The authoritarian reflex: Will it manifest in Canada? Adams

2019/06/17 Leave a comment

More insights on populism and authoritarianism, comparing USA and Canada, from Michael Adams and his collaborators:

A wave of authoritarian populism has been evident in Europe, Britain and the United States over the past few decades. Many Canadians are wondering how these energies might manifest in their own country’s upcoming federal election.

Social scientists have observed that some people, when made insecure by extreme complexity and uncertainty, respond with an insistence on order and conformity. Researchers call this the “authoritarian reflex,” a reaction characterized by increased rejection of and hostility toward “the other,” be they “deviants” from within or foreigners from without. Different societies manifest the authoritarian reflex to different degrees.

Canada is not immune to the forces at work in other societies. But our history, institutions and public policies are distinct – and it would be a mistake to assume any authoritarian reflex here will be the same as in the United States or elsewhere. Our survey conducted recently in the U.S. and Canada shows remarkable differences between the two countries – not so much in the prevalence of authoritarian sentiments as in the presence of countervailing anti-authoritarian beliefs and values.

In both Canada and the U.S., for example, about a third of the population expresses conformist sentiments such as the belief that obedience and discipline are keys to the good life. But more Canadians embrace open, flexible sensibilities that may serve as a check on the political expression of authoritarian impulses.

For example, Canadians are considerably more likely to agree that atheists can be just as virtuous as those who attend church regularly, and that gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as others. In other words, Canadians are more inclined to believe that people outside of traditionally normative groups (religious believers, heterosexuals) are truly equal – that “they” are really part of “us,” or that “those people” count as “the people,” too.

People in democratic countries used to be divided politically based on religious and ethnic identity (in Canada, Catholic/Protestant and French/English), and subsequently by economic class (as urban/industrial interests contended with rural/agrarian interests). Big-tent liberal, conservative and socialist parties represented these groups in legislatures.

But in recent decades, values and identity have become more salient, with issues such as same-sex marriage and environmentalism joining economic interests as key factors shaping voters’ allegiances. Status anxiety is also a growing presence. Those who feel stripped of privilege by social change are gravitating to parties that channel their resentments against groups such as women, immigrants and sexual minorities that are, from their perspective, taking over.

Some of these new drivers of political affiliation are fed by authoritarian tendencies. For example, while some who object to gay rights have specific and deeply considered theological objections, others simply long for a return to “normal” or a “simpler” social order. Where are order-seeking voters with such sentiments concentrating in Canada? Our data indicate they’re migrating to the Conservative Party.

While seven in 10 NDP and Liberal supporters think homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy traditional family values, only a quarter of Conservative supporters agree. Similarly, while around six in 10 NDP and Liberal backers think it is wonderful that young people have the freedom to protest against things they don’t like, only a quarter of Conservatives relish this youthful defiance.

Conservative supporters are more likely to agree with statements strongly hostile to immigration. For example, 50 per cent of Conservatives strongly or somewhat agree that “Overall, there is too much immigration. It threatens the purity of the country.” Fewer than a third of New Democrats (31 per cent) and Liberal supporters (24 per cent) share this belief. This relative concentration of xenophobic sentiment in one party is a new phenomenon in Canada. Twenty years ago, more anti-immigrant sentiment existed in society over all, but it was evenly divided across all three major parties.

Today, a minority of Canadians are wary of social change in general and immigration in particular. Currently, most of these voters are parked with Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives. To be clear: Conservatives are not necessarily xenophobic, but Canadians who are xenophobic have been gravitating to the Conservative Party.

In a recent speech, Mr. Scheer forcefully denounced bigotry, saying to voters seeking channels for such sentiments, “There’s the door.” Mr. Scheer seems to calculate that his prospects are better if he opens the door to right-ish Liberals and immigrants disappointed with Justin Trudeau than if he tries to coax back hard-right, anti-immigration Conservatives who have decamped to the People’s Party, whose leader, Maxime Bernier, has claimed to be a defender of “Western civilization values.”

Will moderate Conservatives and disappointed Liberals be attracted to Mr. Scheer’s vision of a right-of-centre party that eschews xenophobia? How many protest votes will coalesce around Mr. Bernier? In this October’s federal election, Canadians will find out whether the authoritarian reflex will manifest in national politics here as it has in other countries and, if it does, whether it will be a passing spasm or a more significant seizure.

Source: The authoritarian reflex: Will it manifest in Canada? Michael Adams, Ron Inglehart and David Jamieson

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Le Canada s’excusera auprès des Italo-canadiens

2019/06/17 Leave a comment

This has been a long festering issue among some in the Italian Canadian community (former PM Mulroney made an unofficial apology at a luncheon in 1990, not in Parliament):

Le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a indiqué que le gouvernement fédéral s’engage à présenter des excuses officielles aux Italo-canadiens maltraités au pays au cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

« Nous devons faire face au chapitre sombre de l’histoire de notre pays, a-t-il déclaré vendredi. Les Italo-canadiens vivent avec ces souvenirs depuis de nombreuses années. »

M. Trudeau en a fait l’annonce vendredi à Vaughan, en Ontario, lors d’un événement visant à célébrer le Mois du patrimoine italien.

Il a affirmé que pendant la guerre, les familles et les entreprises italo-canadiennes avaient souffert et que personne n’a été tenu responsable.

« C’était une période durant laquelle leur patriotisme était mis en doute et leurs vies plongées dans le chaos, a-t-il soutenu. Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, des centaines d’Italo-canadiens ont été internés. »

M. Trudeau n’a pas révélé quand les excuses officielles seraient faites, mais il a dit qu’elles aideront à panser les plaies de la communauté.

Il a également annoncé que le gouvernement fédéral ouvrirait un centre d’affaires permanent à Milan, en Italie.

M. Trudeau n’a pas fourni plus de détails, mais il dit que le centre veillera à ce que l’avenir soit brillant entre le Canada et l’Italie.

Source: Le Canada s’excusera auprès des Italo-canadiens

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The rise of female Sharia judges in India

2019/06/15 Leave a comment

Of note:

Earlier this year, Maya Rachel McManus, a British Muslim, walked down the aisle in Kolkata on her wedding day and exchanged garlands with her partner in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

Later, her marriage was solemnised by female qazis, or judges, who govern Islamic law. 

“Maybe my multicultural wedding would have been frowned upon if the qazis were men,” McManus told Al Jazeera.

“The ones my husband and I had spoken to had problems with some of my basic rights; like keeping my maiden name and my British passport after marriage.”

She insisted that women perform her wedding rites.

“This was the first time one of our qazis solemnised a marriage,” said Noorjehan Safia Niwaz, cofounder of Bhartiya Mahila Muslim Andolan (BMMA), an organisation that launched in 2007 in India advocating for secular rights.

In 2016, BMMA began training Muslim women to become qazis, a role traditionally held by men.

To McManus, and many of India’s millions of Muslims, the recent rise of female qazis means fewer compromises and a chance at more justice for women.

“What is common between all versions of Sharia or Islamic law that is followed today is that it is extremely patriarchal,” said Niwaz, who is also a qazi.

“Women continue to suffer. They become victims of nikkah halala (a practise in Islam where a woman once divorced by her husband must consummate her marriage with another man if she wants to remarry her first husband), polygamous marriages and unilateral divorces.”

There are no teachings in either the Quran or the prophetic tradition that prohibits women from being qazis. Even the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, known as Sayyida Aisha, performed and solemnised the nikah of several people.

EBRAHIM MOOSA, PROFESSOR OF ISLAMIC STUDIES AT INDIANA’S UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

To replace what Niwas describes as a “misogynistic syllabus” designed for male qazis, BMMA drafted its own curriculum in which women study the Quran from a feminist perspective and examine the Indian constitution so they can make decisions, keeping in mind the law of the land.

“The practice of female [qazis] is novel in India, but the idea is not novel,” says Ebrahim Moosa, a professor

of Islamic studies at Indiana’s University of Notre Dame. “Muslims in North India followed the Hanafi school of law for centuries that allows women to be judges.”

According to BMMA, which is funded by private donors and charities, there are 15 female qazis spread across India including West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Orissa.

“We have over 150 cases in our centre alone,” said 47-year-old Hina Siddiqui, a qazi from Bandra, a western Mumbai suburb. “Though unlike male qazis, in each case we summon both the man and the woman involved. We don’t hear just one side of the story.”

Since triple talaq, or instant divorce, led by Muslim men was criminalised in India, carrying a possible jail sentence, Siddiqui and her colleagues have seen an increase in the number of distressed women in their offices.

“The men are now scared to give triple talaq,” said 60-year-old Zubeda Khatoon, another qazi in Bandra.

“So they abuse their wives both physically and emotionally, hoping that the woman will leave them instead. Another way this works in the man’s favour is that according to Sharia law if a woman asks for a divorce, her husband owes her no liabilities. “

This is where female qazis step in and attempt to ensure that women receive their legal rights during including receiving her mehr – a sum of money given to the bride on her wedding day, alimony and the belongings she contributed to the home after marriage.

For couples who wish to be married by a female qazi, there is a rigorous process. 

Through a period of one month, the judges verify the bride and groom’s details – including their identity, economic status, marital status and even their marzi, or personal reasons for wedlock. This is to reduce the rate of fraudulent marriages.

“They [the female qazis] explained the various aspects of the nikah [wedding] procedure to me. They were extremely helpful,” said McManus. “This kind of support was not forthcoming from the male qazis I had approached earlier.”

‘No such thing as women qazis’

But not everybody agrees that female qazis can better safeguard the interests of Muslim women.

“There is no such thing as women qazis in Islam. It is just a new-age thing,” Muslim leader Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, from Sunni Jama Mosque in Mumbai, told The Hindustan Times.

Moosa, the professor in Indiana, said while some schools of Islamic thought such as Shafiʿi, Ahl-e Hadis, and Salafi, prevent women from becoming qazis, it remains religiously permissible. 

“There are no teachings in either the Quran or the prophetic tradition that prohibits women from being qazis,” he said. “Even the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, known as Sayyida Aisha, performed and solemnised the nikah of several [people].”

In the two years that Siddiqui and Khatoon have been practising as qazis in Mumbai, they have presided over only one mutually consenting divorce. 

“In that case, we were able to get the woman two lakhs ($2,874) as maintenance from her husband,” said Khatoon. “But most people still prefer to have their divorce issued on the letterhead of male qazis.”

According to Niwaz, 30 more women eager to enrol in the second batch of qazi training by BMMA.

“Maya’s wedding [McManus’s] went through without any objections,” she says. “We haven’t had any fatwas issued for the work we [female qazis] are doing. We exist. That in itself is a positive thing.”

Source: The rise of female Sharia judges in India

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Chris Selley: The debate over Quebec’s religious symbols bill nears its wretched end

2019/06/15 Leave a comment

Pointed commentary:

Better late than never, one supposes: Three days before Premier François Legault’s self-imposed deadline for passing Bill 21, which would prohibit certain civil servants from wearing religious symbols on the job, his government proposed an amendment that would actually define “religious symbol.” (It had hitherto argued none was necessary.) If the amendment is adopted, teachers, police officers, Crown prosecutors and others deemed to be in positions of authority would be forbidden to display any “clothing, symbol, jewellery, ornament, accessory or headgear that is worn in connection with a religious conviction or belief and can reasonably be considered as referring to a religious affiliation.”

Kudos to whichever reporter thought on Wednesday to ask whether wedding rings count. The question utterly stymied both Legault and his Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister — you read that correctly — Simon Jolin-Barrette, who’s in charge of this project. “The person who wears an object that for her constitutes a religious symbol, that constitutes a religious symbol,” Jolin-Barrette explained. “And the person who wears an object that in the eyes of a reasonable person represents a religious symbol, that constitutes a religious symbol.”

Many scoffed at the question. Reporters were just playing silly buggers, they said —  “f—ing the dog,” in Quebec parlance. The government quickly clarified that wedding rings would not be covered.

And indeed, there are many 100-per-cent non-religious wedding bands in the Quebec civil service. But many wedding rings are unambiguously religious symbols to the people wearing them. The standard Catholic marriage script suggests priests ask “the Lord (to) bless these rings” before giving them to the bride and groom. Each will ask the other to “receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Of course, who’s to know? The religious rings don’t glow a special colour. So long as devoutly religious police officers and public-school teachers do their jobs properly and professionally, without fear or favour, everything will be fine. Only that’s precisely what Bill 21’s opponents have been saying forever: A kippa or hijab is no evidence of a partial or biased civil servant, and the lack of a kippa or hijab is no evidence of an impartial or unbiased one. By definition, a law about religious symbols can’t do anything that’s not symbolic — only in this case, the symbolism involves trampling all over minority rights.

Legault has never shown any particular enthusiasm for this project; rather, he defends it on grounds that it has majority support and that it’s time to put the whole issue to bed. As Bill 21 nears passage, more and more voices have made it clear that won’t happen.

On Saturday Le Devoir ran a huge spread about how much religion is costing Quebecers in terms of tax breaks for churches and faith-based organizations. It gave ample voice to the view that faith itself, separated from the charitable works of faithful people, has no intrinsic value to society (or is even a net detriment). “It is difficult to understand how we can enshrine the secular status of the Québécois state in the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, reaffirm the separation of the state and religion and the equality of all citizens, and give away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue every year,” an editorial argued.

In fact it’s perfectly easy to understand: The government demonstrates its neutrality, and its respect for the equality of all citizens, by treating people the same way regardless of their private faith or lack thereof. If laïcité were incompatible with respecting religious faith and its contributions to society, it’s unlikely the French state would own and maintain so many churches.

Outright anti-religious sentiment is one thing Bill 21 won’t get rid of. It also won’t quiet people who think it should apply to daycare workers and teachers at state-subsidized religious schools — or indeed to the entire civil service, as was contemplated by Pauline Marois’ popular Values Charter. And Bill 21 certainly won’t dissuade bigots from taking out their inadequacies on Quebec’s minority populations. This week a Montreal woman who wears a niqab tracked down the driver of a bus that blew past her at a stop — deliberately, she alleges, based on anti-niqab sentiments the driver had previously expressed on Facebook. When the woman complained in the same medium, CBC reported, respondents included a Société de Transport de Montréal union rep who suggested “a normal Quebecer would have waited for the next bus.”

It’s one of many alarming incidents that Muslim Quebecers in particular insist have become more and more frequent as this interminable debate drags on. The government has proposed no solutions except to make the majority more comfortable — perhaps by banning women wearing niqabs from riding public buses. That particular question will have to wait for a while, tied up as it is in the courts. But Bill 21 will pass before MNAs break for the summer.

At least those affected will finally know where they stand (pending further restrictions). At least greener pastures await elsewhere in Canada if they decide, not unreasonably, that they are no long welcome.

Source: Chris Selley: The debate over Quebec’s religious symbols bill nears its wretched end

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Australia: ‘You don’t belong here’: A Muslim MP on racism in politics

2019/06/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

It’s true what they say. Some Australians would rather have our prime minister than theirs. They looked across the Tasman after the March 15 terror attack in Christchurch and saw what Australian politician Mehreen Faruqi​ calls “authentic, compassionate leadership”.

Faruqi is a Green Party senator for New South Wales. In 2013, she became the first Muslim woman ever elected to an Australian parliament. When March 15 happened, shock and devastation were followed by mourning, because it all seemed very close to home. It could so easily have happened there. Faruqi remembers her first speech in the senate was about the normalisation and legitimisation of hate, and the people it was hurting.

“I felt it very close to my heart when Jacinda Ardern said, ‘You belong here’,” Faruqi says. “That’s what we were waiting to hear from many people. What we’ve always heard is, ‘You don’t belong here, get out of my country’.”

Born in Pakistan, Faruqi moved to Australia 27 years ago. It is home for her, she stresses. It is where she studied, where her children grew up. But she has seen the mood worsen since the early 1990s. Muslims became an obvious target after 2001, and Muslim women seem to bear a disproportionate amount of the abuse. It is a “toxic mix of sexism and racism” that manifests for Faruqi as online bullying and harassment, hate mail and abusive phone calls.

“I’ve had my face photoshopped onto Isis flags,” she wrote in the Guardian in February. “I’m now used to the tabloid media amplifying lies about me and other Muslims for clickbait.”

“It doesn’t matter what I say or do,” she says. “It could be something I’ve said in support of public education, women’s rights or animal welfare, but it always ends up being about my race or where I come from or what I look like. It seems that for some I’ll never be Australian enough.”

​Faruqi came to Christchurch to pay respects and show solidarity with those affected by the mosque attacks before heading to Auckland for a conference on racism on Friday, organised by Shakti Community Council. Other participants include Green MP Golriz Ghahraman​, whose experience of being targeted by online trolls “is very similar to mine and other women of colour in public life”.

Faruqi is looking forward to comparing notes with Ghahraman. As far as overcoming racism goes, she agrees that there is more Australia can learn from New Zealand than the reverse. A lack of diversity is a major problem in Australian politics.

“Our parliaments don’t actually look like our streets or suburbs. Politicians often highlight that we are one of the most multicultural countries in the world but our representation should be reflective of that multiculturalism.”

Another problem she notices is a lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim communities. There is a lazy assumption that Islam is not compatible with the freedoms of liberal democracy. It is the clash of civilisations theory – see all the Right-wing agitators warning about Sharia law.

“As a Muslim, I grew up with strong values of social justice, kindness, compassion and equality for all,” she says. “Those values brought me into politics and a party like the Greens. I’ve never been shy as a Muslim of talking about rights for LGBTQI people. I brought the first bill in the history of New South Wales to decriminalise abortion.

“There is a very negative stereotype of what Muslims are and what they look like. Often we are presented as ‘the Muslim community’, like a monolith. We are as wild and wonderful as any other community.”

Source: ‘You don’t belong here’: A Muslim MP on racism in politics

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Award-winning professor Salim Mansur disqualified from seeking Conservative nomination

2019/06/14 Leave a comment

A sign of who the vetting process of the CPC is catching (the right wing press, Rebel, Clarion, True North have been critical of this decision, will be interesting to see if Mansur is picked up by the PPC):

Professor, author and columnist Salim Mansur has been disqualified from seeking the Conservative nomination.

Mansur, a recently retired Western University professor, announced his candidacy last September in his home riding, London North Centre.

Despite being told by the Conservative Party of Canada’s regional organizer last November that he was allowed to launch his campaign and begin campaigning, Mansur received notice from the party’s executive director Monday morning that his nomination candidacy was “disallowed.”

“The (National Candidate Selection Committee of the Conservative Party of Canada) has disallowed your candidacy as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada,” said an email from Dustin Van Vugt.

No reason was provided in the email, but Mansur told me in a brief interview that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s campaign manager, Hamish Marshall, advised him last week of the party’s concerns with Mansur’s past writing and public speaking on Islamism and the politics of radical Muslims, which Marshall said will likely be portrayed by Liberals and others as Islamophobic, and become disruptive to the party’s national campaign.

It’s Mansur’s academic career that has held him in such high esteem by the Conservatives in the past, however. Mansur has testified before parliament on numerous occasions at the invitation of the Conservatives. In 2017, he was awarded the Canadian Senate’s 150th Anniversary Medal for his work promoting interfaith understanding, presented by Conservative senator Linda Frum.

Mansur, a devout Muslim, has been a stalwart opponent of radical Islamism and the groups advancing it within Canada. He’s chronicled this fight as a Muslim and as an academic in his bestselling book Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a dissident Muslim.

The retired professor said in an open letter on his website that his mission is to “elect a Conservative government in Ottawa with Andrew Scheer as our next Prime Minister.” On his platform page, Mansur cites economic growth, strengthening Canada’s security, and vigorously protecting individual freedoms as his priorities.

In the interests of disclosure, I have introduced Mansur to a number of political activists in London as a personal favour, and have served as a sounding board for some ideas he had about his campaign. I have received no compensation for these or any other efforts related to his candidacy.

Source: READ MORE

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Bob Hawke: Why Chinese Australians are mourning a ‘tender-hearted’ PM

2019/06/14 Leave a comment

Moment in history, important to remember in the current context of China’s behaviour domestically and internationally and how politicians choose to act. If any reader has a Canadian angle to share, that would be welcome as I didn’t recall seeing a comparable piece during the coverage of the Tienanmen “anniversary”:

On Friday, Australians will honour beloved former leader Bob Hawke in a memorial service at the Sydney Opera House. Among them will be many Chinese Australians – including my parents – whose lives changed forever when Mr Hawke offered them asylum after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In June 1989, Chinese troops used guns and tanks to suppress protesters calling for democracy in Beijing, killing an unknown number of people.

Half a world away in Australia, my father Cong Hui Mao watched in horror as the crackdown unfolded on his television set.

He had recently moved from China to Sydney, aged 30, on a one-year student visa. In Australia he found a vast nation with the kind of political freedoms that protesters in China had been calling for. The Tiananmen demonstrations had given him hope, and for weeks he closely followed the “promising flickers” of a new China.

“It was an exciting time – we felt that we were at a crossroads where we could bring up new ideas,” he says.

“So when Tiananmen happened, it was like a great fire had been quashed.”

In the days following, he joined crowds of Chinese students in Sydney who poured on to the streets to march for their peers at home. “We were grieving but also angry,” he says. “So angry at our government who had attacked its own people.”

The images from Beijing horrified the world, including then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke. At a national vigil in Canberra, he cried openly while reading out graphic details from a diplomatic cable: “When all those who had not managed to get away were either dead or wounded, foot soldiers went through the square, bayonetting or shooting anybody who was still alive.

“Tanks then ran backwards and forwards over the bodies of the slain, until they were reduced to pulp.”

Immediately afterwards, Mr Hawke granted visa extensions to all Chinese students in Australia.

Mr Hawke later confirmed that he did not consult his cabinet before announcing the decision. He told The Guardian in 2015: “I have a deep love for the Chinese people… when I walked off the dais I was told: ‘You cannot do that, prime minister.’ I said to them: ‘I just did. It is done.'”

‘Everyone felt grateful’

Ultimately, about 42,000 Chinese people took up the offer and forged new lives in Australia. They were given working rights and social support, and later their temporary visas were made permanent.

“Everyone felt so grateful to Hawke for his decision to allow us to stay,” says my father, who met Mr Hawke on numerous occasions at Chinese community functions held in the politician’s honour. “If he hadn’t said that, many of us would have returned to China where we feared it was unsafe, and where we feared China would go backwards.”

My mother, Ying Zhu Wang, flew to Australia in 1990 on a student visa. In Sydney, my parents met and married, set up a home and had their first two children. They didn’t return to visit China until five years after the massacre.

When Mr Hawke died on 15 May, my parents – like many Chinese Australians – contacted their friends and reminisced. Many will join other Australians at Friday’s state memorial service.

There is also much gratitude towards Mr Hawke for his attitude towards China after the Tiananmen Square protests. “He had good relations with China and its development. He understood us,” my mother says.

Jia Lu, a Chinese interpreter and researcher at the University of New South Wales, agrees: “Of course, we are thankful to him for his action after Tiananmen and the visas that allowed us to bring our families over. But people forget too that he was an Australian politician – a rare politician who kept a positive view of China’s development.”

She estimates that he attended more than 100 events held by community groups over the years.

“He was a real friend to the Chinese. For me and so many of my friends, we will really miss him.”

Transforming Australia

Mr Hawke felt the disappointment of Tiananmen deeply because he had been engaging directly with a newly West-looking China, says historian Prof Frank Bongiorno of the Australian National University.

“It’s almost beyond inconceivable today for a prime minister to make a unilateral and radical decision like Hawke did,” he says. “And he wanted to show Australia as a generous and compassionate society.”

The decision drew resistance from some officials and ministers who feared it could overwhelm Australia’s migration programme, or lead to resentment among other communities.

But it ended up “transforming the face of Australian multiculturalism”, says Dr Christina Ho, a migration expert at the University of Technology.

“They were a particular group – young, students who then went on to be educated, professional people who have made a huge contribution to Australian society.”

Not that it was an easy integration. During the 1980s and 1990s, there was ongoing political debate about the rate of Asian immigration and social cohesion. Many migrants were highly educated but had a poor grasp of English and struggled to find well-paying jobs, says Prof Ho.

“A lot of de-skilling happened in that generation,” she says. “But still, they worked hard, integrated into Australian society and raised their own families. Now they’re part of the vibrant multicultural society that is Australia today.”

This diaspora also became a cultural asset as Australia expanded its trade relationship with China in the 1990s, says Prof Bongiorno.

“You had a significant group of Chinese Australians who were a real resource,” he says. “They had the linguistic skills and native sense of the cultural dynamism of Chinese society.”

He cites the post-Tiananmen Square intake and Vietnamese migration in the 1970s as two critical points in steering Australia more towards Asia as a society.

Those Chinese students provided support for the next stream of Chinese migrants – largely middle class and from the mainland – who have moved to Australia in the past decade. Asia now accounts for more than half of Australia’s migration intake.

“Back in 1989, after Tiananmen, we were all scared – China was a closed door,” says my father.

“Bob Hawke – he showed kindness to us students. He gave us opportunity. Although he’s died, we still think of him in our hearts and remember him.”

Source: Bob Hawke: Why Chinese Australians are mourning a ‘tender-hearted’ PM

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Saint-Léonard: un ex-député libéral outré par la candidature d’un non-Italien

2019/06/14 Leave a comment

More on Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel which some in the Italian Canadian believe should “belong to them” despite demographic changes:

« Libéral ou Italien ? » C’est la question-choc posée par l’ex-député libéral fédéral de Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel, Nicola Di Iorio, qui s’insurge contre l’élection d’un candidat non italien à l’assemblée d’investiture. Une première en près de 50 ans.

Le député démissionnaire, qui ne sera pas candidat aux prochaines élections, demande à Justin Trudeau, dans un texte paru dans un journal local de langue italienne, d’annuler le résultat du vote à l’investiture du 27 mai.

C’est Hassan Guillet, ancien imam révélé au grand public par son discours après le drame de la mosquée de Québec, qui a été choisi par les membres comme candidat du Parti libéral du Canada.

« La communauté se sent tassée », déplore M. Di Iorio, dont le siège à la Chambre des communes est vacant depuis sa démission en janvier dernier. En entrevue à La Presse, l’ex-député se confie sur la course à l’investiture, qu’il qualifie de « chaotique ».

Sans parler d’irrégularités, M. Di Iorio se plaint notamment d’une salle trop petite et d’une file d’attente trop longue, ce qui aurait, selon lui, défavorisé les électeurs italiens, en moyenne beaucoup plus âgés. Autour de 600 personnes n’auraient pas pu voter et seraient reparties bredouilles, dénonce-t-il.

« Si on est pour faire des investitures, qu’on en fasse des vraies », a-t-il dit durant l’entrevue, visiblement irrité.

Les libéraux affirment que tout s’est déroulé dans les règles de l’art.

« Le processus d’investiture a été mené en totale conformité avec nos règles nationales de sélection des candidats. »

– William Harvey-Blouin, stratège du Parti libéral, dans un courriel

Une deuxième course à l’investiture n’est pas envisagée. Personne ne semble y croire, pas même M. Di Iorio : « Est-ce que je pense que mon parti va faire ça ? Est-ce que je pense que mon chef va faire ça ? J’ai appris à être réaliste dans la vie. »

La réplique d’Hassan Guillet

« C’est de la foutaise », a affirmé d’entrée de jeu Hassan Guillet à propos de la requête de M. Di Iorio. « Il peut dire ce qu’il veut, mais il n’y a aucune raison pour faire une autre course à l’investiture simplement parce qu’il en demande une. »

M. Guillet souligne ses « bons rapports » avec la communauté italienne et rappelle qu’il a commencé son discours de victoire dans la langue de Dante. M. Di Iorio tempère. « Hassan ne s’est jamais manifesté auprès de la communauté italienne de sa vie », soutient-il.

« Je trouve que c’est un faux débat, signale M. Guillet. [M. Di Iorio] avait juste à mobiliser plus de monde, à obtenir la confiance des gens et la confiance du parti. Maintenant, les gens ont choisi. Je ne sais pas pourquoi on s’éternise sur ce débat-là. »

La circonscription Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel est depuis belle lurette un château fort libéral grâce à une loyauté indéfectible de la population d’origine italienne qui s’y est installée et y a pris racine.

Le président du Congrès national des Italo-Canadiens, Antonio Sciascia, est clair.

« C’est un désastre. Ça nous met en tabarouette, en bon québécois. On a commis une grande bêtise. »

– Antonio Sciascia en entrevue avec La Presse

Comme d’autres au sein de la communauté, il préfère imputer la faute à la division du vote italien. Deux candidats d’origine italienne se sont présentés, ce qui a laissé la voie libre à M. Guillet. Francesco Cavaleri, le dauphin de M. Di Iorio, est arrivé troisième. « Je pense qu’il [M. Di Iorio] doit prendre une partie de la responsabilité de ce qui s’est passé à Saint-Léonard », a dit M. Sciascia.

Ce nouveau contexte causera-t-il un réalignement des allégeances politiques dans la circonscription ? S’il est trop tôt pour le dire, selon M. Sciascia, un grand nombre de « mécontents » pourraient retourner leur veste. Pour la première fois, un non-Italien au Parti libéral devra affronter un candidat conservateur italo-québécois connu, l’avocat Ilario Maiolo.

Alors, libéraux ou Italiens ? « Jusqu’à maintenant, libéral et Italien ont toujours été synonymes », a répondu M. Sciascia, sans toutefois se prononcer sur l’avenir.

Qui est Nicola Di Iorio ?

Nicola Di Iorio s’est fait connaître après avoir lancé Cool Taxi, une OBNL qui lutte contre l’alcool au volant. L’avocat spécialisé en droit du travail s’est présenté aux élections fédérales de 2015 pour le Parti libéral du Canada dans Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel. Son passage en politique a été marqué par de longues périodes d’absence. M. Di Iorio avait annoncé sa démission en avril 2018 pour des « raisons personnelles », mais il s’était ravisé quelques mois plus tard. Alors qu’il était toujours député, il s’est associé au cabinet d’avocats BCF. M. Di Iorio prétendait qu’il avait été libéré par le premier ministre pour travailler sur une « mission secrète », qui reste secrète à ce jour. Il a finalement annoncé sa démission le 29 janvier, après avoir remis 100 000 $ à un organisme non identifié. En entrevue avec La Presse, M. Di Iorio est demeuré évasif sur ce mystérieux revirement de situation.

Qui étaient les candidats à l’investiture ? 

Le vote à l’investiture de Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel pour le Parti libéral s’est tenu le 27 mai à la salle de réception Le Rizz, à Saint-Léonard. Trois candidats étaient sur la ligne de départ : Patricia R. Lattanzio, conseillère de la ville pour Ensemble Montréal à Saint-Léonard ; Francesco Cavaleri, avocat chez Cavaleri Donatelli, un bureau situé à Saint-Léonard ; et Hassan Guillet, ingénieur et avocat qui a fait carrière chez Bombardier avant de devenir imam. Selon les règles du parti, une course à trois requiert un vote à deux tours où les électeurs doivent choisir les candidats par ordre de préférence. M. Cavaleri a été exclu au premier tour avec seulement 275 voix, contre 588 pour M. Guillet et 474 pour Mme Lattanzio. C’est finalement Hassan Guillet qui l’a emporté au deuxième tour.

Source: Saint-Léonard: un ex-député libéral outré par la candidature d’un non-Italien

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Québec définit ce qu’est un «signe religieux»

2019/06/13 Leave a comment

I have pity for the public servants who were tasked with the drafting what appears to be a fairly restrictive definition, given no mention of size (e.g., small pendants of the Cross, Star of David):

Le gouvernement Legault fait volte-face et consent finalement à définir ce que représente à ses yeux un « signe religieux » dans son projet de loi 21 sur la laïcité de l’État.

Depuis le dépôt du projet de loi controversé, le ministre responsable, Simon Jolin-Barrette, avait toujours refusé jusqu’à maintenant, malgré les pressions venant de toutes parts, de définir ce qu’il entendait par l’expression « signe religieux », qui est au coeur du document.

Mardi, en soirée, coup de théâtre à l’Assemblée nationale où son projet de loi est passé au peigne fin : le ministre Jolin-Barrette a déposé un amendement précisant aux nombreux employés de l’État visés par la loi ce qu’ils n’auront plus le droit de porter dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.

Le libellé de l’amendement à l’article 6 démontre l’intention du gouvernement de ratisser large.

Ainsi, aux yeux du gouvernement, « tout objet, notamment un vêtement, un symbole, un bijou, une parure, un accessoire ou un couvre-chef » sera considéré comme étant un « signe religieux », s’il est porté « en lien avec une conviction ou une croyance religieuse » ou s’il est « raisonnablement considéré comme référant à une appartenance religieuse ».

Il n’y a aucune mention visant la taille de l’objet en question : minuscule ou ostentatoire, le signe religieux sera donc prohibé.

Le gouvernement Legault tient mordicus à faire adopter deux de ses projets de loi avant l’ajournement des travaux, prévu ce vendredi 14 juin : le projet de loi 9 sur l’immigration et le projet de loi 21 sur la laïcité de l’État.

Les deux législations sont pilotées par le ministre Jolin-Barrette.

Le projet de loi 21 en est rendu à l’étape de l’étude détaillée article par article.

Il prévoit interdire à plusieurs catégories d’employés de l’État – policiers, gardiens de prison, procureurs de la Couronne, enseignants et directeurs d’école des niveaux primaire et secondaire du secteur public, notamment – de porter tout signe religieux dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.

Les employés actuels auraient un droit acquis (« clause grand-père »).

Durant la consultation menée sur le projet de loi, certains des témoins entendus avaient fait valoir que le document était beaucoup trop vague, sans définition précise de ce qui serait interdit ou pas, donc difficile à appliquer.

Source: Québec définit ce qu’est un «signe religieux»

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Senate survey offers better picture of diversity among Chamber staff

2019/06/13 Leave a comment

Good to see these data collection efforts and their sharing despite their limitations:

New numbers suggest the Senate’s hiring of women, Indigenous people, and visible minorities is on par with each group’s availability in the workforce, but behind on employing those with disabilities.

An estimated 2.6 per cent of Senate staff are people with disabilities, though they represent 4.4 per cent of the available workforce, according to new data collected from some Senate staff.

At the June 6 Senate Internal Economy, Budgets, and Administration meeting Diane McCullagh, the Senate’s chief human resources officer, reported on her office’s efforts to get better statistics through a voluntary survey of staff in both the administration and Senators’ offices. Because it’s an opt-in survey, the Senate doesn’t have diversity data on all its staff.

The latest push brought in 266 responses, Ms. McCullagh said, and pooled with past efforts, the Senate now has information for 596 people. That represents 81.5 per cent of the 731 employees at the time of the survey, conducted between March 29 and April 26.

Three per cent of Senate staff recorded identify as Indigenous, compared to an estimated 3.4 per cent workforce availability, Ms. McCullagh told Senators. Similarly, among visible minorities, the Senate is a few points off, hiring 12.45 per cent, compared to an estimated workforce availability of 13 per cent. Women represented 60 per cent of those surveyed, well above the 52.5 per cent workforce availability.

Where the Senate is falling behind, it isn’t far, said Ms. McCullagh, but the Senate has “work to do” to hire more people with disabilities.

Breakdown of diversity for staff in the House of Commons, Senate, and public service, according to 2018 data reported by each body. Graph created with Infogram

Ms. McCullagh acknowledged the limitations in the data, noting people are “still fearful” of singling themselves out. But the numbers can still help establish “benchmarks against which we can measure our progress going forward,” she said.

The search for better statistics emerged following a June 2018 report, Diversity in the Senate: From Aspiration to Action, from Internal Economy’s Subcommittee on Diversity.

The new data shows a shift from the 2016 numbers the committee studied, though that report only looked at the Senate’s employees, and didn’t include staff working in Senators’ offices. As of March 2016, among the 354 employees, women represented 59 per cent, visible minorities 15.3 per cent, people with disabilities 5.6 per cent, and Aboriginal people 3.4 per cent.

The new data puts the Senate behind the core public services in all areas, except hiring women, and ahead of the House of Commons only in its hiring of women and Indigenous people.

Of the 192,467 that made up the core public service as of March 31, 2018, women represented 54.8 per cent, according to the most recent report on employment equity. That’s slightly up from the estimated workforce availability of 52.5 per cent for the same year. Indigenous people represented 5.1 per cent of the public service (compared to 3.4 per cent workforce availability), people with disabilities accounted for 5.3 per cent (compared to 4.4 per cent), and visible minorities were 15.7 per cent (compared to 13 per cent workforce availability).

In the House of Commons, as of June 2018, 48 per cent of the House administration’s 2,479 employees were women, two per cent were Aboriginal persons, 13 per cent were visible minorities (up from 10 per cent the previous year), and three per cent were people with disabilities (down from two per cent in 2017).

Senators also asked Ms. McCullagh’s team to start tracking regional representation among staff, and while she didn’t have that data, she said the Senate has a wider reach than it has in the past.

Source: Senate survey offers better picture of diversity among Chamber staff

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