A cultural policy that overlooks multiculturalism [media focus]

2017/10/21 Leave a comment

George Abraham, publisher of New Canadian Media, on the need for broader and more diverse journalism (disclosure: I assisted George and New Canadian Media during its early years):

For a multicultural country, we have a rather monocultural media landscape. Our newsrooms and media organizations no longer reflect their audiences.  Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly missed an opportunity to make a policy intervention that would have at least nudged some reform.

Canada’s multicultural media has been decimated in recent years.  There were budget cuts in multicultural programming at the Rogers-owned OMNI Television. A promising media enterprise that published a string of multicultural and community newspapers went under in 2013. It was ironic that the Mississauga-based Multicultural Nova Corporation was being subsidized by the Italian government. These and other outlets help Canadians weave a shared narrative around what it means to be Canadian, at a time when our “ethno-cultural” (to use a favourite expression of bureaucrats) makeup is rapidly changing. Our ethnic media remain as fragmented and resource-strapped as ever.

“Canada’s ethnic and third-language communities do not have access to enough news and information programming in multiple languages from a Canadian perspective,” the chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Jean-Pierre Blais said in May.

The fact is, Canada is rapidly changing before our eyes, but we continue to sleepwalk through this transformation.

While media organizations and journalism schools appear to have given up measuring the representation of minorities in newsrooms (the last credible industry-wide study was in 2004), the government is aware that this lack of representation is a major handicap for new immigrants. A June 2014 study titled “Evidence-based Levels and Mix: Absorptive Capacity” (bureaucratese for how well Canada integrates its immigrants) stated categorically: “There is no clear commitment to achieving diversity in Canada’s newsrooms or in Canadian news content.” (The study was commissioned by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and it was released under the Access to Information Act.)

The government’s new cultural policy did little to shift the conversation to the emerging media players who are redefining journalism for a new era. It failed to state the obvious: a shrinking cohort of media organizations that have monopolized national discourse are headed for irrelevance, because neither their audience nor their newsrooms are reflective of Canada at large.

This lopsided media structure means that folks like me don’t get to tell our own stories on our own terms. Somebody else uses the lens of their lived experience to interpret our immigrant stories. A cultural and content policy written in 2017 ought to have been much more mindful of this shift – roughly 40 percent of Canadians are either foreign-born or the children of immigrants (the bulk of them have Asian roots, like Jagmeet Singh). The minister should have outlined specific goals to foster and sustain the kind of journalism that reflects a new Canada where the rise of a sardar (turbaned Sikh) is not a leap of faith, but a fact of life.

I write this as somebody who is well aware of the perils of “government support.” Not all governments are benign actors. In Dubai, the owners of the newspaper where I once worked found themselves on the wrong side of the ruling family. We had a dedicated “reporter” whose job was to relay diktats from the government to the editor. At another outlet in Doha, the newspaper was owned by the country’s then foreign minister. It was my job as managing editor to walk the gauntlet between censorship and shackled freedom. The country even had a director of censorship, who subsequently became the editor-in-chief of an Arabic language newspaper.

Not all journalists welcome government support. The Canadian nonprofit media organization that I run has lost editors who couldn’t live with any form of government funding. We’ve viewed these grants – including those from the Canada Periodical Fund – as seed money for an enterprise that serves the collective public good. I’d like to think that we exist because we fulfill a need. Joly missed an opportunity to signal a shift of tax dollars towards content that enables new players to take advantage of gaps in the marketplace of ideas.

I also know first-hand that editors and newsroom managers are loath to take the bold steps that will change the demographics of their newsrooms. There’s a lot of lip service being done out there and little concrete action. The cultural industries policy statement could have made a big difference by offering incentives to correct this imbalance and foster the growth of alternative media platforms that cater to niche markets.

Instead, the headline coming out of the policy statement was focused on Netflix and its promise to make investments in Canadian productions, as if this would in some way feed this country’s desperate need for a new narrative and a new conversation. Entertainment seemed to take precedence over journalism in the policy announcement, although both embody the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell the rest of the world.

However, fact is more important than fiction. Facts are sacrosanct and the need of the hour. The phenomenon of “fake news” can only be addressed by true and tested journalism. The opinions of Canadians need to be shaped by solid, on-the-ground reporting done by journalists who are embedded in their communities and share the lived experience of the places they call home. This includes newcomer journalists who offer unique perspectives about their communities and are informed by the day-to-day trials that immigrants face in buying or renting homes, finding employment, enrolling their children in schools and becoming full members of the society around them. There is a public interest in ensuring that their voices are heard, not just through niche media and ethnic platforms but also in legacy newsrooms.

The federal government has rightly supported Canadian culture and content since the days of the Massey Commission in 1951. A Canada of 35 million people, or an imagined one of 100 million, will live or die on the ties that bind its people together. Old-fashioned journalism ought to be the bedrock of a more globalized, more multicultural Canada.

Source: A cultural policy that overlooks multiculturalism

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Exorciser ses démons | Michèle Ouimet’s reflections on 10 years after the Bouchard-Taylor hearings

2017/10/20 Leave a comment

Good column by Ouimet, 10 years after the Bouchard-Taylor hearings, and the risks and rewards of having such open testimonies:

On l’oublie, mais la commission Bouchard-Taylor sur les accommodements raisonnables a été immensément populaire. Déversoirs des frustrations des Québécois, ses forums, pris d’assaut, étaient diffusés en direct à la télévision. C’était en 2007, avant la folie des réseaux sociaux.

Madeleine Poulin, ex-grande reporter à Radio-Canada, jouait le rôle de modératrice. Elle a sillonné les 17 régions du Québec et entendu les 764 témoignages.

L’entreprise était audacieuse, pour ne pas dire téméraire. Quand les gens prenaient le micro, Madeleine Poulin n’avait aucune idée de ce qu’ils allaient dire. Il n’y avait pas de filtre, pas de filet de sécurité, pas de pré-entrevue, rien.

« On leur donnait la parole sans savoir ce qu’ils allaient dire, m’a dit Madeleine Poulin. En direct, à la télévision. Je n’avais jamais vu ça. C’était un stress constant. Les commissaires [Gérard Bouchard et Charles Taylor] n’étaient pas très conscients de ce que ça représentait. Ils ne comprenaient pas la force de la télévision, encore moins les risques du direct. »

Environ 50 000 personnes étaient rivées à leur téléviseur pour écouter ce que monsieur et madame Tout-le-Monde avaient à dire. Un succès monstre pour RDI.

Un forum aussi ouvert est sans précédent dans le monde occidental, souligne Solange Lefebvre, titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en gestion de la diversité culturelle et religieuse à l’Université de Montréal.

« Une consultation publique sans filtre sur des sujets aussi explosifs ? C’était certainement hasardeux. »

– Solange Lefebvre

Il s’est dit quelques folies, sans oublier les antisémites et islamophobes de ce monde qui se ruaient sur le micro pour cracher leur venin.

Un homme a dit en parlant des immigrants : « Sacre ton camp et n’oublie pas de ramasser tes guenilles et tes ordures avec toi. »

Un autre a raconté : « J’ai vécu un an en Égypte parmi les musulmans, je les ai endurés, pis là, je m’aperçois que je dois les endurer encore. »

« Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire quand les Inuis [sic], au nom de leur religion, vont vouloir fumer le calumet de paix dans des endroits publics ? » a demandé un hurluberlu.

Du grand n’importe quoi.

Sans oublier ceux qui étaient hors sujet.

« Je suis rendu à 50 ans, je suis célibataire. Pas par choix. J’ai juste ça à dire. »

Heureusement.

Certains membres des minorités culturelles n’étaient pas en reste : « Je n’ai jamais lapidé ma femme », a précisé l’un d’eux.

Pourquoi ne pas les avoir interrompus ?

« Les commissaires voulaient que ce soit un grand exercice démocratique, une libération par la parole, a répondu Madeleine Poulin. C’était important qu’il n’y ait pas de contraintes. »

Les commissaires auraient-ils dû condamner les propos racistes ? J’ai posé la question à la chercheuse Solange Lefebvre.

Long silence au bout du fil, suivi d’un soupir. « C’est difficile. […] C’est pas pour rien qu’on a de la misère à décider du format de la commission actuelle sur le racisme. C’est la marmite identitaire, la marmite raciste, la marmite du ressentiment. »

Les médias ont souligné à grands traits les travers et les propos xénophobes, burlesques et racistes. Infoman en a même fait une anthologie.

Réduire la Commission à ces propos grotesques est injuste. Elle a permis au monde ordinaire d’exprimer son opinion, d’avouer ses peurs, de se défouler et d’apprendre ce qu’est un hijab et un niqab, préalable important pour avancer. Vider son sac pour mieux construire, une sorte de passage obligé.

Il ne faut pas oublier le contexte explosif. À l’époque, le Québec était survolté. Les cas d’accommodement raisonnable, souvent loufoques, faisaient les manchettes. C’était une course, chaque média cherchait le cas le plus croustillant pour faire sa une, allant des fenêtres givrées du YMCA à la cabane à sucre qui avait retiré le porc de son menu pour donner satisfaction aux musulmans, en passant par le code de vie d’Hérouxville qui précisait que les femmes ne pouvaient être ni lapidées ni brûlées vives.

Les accommodements étaient accordés à gogo, selon l’air du temps ou l’humeur des gestionnaires qui ne savaient plus à quel saint se vouer.

Alors oui, il s’en est dit des niaiseries à la commission Bouchard-Taylor, thérapie collective oblige.

Mais il n’y a pas eu que des niaiseries. Bien au contraire.

Les journalistes Valérie Dufour et Jeff Heinrich ont couvert toutes les séances de la Commission. Ils ont publié un livre peu de temps après, Circus quebecus.

« Des madames comme ma mère déposaient des mémoires à Sept-Îles, Québec, Saint-Jérôme, m’a expliqué Valérie Dufour. Elles disaient toutes la même affaire. Elles avaient peur que le port des signes religieux fasse régresser les droits des femmes. C’était très intéressant et pas si laid que ça. »

« Les mêmes thèmes revenaient souvent, a-t-elle ajouté : la peur des autres, la peur de perdre quelque chose, la peur de donner un privilège à quelqu’un. »

Le Québec avait besoin d’exorciser ses démons, nul doute là-dessus.

***

Où en sommes-nous, dix ans plus tard ? Avons-nous reculé ? Avancé ? Sommes-nous plus tolérants ? Faut-il lancer la pierre aux médias ? Ont-ils jeté de l’huile sur le feu ?

Il en sera question demain lors d’un colloque de l’Université de Montréal qui se penchera sur le Québec post-Commission.

À la fin des travaux, Charles Taylor avait dit : « On a beaucoup appris, mais on est encore plus confus qu’auparavant. »

Dix ans plus tard, a-t-il raison ?

Source: Exorciser ses démons | Michèle Ouimet | Michèle Ouimet

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Quebec law banning face coverings is neither neutral nor constitutional: Emmett Macfarlane

2017/10/20 1 Comment

Good assessment by Macfarlane:

The Quebec National Assembly has passed Bill 62, legislation introduced by the Liberal government that bans public workers and anyone receiving public services from wearing the niqab or any other face covering.

Although it is described as imposing a duty of religious neutrality on public servants and people using government services, the new law is neither neutral nor constitutional. It is impossible to reconcile this law as anything other than the targeting of a minority group, a slightly narrower spin on the now perennial Quebec debate over the wearing of (non-Catholic) religious identifiers.

Much like past proposals by the former Parti Québécois government under Pauline Marois, the law here is defended on the grounds of Quebec secularism, but it is a perversion of secularism, which would normally see the state refuse to adopt or sanction particular religions over others. Instead, the version of secularism to which Quebec’s political class seems to adhere is simply anti-religion, and more specifically, religions not reflected by the giant cross hanging in the National Assembly.

Protections under the Charter

It is this systemically discriminatory aspect of the bill which will fail to meet constitutional muster under the Charter of Rights. For not only does the bill violate the freedom of religion guarantee, it undoubtedly violates the Charter’s equality rights protections as well. The ban takes effect immediately, but detailed guidelines for exemptions – specifically, religious accommodation – apparently will not materialize until next July. In the meantime, the government better hope no Muslim woman wearing a niqab is prevented from accessing government services, for the law is unlikely to survive a court challenge.

No doubt the government has attempted to shield the law from precisely this sort of legal challenge. The ban applies to all face coverings, not just religious ones. But rights are held by individuals, and where it may be constitutional to force someone to remove a winter scarf or a pair of sunglasses, governments must justify imposing limits on religious freedoms like wearing the niqab.

Niqab

You will not see the Supreme Court sailing into the text of the Bible or Qur’an to determine which religious practices are “legitimate” requirements and which are not. The test is whether a rights claimant has a sincere belief. (Luc Lavigne/Radio-Canada)

It is at this point that some readers might object: “the niqab is a cultural affectation, not a religious requirement!” But courts in Canada do not engage in theology when ascertaining whether someone’s religious freedom has been infringed. Religions are not monolithic, and adherents have a diversity of viewpoints on all sorts of religious rules and practices. You will not see the Supreme Court sailing into the text of the Bible or Qur’an to determine which religious practices are “legitimate” requirements and which are not. The test is whether a rights claimant has a sincere belief that their religion requires particular practices or traditions.

So what justification does the government have for this law? The justice minister has cited reasons of communication, security and identification. You will be forgiven for wondering if you missed the news about a rash of nefarious people riding public transit lately, for it is unclear what security-related issues are actually at stake. As for identifying people using public services, there haven’t been any issues when people legitimately do need to show their face, such as when obtaining driver’s licenses.

But let’s stipulate that courts will accept this rationale as a pressing and substantial purpose for limiting people’s rights (courts normally accept any reasonable-sounding government purpose). The crucial question will be whether the ban minimally impairs the rights in question, and the clear answer is no.

There is no reason, security or otherwise, that anyone needs to see anyone else’s face on the bus. Especially in Canada with its pesky winters. To meet the Charter’s requirements, the benefit of a law needs to outweigh the harms imposed, and here religious freedoms will be violated for entirely illusory benefits.

There is one other common objection to this analysis, and that relates directly to why the government might have a legitimate reason to ban niqabs specifically: that niqabs are themselves oppressive, as Muslim women may be forced to wear them by their husbands or fathers or even their broader communities.

Banning women from the bus

Proponents of this view like to present a niqab ban as the feminist policy. But it is telling that some people will argue they are defending women, while defending the state telling women what they can or cannot wear. It is also unfortunate for this particular brand of “feminist” that Canadian women who wear the niqab have explained their own reasons for choosing to wear it and most have denied they are being forced. It is at best patronizing, and at worst xenophobic, to pretend that all of these Muslim women in Canada are suffering from a lack of personal agency in this regard.

It is also worth noting that if any of these women are oppressed, subject to such misogynistic control by their husbands or fathers, the effect of the law will not be to free them from their shackles but instead will be to simply ban them from using the bus.

The state cannot impose freedom by restricting it.

Source: Quebec law banning face coverings is neither neutral nor constitutional – CBC News | Opinion

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Square and Pinterest’s newly released employment data reveals a lack of diversity in top ranks – Recode

2017/10/20 Leave a comment

More tech industry numbers:

Square, a rising payments company, had only one person of color — an Asian man — in its 11-member executive ranks as of last year, according to newly available data.

Founded and run by Jack Dorsey, the company has a market value of $12.5 billion and had a total net revenue of $1.7 billion last year.

At another end of Silicon Valley, four of the eight executives at social media company Pinterest were people of color — two Asian males and a man and woman each of two or more races.

23andMe, a DNA testing company, was the only firm of approximately 20 top tech companies that have recently released such data that had an executive lineup near gender parity. Eight of its 17 top employees were women. Even so, only one of the 17 was a minority.

The lack of diversity among the upper ranks of these companies is consistent with other tech companies, and highlights the ongoing issue within Silicon Valley of bringing in leadership that isn’t white and male.

This new data comes from an ongoing project by the nonprofit Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. The project aims to create transparency about gender and race among Silicon Valley companies

The study shows for the first time the diversity stats for seven Bay Area tech companies: Square, Pinterest, 23andMe, Clover Health, MobileIron, Nvidia and View.

Using the data collected by Reveal, Recode looked at the top ranks of tech companies that have made their government diversity data public. We analyzed the racial and gender composition of executives or senior level managers, defined as people who “direct and formulate policies, set strategy and provide the overall direction,” according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (Note: The Reveal data and analysis doesn’t include the Seattle-based Amazon, but we’ve added it in. We left out Clover Health from our analysis due to a possible mistake in their data.)

The data from these companies reflect the lack of racial and gender diversity elsewhere in Silicon Valley.

Twitter, for example, had no blacks or Latinos among its 47 executives. Of Amazon’s 105 executives in 2016, just one was Latino and none were black.

Facebook’s 496 executives were some of the most diverse, with 7 percent, or 35 people from underrepresented minorities, specifically executives who are not white or Asian.

Companies with more than 100 employees are required by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to fill out an annual survey that identifies the race and gender of their employees in 10 different employment categories, from laborers to chief executives.

Source: Square and Pinterest’s newly released employment data reveals a lack of diversity in top ranks – Recode

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New Saudi body to discredit terrorist use of Islamic teachings – The National

2017/10/20 Leave a comment

While the centre may have some impact in terms of reducing the credibility of those who interpret Islamic teachings to justify violence and thus violent extremism, it will do nothing to minimize the negative impact of fundamentalist Salafism:

Islamic scholars have welcomed a Saudi royal decree to establish a religious centre that will monitor interpretations of Prophet Mohammed’s Hadiths to prevent extremists from using them to justify acts of terror and violence.

The Saudi ministry of information said the King Salman Complex for the Prophet’s Hadiths will become the leading authority on modern day use of the prophet’s teachings, which are used in Islam to govern all aspects of daily life.

Extremist groups have used interpretations to justify heinous acts and urge their followers to wage war in what is an often misinterpreted understanding of “jihad”.

The Saudi ministry of foreign affairs announced that the centre, which will be located in Madinah, will carry out further study the second authoritative source of Islamic teachings “to better understand the meanings of the Hadiths”.

The body, which was announced on Tuesday night, will look to “eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts”.

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s most senior Islamic authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al Sheikh, thanked the king for issuing a royal decree to establish the centre.

Sheikh Dr Mohammed bin Nasser Al Khazeem, vice president of general affairs at the Holy Mosque in Makkah, meanwhile said the King Salman Complex for the Prophet’s Hadiths will aim to bring the true meaning of the Hadiths to light and curb extremists’ interpretation of them.

“To learn and understand the Hadiths. To liberate people from the darkness of thought, the extremism and misinterpretation of the book of God, and the teachings that have been passed down to us through the Prophet,” he said.

The chairman of the centre has been named as Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan Al Sheikh, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, which serves as Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body.

Saudi Arabia has government centres for Islamic study which establish a universal method for teaching Islam both in the kingdom itself and abroad in Saudi Arabia’s many state-sponsored schools.

However, the study of the Hadiths, which number in the thousands and are equivocally interpreted, have often been less studied and been the source of debate since their origins more than 1,400 years ago.

The new centre will be overseen by a council of senior Islamic scholars from around the world, according to the decree, and will look to establish a more international interpretation of the teachings.

Saudi Arabian clerics, who have historically been dominated by Al Sheikh family, are the originators of the Wahhabi doctrine.

Wahhabism offers a stricter version of Islam that looks to the early days of Islam as the ideal by which to govern modern life and teaches the doctrine in its mosques, universities and schools abroad.

Source: New Saudi body to discredit terrorist use of Islamic teachings – The National

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Some fears of Islam justified: Lawyer [David Matas]

2017/10/20 Leave a comment

Sun Media continues to cover the perspectives of those concerned without comparable coverage of those in support of M-103. Both perspectives need to be covered.

My (faint) hope is that the Canadian Heritage committee will come up with a consensus on a working definition, one that puts that particular canard behind us, and allows focus on the day-to-day practical issues:

A celebrated Canadian human rights lawyer urged MPs to be careful in their use of the term Islamophobia, saying “fear of some elements of Islam is mere prudence.”

David Matas, an Order of Canada recipient who began his career as a clerk for the Chief Justice of Canada in the 1960s, delivered testimony Wednesday before the M-103 committee hearings in his capacity as senior counsel to B’nai Brith Canada.

“Not every fear of Islam is Islamophobia,” Matas said to the House of Commons Heritage Committee, noting that anyone who is not afraid of the various radical Islamic terrorist outfits in the world is “foolhardy”.

“Islamophobia does not appear in a vacuum,” Matas told MPs. “It grows out of a fear of incitement and acts of hatred and terrorism coming from elements of the Islamic community.”

The Winnipeg-based lawyer, who ran for office years ago as a Liberal, recommended the committee take a “dual focus” approach on both those victimized by Islamophobia and those within the Islamic community inciting hatred and terrorism.

Following Matas’ testimony, Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, urged the committee to aim towards a more precise definition of Islamophobia.

M-103 was nominally designed to denounce, and study, all forms of racism and discrimination, but has faced extensive controversy for singling out Islam.

Fogel pointed to a Toronto District School Board booklet’s definition of Islamophobia that included mere dislike of political Islam as worthy of censure.

“This incident exposes significant problems with relying on ad hoc, inadequate definitions of Islamophobia,” said Fogel.

On Monday, Muslim author and Sun columnist Farzana Hassan told the committee her concerns about how the term is used in other countries to suppress criticism from within the faith.

Source: Some fears of Islam justified: Lawyer | St. Thomas Times-Journal

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Google, Facebook Helped Anti-Islam Group During 2016 Election

2017/10/19 Leave a comment

The flaws in their business models keep on becoming more apparent:

If you saw ads on your Facebook feed showing an alternate reality where France and Germany were governed by Sharia law ahead of the 2016 elections, you’re not alone.

Facebook (FB, +0.89%) and Google (GOOGL, +0.18%) helped advertising company Harris Media run the campaigns for their client, Secure America Now—a conservative, nonprofit advocacy group whose campaign “included a mix of anti-Hillary Clinton and anti-Islam messages,” notes Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg’s account, Facebook and Google directly collaborated on the campaign, helping “target the ads to more efficiently reach the audiences.” Not only did the two tech giants compete for “millions in ad dollars,” but they also “worked closely” with the group on their ads throughout the 2016 election.

Voters in swing states saw a range of ads, including the faux tourism video that depicted French students being trained to fight for the caliphate, and the Mona Lisa covered in a burqa. Another ad linked Nevada Democratic Senate nominee Catherine Cortez Masto to terrorism, calling on viewers to “stop support of terrorism. Vote against Catherine Cortez Mastro,” and asking them to “vote to protect Nevada.”

Ads were optimized to target specific groups of people that they felt “could be swayed by the anti-refugee message.” And Facebook reportedly used its collaboration with Secure America Now as an opportunity to test new technology as well. Internal reports acquired by Bloomberg show that the ads were viewed millions of times on Facebook and Google.

This case distinguishes itself from that of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election in that Google and Facebook directly assisted Secure America Now in its targeting of audiences. Of course, the two companies have worked with political groups on their advertising strategies in the past, but the extent and secretive nature of their assistance in this case is uncommon. And the content of the ads themselves reportedly left some Harris employees feeling “uneasy.”

Google and Facebook were not immediately available for comment.

Source: Google, Facebook Helped Anti-Islam Group During 2016 Election

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Neutralité religieuse: les organismes devront composer avec une période de flottement, Bus driver enforcement questions

2017/10/19 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to watch as municipalities and other organizations struggle to implement the burqa/niqab ban:

Les municipalités, commissions scolaires et autres sociétés d’État qui seront soumises à la loi québécoise sur la neutralité religieuse devront gérer les demandes d’accommodements pour motifs religieux sans nouvelles balises pour une période qui pourrait durer neuf mois.

Dans l’espoir de fournir des « lignes directrices claires » à ceux qui devront appliquer la nouvelle loi, la ministre de la Justice Stéphanie Vallée a repoussé la date d’application de toutes les dispositions portant sur ces accommodements. Celles-ci entreront en vigueur « d’ici le 1er juillet », bien après la sanction officielle de la loi, explique-t-on à son cabinet.

Le projet de loi favorisant le respect de la neutralité religieuse de l’État et les demandes d’accommodements religieux doit être adopté ce mercredi à l’Assemblée nationale.

Dans l’intermède entre sa sanction et l’entrée en vigueur de ses dispositions sur les accommodements, les organismes qui y seront assujettis devront se rabattre sur l’article 10 de la Charte des droits et libertés — qui proscrit notamment la discrimination fondée sur la religion — quand ils feront face à des demandes d’accommodements.

« Des groupes de travail seront mis sur pied dans les municipalités, le milieu de l’éducation [et] les CPE pour s’assurer que l’on répond aux diverses questions qui seront soulevées », a assuré mardi la ministre Vallée.

« Je ne m’imagine pas non plus qu’après avoir adopté le projet de loi 62, tous les problèmes de la neutralité religieuse et des accommodements raisonnables [seront réglés] », a-t-elle aussi reconnu plus tard.

Le projet de loi sur la neutralité religieuse instaure la notion de réception et de prestation de services « à visage découvert ». Il s’applique surtout aux services publics, et il inclut la possibilité d’accommodements religieux si ces derniers respectent certains critères, comme le principe de l’égalité hommes-femmes. Il ne proscrit cependant pas le port de signes religieux chez les agents de coercition de l’État, comme l’avait recommandé la commission Bouchard-Taylor en 2008.

Pour la ministre Stéphanie Vallée, « le projet de loi [respecte] les droits garantis par nos chartes [et] représente donc le consensus défini entre les partis politiques ». « Nous vivons dorénavant dans la paix québécoise », estime-t-elle.

Source: Neutralité religieuse: les organismes devront composer avec une période de flottement | Le Devoir

Meanwhile, in English media, the bus driver enforcement question:

Montreal bus drivers are hoping for clarity — and bracing themselves for headaches — as Quebec moves to pass legislation that would require a Muslim woman who wears a niqab or burka to uncover her face to ride a city bus.

The Liberal government’s Bill 62 on religious neutrality would prohibit public workers, as well as those receiving a public service, from covering their face.

The law would apply to municipal services, including public transit. The guidelines for how those working in the public sector should carry out the law, however, may not be ready until next summer, after a round of consultations.

‘Are these niqabi ladies going to be wearing a tag in their neck saying they’re exempt [from] this law? How is it going to work?’– Shaheeh Ashraf of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women

That leaves the union representing employees of Montreal’s transit corporation, the STM, worried that individual drivers will have to make a judgment call in the meantime.

“STM bus drivers don’t want that responsibility. When it comes to applying the law, they want clear directives from the STM,” union spokesperson Ronald Boisrond said in an interview.

In an emailed statement, the STM said it’s still evaluating how the law would be applied and “the instructions to employees that will result.”

“Our goal will be to prevent employees from interpreting the law in their own way,” said STM spokesperson Isabelle Tremblay.

Source: With Quebec’s face-covering ban poised to become law, bus drivers seek ‘clear directives’ – Montreal – CBC News

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Hate Crimes Soared in England and Wales After Brexit | Time.com

2017/10/19 Leave a comment

 Latest UK stats:

Hate crime offenses in England and Wales rose to the highest point yet recorded in the year leading up to March 2017, according to official figures released on Tuesday by the government.

There was a 29% spike in recorded hate crimes— which include any crime motivated by religion, race, sexuality, disability or transgender identity— in the 12 months before March 2017 (80,393 offenses) compared to the same period between 2015-16 (62,518 offenses)

The vote to leave the E.U. in 2016 and better recording methods attributed to the rise, the government said. “The increase over the last year is thought to reflect both a genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the E.U. referendum” Britain’s Home Office, or interior department, said in a statement.

Anecdotal accounts flooded social media of attacks on some European communities in the country following the vote to leave the E.U. in June, which Leave campaign critics attribute to a rise in xenophobic rhetoric during and after Brexit campaign.

Hate crimes are still under-reported especially when the crime is committed online, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, the the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for hate crime, said in a statement . ” I will be working alongside the Government to strengthen our nationally co-ordinated response to hate crime” he said.

The majority of offenses recorded during the period were motivated by race. The report notes that there was a spike in the number of racially or religiously aggravated offenses after the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack in March, when a man killed 5 people after driving a car into pedestrians and stabbing a police officer.

Provisional figures provided by the police showed jihadist attacks over the summer led to a four-month sustained increase in hate crimes, starting with Westminster attack followed by the Manchester Arena bombing and London Bridge attack on June 3. The level of hate crime offences decreased in the following days and the pattern repeated itself after the Finsbury Park attack in June 19— when a van ploughed into worshippers near Finsbury Park mosque.

Disability and transgender hate crimes saw the largest increases 2016-17, with a 53% and 45% increase respectively compared to the year before, but the Home Office said these spikes were driven by improved identification and recording of offenses, as opposed to a dramatic increase in attacks.

Despite the rise in offenses, prosecutions for hate crimes actually declined in the year to 2016/2017, from 15,442 to 14,480 people. “The drop in referrals recorded last year has impacted on the number of completed prosecutions in 2016/17 and we are working with the police at a local and national level to understand the reasons for the overall fall in referrals in the past two years” Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, said in a statement.

“Police have improved the reporting procedures across forces, but we can do better at securing convictions – we need anyone who has been a victim of hate crime to report the abuse and the abuser to police to make sure these offenders are brought to justice” Hamilton said in a statement.

Source: Hate Crimes Soared in England and Wales After Brexit | Time.com

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Tech’s Troubling New Trend: Diversity Is in Your Head – The New York Times

2017/10/18 Leave a comment

While agree that racial, gender and religious diversity will not necessarily result in cognitive diversity (minorities may conform to the dominant workplace culture), Williams is right to note that it could be used as a smokescreen:

Discussing her work at Apple at an event last week about fighting racial injustice, Denise Young Smith, the company’s vice president of diversity and inclusion, said, “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse, too, because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation.”

That’s right: a dozen white men, so long as they were not raised in the same household and don’t think identical thoughts, could be considered diverse. After a furor erupted, Ms. Smith clarified her comments in an email to her team that was obtained and published by TechCrunch. It reads in part, “Understanding that diversity includes women, people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. people, and all underrepresented minorities is at the heart of our work to create an environment that is inclusive of everyone,” and “I regret the choice of words I used to make this point.”

But Ms. Smith wasn’t the first to endorse the view in her initial statement. Those of us in the tech industry know that the idea of “cognitive diversity” is gaining traction among leaders in our field. In too many cases, this means that, in the minds of those with influence over hiring, the concept of diversity is watered down and reinterpreted to encompass what Silicon Valley has never had a shortage of — individual white men, each with their unique thoughts and ideas. This shift creates a distraction from efforts to increase the race and gender diversity the tech industry is sorely lacking.

This overlaps with the sentiments expressed in a screed by a Google software engineer that critiqued the company’s race and gender diversity efforts and ascribed the unequal representation of women in tech to “biological causes.” It included the line, “Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity.”

If our focus shifts to cognitive diversity, it could provide an easy way around doing the hard work of increasing the embarrassingly low numbers of blacks and Latinos in the ranks of employees, in leadership roles, as suppliers and vendors, and on boards. The leadership of Apple, where Ms. Smith works, was only 3 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic in 2016. A recent report by Recode found that women made up at most 30 percent of leadership roles and no more than 27 percent of technical roles at major tech companies. The percentages of black and Latino employees in leadership was even more dismal, ranging from 4 percent to 10 percent.

The shift toward focusing on viewpoint or cognitive diversity may trace its roots back to the 1978 Supreme Court decision Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which set the stage for schools to consider race in admissions because of the educational benefits of diversity, rather than to redress prior discrimination. It is understandable that because the public discourse around affirmative action shifted along these lines, some came to believe that any kind of diversity — including cognitive diversity — must be equally valuable. But that means that the most meaningful ways through which this is formed (cultural, religious, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, ability and especially gender and racial differences) may be forgotten.

If this happens, we could lose an important check on the tendency of people who work at tech companies to hire more people like themselves. According to the Society for Human Resources Management, employee referrals accounted for over 30 percent of all hires in 2016. Employees typically recommend people similar to them in racial identity and gender, so it requires dedicated effort to recruit and hire people who don’t already have identities that match up with those of current employees. Counting up variations of “viewpoints” — however one might do so — won’t achieve that. And, to potential applicants from underrepresented groups, statements about “cognitive diversity” will send an unwelcoming message about a company’s real priorities for inclusion.

As my former Facebook colleague Regina Dugan said recently, even if cognitive diversity is a company’s ultimate goal, “we can’t step away from the idea that diversity also looks like identity diversity.” The effort to hire people with different points of view must not come at the expense of hiring members of actual underrepresented communities who add tangible, bottom-line value — and who deserve to work in tech as much as anyone.

Ms. Smith said in the email clarifying her remarks, “Our commitment at Apple to increasing racial and gender diversity is as strong as it’s ever been.” That kind of diversity — the old-fashioned kind, that still remains elusive — is what I hope my industry won’t abandon.

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