What Canada needs now: a strategy against hate: Elghawaby

2015/11/24 2 Comments

Amira Elghawaby, the communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), with her suggestions on what should be done to combat anti-Muslim activity:

Yet the events of the past few days, both the terrorist attacks and the apparent backlash, must reinforce our commitment to ensuring Canada remains one of the happiest places on earth—for everyone. Our history shows that we have to work for the country we want.

How should we do this?

First, the federal government should immediately partner with Canadian Muslim communities to fashion an effective strategy to combat extremist narratives. This new brand of terror promotion is a contemporary phenomenon that few know how to tackle. The previous government did provide limited funding for an initiative called Extreme Dialogue which highlights the experiences of a mother of a young Canadian who was killed fighting overseas for extremist groups and the experiences of a former white supremacist. There was also some funding provided to explore community resilience through workshops and public fora. We need more of this, implemented strategically across the country.

Second, community stakeholders must come together to find new ways to teach about acceptance and to promote multiculturalism. Again, leadership is key: for example, provincial ministries of education must ensure that teachers are using the resources that national organizations like MediaSmarts and others provide to ensure curricula are taught through a lens that allows young people to identify stereotypes and to challenge popular misconceptions. We need to create safe spaces for our increasingly global classrooms.

Third, police services must bolster hate crimes units and their responses. Victims are often reluctant to report and it’s important to provide both adequate resources and support. Perpetrators must also be swiftly brought to justice.

Fourth, Islamophobia must be considered as offensive and as socially unacceptable as any other hatemongering out there, whether anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia or sexism. This means that even in political discourse, there must be a responsibility to ensure that questions about refugees, for example, are not giving people license to air anti-Muslim sentiments and fuel suspicions about people fleeing the very same type of terror we witnessed in Paris.

Fifth, it’s time to take the Islam, out of ISIS. Most of the world calls this terrorist movement Daesh and ISIS has been widely condemned by Muslim scholars and institutions worldwide. Muslims and Islam should not be synonymous with a group of barbaric criminals. It hurts our communities, it hurts our children, and it only bolsters their false claims. Even law enforcement agencies agree that language has the power to cast suspicion over entire communities, and provide a veneer of credibility to the terrorists’ claims.

Finally, Canadians must choose “love over fear,” to echo the touching sentiments expressed in a Montreal metro earlier last week by three young men who posted a video of their solidarity. Holding each other’s hands, a Muslim originally from Egypt, his friends from Paris and New York, did what many Canadians must do now—defeat the extremist narrative by coming even closer together.

I would also add to her list: maintain the Statistics Canada annual report on police-reported hate crimes (with the shift of multiculturalism to Canadian Heritage, this should be a priority).

Source: What Canada needs now: a strategy against hate | hilltimes.com

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For one Liberal MP the refugee backlash cuts close to home: Tim Harper

2015/11/24 Leave a comment

Arif Virani, newly elected MP for Parkdale-High Park, on his life story and reactions to intolerance:

There was a backlash in 1972, as there is now, and it surfaced sporadically over the years. It happened again during the campaign, where a handful of voters told Virani they would never vote for a Muslim.

That stings as much today as it did 23 years ago when a guy in a North Bay bar called him a “Paki,’’ or 10 years earlier when the same label was affixed to his mother in a Toronto grocery store.

“You know, I’m a fairly level-headed guy, I like the sound of my own voice,’’ Virani said Thursday.

“I’m a litigator and I can talk and I can usually deal with issues and I’m well-versed in responding at the door.’’

He could handle himself when people objected to the Liberal position on trade, or CBC funding, or anti-terror legislation, but that ease melted away when he faced intolerance.

“Whether you are 3 or 43, when somebody volleys an intolerant, bigoted sentiment to you, it stupefies you for a moment. You want to say, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ But you can’t say that, because you always want to be respectful.

“I was tongue-tied. I would pause. I would say I’m sorry you felt that way, that’s not the type of Canada I believe in, have a nice day.

“It’s very demeaning and dehumanizing when you get attacked on something because of your skin colour or your religion or your place of origin.’’

So, he agonizes over the mosque-burning in Peterborough, the vandalism of a Kitchener temple, and the assault of a Muslim woman in his old Flemingdon Park stomping ground. The woman was picking up her son at Grenoble Public School, where Virani’s sister used to attend, when she was assaulted in what Toronto police called a hate crime.

Two Muslim women were accosted and verbally assaulted on a subway at Sherbourne Station on Wednesday. A Muslim woman in Ottawa found a threatening note in her mailbox.

Virani believes the Rob Ford regime at Toronto City Hall, then the injection of the niqab in the Stephen Harper campaign, emboldened those who had kept such thoughts to themselves, ripping the filter off those who silently harboured racist views.

“It gave people an issue to latch on to and something to go on the attack about,’’ he said.

But he takes heart in the response to the backlash. The Peterborough mosque raised more money than its goal after it was torched. There was a similar outpouring of revulsion over the Flemingdon Park assault.

That shows progress, he thinks, but adds: “To be blunt, there will always be an element in Canada that is resistant to change and . . . are somewhat intolerant. They fear the unknown.’’

Source: For one Liberal MP the refugee backlash cuts close to home: Tim Harper | Toronto Star

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Canada could be corporate diversity leader, says study | Advisor.ca

2015/11/24 Leave a comment

Slow progress:

But this is unlikely, says the CBDC [Canadian Board Diversity Council], because the pace at which corporate diversity is improving is too slow. In fact, the report card reveals women currently hold 19.5% of FP500 organization board seats. That’s up from 17.1% in 2014, but Canada is still behind when it comes to bringing women on board. In the UK, for example, there are no all-male FTSE100 boards, while there are 109 such boards in Canada.

“The pace of change for board diversity is encouraging, but there’s more work that needs to be done,” says CBDC founder Pamela Jeffery. If each organization on the FP500 replaced one retiring male director with one female director, says CBDC, Canada would be among the leading countries for gender board diversity—at 30% female representation.

EFFECT OF PRESSURE FROM OSC 

According to the CBDC’s report card, the OSC’s corporate diversity disclosure requirements are making a difference. When surveyed, almost half (49%) of directors indicated their boards have written diversity policies, up from 25% last year.

However, this data contradicts findings from OSC, adds CBDC. In a recent report, the regulator found that only “14% [of boards] clearly disclosed the adoption of a written policy, whereas 65% disclosed that they had decided not to adopt a written policy.”

“The findings of this year’s Annual Report Card show board disclosure requirements on diversity are having a positive impact,” says Michael Bloom, vice president of Industry and Business Strategy for The Conference Board of Canada. “However, achieving the goal of truly diverse boards with representation from women, Aboriginal peoples, visible minorities and people with disabilities will require much more of a leadership focus.”

ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

  • Since 2014, there has been a significant increase in the number of directors who self-report to be a visible minority, nearly tripling to 7.3% from 2% last year.

  • The number of Aboriginal board members rose from 0.8% in 2014 to 1.3% in 2015.

  • Nearly all FP500 corporate board respondents (96%) say board diversity is very important or somewhat important, and that’s a substantial increase from 85% in 2010.

  • In the Utilities and Finance sector, representation of women stands at 27.1%. Meanwhile, women are represented at 27% in the Insurance sector.

  • In the Mining/Oil/Gas sector, representation of women lags behind at 12.2%. Same goes for the Construction sector at 9.3%.

  • Despite the higher-than-average rates of female directors on TSX60 boards (22.6%, up from 20.1% in 2014), there are only 20 visible minority directors, two Aboriginal directors and one person with a disability among the 31 organizations that completed the 2015 TSX60 survey.

Source: Canada could be corporate diversity leader, says study | Advisor.ca

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Q&A: Master of None’s Aziz Ansari on ‘ethnic’ casting, Netflix & making revolutionary TV

2015/11/24 Leave a comment

On my ‘to watch’ list:

Launched on Netflix two weeks ago, Master of None has already been become one of the most talked-about shows of the year. It’s been hailed as the show that aging Millennials have been waiting for, the show that put an end to the last acceptable ethnic cliché, a show that subverts masculinity, and a food-stuffed triumph; it’s the new Louie, the new Sex and the City. Aziz Ansari, the co-creator, co-writer and co-director of this mult-headed Hydra of amazingness,spoke to Sarmishta Subramanian about how he and his co-creator, Alan Yang, did it.

Reviews of your show have been ecstatic. People have really responded to it. Why do you think that is?

It’s making a narrative of our comedic viewpoint. Master of None is really me and Alan’s perspective, and I guess it resonated with a lot of people.

For me, as an Indian, it was like watching Indians on television for the first time. It was a revelation. Have you heard that from other people? 

That was a point of the show. Me being Indian and him being Taiwanese, we could finally do an episode like “Parents” [which tells the backstory of the parents of Ansari’s character, and stars the actor’s parents] or “Indians on TV.” We were in a place that was so creatively friendly like Netflix; we also had the experience to tell a story like that, to get it right. What other show would have the impetus to do an “Indians on TV” episode? None, really.

It’s partly the specificity of it that’s ground-breaking. You never really see a Bengali or a Malayali or someone from Tamilnadu; it’s just “Indians.”

Yeah, that’s what I love. There are little things I’ve seen so many people respond to, such as my dad saying poda or ayyo or talking about pappadums, these little cultural things you haven’t really seen. Usually, it’s not an Indian person running the show, so there’s no one with that background to draw from.

Were you frustrated as a viewer by the generic way Indians are usually represented?

Yeah, that montage at the beginning of “Indians on TV” sums it up. But it’s not just Indian people—it’s everybody. The point with Master of None is: Everyone is an interesting, compelling person who goes beyond their ethnic background, their accent. We’re all three-dimensional characters.

A lot of times, characters of certain ethnicities are reduced to these two-dimensional, cardboard, stereotype roles, where their traits are very generic, and specifics of their ethnicities are painted with very broad strokes. It’s very insulting, and people don’t really get it right often. It’s pretty incredible that Ashton Kutcher did that brownface thing and didn’t get more flak for it. It’s pretty insane.

A big thematic point of Master of None is that there aren’t easy answers to these things and there don’t need to be. It’s more about having a conversation about it. A lot of the episodes were written with us in the writers’ room having long discussions about race or sexism or old people.

It’s not just a mix of races. In very subtle ways, the show also crosses age and class and sexual-orientation boundaries, but never in an over-the-top way. 

That’s one of the advantages of structuring the show the way we did, as opposed to a four-piece ensemble every week. The show is really about: What’s [Ansari’s character] Dev going to find himself doing this week? And which characters can we bring in to help that story? Sometimes it’s that this episode is called “Old People,” and let’s just have him hanging out with Rachel’s grandma the whole episode and you don’t see the other friends. You probably couldn’t do that on a normal show, because they’d say you’ve got to have all the friends still there. It gets annoying, because, in real life—and people have responded to this—you don’t have lunch with the same four people every day; you don’t see the same four people every weekend. People weave in and out of your life.

The casting for the show is almost—almost—over-the-top diverse. Two Indians is too many? How about an Indian guy, a Taiwanese guy, a black lesbian—

[Laughs] It wasn’t done in this way of a United Colors of Benetton ad. It was done in a very genuine way. The Brian character is based on Alan, the co-creator of the show, so he’s a proxy for him. Denise—we had an open call for that character. We told our casting person, Alison Jones, “Let’s meet with interesting people.” I read with so many women, and Lena [Waithe] was the funniest, and it just so happened she was an African-American lesbian woman, so we totally adapted the character to her. And Wareheim—Eric Wareheim—who plays Arnold, he is a good friend of mine in real life and he’s really funny.

Source: Q&A: Aziz Ansari on ‘ethnic’ casting, Netflix & making revolutionary TV

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How the crazies and the pundits give IS exactly what it wants: Tabatha Southey

2015/11/23 Leave a comment

Great piece by Southey, and take down of those who should know better (David Frum) and those who don’t (Ezra Levant), although she is being unfair to Premier Wall:

Also working overtime for IS’s PR machine this week was former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and current senior editor at The Atlantic, David Frum. Despite the fact it appears that none of the people involved in the Paris massacre were Syrian refugees (statistically, refugees are among the groups least likely to commit acts of terror), Mr. Frum tweeted: “We must accept these peace-loving refugees from ISIS or else they will get very angry and try to kill us.”

What was the thought process there, Mr. Frum? “Good morning, I helped to provide justification for the Iraq war but I still don’t have quite enough blood on my hands, so I’d like to take a moment to characterize an entire nation of people as terrorists, thereby helping to ensure that the most vulnerable among them will suffer”?

Were you simply constrained by Twitter’s character limit there, Mr. Frum? Basic human decency and professionalism were clearly not issues for you.

Mr. Frum’s tweet may literally be the worst joke ever made, and it would be even if it didn’t spread just the kind of disinformation that actual IS murderers labour to disseminate.

What he should know, or admit to knowing, is that IS is not overly keen on Syrians escaping Syria. The optics are bad.

If you’re trying to position yourself globally as a utopian caliphate, Muslims running away from you as fast as they possibly can at grave risk to their lives is seriously bad press.

Muslims fleeing, not embracing you as an even marginally better alternative to the government that won’t stop bombing them, does not look good, and IS is acutely aware of this; no one wants would-be Syrian refugees kept in Syria more than does IS.

David Frum, among others, appears happy to help them out. David Frum: Unpaid Intern of The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

There’s method to IS’s macabre dramaturgy. They want to be depicted as the authentic Muslims, as some evil mystical empire with whom the West is at war, and volunteers queue up to help them.

In reality, IS’s progeny is recruited more at the malls than at the mosques and, in both their youthful demographic and their disaffection distorted into a kind of grotesque idealism, the recruits can seem more like murderous groupies than anything else.

In mentality and, to a certain extent, military capability, IS is more massive Manson family than major martial force.

Their lifeblood is the gratuitous message amplification so many proffer.

Big IS shout-out to Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, as well, for helping to stigmatize Syrian refugees and for suggesting that the appropriate response to terrorist intimidation tactics is to drop everything and be intimidated.

That’s exactly what his calls for additional security screening of Syrian refugees on top of the measures already in place do – measures that Michel Coulombe, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, this week called “robust … and appropriate.”

The grassroots efforts on IS’s behalf should not be overlooked this week, either; every vile, racist tweet sent is like a bake sale held on IS’s behalf; and, speaking of sales, Sun TV detritus YouTube channel, Rebel TV, is offering black-and-white, very much IS-on-brand “Fuck ISIS” hats, T-shirts and coffee mugs.

This Christmas, Rebel TV wants you to say it with massacre merch.

Former Sun TV personality Ezra Levant high-tailed it to Paris this week to whine that its citizens continue, in the aftermath of last week’s horror, to be philosophical and resolutely secular, and to drink wine in the cafés. Why must they be so French?

Mr. Levant, disappointed rage-tourist and unofficial ambassador for the IS agenda, did not seem to like the fact that the attacks did not bring Paris to its knees. He is perturbed by your joie de vivre, France, by your determination to not let terrorists change you into a vicious, angry, funhouse mirror of your attackers.

President François Hollande announced the country will accept 30,000 refugees as planned.

Vive la France, and, terrorism dilettantes, go find meaningful employment.

Source: How the crazies and the pundits give IS exactly what it wants – The Globe and Mail

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Le problème de cette majorité francophone | Le Devoir

2015/11/23 Leave a comment

More on Quebec debates and how Premier Couillard is addressing them:

L’accueil par le Québec de réfugiés syriens a inspiré à Philippe Couillard des réflexions sur l’intolérance des peuples, intolérance sur les braises de laquelle il accuse le Parti québécois et la Coalition avenir Québec d’avoir soufflé. Des commentateurs y ont vu un dérapage partisan. Or, il n’a fait que révéler le fond de sa pensée.​

Dans son discours d’ouverture du conseil général du Parti libéral du Québec il y a une semaine, Philippe Couillard a lancé : « Non à la xénophobie et au racisme, non à la fermeture et l’exclusion, oui à l’accueil, oui à la citoyenneté partagée. » Le sujet : l’accueil des réfugiés syriens et une bannière déployée à Québec pour s’y opposer.

Le lendemain, dans son discours de clôture, le chef libéral s’enhardissait en parlant de l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants : il a dénoncé la proposition du PQ — en fait, de Jean-François Lisée — d’imposer un délai d’un an à un nouveau citoyen canadien avant qu’il obtienne le droit de vote au Québec, question d’empêcher Ottawa de tricher. Quant à la CAQ, Philippe Couillard lui reprochait cette idée aussi singulière qu’inapplicable d’imposer aux immigrants un examen de français et de « valeurs » trois ans après leur arrivée : un échec mènerait à l’expulsion.

Le PLQ se présente comme le parti « de l’inclusion », comme l’a dit son chef, « celui d’une citoyenneté ouverte et partagée ». Le corollaire, c’est que le PQ et la CAQ ne le seraient pas. Dimanche dernier, le président de la Commission-Jeunesse du parti, Nicolas Perrino, a bien résumé dans son discours cette nouvelle posture des libéraux. « Les Québécois de tous les horizons savent que notre parti est le seul qui refusera toujours de céder aux fantasmes populistes d’un autre temps. Ils savent que notre parti se méfiera toujours de ceux qui prétendent promouvoir l’affirmation identitaire de la majorité en brimant les droits fondamentaux des minorités. Ils savent que notre parti défendra toujours les libertés individuelles et notre culture sans jamais verser dans l’intolérance et l’exclusion. »

Dans la conférence de presse de clôture du conseil général, Philippe Couillard a développé sa pensée. Tant le PQ que la CAQ « ont un lourd passif » en matière d’accueil des immigrants. « Parfois, et même parfois involontairement, en adoptant certaines politiques qui semblent faciles, qui semblent répondre à ce qu’on croit être le souhait de la population, on pose des gestes qui attisent les braises de ces démons qu’on a chez nous comme partout ailleurs », a-t-il fait observer. Devant l’intolérance, « j’ai toujours eu cette inquiétude », devant ces « démons », présents dans toutes les sociétés démocratiques, « dont la peur de l’Autre, dont la tentation facile du rejet de l’étranger, dont la xénophobie ».

À l’Assemblée nationale mardi, le chef de la CAQ, François Legault, a bien tenté d’obtenir de lui une rétractation. En vain. Jamais, jamais il ne se rétractera parce que c’est précisément ce qu’il pense, confirme-t-on dans son entourage. Ce ne sont pas là des exagérations partisanes servant à chauffer des militants qui se délectent des attaques du chef à l’endroit des adversaires politiques.

Aux yeux de Philippe Couillard, l’hypocrisie du PQ était manifeste durant ce qu’il appelle « cet épisode très regrettable de la charte des valeurs ». En prônant une neutralité religieuse qui s’incarne dans les employés de l’État, le PQ a sciemment exacerbé les sentiments xénophobes du peuple et il a divisé les Québécois.

Deux conceptions

Le débat sur cette charte, appuyée par une nette majorité de francophones à l’époque, ne confrontait pas deux conceptions légitimes du vivre-ensemble — entre les visions d’un Guy Rocher et d’un Charles Taylor, par exemple. Pour les détracteurs de la laïcité de l’État comme Philippe Couillard, le débat opposait les défenseurs des droits et libertés à une majorité pusillanime qui gonfle les muscles en brimant les minorités ; les Lumières de l’interculturalisme, l’ouverture à l’Autre étaient confrontées à l’ignorance nauséabonde d’une plèbe un brin raciste et obtuse.

À l’instar de Bouchard-Taylor, Philippe Couillard a toujours soutenu qu’il n’y avait pas eu de crise des accommodements raisonnables. Il a affirmé que la pratique était aujourd’hui bien balisée et que la charte péquiste ne réglait que des « problèmes imaginaires ». Ce qui ne va pas, c’est la majorité francophone. Il faut définir une « nouvelle identité québécoise », avait-il fait valoir alors qu’il était candidat à la chefferie du PLQ.

Source: Le problème de cette majorité francophone | Le Devoir

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Regional differences in the educational outcomes of young immigrants

2015/11/21 Leave a comment

Immigrant Math Scores by RegionInteresting study comparing the educational outcomes of immigrant children and third-generation or more Canadians. The findings regarding Quebec are particularly worrisome, given implications for longer-term integration:

 

This article examines regional differences in the math and reading skills of immigrant children aged 15 based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It also examines regional differences in high-school and university completion rates among young immigrants who came to Canada before the age of 15 using National Household Survey (NHS) data. Throughout the article, comparisons are made with the children of the Canadian-born (third- or higher-generation Canadians).

  • In Canada, the average PISA math score of immigrant students aged 15 was similar to the score of third- or higher-generation students. The average PISA reading score of immigrant children was slightly lower than the score of third- or higher-generation children.
  • In almost all regions, immigrant students had lower PISA reading scores than third- or higher-generation students. With respect to PISA math scores, immigrant students performed better than third- or higher-generation students in the Atlantic provinces and British Colombia, but performed less well in Quebec and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
  • Young immigrants aged 20 to 24 were more likely to have a high school diploma than their third- or higher-generation counterparts (93% versus 87%). Young immigrants aged 25 to 29 were also more likely to have a university degree (40%, compared with 26% of third- or higher-generation individuals in this age group).
  • Manitoba and Saskatchewan (29%) and Quebec (32%) had the lowest proportions of immigrants aged 25 to 29 with a university degree. In contrast, British Columbia (44%) and Ontario (41%) had the highest proportions.
  • Regional differences in the source countries of immigrants explained, in part, why some regions had higher university completion rates than others.

Immigrant Reading Scores by RegionSource: Regional differences in the educational outcomes of young immigrants

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Québec s’attaque à la radicalisation: Loi 59

2015/11/21 Leave a comment

The evolution of Loi 59 – refreshing to see a government open to amendments for proposed legislation:

La ministre de la Justice, Stéphanie Vallée, a dévoilé des dizaines d’amendements — tenant sur plus de 40 pages — à son projet de loi anti-discours de haine afin de l’inscrire formellement dans la « lutte contre la radicalisation ».

« Le discours haineux, c’est un discours qui peut s’inscrire dans un processus de radicalisation, malheureusement », a-t-elle souligné dans un bref entretien avec Le Devoir près d’une semaine après les attentats de Paris.

D’ailleurs, le libellé de la version amendée du projet de loi, soumise aux élus de la Commission des institutions jeudi, a été inchangé depuis les attaques dans la Ville Lumière, a-t-on assuré au Devoir.

Le projet de loi 59 prohibera les discours haineux et les discours incitant à la violence tenus ou diffusés publiquement, mais également les « enseignements » du même registre, visant un groupe de personnes identifié à l’article 10 de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne — femmes, homosexuels, minorités visibles, groupes religieux, etc. —, a annoncé Mme Vallée jeudi.

Suivant les recommandations des juristes de l’État, l’élue libérale s’était abstenue de définir le concept de « discours haineux » dans la version originale du projet de loi, ce qui lui avait valu de nombreuses critiques. Elle a remédié à cette lacune. « Aux yeux d’une personne raisonnable, [le discours haineux] est d’une virulence ou d’un extrême tel qu’il est susceptible d’exposer ce groupe à la marginalisation ou au rejet, à la détestation, au dénigrement ou à l’aversion, notamment pour que ce groupe soit perçu comme étant illégitime, dangereux ou ignoble », peut-on lire dans la nouvelle mouture du document.

D’autre part, Mme Vallée a ajouté une disposition au projet de loi permettant aux cégeps de résilier un contrat d’utilisation d’un local si le locataire a un « comportement qui peut raisonnablement faire craindre pour la sécurité physique ou psychologique des étudiants ainsi que celle des personnes qui sont présentes dans le collège ». « C’est une mesure [dictée par le] gros bons sens », a-t-elle fait valoir, près d’un an après le départ de jeunes fréquentant les classes du prédicateur Adil Charkaoui au Collège Maisonneuve pour aller grossir les rangs de groupes djihadistes.

Par ailleurs, Mme Vallée a retiré l’obligation faite à la Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) de tenir à jour une « liste noire » ou « liste de la honte » recensant les personnes épinglées pour discours haineux ou incitant à la violence dans le projet de loi.

Elle a également enlevé la peine minimale de 1000 dollars à laquelle celles-ci s’exposaient. La ministre laissera le loisir au Tribunal d’« imposer une ou plusieurs mesures de redressement » comme une « lettre d’excuses ». « Il peut arriver qu’un discours haineux soit tenu par une personne dans une situation de vulnérabilité extrême [ou] un jeune, un mineur », a précisé Mme Vallée au Devoir.

Source: Québec s’attaque à la radicalisation | Le Devoir

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Seeing the Same Canada? Visible Minorities’ Views of the Federation

2015/11/20 1 Comment

IRPP - Visible Minorities and the Federation.001A useful report by IRPP researchers Antoine Bilodeau, Luc Turgeon, Stephen E. White and Ailsa Henderson on the views regarding the federation of visible minorities, divided into both immigrants and second or more generations.

These regional differences, while not terribly surprising, nevertheless are revealing in that they reflect the overall regional perspectives (similarity between visible minority and majority population in Ontario, weaker regional grievances in the West among visible minorities, and greater support for national institutions in Quebec among visible minorities).

While the authors note that the federal model of multiculturalism is attractive to visible minorities is not new, it highlights the failure of Quebec’s efforts to create an alternative interculturalism narrative, along with the all too often exaggeration of the nuanced differences between the Quebec and federal approaches).

As to their recommendation that the Quebec government should adopt a formal interculturalism policy, while sensible in some respects, this would likely reopen some of the less productive debates of the past (e.g., the PQs Quebec Values Charter). Ironically, it also might undermine the rhetoric of the Quebec model of interculturalism, given its subtle differences with multiculturalism.

One of the weaknesses of CIC/IRC citizenship program was precisely its lack of stronger citizenship promotion in Quebec, which reflected more processing and efficiency concerns rather than reinforcing Canadian identity. This will likely continue, even if it is one of the few IRC programs in Quebec, one that can play an important role in reinforcing the federal presence in Quebec.

The transfer of multiculturalism back to Canadian Heritage will provide scope for more multiculturalism programming in Quebec and thus reinforcement of Canadian identity.  (Within CIC, there was a feeling that under the Cullen-Couture agreement, which transferred immigrant selection and settlement services to Quebec, that multiculturalism program funding for Quebec was not needed – missing an opportunity to assert federal presence.):

The authors show that, compared with the majority population, members of visible minority groups as a whole have a stronger sense of loyalty to the federal government than to provincial governments, express greater support for Canada’s national policies, and are less inclined to endorse historical grievances about the Canadian federation. As for competing national and provincial visions of Canada, members of visible minority groups embrace a national vision more strongly than the majority population.

However, the extent to which members of visible minority groups hold distinctive views about the Canadian federation depends on the province they live in and whether or not they were born in Canada. In Ontario, visible minorities’ views are almost indistinguishable from those of the majority population. In Alberta and in British Columbia, visible minorities born abroad hold somewhat weaker regional grievances than the majority population. However, those born in Canada see the federation in similar terms as the majority population.

The greatest difference between visible minorities and the majority population is in Quebec, where visible minorities born abroad and those born in Canada express considerably stronger support for a national vision. The differences in outlook on the federation between non-French speaking members of visible minority groups and the rest of the Quebec population are particularly striking.

The findings suggest that the federal government’s multiculturalism policy offers a model that appeals to members of visible minority groups. Its highest level of support is among visible minorities in Quebec, whose government has never supported multiculturalism policy and has yet to offer a formal and official alternative.

[conclusion] … If the attractiveness of the federal model appears to exert an influence over visible minorities in Alberta and British Columbia, it might be enhanced in Quebec because of the alternative narrative proposed by the Quebec government. The Quebec government has never officially supported the federal multicultural model and has instead proposed a model of interculturalism that has yet to be stated formally in an official policy and remains unfamiliar to most Quebecers (Gagnon and Iacovino 2007). Our findings thus lend support for those arguing for the Quebec government to adopt an official policy of interculturalism (Rocher and White 2014). A formal policy positioning of the Quebec government on matters of ethnocultural diversity would stand as a symbolic gesture recognizing the contribution of diversity within Quebec society and would promote increased interaction between minorities and the broader population. By so doing, the government could favour a rapprochement between the narrative adopted by visible minorities in Quebec and the dominant one found in Quebec and hence appease some of the tensions that have marked Quebec society over the last few years.

Our final observation concerns an exception to the patterns for all four provinces just discussed. Visible minorities in all four provinces are substantially more prone to see a positive impact of the policy of multiculturalism on Canadian identity than the majority population. This finding is not necessarily surprising considering that, more than any other issue examined in this study, the policy of multiculturalism speaks to the contribution of ethnocultural minorities to the construction of Canadian identity. Moreover, as we argued, the federal government’s multiculturalism policy might be the pivot around which the more federally oriented narrative of visible minorities is structured. Should the growing presence of visible minorities have one significant and consistent impact, it may well be to further strengthen acceptance of the country’s multicultural heritage — in the process further strengthening this pillar of Canadian identity.

http://irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/study-no56.pdf?mc_cid=7023dd89ad&mc_eid=86cabdc518

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , ,

How France’s diversity problem became a security problem

2015/11/20 Leave a comment

Konrad Yakabuski on the failure of France to integrate Muslim youth:

But eradicating the Islamic State, were it possible, would not end the alienation that has turned so many young French Muslims into violent jihadis. While the immediate imperative remains combating one particular brand of terrorism, Mr. Hollande’s efforts cannot end there. Unless Muslim youth can envision a future of semi-equal opportunity in France, one violent cause will simply replace another.

“A more nuanced response than total war is needed to deal with the underlying rage that fuels this confrontation. And that is almost impossible to imagine in the current atmosphere,” American University professor Gordon Adams wrote this week on the Foreign Policy website. “Islam has not been welcome in France, and the hostility of non-Islamic France is only growing.”

Source: Hollande faces the enemy from within – The Globe and Mail

Dana Wagner digs deeper:

Tidjane Thiam couldn’t get a job in France. Mr. Thiam is an Ivory Coast native who studied in France at the elite INSEAD business school. After failing to advance his career in France, he left for an offer in Britain, and in March became chief executive officer of Credit Suisse. The problem was not Mr. Thiam.

It’s unknown how many other visible minorities are unemployed or underemployed in France. The country doesn’t count. It’s against the law to collect data on race or ethnicity – liberté, egalité, fraternité.

But gender gets counted, as does disability. And in business, what gets counted gets done. Some French employers have found creative ways to count and improve work force diversity, using proxies such as names or home neighbourhoods. But in general, there is no counting, no target, no change.

The reluctance to count has made important subjects taboo. Ask a group of employers to a talk about immigrant and visible minority employment and few will show up. The very subject of race is an offensive topic of conversation. Affinity groups (Vietnamese professionals, Indian women, Algerian engineers) are considered insulting.

This summer, I met with staff of organizations that help disadvantaged young people get jobs. Most clients are poor and non-white. One manager I spoke with knows that the qualified young people he works with have worked twice as hard to get where they are. And still, hiring managers often express surprise at how well dressed they are, without the slightest awareness of how patronizing their comments are.

If this is what France’s educated, skilled visible minorities can expect, imagine what it’s like to be someone less privileged than that. Imagine knowing that you don’t stand a chance.

This is the undercurrent we will hear about in coming weeks: French people who don’t see themselves in France’s face or future. The integration problem has become a security problem that better intelligence will never solve.

 How France’s diversity problem became a security problem 

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

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