Change in Tone: Highlights of PM-Elect Trudeau’s Victory Speech

2015/10/22 Leave a comment

Excerpts from PM-Elect Trudeau, signalling a major change in tone with inclusive language and reaffirmation of multiculturalism, as well as a rebuke to the politics of division (as the election itself was as well):

Conservatives are not our enemies, they’re our neighbours. Leadership is about bringing people of all different perspectives together.

You want a Prime Minister who knows Canada is a country strong, not in spite of our differences, but because of them, a PM who never seeks to divide Canadians, but takes every single opportunity to bring us together. You want a Prime Minister who knows that if Canadians are to trust their government, their government needs to trust Canadians, a PM who understands that openness and transparency means better, smarter decisions. You want a Prime Minister that knows that a renewed nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous peoples that respects rights and honours treaties must be the basis for how we work to close the gap and walk forward together.

Au cours des trois dernières années, j’ai passé beaucoup de temps à aller à votre rencontre et à vous écouter. Vous m’aviez dit que vous vouliez un gouvernement ouvert et transparent, un gouvernement qui fait confiance en ses citoyens, un gouvernement au service de tous les Canadiens et les Canadiennes. Ce soir, c’est l’engagement que je prends devant vous : je serai le Premier ministre de tous les Canadiens. Nous formerons un gouvernement intègre qui respectera les institutions et qui fera de la collaboration avec les provinces le principe premier de ses actions.

There are a thousand stories I could share with you about this remarkable campaign, but I want you to think about one in particular. Last week, I met a young mom in St. Catharines, Ontario. She practises the Muslim faith and was wearing a hijab. She made her way through the crowd and handed me her infant daughter, and as she leaned forward, she said something that I will never forget. She said she’s voting for us because she wants to make sure that her little girl has the right to make her own choices in life and that our government will protect those rights.

To her I say this: you and your fellow citizens have chosen a new government, a government that believes deeply in the diversity of our country. We know in our bones that Canada was built by people from all corners of the world who worship every faith, who belong to every culture, who speak every language.

We believe in our hearts that this country’s unique diversity is a blessing bestowed upon us by previous generations of Canadians, Canadians who stared down prejudice and fought discrimination in all its forms. We know that our enviable, inclusive society didn’t happen by accident and won’t continue without effort. I have always known this; Canadians know it too. If not, I might have spoken earlier this evening and given a very different speech.

Have faith in your fellow citizens, my friends. They are kind and generous. They are open-minded and optimistic. And they know in their heart of hearts that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

Mes amis, nous avons battu la peur avec l’espoir. Nous avons battu le cynisme avec le travail acharné. Nous avons battu la politique négative avec une vision rassembleuse et positive.

My friends, we beat fear with hope. We beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together. Most of all, we defeated the idea that Canadians should be satisfied with less, that good enough is good enough and that better just isn’t possible. Well, my friends, this is Canada, and in Canada better is always possible.

Full text can be found here: For the record: A full transcript of Justin Trudeau’s speech

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Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote – 30 percent sale at Lulu today only

2015/10/22 Leave a comment

For those interested in the print version of Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote or my other books, Lulu has one of its better sales, 30 percent off.

The direct link to my book pages is: My Author Spotlight.

Lulu 22 Oct

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The Canadian election

2015/10/21 Leave a comment

I provided some articles that I thought were interesting and helpful to international readers. Other suggestions welcome.

Arun's avatarArun with a View

Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, Montreal, October 19th (photo: Kevin Van Paassen/Bloomberg) Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, Montreal, October 19th
(photo: Kevin Van Paassen/Bloomberg)

I have been aware, like any geopolitically informed person, that Canada was going to have a national election this fall, though didn’t realize it was happening this Monday until it was already underway. Like any person with left-of-center views, I was pleased by the smashing victory of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals (though would have been equally pleased if the New Democrats had won it). Normally those of us south of the border or outre-Altantique ou Pacifique don’t care much which party wins a Canadian election, regardless of our political parti pris. But this one was different, in view of Canada’s PM, Stephen Harper, who pulled the Conservative party there to the right during his nine years in office. When US Republicans start praising Canada and its prime minister, then you know something’s not right. And nine years is…

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Canada federal election candidates include more visible minorities in 2015 than in the past four votes | National Post

2015/10/21 Leave a comment

More on visible minority candidates, with good commentary by Erin Tolley, Chris Cochrane and Priya Ramanujan:

Notably, this is the first time that the proportion of visible minority candidates in Parliament reflects the per cent of visible minority candidates who ran for election. Usually, a far greater proportion runs than is actually elected, said Erin Tolley, an expert on visible minorities in Canadian politics at the University of Toronto.

“It’s great to benchmark how many arrive in Parliament, but also to think about the mechanism through which they got there,” added Tolley, explaining that the success of visible minority MPs may have had more to do with the Liberal wave than with conscious effort. In 2011, the NDP were hailed for bringing several young MPs into Parliament, but they had “won by accident, by surprise” because of an unexpected surge of support in ridings they hadn’t expected to win.

Thirty nine visible minority MPs, the bulk of those elected yesterday, belong to the Liberal party, which has long had the support of more visible minorities than the other major federal parties.

“A Liberal victory like we saw last night unsurprisingly is going to return a particularly high number of visible minority candidates to Parliament,” said Cochrane.

“As visible minorities become more entrenched, they’re here for many generations. They’ve been living in their neighbourhoods for decades. That’s all a recipe for increased engagement in federal politics,” he added.

Priya Ramanujam, production editor of New Canadian Media, a news website focused on immigrants, said she’s seen such change unfold in her own neighbourhood, which is part of the GTA’s Scarborough North riding.

Until 2011, the area, where more than 70 per cent of voters belong to visible minorities, was represented by a non-visible minority MP. This year all three major parties ran visible minority candidates. And it’s not just the parties who are trying to get more in tune with locals.

“I have definitely noticed an increase in people getting involved in politics, both young people and adults right up to seniors, and that’s across ethnicities,” said Ramanujam, who says that youth are far more engaged than when she was in high school in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

But Tolley said what happens next will dictate how much influence visible minorities have in practice. “To me, a commitment to diversity and equality goes beyond just putting people in the House of Commons. It means giving them a voice of power,” she said.

Visible minorities held token positions under the previous government, she said. “There were visible minorities sitting in cabinet, but those visible minorities had cabinet portfolios that were extremely limited.”

“The visible minorities that tend to get access to power are not the full range of people of colour that we see in Canada,” added Tolley, warning that advancements for minorities in general can distract from the plight of marginalized groups, such as Black Canadians, very of few of which have been elected to parliament.

The Oct. 19 election saw the three major parties field more visible minority candidates than in the past four federal elections, according to a study by Andrew Griffith, former director general for citizenship and multiculturalism at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The National Post used data from the study to tally the number of visible minority MPs.

In total, 143 of the 1014 candidates that ran for the Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties belong to a visible minorities with 68 of them running in 33 ridings where more than half of residents belonged to visible minorities.

Source: Canada federal election candidates include more visible minorities in 2015 than in the past four votes | National Post

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Record number of visible minority MPs elected to Commons

2015/10/21 Leave a comment

A dramatic increase from the 2011 election. In addition to the overview, some good personal vignettes of newly elected visible minority MPs.

Visible_Minority_MPs_-_2015_Election

I am working on a more detailed analysis that should be ready in a day or so but the chart above provides the overall numbers by party:

Their family histories and beginnings tie them to countries plagued by conflict and upheaval, but in Canada they are making history: the first-ever MPs of Afghan, Somali and Iranian heritage.

Those firsts come on the back of a jump in visible-minority representation in the incoming 42nd Parliament – a measure of growing integration and participation among minority communities. At least 46 visible-minority MPs were elected on Monday, the vast majority of them being Liberal. That figure is 13.6 per cent of the total of 338 seats.

That is a record for visible-minority representation, according to data going back to 1993. Research by now-retired McGill University political scientist Jerome Black showed that the 2011 election was what he called the high watermark – when 28 visible-minority MPs were elected, representing 9.1 per cent of the total number. But 2015 has surpassed that total.

“Having visible minorities in Parliament, whether first- or second-generation, helps ensure their perspective is part of [the] discussion and debate,” said Andrew Griffith, a former federal Canadian civil servant who worked on issues of multiculturalism and citizenship.

“It also facilitates greater identification with Canadian political institutions among visible minorities as they can see themselves reflected in these same institutions,” he added.

Some experts argue that the visible minority representation in the incoming parliament still falls short of the 19 per cent that make up Canada’s total visible minority population.

Source: Record number of visible minority MPs elected to Commons – The Globe and Mail

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Chris Alexander: The Conservatives’ golden boy falls

2015/10/21 1 Comment

A good, and I think balanced account, of Minister Alexander’s rise and fall:

Alexander gained instant stardom when he was parachuted into this key riding just east of Toronto in 2011. His resumé made him sound like a political strategist’s dream: a young, esteemed diplomat who had worked in the Russian embassy in the early 1990s before becoming Canada’s first ambassador to Afghanistan, and then a UN representative. He was internationally lauded, having been named a “young global leader” by the World Economic Forum, and one of Canada’s “top 40 under 40” by the Globe and Mail; he was even voted “best rookie” by his fellow MPs in the Maclean’s Parliamentarian of the Year poll in 2011.

For a while, Alexander, who took on his Immigration portfolio in 2013, represented the Conservative party’s bright future. Now, at least for the moment, he represents its failures. His entire election campaign was marred by controversy after controversy: from the mishandling of the Syrian refugee crisis and the cuts made to refugee health care, to the vow to create a “tip line” for suspected instances of “barbaric cultural practices,” the campaign to prevent women from wearing a niqab during citizenship swearing-in ceremonies, and revoking the Canadian citizenship of terrorists, Alexander became the face of the Conservative party’s most divisive platforms.

Why would Alexander pursue this path? Some say he was too focused on accommodating Harper’s vision. “He wouldn’t be the first politician who tried to play the game just the way the coach wanted it played, no matter how poorly or well the coach was calling it,” says Tim Powers, vice-chairman of Summa Strategies, an Ottawa consulting firm.

Put another way, Alexander became the punching bag for the Conservatives, by his own choosing. “He decided to take up the role as a more forceful partisan, and I don’t know if that fits his character,” says Powers. “When you see a guy whose career has been built on diplomacy and a persuasive life in a pugilistic position, it can be a conflicting image.”

When Alexander first joined federal politics, many people anticipated a “moderate Ontario Tory,” and instead he “morphed into a Harper Tory in terms of aggression and the full-force assault of selling the message,” continues Powers. “It’s almost as if he had an out-of-body experience as a politician.”

In fact, even during the post-election scrum, Alexander stuck to the party line, telling reporters that the Conservatives have been “good and generous at resettling refugees … We have been ahead of the curve every step of the way.” On the niqab issue, Alexander insisted, “The rule that faces be uncovered is not yet fixed in law. We think it should be.” Right after the scrum, Alexander was rushed out of the Annandale.

There may be more than these polarizing issues at play, too. Some observers believe Alexander’s fall was an inevitable consequence of the “Liberal sweep” happening across the country. His opponent, Holland, has been a veritable force in Ajax, having held the riding for the three terms before the 2011 election—and he only narrowly lost to Alexander then.

This loss is all the more disappointing for the Conservatives because it reverses some of the inroads made by Jason Kenney and others in recent years to attract the votes of new Canadians. Some of the fiercest criticisms against Alexander and the Conservatives were of fear-mongering and of a concerted effort to pit Canadians against each other. In this way, Alexander’s loss comes as no surprise.

If Alexander is to resume a career in politics and, indeed, make a run at the Conservative leadership one day, he will first need to win back a lot of trust. But writing Alexander’s political prospects off, say insiders, would ignore his talents—and the “nine lives” nature of politics. “Here’s a guy who has served in Afghanistan, one of the hardest corners of the Earth, and accorded himself well. He [has] enormous potential,” says Powers. “He might get a time out. But I wouldn’t count him out.”

Source: Chris Alexander: The Conservatives’ golden boy falls

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For Muslim women, Liberal victory a rejection of divisive politics

2015/10/21 2 Comments

No surprises here:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was not subtle about his use of cultural differences as a trigger for fear during the election campaign. His government pressed its case against a Muslim woman fighting to wear her niqab during her citizenship ceremony — and lost. It unveiled a “barbaric cultural practices” tipline for Canadians to report on their neighbours.

He made a debating point of his position that he’d never tell his daughter to cover her face, a moot point unless she converts to Islam. For Muslim-Canadian women the fact that those tactics backfired in the end is a validation of a particular view of Canada.

For Alia Hogben, the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, it shows that Canadians “are rejecting all the divisive and racist and hate mongering that the Conservatives were doing and they’re showing who we really are. It gives me a huge amount of hope.”

Hogben said that for almost every single Muslim, Harper’s vocal opposition to Muslim women wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies as the case of Zunera Niqab, who had taken the government to court over the issue, made its way successfully through then legal process during the campaign, was a source of anxiety.

“During that period it was nerve wracking, depressing and discouraging,” she said.

Hogben said she was worried about these new values that were being propounded by the Conservatives.

“We couldn’t tell if Canadians would lean that way or not and now it’s a huge amount of relief that its been rejected,” she said.

“We’re not saying one party is any better than another, but we’re hoping that they will learn from what went on during the election and the kind of feelings that aroused for and against a group of people and that they will learn from that and make everybody welcomed back into the family of Canadians rather than dividing us.”

In a powerful speech to a crowded room of cheering supporters in Montreal, prime minister designate Justin Trudeau said a woman wearing a hijab told him she would vote for him because she wants to make sure that her little girl has the right to make her own choices in life.

“Have faith in your fellow citizens my friends, they are kind and generous. They are open minded and optimistic and they know in their heart of hearts that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” said Trudeau.

Liberal strategist at Crestview Strategy Group, Rob Silver, said there’s no room in Canada for divisive and mean politics.

“I think if anything the niqab issue backfired on Stephen Harper and I think that kind of divisive negative nasty politics will not be seen in Canada for a long time.”

Samer Majzoub, the president of the Canadian Muslim Forum, says by electing Trudeau, Canadians have sent a very strong message to politicians who have campaigned on “hatred and discrimination.”

“They have harvested what they have planted and lost and [were] defeated,” said Majzoub.

“The fact is that Canadians have followed what Canadians believe in—harmony, unity, human rights, that’s why we feel at ease on the subject,” he said.

For Muslim women, Liberal victory a rejection of divisive politics (paywall)

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Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote: 20 percent off

2015/10/20 Leave a comment

For those interested in the print version of Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote or my other books, Lulu has one of its regular sales.

The direct link to my book pages is: My Author Spotlight.

Flash Sale

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Study says Canada’s three major parties are fielding more visible minority candidates | National Post

2015/10/20 Leave a comment

My short study quoted in the National Post, along with Chris Cochrane’s analysis (I will do a piece tomorrow analyzing the results and how many visible minority candidates were elected):

Fourteen per cent of the 1014 candidates – or 143 possible Members of Parliament – running for the Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties are members of visible minorities, according to an analysis by Andrew Griffith, former director general for citizenship and multiculturalism at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

The proportion of visible minority candidates is roughly on par with the electorate, 15 per cent of which consists of visible minority voters.

“All parties are trying to compete for this (visible minority) vote,” says Griffith, who has written a book on multiculturalism in Canada.

Griffith’s study found the Liberals were leading with sixteen per cent of Liberal candidates – or 55 candidates – from visible minorities. The Conservatives and the NDP were lagging behind with 44 visible minority candidates each, amounting to 13 per cent of their total candidates. The Bloc Quebecois fare the worst, with only two visible minority candidates.

The Liberal lead is unsurprising given that “multiculturalism is part of their DNA,” says Griffith.

Visible minority representation is even higher in the 33 ridings in which more than half of the residents are from visible minorities. In these areas, 68 of the 99 major party candidates, including 19 women, are from visible minorities. All of the major parties are represented by a minority candidate in 15 of these ridings.

“These are all battleground ridings where all three parties, at least at the beginning of the campaign, were reasonably competitive,” says Griffith.

Twenty-three of these 33 ridings are in the Greater Toronto Area, a key battleground for the major parties. In these ridings, the Conservatives are fielding the most visible minority candidates, with 25 in the race, but are closely followed by the Liberals, who are running 24 candidates. The NDP lag behind with 19 candidates.

“You really have to hand it to (Conservative) Jason Kenny and the people who have made that outreach in those communities,” says Griffith.

But Chris Cochrane, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says it’s important to distinguish between immigrants and visible minorities, some of whom may have lived in Canada for generations and make up a Liberal stronghold.

“Conservatives increased their vote share spectacularly among immigrants going into the last election but they didn’t do nearly so well among visible minorities,” he says.

Source: Study says Canada’s three major parties are fielding more visible minority candidates | National Post

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Niqab ‘never an issue’ for federal roundtable on culture and security

2015/10/20 Leave a comment

Not surprising given that the niqab, while an issue of integration, is not one of security (given that it has to be removed at airport security etc):

The question of whether Canadian Muslim women should wear the niqab is a non-issue for the government’s hand-picked sounding board on culture and security, says the Montreal professor who heads the panel.

The matter of face coverings became an election campaign focus as the Conservative government turned to the courts in an unsuccessful effort to preserve a rule banning them during the taking of citizenship ceremony oaths.

Stephen Harper’s party insists obscuring the face at the very moment one becomes a citizen runs contrary to Canadian values. Opponents have accused him of using a culturally sensitive issue to stir up xenophobic sentiment and, in the process, the votes of people who feel threatened by unfamiliar traditions.

The topic has “never been an issue” for the federally appointed Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security, which meets every few months, said Myrna Lashley, the body’s long-time chairwoman.

“I think the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. And I don’t want to go there. I just wish the whole thing would go away,” said Lashley, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Montreal’s McGill University who studies terrorism and security.

“I’m a researcher, I’m not a politician. That’s their thing, not mine.”

Source: Niqab ‘never an issue’ for federal roundtable on culture and security

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