Gurski: What if Canada stopped preventing violent extremism or countering violent extremism: would it make a difference?

2019/02/12 Leave a comment

My friend Phil Gurski asks some needed questions.

While attending a briefing by the Montreal-based Centre de prévention de la radicalisation menant à la violence, the glossiness of their material made me wonder whether this was more of a communications initiative than substance:

We in Canada have terrorism on the brain. On any given day, there’s at least one, and, unfortunately, usually far more than one, terrorist act somewhere  on this planet. Death and destruction executed by idiots who see the use of violence as God’s will or a legitimate way to effect change in favour of one cause or another will always be with us.

When it comes to Canada, however, there is a disproportionate fear of terrorism here at home. Statistics do not support this fear: far from it actually. And yet the conviction that terrorism is a larger threat than it really is can and does affect Canadians’ views on matters ranging from immigration to foreign policy. One other area is the creation of a national program to prevent the radicalization to violence that is the sine qua non of terrorism.

My challenge is: do we need to spend this money on a problem that is far smaller than perceived?  In at least one case, a centre that seeks to prevent radicalization  is unsure whether some of its funding will continue.  Would we miss it if these programs disappeared?

Allow me to explain. According to StatsCan, in 2017 there were 163 gang-related murders in Canada (out of a total of 660 total homicides or a little less than one quarter). To combat gangs and help prevent youth from joining, the National Crime Prevention Centre at Public Safety Canada (PSC) spent a little under $31-million over an unspecified five-year period.

Strikingly, PSC is allotting slightly more money ($35-million) over an identical time period for countering violent extremism (CVE). So, how many people were killed by violent extremists (i.e. terrorists) in Canada in 2017? Zero. Or six if you want to label the shooting at a mosque in Québec City a terrorist act (or at minimum an act of hate, which I will accept may be an example of violent extremism, unlike garden variety murder). How many terrorism-related deaths in 2016? Zero (vs. 141 gang-related). How many in 2015? Zero (versus 98 gang-related). Do you see the pattern here? Sure we can add in the so-called “foreign fighters” but the numbers are still minimal.

I submit to you that if the Canadian government were to stop ALL funding for CVE tomorrow, not only would Canadians not notice anything, but it is far from clear that the sudden lack of research and prevention would lead to a single successful radicalization-to-violence process and possible terrorism. Yes, a small number of Canadians will always adopt violent extremist ideas and an even smaller number will go on to commit an act of terrorism here or outside Canada. Some attacks will be stopped thanks to the efforts of CSIS, the RCMP, and their partners, by the way.

I am starting to think that the money and focus on violent radicalization and its prevention is unnecessary, in part because the problem is too small to warrant special attention. No, I do not deny the impact of successful attacks: in fact, the belief that we needed to do something and do it now stemmed to a large extent from the events of October 2014, when two home-grown Islamist terrorists killed two military officers two days apart just outside Montreal and right in the centre of Ottawa. There is nothing like having a gunman firing wildly down the hall from where the prime minister was at a caucus meeting in Centre Block to get governments to develop new programs.

It is also far from clear that any of the programs will make any difference in large part because measuring the effectiveness of such efforts is devilishly difficult. I concede that they are most likely not making matters worse, but it is next to impossible to determine that any one program is preventing any one person from thinking terrorism is a good idea.

Please note that I am not advocating ignoring this issue, as tiny as it is. The way I see it, our response in Canada should be two-fold. At one end, it is the job of CSIS and the RCMP to identify, investigate, and neutralize those seeking to plan and execute attacks. At the other end, I am confident that already existing programs in school and civil society that seek to turn people away from gangs and other dangerous anti-social acts can be easily tweaked to deal with the rare cases of violent radicalization. This does not need special, tailor-made funding or resources. In countries where this scourge is several orders of magnitude larger, there probably is a need for a special effort.

I am fairly certain that my position will make me enemies, especially among those parties with vested interests in CVE funding. But as a taxpayer, I want my government to be involved where it needs to be and not try to be all things to all people. Developing expensive programs for all but non-existent problems makes little sense to me.

Source: What if Canada stopped preventing violent extremism or countering violent extremism: would it make a difference?

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Racialized student achievement gaps are a red-alert

2019/02/12 Leave a comment

Interesting explanation and discussion of affirmative (helping individual students) versus transformative (addressing systemic barriers) without citing any evidence regarding the relative success of each approach:

Toronto public schools have major and rising student achievement gaps based on race and income, according to a landmark report last year. One of the biggest blocks to closing these gaps is educators’ understanding of why these gaps exist and the methods used to try and close them.

Last summer, education researchers, community partners and teachers gathered to address such reports of inequality. One of the main issues discussed was how identity-based data helps to locate and remove systemic barriers.

The action plan for Ontario, which aims to make sure every student has the opportunity to succeed, “regardless of background, identity or personal circumstances,” includes an analysis of identity-based data.

Researchers have demonstrated that in Toronto public schools, Black, racialized and lower-income students face significant gaps in student outcomes. Other reports show gaps as high as 30 per cent on standardized test scores. Lower socioeconomic groupings of Black, Middle Eastern, Indigenous and Latino boys were among those most impacted by the achievement gap

On top of this, racialized students feel less comfortable at school. Black, Latino and (racially) mixed students from lower socioeconomic groups reported lower levels of school satisfaction than all other racial groups. These students felt less comfortable participating in class than students in higher socioeconomic groups.

This data could help Ontario school boards not only identify issues, but also change the systems and structures that cause achievement and opportunity gaps for underserved groups of students.

Factor in historical injustices

For decades, researchers in the United States have used identity-based data to identify achievement gaps between groups of students based on race, gender, language, ability, sexuality and other social identities.

This has not been common practice in Canada. Although some of the U.S. research has been misguided, critiques of these early reports by education scholars has been helpful.

Research attention then turned to opportunity gaps. This framing considers historical structural barriers in schools that produce educational inequities. So instead of focusing on deficits in students, the research focuses on systemic issues such as economic resources, racism and embedded practices in policies.

This research shift was promising, but most discussions of opportunity gaps still fell short. They generally consider only the distribution and access to material goods within different schools, and fail to account for other opportunity gaps denied to students both inside and outside of school, including present-day and historical inequities.

Challenge traditional ways of thinking

As a former TDSB lead teacher in the Model Schools for Inner Cities(MSIC) Program designed to close gaps, and later, as a researcher who studied the MSIC program, I have some insight into how we might begin to tackle these issues in Ontario.

The MSIC program was launched in 2004 to support schools whose students faced the greatest barriers to success. My research analyzes how stakeholder groups like MSIC staff, community partners, district-level staff, school trustees and school principals in the MSIC program made sense of opportunity gaps.

I interviewed people from the stakeholder groups and analyzed program documents to gauge their understanding of the program and how their analysis shifted over a decade. Participants mostly agreed on the purpose of the program (to close opportunity gaps), but they had dramatically different ways of thinking about those gaps.

The two different approaches that emerged are affirmative versus transformative. These are categories defined in the context of international development by political theorist Nancy Fraser. The affirmative approach emphasizes fixing or saving students. This method tends to use language like “empower.”

The transformative approach focuses on addressing inequitable systemic barriers as well as challenging ways of thinking that maintain opportunity gaps. This method tends to use language like “support” and “affirm.”

These two different approaches to opportunity gaps lead to very different practices, policies and initiatives. Affirmative approaches saw students and families in the MSIC program as “in need,” while positioning the program as the “saviour.”

Transformative approaches positioned the program as temporary support that aimed to work itself out of existence. Underserved communities were understood to have abundant social, political and cultural resources and agency to ensure their children’s success.

Affirm identities

Affirmative approaches work to ensure all students have access to the same experiences and material goods. Equal access to nutrition, technology and health services is also essential in transformative approaches. However, a transformative approach believes opportunity gaps are not fixed by just providing equal resources. Programs should also work to affirm students’ identities.

In other words, schools should develop curriculum, field trips and extracurricular activities based on the students’ lived experiences, interests and aspirations. Injustices can be addressed by the redistribution of goods, but recognition and representation matter as well.

Affirmative approaches provide parents with opportunities to network, learn about parenting and build workforce skills within the confines of board structures.

Transformative approaches work with parents and caregivers to advocate for their rights and navigate the educational system to support their children.

Teach students to engage critically

Affirmative approaches are related to the purpose of achieving excellence, in teaching and learning, generally in the form of standardized test scores.

Transformative approaches view equity as a prerequisite for excellence, but excellence is not the main point of education. The main point is to support students in engaging critically in a democratic society.

As Ontario school boards begin their project of collecting identity-based data, and as the boards work towards closing the achievement and opportunity gaps, policy-makers and school leaders will need to focus on transformative approaches. Their work needs to understand the relationships between historical injustices and student achievement, engagement and well-being today.

Source: Racialized student achievement gaps are a red-alert

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Forty-one per cent of Canadians fear racism is on the rise

2019/02/11 Leave a comment

While I am not sure regarding the soundness of Research Co’s methodology and how it formulates questions, the overall gender, regional, party affiliation and age differences broadly reflect other public opinion research.

Canseco recently did an op-ed (Metro Vancouver voters value issues more than ethnicity | Burnaby Now) where he largely discounted the importance of ethnic vote strategies, legitimately noting that ethnic groups do not vote as a bloc but discounting the electoral strategies (candidate selection, policies) of political parties and the overall tendencies within some groups (e.g., Chinese Canadians tend to the right, Canadian Sikhs to the left, Canadian Jews have shifted somewhat from being Liberal to Conservative supporters):

Over the past couple of years, concerns about racism have entered the realm of international politics. We have witnessed some electoral success by xenophobic parties in Europe, as well as the dreadful statements of a Republican presidential contender in the United States who is now the country’s head of state.

Just last weekend, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam got in trouble over a photograph allegedly taken when he was attending medical school, at a time when he was not young enough to rely on the “boys will be boys” defence. Several professional football players have protested police brutality and racial profiling in the United States.

In spite of what is happening down south and on the other side of the Atlantic, Canadians are not immune to racism. Individuals and organized groups have taken advantage of the anonymity of social media to push a remarkably divisive agenda.

Some politicians have attempted to ignore the controversy. Quebec Premier François Legault recently made an ill-timed remark – on the second anniversary of a shooting inside a mosque that left six men dead – claiming that Islamophobia does not exist in his province. In Ontario, just how and when to resort to the acrimonious practice of “carding” – the stopping and documenting of individuals by police even though no particular crime is being investigated  – is still a matter of debate.

In Western Canada, British Columbia’s provincial government is preparing to re-establish a human rights commission. On the Prairies, provincial administrations have been severely criticized for not doing enough to help First Nations. In Manitoba alone, 11 of the 19 people who have lost their lives in police incidents this century have been identified as Aboriginal.

When Research Co. asked Canadians about racism in the country last month, the results were not uplifting. Two in five respondents to the survey (41%) think racism has become a more significant problem in Canada over the past two years. Women (47%) and Canadians aged 18 to 34 (46%) are more likely to feel this way.

https://public.tableau.com/views/Multiculturalism/Story1?:embed=y&:embed_code_version=3&:loadOrderID=0&:display_count=yes&publish=yes

Quebecers appear to be in tune with their current head of government, with 55% of the province’s residents asserting that racism has not worsened. Conversely, there is one area of Canada where residents are convinced that racism is growing. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, a whopping 55% of residents think racism has become a more significant problem recently. No other region of the country surpasses the 50% mark on this question.

That a sizable number of Canadians are concerned about racism should lead to a debate over the success of government policies. When Canadians were given a choice, just over two in five residents (42%) endorsed the multicultural concept of the “mosaic” and think cultural differences within Canadian society are valuable and should be preserved. A larger proportion of Canadians (49%) express a preference for the concept of the “melting pot” and want immigrants to assimilate and blend into Canadian society.

While women are equally divided in their assessment of the two concepts, most men (53%) favoured the “melting pot.” And while a majority of those aged 18 to 34 (60%) are fond of the “mosaic,” support for this idea falls to 39% among those aged 35 to 54 and 27% among those aged 55 and over.

On a regional basis, British Columbians are the most enthusiastic supporters of the “mosaic” (52%). A majority of Quebecers (53%) are in favour of the “melting pot.”

The survey shows two in five Canadians reporting an upsurge of racist behaviour and practically half desiring a “melting pot.” When asked directly about multiculturalism, 62% of residents think it has been “very good” or “good” for Canada, while 33% deem it “bad” or “very bad.”

While these numbers would imply success, support for the policy is half-hearted. Practically the same proportion of Canadians regard multiculturalism as “very good” (13%) and “very bad.” The difference in the total numbers amount to the 49% who claim the policy has been “good,” compared to the 19% who say it has been “bad.”

In an election year, it is important to analyze these findings by political allegiance. The voters who supported the Liberal Party or the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the last federal ballot hold similar views on two issues: multiculturalism has been good for the country and the “mosaic” is preferable to the “melting pot.” However, NDP voters are more likely to think racism has become a bigger problem recently (55%) than Liberal voters (40%).

In stark contrast, Canadians who voted for the Conservative Party in the 2015 federal election are unequivocally more likely to say that multiculturalism, as a policy, has been bad for Canada (42%), to express that racism has not become a significant problem in the country (56%) and to choose the “melting pot” (62%). Centre-right parties have never wholly embraced multiculturalism, which is often regarded as a legacy of the Pierre Trudeau era. They are not expected to do so now.

The survey suggests that while Canadians may not love everything about multiculturalism, they are signalling that they can be trusted to handle newcomers in a “melting pot” scenario better than the Americans. In any case, the fact that two in five residents feel that racism is intensifying should be disturbing for policy-makers.

Source: Forty-one per cent of Canadians fear racism is on the rise

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When will Canada take action for girls who endure FGM?

2019/02/11 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, the Conservative government’s efforts to reduce, if not eliminate, honour killings and FGM were hampered by their communications strategy of “barbaric cultural practices” labelling, whether it be in Discover Canada or the infamous tip line.

The Liberal government, following public pressure by Immigration critic Michelle Rempel, indicated that language on FGM will be included in the new (long-delayed) citizenship guide in likely more neutral language. .

Portenier’s call for greater government action is welcome. A help line is different in tone and substance than a tip line, the former targeting those most at risk.

Status of Women Canada should take a lead on developing a government-wide initiative to reduce the practice.

But maybe I have been missing this, but I have not seen much evidence that “cultural relativists – mostly white – who argue that FGM is a cultural prerogative” as she asserts or that anyone serious in government would listen to those arguments.

Silence within the communities themselves is another matter and finding ways to encourage more open discussion are needed (CCMW has worked in this area):

Not long ago, I sat with Hadija (not her real name), a young Canadian woman, tears streaming down her face, as she told me about her summer holiday back to her birthplace in Somalia, where she came face to face with a razor blade in a mud hut and was forced to endure female genital mutilation at the age of 14.

Wednesday is International Zero Tolerance Day for female genital mutilation (FGM) with activities worldwide, but in Canada it will again be greeted with a deafening silence. This, despite the fact that the Canadian government knows Hadija’s case is not unique; FGM is an issue here too. Government documents released to journalists under the Freedom of Information Act show that thousands of Canadian girls may be at risk of this torture.

There’s evidence girls are taken abroad for “vacation cutting,” and that “cutters” with their razor blades are entering Canada to do their dirty work here; and yet our government, much of civil society and the media remain silent.

FGM is the single worst systematic human-rights abuse committed against girls and women in the world today. It predates both Islam and Christianity and is defined as the alteration of the female genitalia for non-medical purposes. It’s an extreme form of sexual control of girls, and is a fact of life in 28 countries in Africa, and elsewhere too; in Asia – Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of India; pockets of the Middle East, including Egypt; pockets of South America; Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan; and now, with immigration from practising countries, in the West.

The most serious type of FGM, practised almost universally in Somalia where many Canadian immigrants hail from, involves removing the external part of the clitoris, the labia minora and majora, and then sewing everything shut, leaving only a tiny opening. It’s not difficult to grasp the serious health implications that result – post-traumatic stress, difficulty and excruciating pain passing urine and menstrual blood, complications in childbirth – even death. Never mind the right to pain-free, joyful sexual intimacy that every human being is entitled to.

According to the World Health Organization, there are 200 million FGM survivors worldwide, and more than three million girls at risk each year. Some of those girls are right here in Canada; recently a teacher in Greater Vancouver told me of a mother who confessed to having taken her own daughter to India to be cut; the teacher did nothing.

There’s been a law against FGM in Canada since 1997, but there hasn’t been a single prosecution. Unlike other Western countries, in Canada there are no protocols to save girls from FGM; no training for teachers, no systems in place to spot girls – and save girls – who are in danger. For survivors who came here already cut – and that includes young women who arrived here as small children – there is virtually no specialized help. No specific counselling, no specially trained doctors, nurses or midwives. Nothing. Contrast this with other Western countries: In Britain, survivor activists have forced the government into action. There are now helplines for girls at risk; specialized clinics for survivors; training for teachers to spot vulnerable girls; a mandatory reporting requirement of FGM cases for all health and social-services professionals and teachers. And just last week, they had their first conviction, of a mother who forced her three-year-old daughter to undergo FGM.

In Canada, there aren’t even any official statistics analyzing the scope of the issue.

An informal analysis of the 2011 Canadian Census looking at immigration from affected countries and UNICEF statistics on the prevalence of FGM indicates there may be upward of 80,000 survivors of FGM in Canada, and yet this is not an issue addressed by any government department. This distinct lack of action is fuelled in part by fear of stigmatizing the communities involved, and is encouraged by the adults of the communities themselves, who enforce a strict code of silence. The silence is also the by-product of cultural relativists – mostly white – who argue that FGM is a cultural prerogative, when in fact it’s an unacceptable abuse of a girl’s human rights, plain and simple. Indeed, in Africa the campaign to end FGM is driven by Africans themselves.

So far, no Canadian survivor has galvanized action on FGM. But that is no excuse for inaction. We are completely failing Canadian girls: those at risk, and young survivors such as Hadija crying out for help. It is a disgrace. By worrying so much about the cultural sensitivities of the adults, we are sacrificing the human rights of the children.

Source: When will Canada take action for girls who endure FGM? Giselle Portenier

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Andray Domise: The deterioration of data is robbing marginalized communities of their voice

2019/02/11 Leave a comment

The Globe’s ongoing series on Canadian data gaps is welcome and continues to draw attention to the gaps. As someone who relies on various data sources, particularly the Census, I find these concerns reasonable when it comes to health outcomes, incarceration rates, foreclosure data, children’s aid, police checks.

I am less convince, however, in some of the other areas. We do collect race-based data (visible minorities) in the Census which has finer gradations than the US Census (11 categories compared to 5 in the US). Census data allows analysis of participation and unemployment rates, average and median income, low-income, highest level of educational achievement, areas of study, employment in the public sector (federal, provincial, municipal, healthcare, education, social services, police) and whether in more senior or support positions.

In education, as I have argued earlier (Karen Robson: Why won’t Canada collect data on race and student success?), we actually have good data in terms of the outcomes of the different visible minority groups and the absence of comparable data to the TDSB data from other school boards is more a “nice-to-have” than necessary (see my analysis of education outcomes Education fields of study and economic outcomes).

Researchers and others will always want more data. How this gets priorized and implemented requires some choices given resource implications. In the meantime, researchers should explore creative ways of teasing out the insights from existing data sources:

The Institute for Policy Studies released a study last month on median wealth in American households, and the findings were unsettling, if unsurprising. While the inflation-adjusted median wealth of white families in the United States had grown from US$110,160 to US$146,984 over the past three decades, it had hardly increased at all for Hispanic families (US$4,289 to US$6,591), and dropped by roughly half for Black families (US$7,323 to US$3,557). By 2082, the study concluded that, should current trends hold, the Black family will have a median net worth of zero.

I posted excerpts from the study online, and an acquaintance of mine asked how Black families in Canada compared with their U.S. counterparts. I had no idea, I said. In Canada, we don’t collect, study and distribute such information.

This has long been a point of frustration. When I was a financial planner in a previous life, I often found myself having to debunk misconceptions about the ever-shrinking middle class. One of the more pernicious narratives was the long-term effects of the 2008 financial crisis, which, more than a decade later, many still erroneously blame on irresponsible, low-income “deadbeat borrowers.”

A 2010 study conducted by the American Sociological Review, I would note, found that banks not only targeted low-income areas for risky and complicated subprime loans, but denied traditional loans to qualified Black and Hispanic applicants, effectively creating a segregated class of borrowers who were disproportionately impacted when the interest on those loans skyrocketed.

A slew of follow-up studies in the United States eventually spurred federal investigations, which found that lenders did engage in discriminatory and predatory practices. One of the worst offenders, Wells Fargo, was hit with a US$175-million judgment in 2012 for saddling non-white borrowers with higher interest and worse deals on their mortgages than their white peers of similar credit standing.

Without publicly available municipal census metropolitan data, federally legislated land data and foreclosure information from private oversight agencies, not only could banks have gotten away with enriching themselves through illegal lending practices, there would have been no counternarrative to the myth that broke borrowers of colour collapsed the global economy.

And equivalent data, available and freely usable for such comprehensive studies, does not exist in Canada.

Not so long ago, the collection of race-specific data was seen as unseemly at best, and targeting at worst. That data was often used as a cudgel by police forces to stereotype marginalized communities, and often there was no counternarrative offered. But now, with data analysis having become essential to the global economy and our political systems, everything boils down to the numbers. Geopolitics are being tilted and societies are being reshaped by information asymmetries. Avoiding discussions about race has effectively left policy-makers wandering blindfolded through a forest, at the expense of communities of colour.

Our federal and provincial governments, for instance, have responded to increasing conversation about racialized state-sanctioned violence and discrimination by declining to quantify the problem. Even as policing agencies across the country tout the value of street checks as a tool for preventing and solving crime, data on their efficacy have typically not been studied nor reviewed by independently operated and funded oversight agencies. In Edmonton’s case, the police service funded a study in which the dataset was described as “contaminated” by officers’ subjective evaluations; in Vancouver, the data was only released to the public after a Freedom of Information request. Meanwhile, in Ontario, a report by a provincial judge declared it bluntly: “There is little to no evidence that a random, unfocused collection of identifying information has benefits that outweigh the social cost of the practice.”

While Canadians thank the heavens we don’t experience the statistically proven dysfunctions in the United States’ health, financial and public-safety systems, that gratitude is rooted in ignorance. We know that south of the border, Black mothers are three times as likely to die during childbirth as their white peers, but Canadians have no way to understand the scale of the Indigenous child-welfare crisis beyond the blunt sum of Indigenous children being funnelled into the children’s aid system. We have no aggregated national data on maternal (or even infant) mortality rates among specific ethnic groups, preventing Ottawa from creating targeted health policy. We have no comprehensive data on sexual-health practices among teens and young adults, which effectively granted the Ontario government carte blanche to roll back the sex-education curriculum by 20 years.

Time and again, marginalized communities have had to rely on an irregular flow of data to validate our stories and lived experiences – forced to marshal math in support of our stories that broader Canadian society too often dismisses as hysterics. Canada’s data deficiencies are not merely problems of public policy: They reflect an unacceptable level of neglect that’s become an obstacle to our ability to advocate for ourselves.

Source: The deterioration of data is robbing marginalized communities of their voice

The related Globe article: How Canada’s racial data gaps can be hazardous to your health

 

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Diversity Votes — February By-elections: Matching Census Data with Ethnic Media Coverage (31 January to 8 February 2019)

2019/02/11 Leave a comment

For background data on the riding demographic, economic, social and political characteristics, see: February By-elections: Matching Census Data with Ethnic Media Coverage (1-18 January 2019). 

Note: While Chinese in the chart of ethnic media coverage refers to written media, Cantonese and Mandarin to broadcast oral media, I generally summarize all three as Chinese media except where indicated. 

Ethnic Media Coverage

The ongoing focus on Burnaby South continued, with more articles commenting on the risks to  Jagmeet Singh’s leadership of the NDP should he not win the by-election in both Punjabi and Chinese (Chinese, Cantonese and Mandarin) media. Overall, coverage increased slightly to 25 articles compared to 18 the previous week (earlier weeks had 41 and 97 articles) .

Media coverage was roughly evenly split between Punjabi (44 percent) and 40 percent in Chinese media. 

In addition to the risks to Jagmeet Singh’s leadership, NDP fund-raising difficulties were covered as well as the Party’s poor prospects in Outremont based on polling data in Punjabi media. Singh’s universal pharmacare plan received coverage but was largely drowned out by stories concerning the risks to his leadership.

Stories covered in Chinese media included the risks to Singh’s leadership, that former Liberal candidate Karen Wang would not run as an independent (and noting her pregnancy), the visit of Andrew Scheer and his criticism of how the Liberals have handled the dispute with China over the requested extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, and that NDP leader Singh appeared to be in the dark regarding the change in his caucus’s position on the legitimacy of Venezualan leader Maduro. 

The all candidates meeting for Burnaby South was covered in both Punjabi and Chinese media, with the latter noting the “fiery debate.”

Korean media coverage focussed on the visit to Burnaby South of Conservative leader Scheer and the formal launch of Conservative candidate Jay Shin, who is of Korean descent. Scheer’s visit was also covered in Chinese media but curiously not in Punjabi or South Asian English media. An article in Arabic media focussed on the importance of Outremont to both Liberals and the NDP, as well as Quebec ridings overall to the Liberal re-election plans.

Five commentary pieces in Punjabi media appeared this past week. Three of these focussed on the electoral prospects of Singh and the NDP, with two highlighting the risks to his leadership and the generally poor prospects of the NDP. One noted that Singh’s prospects had improved given the controversial remarks of former Liberal candidate Karen Wang while another one criticized those who circulate fake news and rumours regarding Singh. Tarek Fatah’s previously published critique of ethnic voting (The Bankruptcy of Ethnic Vote Banks) was reprinted in English in the Punjabi media.

In general election coverage, the government’s announcement of measures to reduce foreign interference in the federal election continued to receive considerable coverage. Other stories of interest included former NDP leader Mulcair’s comments regarding the possible shift of NDP voters to the Green Party, and questions surrounding the controversial $300,000 fundraiser by Brampton area MP Raj Grewal in both Punjabi and Chinese media. Cantonese media covered the Conservative plans to assist candidates in their communication skills.

See the MIREMS blog for some of the stories being covered: MIREMS blog.

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Blogging break 7-10 Feb

2019/02/07 Leave a comment

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Toronto’s Africentric school draws consistent praise — so why is enrolment flagging?

2019/02/06 Leave a comment

Interesting to have more information regarding the lack of interest:

When the recess bell rings at Toronto’s Africentric Alternative School, kindergartners file out of a classroom and past a bulletin board with their latest class project on full display.

In it, the five-year-olds were asked to list and explain, “the best part of me.” A quick scan of the board reveals the most common answer, which make up about half of the responses: “I love my hair.”

The answer isn’t surprising to longtime students at the school, which began accepting applications 10 years ago this month.

“They encourage us to love ourselves,” said Grade 8 student Kyeron Banton, who started at the school in September 2009.

“I can walk out, wherever I am, no matter who’s around me, confident in my skin and confident in who I am,” she added.

‘2nd home’ to students

The Africentric Alternative School is one of 19 alternative elementary schools run by the Toronto District School Board. It operates in a wing of the Sheppard Public School, but unlike its neighbour, the curriculum includes a focus on the perspectives, experiences and histories of people of African descent.

It is the only public school of its kind in Canada.

During their time at the school, students learn about African contributions to science and mathematics, and the history of black people in Canada.

In the school’s hallways, posters of Oscar Peterson, Viola Desmond and Colin Kaepernick dominate the walls. Its music room is filled with dozens of African drums and steel pans, which come alive in a rich medley during music class.

Michelle Hughes, who has sent all three of her children to the school, credits the teachers and curriculum for boosting their self-confidence while making her life easier as well.

Hughes enrolled her oldest daughter in 2009, after she experiencing racist bullying at her previous school.

“One thing I don’t have to worry about here is the racism,” she said. “That’s one less thing off my plate.”

Andwele Osbourne James, a boisterous and outgoing Grade 5 student, turns serious when asked about what the school means to him.

“This could be like my second home,” he said. “Students around here are really helpful. They might not be my real siblings but they treat me like it.”

Enrolment struggling after 10 years

Despite glowing reviews from students, graduates and parents, enrolment at the school appears to be declining as it approaches its 10th anniversary this September.

The school has also been dogged by funding challenges and critiques around its vision and mandate.

For the current year, a record-low 107 students attend the Africentric Alternative School, down from a high of 202 in 2012 and 128 in its inaugural year.

The TDSB says fluctuations in enrolment are common at alternative schools, which can generate buzz in their first few years of existence before interest sometimes tapers off. The board also does not provide busing service to its alternative schools.

Principal Luther Brown, who is entering his second year leading the school, says its mission remains as vital and ambitious as it was 10 years ago.

“A lot of people are afraid of the idea of racism and racists. It is a fact that we live in a society that projects a lot of that,” Brown said.

He moves around the school with what might be described as a gentle but unmistakable authority.

“The hope is that [the students] become truly productive citizens who are proud of themselves, who know who they are, who are not afraid to meet the variety of injustices that will come their way,” Brown explained.

While the reasons for flagging enrolment are complex, some parents point to the school’s location near Downsview Park as a major hurdle for families. Students attend the school from as far away as Pickering and Mississauga.

Go wider with Africentric lessons?

Parent Paul Osbourne, who lives in Scarborough, said other areas in the city would benefit from similar schools.

“It has been a huge barrier for those from around the city that want to access the learning,” Osbourne said. “If the model is successful, we should be trying to replicate it in as many spaces and places across the city that we can.”

The TDSB says there are no current plans to open more Africentric schools, but people at the school say the school’s progressive curriculum could instead be better incorporated across the board.

Doing so could help students of all backgrounds feel represented and included in the classroom, they say.

“It’s important, not only black culture, but Indigenous, all the minorities who are not being represented well, they should be learned about so people that come from that can have self-confidence,” said Sekou Osbourne James, a graduate who now attends high school in Scarborough.

Over the next 10 years, Brown says he’d like to see more Africentric schools open around the city, along with a transformation of the TDSB’s standard curriculum to better account for Toronto’s diversity.

At his own school, the goals is to reverse sagging enrolment and have multiple classes at each grade level, and to keep pushing for a more progressive, inclusive learning.

“This could be your lab school, this could be where you test things out,” he said.

Source: Toronto’s Africentric school draws consistent praise — so why is enrolment flagging?

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MP says feds stall promise to act on anti-black racism one year after Trudeau pledge

2019/02/06 Leave a comment

Money was in the 2018 budget so it appears the issue is more with respect to implementation. Given the previous hollowing out of the multiculturalism program and the time needed to rebuild capacity, not that surprising expect perhaps to MPs and stakeholders:

Federal efforts to address systemic issues affecting black Canadians appear to have stalled one year after the prime minister made it an issue, says the head of Parliament’s black caucus as he put words to simmering frustrations with the slow pace of change.

It was a year ago that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for action to ensure equal opportunity and treatment for the more than one million black Canadians to address the “very real and unique challenges that black Canadians face,” including anti-black racism.

The cross-party caucus chairman, Greg Fergus, a Liberal MP from Quebec, described Sunday how the words were the culmination of a long lobbying effort that included politicians from different parties, political assistants and grassroots organizations.

Fergus said he thought the speech would mark a change in how the federal government interacted with black communities.

Instead, he said, the bureaucracy, which moves the machinery of government, doesn’t seem to have responded.

“I thought once you get the prime minister saying it, the whole system responds. But I have discovered how mistaken I was,” Fergus said during a panel discussion at a national summit Sunday.

“If there is not buy-in from the public service — if the public service, the machinery of government is not reflective of the diversity of the country, and doesn’t see that the black community is an important community that you want to deal with — it’s like Astroturf … it exists on the top but there are no roots.”

The two-day National Black Canadians Summit, which was the second one organized by former governor general Michaelle Jean’s foundation, kicked off Saturday.

The first summit laid out areas where the federal government needed to prioritize for work or strengthen efforts.

This time around, the aim is to connect different groups to mobilize the voices of the 1.2 million black Canadians to effectively lobby politicians as the country lurches towards a federal election in the fall.

Fergus’s comments put into focus frustrations voiced during the summit about federal efforts under the banner of the United Nations’ International Decade for People of African Descent, which requires governments to address systemic barriers in laws, services and housing, for instance, for black communities.

Fergus suggested his experience over the last year shows that lobbying isn’t a one-time event, but a constant push.

The Liberals have promised $19 million over five years for mental health and youth programs for black communities, and $23 million more over two years that included money for a broader anti-racism strategy, as part of its efforts.

The election is a chance to amplify the voices of black Canadians, said Richard Picart from the Federation of Black Canadians.

“This community, my community, is becoming more active politically,” he said.

“It’s becoming more difficult to ignore the black elephant in the room.”

A lobby day is planned for Monday where dozens of representatives attending the summit will meet with cabinet ministers and MPs to put forward specific asks and put black voices into the political conversation.

“The message is nothing can happen without us. We’re in. We are in and we need to be considered,” Jean said.

“We’re saying here we are and you need to listen to what we are bringing to the conversation.”

The federal government has been able to hire more blacks into the public service, but once in, they don’t seem to rise to the upper ranks, said Liza Daniel, a founding member of the Federal Black Employees Caucus.

She said the employees caucus is finalizing a report about a gathering in Ottawa last month, where participants talked about ways to improve the system for black civil servants.

Source: MP says feds stall promise to act on anti-black racism one year after Trudeau pledge

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Australia: Melbourne gets nod for $1mn ethno specific aged care

2019/02/05 Leave a comment

Have seen some of these initiatives in the Canadian context for language (second language fluency can decline), community and food choice reasons:

Indian community members joined local politicians and aged care providers recently at the launch of Planning Permits for an ethno specific, Indian aged care facility in Melbourne. The Australian Federal Government has approved a $1 million dollar grant towards the 108-bed facility in the south-eastern suburb of Noble Park.

According to Petra Neelman, Executive Director of MiCare (Formerly Dutch Care), the facility will ensure availability and access to linguistic and cultural needs, social activities and food choices for the residents. The plans include four prayer rooms, a vegetarian kitchen and a 300-seat capacity community hall among other culturally sensitive features.

Years of persistence in attempts to provision aged care services from an ethno specific Indian perspective finally saw some promising development with this launch. As all the dignitaries that attended the event pointed out, the credit for this exciting development goes to community leader and Multicultural Ambassador Vasan Srinivasan, who worked persistently to bring the plans to fruition.

Alan Tudge MP, Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population, commended Vasan for his persistence in spearheading projects that included the development of the Museum India in Dandenong, where the aged care facility launch was held.

‘Energiser Bunny’ and ‘Organiser Extraordinaire’ were the terms used to describe Vasan as the Minister acknowledged his hard work in negotiating with both the Federal and State Governments in relation to the proposed facility.

According to the Minister, ethno specific services provide enhanced connectedness and mental wellbeing for older people from diverse backgrounds. He thanked everyone involved for getting this up and running and officially declared the planning approvals as completed.

Roz Blades, Mayor, City of Dandenong, joined the Minister in launching the plans along with Neil Angus, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and Matt Fregon, Member for Mount Waverley.

Despite the melting heat, the event was well attended by multicultural leaders, community representatives and local media. MC Aneka and Swati admirably kept their cool through the entire event as they invited the dignitaries to say a few words.

Rakesh Malhotra (Consul General of India in Melbourne), Dr Dinesh Parekh (Artistic Director of Museum India) and Dr Sharad Gupta (President of FIAV) also addressed the audience briefly. A traditional Indian wrap and flowers were presented to all the dignitaries.

A light vegetarian meal was served after the event.

Speaking to the guests post event, Vasan Srinivasan shared his experience of the challenges that were faced and the multiple attempts made before reaching this stage of approval.

He is optimistic that the combination of MiCare’s experience of working with ethnic backgrounds, Federal and State Government funding and community support will ensure the realisation of this project. “As the population of Indians in Melbourne continues to grow it is imperative that the community has access to ethno specific aged care in order to age and live well,” said Vasan.

According to him, availability of an ethno-specific and multicultural aged care, bilingual workforce and health educators will play a pivotal role in promoting healthy ageing and community capacity building.

Source: Melbourne gets nod for $1bn ethno specific aged care

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