.”

Meanwhile, the Conservatives were dealing with another controversial candidate of their own. The party dropped Heather Leung as its candidate for Burnaby North-Seymour on Friday over offensive comments she made about the LGBTQ community.

However, video posted by CityNews in Vancouver on Saturday showed Ms. Leung’s team still putting up Conservative campaign signs with her name on them.

In a statement on Sunday, Conservative spokesperson Simon Jefferies said Ms. Leung has been told she cannot use the party’s name or logo, or represent herself as the Tory candidate.

All of the major parties have had candidate troubles. Cameron Ogilvie stepped down as Conservative candidate in Winnipeg last month over discriminatory social-media posts.

Source: Liberals keeping Cape Breton candidate despite past racist, sexist remarks on social media

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Un candidat bloquiste dénonce la discrimination de l’« homme blanc »

2019/10/08 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given their ethno-centrism:

Dominique Mougin, qui brigue les suffrages dans Saint-Léonard–Saint-Michel, a partagé au cours de la dernière année deux articles du média ultraconservateur Le Peuple. Ces billets dénonçaient la Ville de Montréal et Québec solidaire pour avoir établi des critères d’embauche qui favorisent le recrutement de femmes et de personnes issues des minorités ethniques.

Dans les deux cas, les textes se désolaient que les critères de diversité défavorisent les « hommes blancs », à plus forte raison ceux qui sont « hétérosexuels » dans le cas de l’administration Plante.

M. Mougin n’était pas l’auteur de ces textes, mais en plus de les partager, il a fourni des commentaires pour les appuyer. Le 8 janvier 2019, sous le texte intitulé « Hommes blancs, abstenez-vous de postuler pour Québec solidaire ! », il a écrit que « si on veut commencer à se faire respecter, il va falloir répondre coup pour coup ».

Il est plus que temps que les députés du PQ et du Bloc québécois dénoncent le racisme dont font preuve QS et Projet Montréal.

Dominique Mougin, le 8 janvier 2019

Quelques semaines plus tôt, en novembre 2018, sous le texte « L’homme blanc hétéro est écarté par l’administration municipale », le candidat bloquiste décrivait Valérie Plante comme « notre petite mairesse », en plus d’ajouter : « et je ne parle pas seulement de sa taille ».

La Presse a laissé des messages vendredi et dimanche sur la boîte vocale de Dominique Mougin, mais celui-ci n’a pas rappelé. Les deux publications ont toutefois été retirées de son fil Facebook dans l’intervalle.

Avant qu’il annonce la fin de ses activités en août dernier, le média Le Peuple se décrivait comme « un journal qui vise à donner un point de vue différent sur l’actualité québécoise et canadienne ». Il défendait notamment des positions masculinistes, climatosceptiques et antimigratoires.

Invité à réagir au comportement en ligne de son candidat, le Bloc québécois nous a fourni une courte déclaration dans laquelle il indique que « M. Mougin s’est engagé à défendre exclusivement le programme » du parti.

Peur de la drague

Dans un registre moins draconien, un autre candidat bloquiste a lui aussi déploré la condition de l’homme québécois au cours des dernières années.

Claude André, qui se présente dans Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, a travaillé comme journaliste pigiste et chroniqueur d’humeur dans les années 2000 et 2010. À l’époque, il a alimenté une page personnelle, puis un blogue hébergé par le Huffington Post.

Sur sa page personnelle, en mars 2007, il a signé un « édito » adressé « strictement aux mecs » dans lequel il disait remarquer que les hommes d’ici étaient effrayés par l’idée de draguer des femmes.

« Serait-ce parce que les gars, depuis la garderie au secondaire, ont été élevés par des femmes que l’homo quebecencis molluscus est angoissé à l’idée d’en affronter une sur le terrain de la séduction ? […] Ou encore parce qu’elles ont connu des pères du divorce qui, par remords de ne pas leur donner une vraie famille, les traitent comme des reines que les filles d’ici sont si altières ? », a-t-il écrit.

Joint par La Presse vendredi dernier, Claude André a soutenu que ses textes « d’humour » s’inscrivaient dans « l’esprit de ces années-là ». Il affirme qu’il ne cautionne plus ces idées. « De vieux sketches de Rock et Belles Oreilles, ça ne passerait plus aujourd’hui », illustre-t-il.

« Bashing »

Dans un passé plus récent, M. André a signé un billet intitulé « Le bashing du mâle québécois : ça suffit ! » sur le site du Huffington Post. Dans ce texte daté d’août 2013, il affirmait notamment en avoir « ras le pompon » du « mépris » dont faisaient l’objet, selon lui, les hommes de la province.

Il réagissait alors à un texte publié par la journaliste Judith Lussier dans lequel elle racontait avoir cessé de porter une robe d’été car elle en avait marre de recevoir des remarques déplacées. Son usage de l’expression « violer du regard » avait mis M. André hors de lui.

Déjà que les hommes de ma génération étaient parfois perçus comme des assassins possibles, après les événements de Polytechnique commis par un meurtrier nommé Marc Lépine, faudrait pas non plus que l’on fasse maintenant des Québécois des éventuels violeurs en puissance parce qu’ils répondent – parfois maladroitement, je n’en disconviens pas –, à une impulsion séductrice.

Claude André, dans un texte de 2013

Judith Lussier a dit à La Presse avoir déjà signifié que « si c’était à refaire », elle écrirait sa chronique « autrement ».

« Je crois toutefois que ce texte nous aura permis d’entamer une discussion sur le harcèlement de rue, qui n’était pas vraiment un sujet de discussion à l’époque », a-t-elle ajouté, estimant par contre que la lecture de M. André « extrapolait d’une manière exagérée » et « faisait preuve de susceptibilité et s’inscrivait un peu dans l’idée passive-agressive du “not all men” ».

En entrevue, Claude André a fait valoir que « c’était avant #metoo, avant tout ce qu’on sait sur la culture du viol. Évidemment que je n’écrirais pas quelque chose comme ça aujourd’hui ».

Quant à l’idée du « mâle bashing », elle faisait « partie de la discussion politique de l’époque », selon lui.

Le Bloc québécois s’est dit « satisfait » des explications de son candidat et a souligné que « M. André défend l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes ».

Source: Un candidat bloquiste dénonce la discrimination de l’« homme blanc »

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: How the election is playing out in local Chinese-language media

2019/10/08 Leave a comment

More in-depth look at Chinese-language media election and related coverage:

The conflict between Hong Kong and China. The pros and cons of immigration and refugees. Beliefs on abortion and same-sex issues. The tension between paying taxes and benefiting from social services.

Specialists who monitor Canada’s roughly 290 Chinese-language newspapers, websites, radio stations and TV channels say the political coverage not only echoes the mainstream media, it also reveals the distinct concerns of people with origins in East Asia.

Immigration and refugee issues garner more attention in the Chinese-language media than they do among the general Canadian public, say professional observers.

And even though Chinese-Canadians with roots in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China show a complex range of political opinions, Andrew Griffith, a former senior director in Ottawa’s immigration department, has concluded: “There is more of a conservative trend among Chinese-Canadians than, for example, South Asians.”

Like other Canadians, the 1.3 million people of Chinese origin switch party allegiances according to broader political patterns, said Griffith, who works with Diversityvotes.ca, a website highlighting political coverage in the country’s ethnic media. But their votes could make a crucial difference in dozens of urban swing ridings with large immigrant and visible-minority populations.

Roughly three out of four Chinese-Canadians live in either Greater Toronto, where they make up 11 per cent of voters, or Metro Vancouver, where they account for 20 per cent of voters. In the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, which has two federal ridings, 54 per cent of the population is ethnic Chinese.

Andres Malchaski, president of MIREMS International, which monitors the ethnic-language media and helped create Diversityvotes.ca, says that, while a large portion of Canadians tell pollsters the environment is their top election issue, that issue is far outweighed in the Chinese-language media by debates over immigration and refugees.

Chinese-Canadian media outlets, including their discussion forums, contain frequent criticism of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for bringing in more than 60,000 Syrian refugees since 2015, said Machalski, who has analyzed Canada’s ethnic media for three decades.

Media outlets that target Canadians from China are often wary of refugees from Muslim countries, Machalski said, an attitude that reflects the way China’s authoritarian leaders have restricted the religious freedom of millions of Uighur Muslims.

“The feelings expressed by some of the calls and comments on phone-in shows and in newspaper columns (in Canada) certainly support the idea there will be segments of Chinese voters that might even go so far as to support the People’s Party of Canada,” which is calling for reducing immigration and refugee levels, Machalski said.

Still, Machalski emphasized that the views expressed in the Chinese-language outlets in Canada offer a “kaleidoscope” of perspectives, which often reflect whether their respective audiences are connected to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hanoi or Beijing.

That is especially so in regards to the recent anti-Beijing protests in the financial centre of Hong Kong.

More than 300,000 people living in Hong Kong hold Canadian passports — and Oct. 21 marks the first Canadian election in which they can cast a ballot, says a Diversityvotes.ca article by Blythe Irwin.

The Chinese media is picking up on everything Canadian politicians are saying about the special administrative region of China. Ethnic-Chinese media commentators, she says, are both approving and sceptical of the way Trudeau says he is “extremely concerned” about Hong Kong, while Conservative leader Andrew Scheer went further by declaring in a tweet: “We are all Hong Kongers.”

Fenella Sung, a former Chinese-language radio show host, said that Chinese-media perspectives about the conflict largely reflect whether the Canadian-based outlets are aimed at audiences rooted in Hong Kong or China.

It’s not surprising that readers of media directed at the large mainland-Chinese population in Canada “would think the Hong Kong issue is China’s internal affair and that it would not be appropriate for Canadian politicians to comment,” said Sung, who is a member of Canadian Friends of Hong Kong.

Long-time immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of East Asia, Sung said, tend to have political concerns that are in line with Canadians at large, such as jobs, housing and protecting the environment.

“But newer and younger immigrants, mostly from mainland China, are very consistent and focussed on economic growth, expansion of trade, less government bureaucracy, and lower taxation. They don’t like social spending.”

Prior to the B.C. election in 2016, some opinion polls suggested that, even while the province’s more than 500,000 ethnic Chinese voters held diverse views, they generally leaned to the centre-right B.C. Liberals, and had almost no interest in the Greens.

In an article on politics and Canada’s ethnic media published Wednesday in Policy Options magazine, Griffith said Liberal and Conservative party approaches to same-sex marriage and abortion have been widely commented upon, suggesting so-called “family values” are important to many recent immigrants and people of colour.

“While the Liberals and Conservatives get widespread coverage of their electoral promises and commitments, the NDP and Green Party are under-covered,” Griffith added, after reviewing 1,200 recent articles in the ethnic media.

“In contrast, the People’s Party of Canada, given its focus on restricting immigration and its initial exclusion from the leaders’ debate, received more than twice as much substantive coverage as the NDP and Greens combined.”

Chinese-language and other ethnic media outlets in Canada don’t necessarily reinforce cultural silos, Griffith says. But it’s clear they also offer a special window into political discussions of particular concern to certain ethnic groups.

Source: Douglas Todd: How the election is playing out in local Chinese-language media

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , ,

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