Immigrant parents might be at greater risk of stillborn births, Ontario study suggests

2015/04/16 Leave a comment

Interesting study and like many, while pointing out patterns, suggests areas for further research and understanding of the various factors involved:

Nearly three million babies are born every year without any signs of life, a phenomenon that remains poorly understood by medical science. But a new study by Ontario researchers suggests that some parents who are immigrants might be at greater risk of having a stillborn birth.

The paper, published Tuesday by the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, found a “significantly higher risk of stillbirth” among first-generation immigrant parents in Ontario — especially when both mom and dad were born in the same country where stillbirth rates are high.

Analyzing the top 20 countries from which couples immigrate to Ontario, researchers found parents from Nigeria, Portugal, Jamaica and Guyana had the greatest risk of stillbirth compared to Canadian-born couples. Parents born in China, the Philippines and Afghanistan had a slightly lower risk than Canadian couples.

“We’re trying to ask in the Canadian setting, where we have extreme diversity, whether there’s a difference between immigrants and non-immigrants in the risk of stillbirths,” said senior author, Dr. Joel Ray, a clinician scientist with St. Michael’s Hospital.

Ray hypothesized that certain immigrant couples could share genetic factors or environmental exposures that give them a higher risk of stillbirth. But he emphasized his study was still preliminary and there is no reason for foreign-born parents to be alarmed. More research is needed before conclusions can be drawn and “fortunately, stillbirths are rare and are still largely predicted by unknown factors rather than the origin of the couples.”

David Savitz, a professor of epidemiology, obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University, also cautioned that ethnicity alone cannot be blamed for stillbirths. Rather, it should be treated as a “marker” for some other factor, like economic status, which could be elevating the risk.

“(This paper) provides clues, and they can be very useful ones, but it’s a very early stage,” said Savitz, who was not involved with this study.

Immigrant parents might be at greater risk of stillborn births, Ontario study suggests | Toronto Star.

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Michael Bliss: What the West’s long struggle with communism tells us about the battle with Islamic terrorism

2015/04/16 Leave a comment

Michael Bliss on some of the lessons of history in combatting communism as applied to ISIS, and the need for appropriate caution:

As a historian I have all sorts of skepticism about simplistic notions that history repeats itself or that the lessons of history are easy to discern and apply, but I do believe that the experiences we have had in the past have to be drawn upon as we consider options for dealing with recognizably similar problems in the present and future. Surely the success of ISIL in Iraq and Syria in 2014 has real parallels with the coming to power of Bolshevism in Russia in 1917. Surely the history of the struggle against Communism in the 20th century supplies us with some markers for dealing with the spectre of Islamic terrorism in the 21st century.

One “lesson” from this past is to be careful not to underestimate the strength and appeal of a radical, messianic movement with deep cultural roots. Like Bolshevism, ISIL has immediately become engaged in a hugely complicated, multi-faceted set of local wars as it tries to consolidate its power. Like Bolshevism it is utterly and appallingly ruthless in its cold-blooded determination to create what it calls the new caliphate. And, also like Bolshevism, the ideology of apocalyptic revolution is proving to be a kind of magnet for true believers everywhere, who make pilgrimages to ISIL territory to fight for their great cause. This should not surprise us. Nor should we be surprised that ISIL-spawned or affiliated Islamic fundamentalist movements are active in many other countries, and might well succeed in taking power in other failed states, ranging from Libya and Yemen through, most worrisomely, Nigeria, and perhaps Afghanistan and even Pakistan. We are dealing at one and the same time with a territorially-based mini-state leading a boundariless international movement.

Given this situation, it’s perhaps no wonder that a coalition of the enemies of ISIL quickly formed and became active in trying to degrade and destroy it. Here the haunting danger is of a repetition of the failed Allied intervention in the Russian Revolution, a destructive fiasco characterized by our almost complete ignorance of a far-off area of the world, strategic incoherence in the face of social collapse and revolution, and the West’s naive habit of claiming moral high ground.

So far, the signs seem to be that we in the West are again stumbling blindfolded into a vastly complex and chaotic situation with only simplistic, confused and uninformed ideas of our objectives and interests. As with the Allied interventions in Siberia, in which Canada played a significant role in the hope of showing off its potential as a young nation, and actually only showed an almost pathetic naivité, there is a distinct possibility that in the short, medium, and long terms we will succeed only in making things worse.

Admittedly, the situation is changing so quickly that it’s quickly becoming almost impossible to keep track of it — particularly as the chaos in Yemen seems to be forcing moderate Islam to become militarily engaged for the sake of its own survival. There is a real danger that the situation might evolve into a great civil war been Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Generally, it’s probably wise to be cautious in situations in which it might seem like a good idea for the West to wage war against Islamic fundamentalism. We should remember how enthusiastic anti-Communists tended to overreach themselves, from the Korean peninsula through the Bay of Pigs and into the swamps of Vietnam. Already the West has stumbled dreadfully in Afghanistan and in the unbelievably disastrous American invasion of Iraq. With our NATO partners we Canadians were enthusiastically complicit in what we now realize was also a disastrous demolition of order, perhaps even of civilization, in Libya. And yet we still listen to voices urging us to do it all over again, and have just begun airstrikes in Syria without legal justification.

Here at home, jihadist terrorism poses about the same minimal threat to Canada as the international Communist movement did after 1917. We have to think seriously about issues of internal security, but we have to see them in perspective.

Globally, however, the problem is real. Given the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism to even a minuscule fraction of more than a billion Muslims, it is hard to believe that jihadism will be a passing movement, even if it does happen that ISIL is crushed. It’s at least as likely that it will continue to strengthen and spread, take hold of other countries and possibly become caught up in horrendously catastrophic wars and revolution. The prospect is very scary, and almost anything could happen. In fact in some ways Islamic fundamentalism is more alarming than Communist fundamentalism or the other totalitarian movement we had to defeat, Nazi fascism, because its religiously-rooted glorification of suicide makes terrorism, even nuclear terrorism, more feasible.

The West’s long-term strategy against the spectre of Communism was twofold. Militarily the West learned that containment of Communist expansionism was more likely to succeed than futile attempts at conquest. Thanks to the reciprocal restraint that the Communists themselves learned to adopt, for many years there was tacit co-existence between the two great ideological camps, odious as this prospect was to the true believers on both sides.

During periods of coexistence, both sides had to address the root cause of most forms of social disorder, which is people’s inchoate but powerful desire for a better life. As the 20th century wound on, utopian Communism proved corrupt and unworkable in daily life, materialistic capitalism proved flexible and productive, and the Red threat to the economic and social systems of our societies waned and then imploded on itself. As the title of a famous anthology by former Communists put it, theirs had been the god that failed. But, to slightly change the metaphor, it had been a social experiment that probably had to be tried.

I’ve made here an extended argument hinging on an analogy between revolutionary Communism and revolutionary Islamic fundamentalism, and of course it has many limits. But if nothing else our history with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and the rise of ISIL in 2014 underlines the importance of our realizing how much we need to know about cultures and regions of the world that are profoundly foreign to ours. And how we need to think clearly and carefully about power, its uses, both at home and abroad, and its limitations. Good intentions — the best intentions — are never enough. Understanding the limits of our knowledge, understanding context and contingency, knowing how hard and chancy it is to impose our will on the future, is at least a starting point.

Michael Bliss: What the West’s long struggle with communism tells us about the battle with Islamic terrorism

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Why Western girls move to Middle East to marry ISIL fighters — and what life’s really like when they get there

2015/04/16 Leave a comment

More on women recruits to ISIS and their motivations and experience in an interview with Joana Cook of King’s College, London:

I would note that women joining extremist groups is nothing new, and the motivations to join have had some similar themes. Women played roles in everything from the Red Brigades in Germany, to the KKK in the U.S., sometimes motivated by their partners to join, but also to engage in the “community.” Themes such as excitement and a sense of adventure, and gaining a sense of independence are cross-cutting. In the case of women going to Syria and Iraq, there were specific initiatives that aimed to promote these marriages, for example opening a marriage bureau in al-Bab for women looking for a husband, or sending the newlywed couples on honeymoons. Similar to how some male fighters have decided to travel abroad, you will see women who are already established in these locations urging other women to come, glorifying the lifestyle and the roles of the men who are fighting (brave, devout, etc.). Increasing imagery of families and children also normalize and motivate some, as can a sense of “sisterhood” for when you arrive.

ISIL have limited the roles that women can take in the public sphere. Their roles have been largely restricted to the private sphere and “support” such as cooking, cleaning, supporting the families and education in the home (for example, how to raise a jihadi). As they are unable to move around freely without an escort, their communication with the outside world may be lessened (example: not being able to go to Internet cafés) and I think this is one of the reasons you don’t hear more about how horrible life there can be. There have been cases of severe sexual violence in some of these marriages, and also women whose husbands are killed fighting, leaving them with small children and unable to support themselves and in very dangerous circumstances. There were examples of unique roles coming out of Raqqa where women were acting as “police units” enforcing ISIL’s strict interpretation of Islam, also engaging in punishing women they found who went afoul of this. Other groups who had previously banned women from fighting roles, such as Hamas and al-Qaida, did change this policy over time for tactical reasons — that is, add an element of surprise. I hope that this does not prove the case.

Why Western girls move to Middle East to marry ISIL fighters — and what life’s really like when they get there.

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Why Toronto’s police board caved on carding — and why the battle isn’t over: James | Toronto Star

2015/04/15 Leave a comment

More on the Toronto Police carding compromise and the ongoing debate (see earlier Toronto Police’s carding reform is built on a good foundation):

But the compromise, brokered by a retired judge, leaves them untouched, prompting critics to charge that Mukherjee has sold out.

After a year of back-and-forth, Blair’s position has not moved, Mukherjee said. Blair feels that to define what is a “public safety reason” for carding is to limit the police. The board’s vote has no effect if the chief does not interpret the vote by writing operational commands that the rank and file must follow.

Meanwhile, community pressure has mounted as complaints pointed to statistics that showed black and brown citizens were four times more likely to be carded than whites.

“We were getting nowhere,” said Mukherjee. “There was a standoff. We were at an impasse.”

Mukherjee said the board, the civilian authority over the force, had only one option, other than compromise: charge the chief with insubordination.

When the board failed to do that last September, the moment passed. To try that in January, a few months before Blair was set to retire, would have been suicidal.

“If the board declared the chief insubordinate, then the matter would go to a tribunal and it would be stuck there for several years, with the carding matter remaining unresolved.

“I’m a practical man. Nobody wants to go to war with the chief.”

So, Mukherjee concluded he would accept an approach that, he says, achieves 90 per cent of the goal — and pursue the rest under a new chief that could be announced as early as Friday. Blair retires at the end of the month.

Mukherjee says he understands the disappointment and the criticism of citizens who’ve clamored for reforms and were on the verge of receiving them when the police board approved the new carding procedures last year.

He admits the board understands that the proposal mediated by retired judge Warren Winkler is “very different from the 2014 proposal.”

But full reforms were not going to happen under Blair, who was prepared to go only so far.

On Thursday, the board could make a few tweaks on three items, to signal it is listening to concerns.

New rules might say police “shall” (not, may) give citizens a business card following carding interactions. Secondly, if a citizen asks the police for clarity on whether they are being detained or are free to leave and not answer questions, the police must provide that information. And the chief is to provide clear criteria for eliminating historical data in police files.

Still, “the ground has shifted. The board and the new chief will take us to the next level,” he says.

Mukherjee, 69, has been on the board for 10 years. His term ends a year from now, and he won’t seek reappointment. This is his last year as chair, ending in December. His successor is expected to come from a city of Toronto appointee, to be named in the coming months, who replaces Andy Pringle, a board member whose term ended last November.

Distrust started building among police watchers following a flurry of changes on a board that had finally developed solidarity around policing reforms.

In quick succession, John Tory was elected mayor and took a seat on the board. Tory replaced Councillors Michael Thompson and Frances Nunziata with Shelley Carroll  and Chin Lee. Former councillor Mike Del Grande left city hall for the school board. The entire board dynamic changed. And, before long, carding reforms developed over two years were set aside with a compromise that critics say gutted the proposal.

At the last police board meeting April 2, where the compromise position was panned by every citizen and group appearing before the board, one speaker wondered if Mukherjee had been kidnapped, zapped, and had a brain transplant.

“I haven’t been zapped, no.”

“The new chief needs some breathing room. To drop the carding bombshell at his door, essentially untouched and without any progress, would be crippling, he said.

Mukherjee said he and the board faced a “practical dilemma.” In trying to accomplish “one of the most significant things the Toronto Police Services Board will do,” the board ran into a brick wall, with no palatable options.

Why Toronto’s police board caved on carding — and why the battle isn’t over: James | Toronto Star.

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Losing our religion? Two thirds of people still claim to be religious

2015/04/15 Leave a comment

The latest survey on religion in the World by WIN/Gallup. In addition to the largely familiar geographic contrasts, the increased religiosity of younger people is of interest:

The relationship between gender, age, income, education and people ́s religiosity reveals interesting trends. Younger people (those under 34) tend to be more religious (about 66% as against about 60% for the other age groups). Those without what is considered an education are the most religious (80%) but religious people are a majority in all educational levels.

Income appears to exert a greater influence – among those with a medium high and high income, where less than 50% say they are religious, against 70% of those with low, medium low and medium income. Likewise, the number of convinced atheists is as high as 22% and 25% among people with medium high and high income but only 6% and 5% among people with low and medium low-income.

World Religions: WIN/Gallup International

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Her Majesty’s Jihadists – NYTimes.com

2015/04/15 Leave a comment

Long in-depth profile of radicalized youth in the UK:

I asked Maher if, based on the center’s research, he could draw a typical jihadist profile. “The average British fighter is male, in his early 20s and of South Asian ethnic origin,” he began. “He usually has some university education and some association with activist groups. Over and over again, we have seen that radicalization is not necessarily driven by social deprivation or poverty.” He paused for a moment, and then went on. “Other than those who go for humanitarian reasons, some of the foreign fighters are students of martyrdom; they want to die as soon as possible and go directly to paradise. We’ve seen four British suicide bombers thus far among the 38 Britons who have been killed. Then there are the adventure seekers — those who think this will enhance their masculinity, the gang members and the petty criminals too; and then, of course, the die-hard radicals, who began by burning the American flag and who then advanced to wanting to kill Americans — or their partners — under any circumstance.”

Her Majesty’s Jihadists – NYTimes.com.

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Enhancing our Multicultural Heritage – Landau

2015/04/15 Leave a comment

Overstates the practical impact of section 27 – most multiculturalism related cases have been based on the balance between religious freedom and other fundamental freedoms.

But this has anchored the term multiculturalism into the Constitution and thus place limits on the Government’s ability to push pluralism rather than multiculturalism as the preferred term:

But then there’s section 27, which may be the sleeping giant in our Charter. Back in 1994, I had a meeting with accomplished lawyer and former B.C. Premier Ujjal Dosanjh, then a NDP backbencher, in his Victoria legislature office. He told me that when new Canadians woke up to it, they might realize that section 27 of the Charter opened a lot of possibilities for them and others.

27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.

He told me that he believed section 27 was all about making a place in Canada for new Canadians. Possibly it does. That section owes something to our occidental heritage. In Western democracies it has fallen to the judicial branch of government to champion and defend the minority against the majority. That’s not new. It’s a principle first enunciated in Plato’s The Republic (Book VI, in case you are keeping score). It is indeed the job of the democratic society to protect its minorities. In section 27, that becomes not just simple preservation, but enhancement. What does that mean?

So while the pace of change brought on by the decriminalization of once-forbidden activities may be breathtaking and alien to some, it may turn out that it is section 27 that has the potential to re-shape the nation in which we live.

Enhancing our Multicultural Heritage – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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What Jonathan Kay Has Wrong About Diversity in Journalism

2015/04/14 Leave a comment

On diversity (lack thereof) within the media:

In a recent appearance on Jesse Brown’s Canadaland podcast, newly installed Walrus editor Jonathan Kay discussed with Brown the homogeneity of the people writing for that magazine (and other mainstream outlets) in the country. Most of the young writers he meets, Kay said, are “people who grew up in privileged households.” The typical pattern, he added, is that writing is something young people do on their way to law school.

Increasing diversity in workplaces will require leadership, risk-taking and time. It will require creating opportunities for younger, less proven journalists to take on assignments more challenging than what they’ve done before.

Kay or anyone else in a management position who just throws up his hands when confronted with the diversity conundrum should come visit the Etobicoke college campus where I teach—or just about any other journalism school in the country.

Canada’s journalism schools, not to mention independent campus newspapers and radio stations, are filled with people from almost every imaginable background—people trying to enter a field where job opportunities seem to be dwindling and salaries are stagnating. This is not because they don’t understand the situation but because they are passionate about what journalism, at its best, can and should do.

There is no reliable data specific to Canada that I’m aware of to support or refute this—there doesn’t seem to be much after former Ryerson professor John Miller’s Diversity Watch project which hasn’t been updated in 10 years—but a perception exists that there is a disparity in who gets jobs. “Journalism schools are pumping out so many visible minorities and plenty of women, and they do not get jobs the way white kids do,” Hazlitt managing editor Scaachi Koul was quoted by J-Source as saying at a recent Massey College Press Club event in Toronto on the generational gap in Canadian journalism.

…If Kay’s assertion that there are very few good essayists in the country is true, then why not use his position, resources and experience to develop new voices? Instead, when Brown asked Kay to name some people he would like to add to the Walrus’s roster, two of the three people he mentioned were Conrad Black and Rex Murphy—both of whom are exemplars of the status quo. (Not to mention bad writers.)

Kay’s comments are a perfect example of what Don Heider was writing about: someone who is not necessarily opposed to change but has no good reason, personally, professionally or politically, to act.

To give credit where credit is due, The Walrus, with Jon Kay’s support, has been particularly helpful in providing advice to New Canadian Media.

What Jonathan Kay Has Wrong About Diversity in Journalism – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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ICYMI: Ontario imams to urge Muslims vote in federal election

2015/04/14 1 Comment

Good article on Canadian Muslim voting and the ridings in which it can make a difference:

Of course, Canadian Muslims don’t vote as a united front.

According to an Ipsos Reid exit poll from the 2011 election, 12 per cent of Muslims who voted supported the Conservative party, while 46 per cent voted Liberal, and another 38 per cent voted NDP.

That doesn’t bother Sajan. “Our goal is that all eligible Canadian Muslims vote, period,” she says.

Nevertheless, higher Muslim voter turnout could make a significant difference not only in ridings with high Muslim populations such as Don Valley East and Mississauga Centre, but also in key ridings in Calgary and Edmonton, according to former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra.

“I lost an election by 300 votes,” says Alghabra, who represented the federal riding of Mississauga-Erindale from 2006-08.  “I know from experience that every vote counts.”

According to Statistics Canada, Muslims comprise between 12 and 19 per cent of the populations in 19 federal ridings, 11 in Ontario, six in Quebec and two in Alberta.

Mohammed Ayub Khan, a political science researcher at McMaster University, says one of the reasons that Muslims haven’t been very active at the polls historically is that they haven’t felt especially connected with the issues highlighted by parties.

Another reason may be the apparent rise in Islamophobia in recent years, which has left many Muslim Canadians feeling alienated and unengaged in the political process, says University of Toronto political science professor Katherine Bullock.

For his part, Khan says this year may be different. “2015 may well serve as the watershed event in Canadian Muslim political history” because of the intense focus surrounding Bill C-51 and things like the niqab debate, he says.

“It has really galvanized the various Muslim communities to start a conversation around the issue and consider their options.”

Bullock agrees, and Canadian Muslim Vote hopes to seize on that interest and expand its presence in other cities after this year’s election, translating its campaign materials into different languages to reach as wide a group as possible.

Friday’s launch will see imams from Ajax all the way to Kitchener touting the importance of civic engagement and calling Canada home.

Ontario imams to urge Muslims vote in federal election – Politics – CBC News.

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Munk Debates would benefit from more women panellists | Mallick

2015/04/13 Leave a comment

Heather Mallick on the lack of women at the Munk debates. Striking and pointed:

Trick question. The three Fareeds are one guy whose last name is Zakaria and I now wonder if the reason he never lost his job over repeated plagiarism accusations is that he’s the stock non-white panel guy no one can afford to lose.

The men were all participants in the right-leaning Munk Debates, a creepy stage series run by a guy named Rudyard that is now appearing in book form. Nine book covers from the series, with 34 names, appear in a full-page newspaper ad that no one realized would look odd to the new readers that newspapers want to welcome.

Another trick: only one woman, the wonderful Anne-Marie Slaughter, who is famous for having downsized her U.S. political job because it crushed family life, debated with men. Munk held one debate on women’s rights and, naturally, it was about whether they should have them (had it made men obsolete?). Four women were hired for cat fight purposes. The women’s panel was clearly intended as the Bearded Ladies show at the carnival, and I’m not falling for it.

The debates were on loaded questions about weighty subjects — Obama (is he malign?), state spying (is it making us safer?), the EU (has it failed?) — which were too important to include women debaters. When women speak, it’s usually on “female” subjects, subjective and lightweight.

The classic Munk audience has never heard women speak aloud in public, plainly, the way men do with ease. It would freak them out. I’ve had men accuse me of writing columns simply “to provoke.” One talk show host who has blamed women en masse for refusing to appear on his show — “No man will say, ‘Sorry, can’t do your show tonight, my roots are showing,” he wrote — made the provoke remark to me recently. This man had only noticed in 2014 that his guest lineup was unconscionable.

… If the men of Munk think that a newspaper page full of men’s names, like some kind of proactive war memorial, is proof of “great debates” and “great reading,” I’m saying that women also have “great” things to say about taxation, nuclear weapons, European politics, state surveillance and even China. China has women. Some women are Chinese, imagine that.

The men of Munk will be giddy to hear this. Go nuts, Rudyard! Ask a lady to talk. Ask a Chinese lady. Ask several. I know this is crazy stuff but women are loaded now — call it mad money — and they like to talk and be talked to. Pay them at the same rate.

Women. Talking. This is crazy stuff in 2015 but something tells me the audiences might be ready for it.

Munk Debates would benefit from more women panellists | Toronto Star.

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