Marketed Multiculturalism Makes Canada A Hostile Homeland: Sarah Beech

2018/02/03 Leave a comment

Some valid points but a bit over the top in words and rhetoric, and too general with few concrete and implementable suggestions:

On January 30, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Government of Canada will officially recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent, which began in 2015 and runs until 2024. The objective of this recognition period is to highlight and celebrate the contributions people of African descent have made to Canada. But, what does that actually mean for black Canadians?

According to Trudeau, “This means learning more about the issues that affect black Canadians, including improving research and data collection, so we can better understand the particular challenges they face.”

In some respects, additional data is needed, but the collecting of more data will not necessarily produce new ways of thinking about historic problems, like anti-black racism.

Overall, Trudeau’s remarks were lackluster, peppered with symbolism to validate Canada’s selected brand of nationalism without explicitly delineating a strategic plan or any course of concrete action. I do not expect that he or his government would have been able to release a 10-point plan, but to make an address without any definitive next steps is futile in the fight against anti-black racism. His speech, the topic and the timing (two days before Black History Month, and three years late,) appear contrived and symptomatic of marketed multiculturalism.

Marketed multiculturalism occurs when racial and cultural diversity are used by social, political and economic discourses to validate state sponsored messages, amplified by news media, that Canada is a post-racial multicultural society. This marketed myth preserves the status quo, tokenizes racialized people and obfuscates the existence of racism and anti-black racism in this nation.

Within the marketed multicultural framework, when an acknowledgement of racism is made by institutions responsible for the systemic oppression of racialized people, the surreptitious ways in which racism operates become more nuanced. The prime minister’s announcement was a representation of this phenomenon. The particulars of his speech reinforced multiculturalism in Canada more than they declared a commitment to combatting anti-black racism. While the two are not mutually exclusive, in order for either to be fully realized the commitment has to be more than just promised.

For multiculturalism to be legitimately realized in Canada, the policy needs to go beyond the page. Acknowledgements need to be met with action. Cultural inclusion, equity and other principles upon which authentic multicultural ideology is premised must not conflate performance with progress. The absence of this distinction makes Canada a hostile homeland for black Canadians, Indigenous people, racialized immigrants and other people of colour.

As politicians make (more) policy, they both have a propensity to succumb to the effects of marketed multiculturalism, where acknowledgement and accountability are systemically destined to never meet within the status quo. While accountability is not impossible, it does require all Canadians to interrupt the political performance, forgo the politeness and promote political progress for racialized people in Canada.

via Marketed Multiculturalism Makes Canada A Hostile Homeland

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Antisemitic incidents in UK at all-time high

2018/02/03 Leave a comment

Latest UK data – not police-reported but CST plays a similar role as B’nai Brith does here:

Antisemitic hate incidents have reached a record level in the UK, with the Jewish community targeted at a rate of nearly four times a day last year, figures indicate.

There were 1,382 antisemitic incidents recorded nationwide in 2017 by the Community Security Trust.

This was the highest tally that the trust, a charity that monitors antisemitism, has registered for a calendar year since it began gathering such data in 1984. The figure rose by 3%, compared with a total, in 2016, of 1,346 incidents – a tally that itself was a record annual total.

There was no obvious single cause behind the trend, the trust said. “Often increases in antisemitic incidents have been attributable to reactions to specific trigger events that cause identifiable, short-term, spikes in incident levels. However, this was not the case in 2017. Instead, it appears that the factors that led to a general, sustained, high level of antisemitic incidents in 2016 continued throughout much of 2017.”

The report pointed to a rise in all forms of hate crime following the EU referendum as well as publicity surrounding alleged antisemitism in the Labour party. These factors may have caused higher levels of incidents as well as encouraged more reporting of antisemitic incidents from victims and witnesses in the Jewish community, the trust said.

The trust’s figures showed a 34% increase in the number of violent antisemitic assaults, from 108 in 2016 to 145 in 2017. The most common single type of incident in 2017 involved verbal abuse randomly directed at Jewish people in public.

There was a fall in the number of incidents that involved social media, from 289 in 2016 to 247 last year. Three-quarters of all the antisemitic incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, home to the two largest Jewish communities in the UK.

The trust’s chief executive, David Delew, said: “Hatred is rising and Jewish people are suffering as a result. This should concern everybody because it shows anger and division that threaten all of society. We have the support of government and police, but prosecutions need to be more visible and more frequent.”

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said antisemitism was a “despicable form of abuse” which had “absolutely no place in British society”.

She said: “I welcome this report’s findings that the rise in reported incidents partly reflects the improving response to these horrendous attacks and better information sharing between the CST and police forces around the UK. But even one incident is one too many, and any rise in incidents is clearly concerning, which is why this government will continue its work protecting the Jewish community and other groups from antisemitism and hate crime.”

The shadow communities secretary, Andrew Gwynne, said the findings were extremely concerning and emphasised “just how important it is that we all make a conscious effort to call out and confront antisemitism”.

A spokesperson for advocacy group Hope Not Hate said the levels of antisemitism remained unacceptably high and it was concerning to see that incidents had not declined.

Stephen Silverman, director of investigations and enforcement at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said the trust figures were indicative of official 2017 police statistics. “Antisemitic crime has been rising dramatically since 2014 and that rise is not explained by an increase in reporting, and we have seen no noticeable impact from Brexit,” he said.

Silverman added: “We believe that Jews are being singled out disproportionately and with increasing violence due to the spread of antisemitic conspiracy myths originating from Islamists, the far-left and far-right, which society is failing to address, as evidenced by the ongoing disgraceful situation in the Labour party, and because the Crown Prosecution Service declines to prosecute so often that antisemites no longer fear any consequences to their actions.”

Until the criminal justice system and political parties stopped “paying lip service to antisemitism,” he said, “the threat to the security of British Jews was at risk of reaching crisis point”.New data this week revealed that hundreds of hate crimes have been committed at or near schools and colleges in the last two years, most linked to race and ethnicity.

Source: Antisemitic incidents in UK at all-time high

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

The rise of Indigenous members of the Baha’i faith

2018/02/03 Leave a comment

Interesting (the 2011 NHS shows that over three-quarters of Indigenous peoples are Christian, with most of the balance responding “no religious affiliation” – Aboriginal spirituality being under five percent):

As Canadian members of the Baha’i faith continue to bask in the glow of the 200th anniversary of the birth of their Persian founder, Baha’u’llah, they take particular pride in the many Indigenous people among their faith, which emphasizes the divine origins of all religions.

To that end one of Canada’s most prominent Baha’i, Bob Watts, former chief of staff to the Assembly of First Nations, will be taking part in festivities and discussions on Thursday, Feb. 2, at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre in East Vancouver.

Hailing from the Mohawk and Ojibway Nations, and residing at Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve, Watts recently completed his duties with the AFN. Before that he was the interim executive director of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which makes recommendations regarding the Indian Residential School era and its legacy.

The invitational event with Watts in Vancouver will include remarks from Chief Robert Joseph, one of the most truly reconciling voices in Canada’s truth and reconciliation process, which sometimes descends into politics and division.

Baha’i followers emphasize the ethnic diversity of their membership. When Metro Vancouver’s Baha’is marked their founder’s birthday last October, there was significant participation by large numbers of Baha’i who are Indigenous. (See drumming photo above.)

via The rise of Indigenous members of the Baha’i faith | Vancouver Sun

Filed under Aboriginal, Religion Tagged with ,

Identifying radical content online: Ryan Scrivens

2018/02/02 Leave a comment

I only wish we could use some of these analytical tools to better understand overall integration and the role that social networks play in either increasing integration or allowing individuals and groups to remain within their own community or group?

Violent extremists and those who subscribe to radical beliefs have left their digital footprints online since the inception of the World Wide Web. Notable examples include Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist convicted of killing 77 people in 2011, who was a registered member of a white supremacy web forum and had ties to a far-right wing social media site; Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, and who allegedly posted messages on a white power website; and Aaron Driver, the Canadian suspected of planning a terrorist attack in 2016, who showed outright support for the so-called Islamic State on several social media platforms.

It should come as little surprise that, in an increasingly digital world, identifying signs of extremism online sits at the top of the priority list for counter-extremist agencies. Within this context, researchers have argued that successfully identifying radical content online, on a large scale, is the first step in reacting to it. Yet in the last 10 years alone, it is estimated that the number of individuals with access to the Internet has increased threefold, from over 1 billion users in 2005 to more than 3.8 billion as of 2018. With all of these new users, more information has been generated, leading to a flood of data.

It is becoming increasingly difficult, nearly impossible really, to manually search for violent extremists, potentially violent extremists or even users who post radical content online because the Internet contains an overwhelming amount of information. These new conditions have necessitated the creation of guided data filtering methods, which may replace the laborious manual methods that traditionally have been used to identify relevant information.

Governments in Canada and around the globe have engaged researchers to develop advanced information technologies, machine-learning algorithms and risk-assessment tools to identify and counter extremism through the collection and analysis of big data available online. Whether this work involves finding radical users of interest, measuring digital pathways of radicalization or detecting virtual indicators that may prevent future terrorist attacks, the urgent need to pinpoint radical content online is one of the most significant policy challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and security officials worldwide.

We have been part of this growing field of research at the International CyberCrime Research Centre, hosted at Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology. Our work has ranged from identifying radical authors in online discussion forums to understanding terrorist organizations’ online recruitment efforts on various online platforms. These experiences have provided us with insights we can offer regarding the policy implications of conducting large-scale data analyses of extremist content online.

First, there is much that practitioners and policy-makers can learn about extremist movements by studying their online activities. Online discussion forums of the radical right or social media accounts of radical Islamists, for example, are rich with information about how members of a particular movement communicate, how they construct their radical identities, and who they are targeting — discussions, behaviours and actions that can spill over into the offline realm. Exploring the dark corners of the Internet can be helpful in understanding or perhaps even predicting trends in activity or behaviour before they happen in the offline world. If, for example, analysts can track an author’s online activity or identify an online trend that is becoming more radical over time, analysts may be in a better position to assist law enforcement officials and the intelligence community. At the same time, it is important to note that online behaviour often does not translate into offline behaviour; authorities must proceed with caution to ascertain the specific nature of an instance of online activity and the potential threat it poses.

Second, practitioners and policy-makers can gain valuable information about extremist movements by utilizing computational tools to study radical online activities. Our research suggests that it is possible to identify radical topics, authors or even behaviours in online spaces that contain an overwhelming amount of information. Signs of extremism can be found by drawing upon keyword-retrieval software that identifies and counts a specific set of words, or sentiment analysis programs that classify and categorize opinions in a piece of text. Large-scale, semi-automated analyses can provide practitioners and policy-makers with a macro-level understanding of extremist movements online, ranging from their radical ideology to their actual activities. This understanding, in turn, can assist in the development of counter-narratives or deradicalization and disengagement programs to counter violent extremism.

We must caution practitioners and policy-makers that our work suggests there is no simple typology or behaviour that best describes radical online activity or what constitutes radical content online. Instead, extremism comes in many shapes and sizes and varies with the online platform: some radical platforms, for example, promote blatant forms of extremism while other platforms encourage their subscribers to tone down the rhetoric and present their extremist views in a subtler manner. Nonetheless, a useful starting point in identifying signs of extremism online is to go directly to the source: identifying topics of discussion that are indeed radical at the core — with language that describes the “enemies” of the extreme right, for example, such as derogatory terms about Jews, Blacks, Muslims or LGBTQ communities.

Lastly, in order to gain a broader understanding of online extremism or to improve the means by which researchers and practitioners “search for a needle in a haystack,” social scientists and computer scientists should collaborate with one another. Historically, large-scale data analyses have been conducted by computer scientists and technical experts, which can be problematic in the field of terrorism and extremism research. These experts tend to take a high-level methodological perspective, measuring levels of — or propensity toward — radicalization or ways of identifying violent extremists or predicting the next terrorist attack. But searching for radical material online without a fundamental understanding of the radicalization process or how extremists and terrorists use the Internet can be counterproductive. Social scientists, on the other hand, may be well-versed in terrorism and extremism research, but most tend to be ill-equipped to manage big data — from collecting to formatting to archiving large volumes of information. Bridging the computer science and social science approaches to build on the strengths of each discipline offers perhaps the best chance to construct a useful framework for assisting authorities in addressing the threat of violent extremism as it evolves in the online milieu.

via Identifying radical content online

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , ,

John Ivison: Senate amendments to gender diversity bill set to test Trudeau’s feminist principles

2018/02/02 Leave a comment

Find Ivison overly alarmist here. Requiring companies to have diversity plans but allowing them to set their own targets, with annual reporting, is a reasonable balance between doing virtually nothing and moving the yardstick.

There are likely some changes that may be needed (e.g., size of companies that are covered).

Bu is meritocracy really at risk as Ivison argues? Seem to recall same argument being used each time organizations want to increase diversity:

Are there any limits to how far Justin Trudeau will go to foster diversity and inclusion? We may be about to find out.

While he was in Davos, the prime minister made a big deal about the representation of women on corporate boards.

“Companies should have a formal policy on gender diversity and make the recruitment of women candidates a priority,” he said in his speech to the World Economic Forum.

To this end, the Liberal government has introduced a bill (C-25) to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, which (among other things) requires companies to place their diversity policy before their shareholders, and if they fail to do so, to explain why (the widely adopted “comply or explain” approach).

Even that level of intervention has some free marketers wondering what business it is of the government to interfere in the running of private corporations.

But the current proposal is tame compared to amendments being proposed by a group of influential senators that will have many executives choking on their Porterhouse steak.

The six senators — Serge Joyal, Frances Lankin, Paul Massicotte, Lucie Moncion, Ratna Omidvar and André Pratte — have written to their colleagues saying they believe the current bill “lacks teeth.”

They would like to add amendments that would force the 270,000 companies incorporated under the CBCA to adopt diversity policies that set numerical goals and timetables on female, indigenous, disabled and visible minority board representation. Companies would have to report their progress not just to their shareholders but, “for the purposes of monitoring,” to the government. Ministers would be required to prepare and publish a report on the data – a clear indication that further corrective action could one day be taken.

“To be clear: our amendment would not set quotas,” the senators say.

Nonetheless, quotas would be set, even if, at this stage, by the companies themselves.

The senators are now rallying their colleagues and if they have the votes, bill C-25 will be sent back to the House of Commons. One source said there appears to be a critical mass of senators in favour of the amendments, which will likely be introduced next week.

At that point, Trudeau will have a decision to make. While the government has not looked kindly on Senate amendments, Trudeau charged senators to use their independent judgment to improve government legislation. He is unlikely to want to shirk what he sees as his moral duty to promote diversity and inclusion.

Carol Hansell, senior partner at the Toronto law firm Hansell LLP, is critical of the bill in its existing form for a number of reasons, principally because it will force companies to hold annual elections of individual directors — the concept of majority voting. She said she believes governance should flow from securities regulation, not corporate statute, which she deems too rigid to respond to changing circumstances.

Hansell thinks the same is true of the diversity issue and that many people would find the imposition of government oversight “objectionable.”

“I think everyone is uncomfortable with quotas. It’s too blunt a tool,” she said.

Even Trudeau shied away from anything that resembled a quota in the legislation. When Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains introduced the bill, he said it would “contribute to an inclusive economic growth agenda” but would not unduly burden business.

The bill was deemed sufficiently benign by the Conservatives that they supported it – pointing out much of it was based on their economic action plan.

The “comply or explain” model has already been adopted by the Canadian Securities Administrators, covering most of Canada’s publicly traded companies.

The dissenting senators point out the results have been unspectacular over the past few years — 14 per cent of board seats are now occupied by women, up from 11 per cent in 2015.

Only 1.1 per cent of board members are Indigenous, 3.2 per cent have disabilities and 4.3 per cent belong to visible minorities.

As a share of the population, all four groups are under-represented (women and girls make up 50.4 per cent of the Canadian population; three per cent are Indigenous; 19.9 per cent are visible minorities and 13.7 per cent report some kind of disability).

Smart companies are moving toward board representation that more accurately reflects their shareholders and customers.

But we are veering into dangerous territory when we reject the notion of meritocracy as a mechanism that merely re-inforces male privilege.

Change is happening before our eyes, even if it is not as rapid as some might like.

But it is simply not the role of government to dictate who should be running the nation’s businesses.

Source: John Ivison: Senate amendments to gender diversity bill set to test Trudeau’s feminist principles

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Le Conseil des arts du Canada partage plus d’argent, selon des critères d’inclusion

2018/02/02 Leave a comment

More implementation of the diversity and inclusion agenda:

Inclusion de la relève, des arts autochtones et de la diversité. Augmentation générale des « subventions de base » — celles qui assurent, pour un cycle de quatre ans, le fonctionnement des compagnies artistiques. Le Conseil des arts du Canada (CAC) passe aux actes : ses nouvelles valeurs se reflètent dans l’attribution de ses subventions. En dévoilant les premiers bénéficiaires d’une subvention de base depuis qu’il a adopté, en 2015, son nouveau modèle, le CAC incarne sa nouvelle manière, et affirme son désir de moduler le paysage artistique.

Les changements sont nombreux dans la liste des « Bénéficiaires d’une subvention de base », dont Le Devoir a obtenu copie. À travers le pays, 1154 organismes ont reçu une subvention de base, ventilant quelque 117 millions en 2017-2018, comparativement à 92 millions en 2016-2017. Cent dix organismes reçoivent cette subvention pour première fois — soit 10 % des organismes — et accèdent ainsi à une possible pérennité. Environ trois organismes sur cinq voient leurs subventions augmenter pour ce cycle. Les arts autochtones, des artistes de la diversité, des sourds et handicapés, ou des communautés des langues officielles en situation de minorité sont fort encouragés. Quelque 62 % des organismes axés sur ces pratiques ont reçu des subventions à la hausse ; 24 nouveaux organismes en reçoivent pour la première fois.

Le CAC « vient d’attribuer à peu près 60 % de l’argent frais aux organismes », explique Simon Brault, directeur. « En ce moment, il reste encore 57 millions à dépenser d’ici le 31 mars. Ça va avoir beaucoup d’effets. Dans les prochaines semaines vont sortir les résultats par projet — par exemple, ceux du Fonds numérique, très importants sur le plan des investissements. » C’est donc seulement l’automne prochain, après une année entière, qu’un premier bilan pourra se faire de manière éclairée.

« Les compagnies les plus augmentées sont en général les plus pointues dans leur discipline », estime M. Brault, citant la compagnie Marie Chouinard et le Centre canadien d’architecture. « On voit apparaître de nouvelles disciplines : le cirque contemporain, avec le Cirque Éloize, qui entre pour la première fois au fonctionnement, ou des compagnies spécialisées en arts et handicap », telles Corpuscule Danse et Des pieds et des mains. Art Souterrain, qui propose des expositions temporaires en des lieux inusités, comme le métro, est aussi un des nouveaux financés. « De nouvelles pratiques sont soutenues. On fait des choses surprenantes ! » se réjouit le directeur. « Il y a une capacité de renouvellement importante. J’ai hâte de voir ce que va produire ce signal dans le soutien des autres conseils des arts, ce qu’ils vont donner ou pas à ces compagnies, au Québec et à Montréal. Le CAC a eu la chance de vraiment aligner ses investissements avec les principes annoncés. C’est rare qu’un conseil des arts qui reçoit de l’argent frais ces temps-ci, peu importe où dans le monde, décide de le distribuer autrement que de façon égale à tout le monde. Nous, on a choisi une voie différente. »

Pics et plateaux

David Lavoie, coprésident du Conseil québécois du théâtre, a salué « l’avancée des investissements : il y a dix ans, on ne l’imaginait même plus. Oui, il y a des attentes importantes des milieux artistiques, nourries par les crises de la succession, par la pression sur la nécessaire inclusion de la diversité et de la réalité autochtone. Il reste des investissements à venir. Il y a des gagnants ; présentement, on ne semble pas voir grand perdants, mais je pense qu’il est trop tôt pour faire un bilan. Il peut y avoir rééquilibrage des forces ».

Quelque 34 % des organismes n’ont pas reçu d’augmentation. En théâtre, l’Espace Go et le Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental sont de ceux dont les sous stagnent. Isabelle Gingras, directrice administrative de ce dernier, ne se l’explique pas. « On est extrêmement déçu. On revendique la création, la recherche, et ça veut dire parfois que les résultats ne sont pas artistiquement parfaits. Peut-être. Mais vraiment, je ne sais pas pourquoi on n’est pas augmenté. »

À l’inverse, le Théâtre de Quat’Sous voit sa subvention de base augmenter de plus de 100 000 $ par an. « Il y avait dans les critères le souci de représenter davantage la mosaïque culturelle de notre société », note Olivier Kemeid, directeur artistique, parlant de l’inclusion de la diversité. « Dans notre cas, ça n’a pas demandé d’effort particulier, c’est au coeur de notre démarche. Comme rayonner dans la cité, prendre des risques. Alors, on est choyé d’avoir un montant semblable pour les trois prochaines années. »

Au Regroupement québécois de la danse, on demandait plus de temps d’analyse avant de commenter. Les premiers calculs effectués laissent entendre, pour la danse, une augmentation en 2017-2018 de 22 % du financement et de 18 % du nombre d’organismes admis, a avancé Virginie Desloges, responsable des finances.

Alors que Québec attend la version définitive de sa nouvelle politique culturelle, son plan d’action et l’argent qui devrait permettre d’en appliquer les mesures, certains s’inquiètent que la province ne s’appuie trop sur l’investissement supplémentaire du fédéral en arts. « Si le Québec sait si bien tirer son épingle du jeu, c’est aussi parce que c’est la province qui investit le plus en arts, répond M. Brault. Quand je parle avec les ministres de la Culture, je rappelle que si le Québec fléchit dans son investissement, il n’ira pas ensuite chercher la même part au CAC, plus haute que la proportion de sa population. J’espère l’effet contraire : que nos investissements incitent le Québec à maintenir ses choix, et à continuer à investir dans les arts, au lieu de se retirer pour un même montant. »

via Le Conseil des arts du Canada partage plus d’argent, selon des critères d’inclusion | Le Devoir

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Extremists use schools to pervert education, says Ofsted head Amanda Spielman | The Times

2018/02/02 Leave a comment

Increasing muscular language by Ofsted. It would be helpful if she could cite some examples of other religions rather just highlighting legitimate concerns with some Muslim schools:

Religious extremists are “perverting” education by using schools to narrow children’s horizons and cut them off from wider society, the head of Ofsted is warning.

Parents and community leaders see schools as vehicles to “indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology” in the worst cases, Amanda Spielman says. In a speech today, she will call on head teachers to “tackle those who actively undermine fundamental British values”, facing them down using “muscular liberalism” rather than being afraid of causing offence.

Ms Spielman will also throw her weight behind Neena Lall, the head of St Stephen’s primary school in east London, who has tried to stop girls under eight from wearing the hijab in class and to prevent younger pupils taking part in Ramadan fasting during school hours.

Ms Lall was compared to Adolf Hitler in a video circulated by a group of parents and community leaders. Councillors also protested, accusing the head teacher of undermining the freedom to practise faith and insisting that it was up to parents to decide how to dress and bring up their children. The school, a secular state primary in a largely Pakistani and Bangladeshi community, was forced to reverse the decision.

In an unusual move, Ofsted inspectors arrived at the school yesterday to check on the welfare of staff and pupils and to show solidarity with the head. In a speech to be made today at a Church of England schools conference, Ms Spielman attacks those who opposed the stance taken by St Stephen’s, saying it is a matter of “deep regret” that the school, considered one of the best in the country, has been subjected to “a campaign of abuse by some elements within the community”.

Head teachers must have the right to set uniform policies as they see fit to promote cohesion, Ms Spielman says. “Rather than adopting a passive liberalism, that says ‘anything goes’ for fear of causing offence, school leaders should be promoting a muscular liberalism,” she says. “It means not assuming that the most conservative voices in a particular faith speak for everyone — imagine if people thought the Christian Institute were the sole voice of Anglicanism. And it means schools must not be afraid to call out practices, whatever their justification, that limit young people’s experiences and learning.”

Since starting the job as Ofsted’s chief inspector a year ago, Ms Spielman, 56, has made tackling religious extremism one of her main goals. Her speech is her most outspoken attack yet on religious communities who seek to limit the education and opportunities of youngsters in the name of faith.

“Ofsted inspectors are increasingly brought into contact with those who want to actively pervert the purpose of education. Under the pretext of religious belief, they use education institutions, legal and illegal, to narrow young people’s horizons, to isolate and segregate, and in the worst cases to indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology. Freedom of belief in the private sphere is paramount, but in our schools it is our responsibility to tackle those who actively undermine fundamental British values or equalities law.”

Ms Spielman has confronted unregistered faith schools when she believes they are not serving communities well. She also took legal action against Al-Hijrah, a state-funded faith school in Birmingham, to stop it segregating girls and boys on religious grounds. Another 25 mixed-faith schools will have to follow suit as a result of the ruling by judges in the Court of Appeal.

The Ofsted chief has challenged primaries that allow girls to wear a hijab or similar headscarf, saying that it could be seen as sexualising those as young as five or six. The practice of head covering is usually associated with modesty only after the onset of puberty. She said that inspectors would question girls seen wearing headscarves in primary schools to establish why they did so. As a result of her stance, she and other inspectors have received threats. Last year she told The Times that security measures had been put in place for herself and some Ofsted staff.

Ofsted says that zealous parents and community leaders dictating school policies is not widespread but happens “enough to be a cause of concern”. Its inspectors have identified at least 170 unregistered faith schools, attended by up to 3,000 children.

via Extremists use schools to pervert education, says Ofsted head Amanda Spielman | News | The Times & The Sunday Times

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Senate proposal would force companies to set diversity targets for board of directors

2018/02/01 Leave a comment

Clear from current data that a nudge needed, with annual reporting to provide accountability:

In an effort to bolster the number of women, Indigenous people and racial minorities sitting on corporate boards, a group of senators is poised to amend government legislation that would force companies to set internal diversity targets.

Independent Ontario Sen. Ratna Omidvar, one of six members of the Red Chamber backing the amendment, said the Liberal government’s current approach in Bill C-25, which would simply encourage companies to boost gender diversity without applying any sort of target, is too timid.

The amendment would compel all publicly traded Canadian companies — roughly 600 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) — to set targets for increasing underrepresented groups, but would leave it up to each company to decide on what the target should be.

“The bill, as it currently stands, is just a tap on the shoulder, whereas our amendment turns the tap into more of an intentional nudge in the right direction,” Omidvar, an expert in diversity, said in an interview with CBC News. The amendment is expected to be introduced by Independent Sen. Paul Massicotte on Thursday, some 18 months after the bill was first tabled in the House of Commons.

Voluntary approach not good enough: senator

Under the government’s bill, a diversity policy is not mandatory. If a company does not develop one, they would simply have to tell their shareholders why, the so-called “comply or explain” approach adopted by other regulators in Canada.

“For us, that’s too soft a nudge,” Omidvar said. “What we may well get, as a result of this bill, is corporations developing diversity policies and putting them on the shelf and no action.”

Omidvar points to research from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), an umbrella group of provincial securities regulators, which suggests a voluntary approach to diversity has led to little improvement.

Only 14 per cent of board seats are occupied by women, a three-percentage-point progress from 11 per cent in 2015. Forty-five per cent of all publicly listed companies do not have a single woman sitting on their board of directors. As for senior management, only 15 per cent of positions are filled by women, a proportion that has not progressed at all since 2015.

The research found that 1.1 per cent of board members are Indigenous, 3.2 per cent are persons with a disability and 4.3 per cent are members of a visible minority.

CSA also found that only 9 per cent of companies have internal targets for women on their boards, with a mere 2 per cent having targets for women in executive positions.

Omidvar said targets are not “quotas” per se as each company would be able to decide how many diverse candidates should be added to a board, but, at the very at least, they will have to commit to doing more.

Those targets, and a company’s success in meeting them, would then have to be reported to the federal government on an annual basis.

In turn, the minister responsible, the innovation minister, would prepare a public report documenting how well companies in Canada, writ large, have done in adding women and minorities to the seats of power at these companies. The company would also have to disclose progress to shareholders at their annual meetings.

Importantly, the amendment would actually define what exactly “diversity” is as the government’s bill, as currently written, is vague on that question.

If passed, the amended bill would compel companies to replicate definitions used by the federal government, namely that “diverse” candidates would include women, visible minorities, Indigenous people and those with disabilities. Notably, LGBTQ people would be excluded under such a definition.

Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains is unconvinced amendments are necessary and will not support this move to alter his bill.

“The minister has been clear that the act and the forthcoming regulations are an appropriate and balanced approach that will facilitate a conversation on diversity between shareholders and the management and boards,” a spokesperson said in a statement to CBC News.

The spokesperson pointed to the success of the “comply or explain” model in the United Kingdom and Australia, where the number of women on boards stands at more than 20 per cent in both jurisdictions.

“Given this, we believe Bill C-25 is a good bill for corporations, stakeholders, shareholders, and all Canadians, and hope for its quick passage through the Senate,” he said.

Opposition to quotas

There is a reluctance from some in the business community to set hard quotas — as has been done in Norway, for example, where 40 per cent of all seats must be occupied by a woman.

Paul Schneider, a senior executive at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, one of the largest institutional investors in the country, told the Senate committee studying Bill C-25 last month that he’d like to see a culture shift rather than the imposition of quotas.

“To be truly impactful, boards must take ownership of diversity. With a quota, they can abdicate ownership to the government,” he said.

“In the short run, quotas can indeed lead to greater diversity, but we fear that while establishing a quota incents boards to hit a specific number, it may hinder any progress over and above that target … Diversity should be achieved because it is good, sound business, not because it is a rule,” he said.

Omidvar said many companies are naturally sceptical of more regulation. “Generally, this is not particular to this bill, business leaders feel the less encumbered they are, the more capacity they will have to succeed in their business goals … but, as I’ve pointed out, [the amendment] just takes the bill from a tap to a nudge.”

And yet the proposed reporting regulations have the potential to be onerous as the more than 600 companies would have to take stock of how each of their board members (some have more than 20) identify, and then report that information to the government where the data would then be analyzed and catalogued, taking up time, money, and other resources.

Others, including Conservative Sen. Betty Unger, have said appointments should simply be based on who is best for the business.

“People invest in corporations to get a return on their investment, and this is best accomplished by appointing merit-based people to boards … As a woman — and, as you can see, I am not young — I could never feel good about myself if I knew that I got a position simply because I am a woman,” she said at a Nov. 30 committee meeting on the bill.

via Senate proposal would force companies to set diversity targets for board of directors – Politics – CBC News

 

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

L’ancien chef de La Meute réplique aux propos de Trudeau | Le Devoir

2018/02/01 Leave a comment

Hard to know what is the best strategy: call them out and risk giving them more oxygen or ignoring them in the hope that their messages will be less heard.

But in general, whether calling people “deplorables” or “nonos” is likely unproductive; better to call out and contest their statements then label people:

Les propos tenus lundi soir à Québec par Justin Trudeau font tiquer La Meute. Le premier ministre, qui a traité les membres du groupe nationaliste identitaire de « nonos », a été copieusement insulté par l’un des adhérents de premier plan de l’organisation, mardi.

Le premier ministre n’a pas manifesté de regret d’avoir déclenché l’escalade verbale qui se lit dans un message publié sur la page Facebook publique du regroupement par Sylvain « Maïkan » Brouillette, qui taxe Justin Trudeau — sans le nommer — de « trou de cul ».

Le membre du groupe aux positions proches de l’extrême droite a affublé le chef libéral de cette épithète sous prétexte qu’il « a fait des associations et des amalgames révoltants » entre La Meute et le drame de la mosquée de Québec survenu le 29 janvier 2017.

Dans le discours qu’il a livré dans la Vieille Capitale lors de la cérémonie de commémoration de l’attentat qui a fait six victimes, Justin Trudeau a pesté contre les « racistes », ces « nonos qui se promènent avec les pattes de chiens sur le t-shirt ».

C’est ce qui lui a valu la réplique de Sylvain « Maïkan » Brouillette — qui, selon ce que rapportait Vice News en décembre dernier, a abandonné son poste de chef de bande pour redevenir simple membre de La Meute. Il a été impossible de déterminer quelle est sa position hiérarchique actuelle.

« Un nono c’est quelqu’un qui voit une patte de chien au lieu de voir l’emblème du Québec surmonté de ses valeurs de démocratie, de làïcité (sic), de liberté et d’égalité », écrit-il dans sa tirade coiffée du titre « C’est quoi un nono ? ».

« Celui qui fait des associations et des amalgames révoltants entre la Meute et le drame de la grande mosquée de Québec est non seulement un nono, mais un trou de cul », peut-on lire sur la page Facebook qui compte près de 17 000 abonnés.

L’auteur du message soutient également qu’« un nono ce n’est pas quelqu’un qui s’affirme pour défendre ses valeurs », mais bien « quelqu’un qui acceuille (sic) en héro (sic) dans son bureau un criminel comme Joshua Boyle ».

Il fait référence à l’audience qu’a accordée Justin Trudeau dans son bureau du parlement à l’ancien otage des talibans en Afghanistan qui a été rapatrié au Canada en octobre dernier, et qui est depuis sous le coup de multiples accusations criminelles.

Il réserve aussi dans cette publication quelques mots à l’intention de Philippe Couillard. Sans le nommer, il accuse le premier ministre du Québec d’être un « nono » — dans son cas, pour avoir comparé « la colonisation du Canada avec l’immigration moderne ».

Dans son allocution devant la foule réunie pour souligner le premier anniversaire de la tragédie, le premier ministre québécois s’est demandé pourquoi certains citoyens se sentaient plus Québécois que d’autres alors que leurs ancêtres sont aussi des immigrants.

« On est tous venus d’ailleurs rejoindre les Premières Nations, il n’y a que la date qui change. Et cette date ne détermine pas notre niveau de citoyenneté », a fait valoir Philippe Couillard, lundi soir, à Québec.

Trudeau ne regrette pas

Du côté d’Ottawa, Justin Trudeau n’a exprimé mardi aucun regret d’avoir eu recours au terme « nonos ». En marge d’une annonce, il a au contraire promis qu’il serait « toujours là pour dénoncer ceux qui ne sont pas en train de bâtir une société meilleure et plus ouverte à tous ».

Il a argué qu’il y avait « encore des gens intolérants à l’intérieur de notre société », et qu’il en allait de sa « responsabilité » comme premier ministre de « dire clairement quand des propos sont haineux, quand des déclarations ou des gestes sont inacceptables dans cette société ».

Le député conservateur Pierre Paul-Hus ne partage pas cette lecture ; selon lui, de tels propos sont indignes de la fonction qu’occupe Justin Trudeau. « Traiter ces gens-là de nonos, je trouve que ce n’est pas des mots qui devraient sortir de la bouche d’un premier ministre », a-t-il dit.

via L’ancien chef de La Meute réplique aux propos de Trudeau | Le Devoir

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Meet Trudeau’s lead on multicultural communications, PMO press secretary Amreet Kaur

2018/01/31 Leave a comment

While much of the article is a personal profile, some interesting comments on ethnic media strategy and tactics:

Canadian political parties are increasingly emphasizing multicultural communications and outreach work, and as the Liberal government’s lead staffer focused on communicating with the country’s many multicultural communities and news outlets, PMO press secretary Amreet Kaur plays a “vital” role in the office.

“The component of multicultural outreach remains one of the vital components of any party’s outreach strategy, and Amreet, from her experience … really is singular,” said John Delacourt, a vice president at Ensight Canada who served as director of communications for the Liberal caucus’ research bureau on the Hill from January 2016 to January 2017.

“I think PMO relies on her [Ms. Kaur’s] working rapport with the multicultural outlets,” he said.

“She just has an intuitive ability to work with a full range of communities across the country, has a strong sense of regional issues, [and] knows the GTA and the 905 area and the Greater Vancouver area really well,” said Mr. Delacourt.

She also has a great “working rapport” across the Liberal caucus and with Canada’s various multicultural outlets, and keeps a political, “strategic lens on everything that she’s doing,” he said.

Ms. Kaur is one of four press secretaries currently working in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) office—the others being Eleanore Catenaro, Chantal Gagnon, and Vanessa Hage-Moussa, all led by Kate Purchase as communications director—but is the only one focused specifically on multicultural communications and outreach for the office. She’s been in the PMO since January 2016, having arrived straight from a job with the Ontario Liberals at Queen’s Park.

In her current role, Ms. Kaur tackles media relations work—drafting press releases, ensuring they’re disseminated and that outlets are aware of government announcements or other initiatives, helping plan events, and managing incoming media requests—and also does a “great deal” of stakeholder engagement and outreach, all focused on multicultural communities, explained Mr. Delacourt.

“She would cover it from the cabinet side. … All of the components that go into what we call the larger cabinet communications rollout,” said Mr. Delacourt.

The idea of pursuing specific multicultural communications outreach is one that’s been on the rise in modern Canadian politics.

It’s part of the “big shift” that pollster Darrell Bricker and columnist John Ibbitson explored in their 2013 book, The Big Shift: The Seismic Change In Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means For Our Future. And while the 2015 federal election results have since tangibly countered their argument that Canada’s immigrant—or ethnic—communities largely lean conservative, the electoral importance, power, and influence of these voting groups was borne out.

The vast majority of ridings with high immigrant or visible minority populations swung Liberal in 2015, and were key to elevating the party to its current majority government status. They’re expected to be equally important in 2019.

Of the 41 federal ridings in Canada with a visible minority population of 50 per cent or more, 27 are located in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (one represented by a Conservative MP, the rest Liberal), nine are in Vancouver and its surrounding area (two represented by NDP MPs, one by a Conservative MP, and the rest Liberal), two in the Montreal area (both Liberal), and two in Calgary (now held by one Liberal, one Independent). Rounding out that list is Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux’s riding of Winnipeg North, Man.

By another indicator, based on the 2016 census, the top five largest concentrations of immigrant populations in Canada are located in: Peel region, at 51.5 per cent; Toronto, with 47 per cent; York region, at 46.8 per cent; the Greater Vancouver census division, with 40.8 per cent; and Montreal, at 34 per cent.

The Durham and York regions account for 15 federal ridings; Toronto has 25; Brampton, Mississauga, and Oakville have 13 ridings; Vancouver and the Lower Mainland include 15 ridings; and central Montreal contains 10, with another 13 seats in city’s suburbs and Laval—that’s 91 ridings, out of 338 federal seats in all.

Almost 23 per cent of Canadians’ first language is one other than French or English, according to the 2016 census.

“As the government gets ready for the next election, diverse communities are critical to their success—to any political party—so her [Ms. Kaur’s] role becomes even more important,” said Gabriela Gonzalez, a consultant for Crestview Strategy who previously worked alongside Ms. Kaur at Queen’s Park and described her as a friend.

While previously, the “mainstream media approach” largely defined “how media relations was done” in politics, a little over a decade ago—around the start of Stephen Harper’s first Conservative government—focus began to shift towards specific multicultural communications outreach, said Mr. Delacourt. He said in part, this shift was a result of Conservative polling on the question of same-sex marriage legalization in Canada in 2005.

“The Conservatives polled on it and realized that you could almost map, in terms of value questions, map [based] on [ethnic] communities across the country,” he said. “Jason Kenney was one of the key figures in this—they did extensive work with communities across the country.”

In short order, other political parties also came to realize that as multicultural communities evolved across the country, so too did “the opportunities for political engagement” and participation, and that they weren’t being “cultivated to the degree that they should be,” said Mr. Delacourt.

Plenty of ink has been spilled over the previous Conservative government’s multicultural communications and outreach efforts. That includes former citizenship and immigration minister Jason Kenney’s much-touted work to court various ethnic communities in Canada—leading some to dub him the ‘Minister of Curry-in-a-Hurry.’

By September 2014, a manager of cultural media was added to the Harper PMO’s communications team, in addition to a small team of regional communications advisers—and separate from the slate of other, general communications strategists and officers working in the office.

“Multicultural media didn’t really grow until I’d say the last eight years or so. It’s really taken on a life of its own,” said a Liberal source familiar with Ms. Kaur’s work for the party federally and provincially.

A directory developed by the Canadian Ethnic Media Association last year (which is locked to non-members) lists more than 1,200 ethnic media outlets, from print to radio to online to television, according to a piece from the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre last September. That includes the Sing Tao Daily, Radio Tibet, CHIN TV and Radio, OMNI-TV, PTC Punjabi, The Eastern News, New Tang Dynasty TV, among many others.

Currently in her late 20s, Ms. Kaur hails from Mississauga, Ont., and studied an undergrad in political science at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus. Her parents are originally from India….

via The Hill Times

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →