Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote (forthcoming)

2015/03/23 2 Comments

Description of my forthcoming book (summer 2015):

With over 20 percent of the population foreign-born, and with more than 250 ethnic origins, Canada is one of the world’s most multicultural societies. Canada’s ethnic and religious diversity continues to grow alongside immigration.

Yet how well is Canada’s model of multiculturalism and citizenship working, and how well are Canadians, whatever their ethnic or religious origin, doing? Will Canada’s relative success compared to other countries continue, or are there emerging fault lines in Canadian society?

Canadian Multiculturalism: Evidence and Anecdote undertakes an extensive review of the available data from Statistics Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada operational statistics, employment equity and other sources to answer these questions and provide an integrated view covering economic outcomes, social indicators, and political and public service participation.

Evidence and Anecdote provides a detailed analysis from the national perspective as well provincial overviews, showing both common trends and regional differences. The book outlines the theoretical, historical, and policy context to illustrate the uniqueness of Canada and evolution of multiculturalism and to help readers understand the broader context for the evidence and analysis.

Visuals and charts are extensively used to engage readers and substantiate the changing nature of Canadian diversity.

Intended audience includes the media, academics, policy makers at federal, provincial and municipal levels, organizations active in integration and related issues, as well as ethnic and religious communities themselves.

Canadian Multiculturalism: Evidence and Anecdote will be available summer 2015.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • Theory, Policy and Practice
  • Canada: A National Perspective
  • British Columbia: Or Should it be Asian Columbia?
  • Alberta: The New Face of Diversity
  • Saskatchewan: Steady Growth
  • Manitoba: Quiet Success
  • Ontario: Multiculturalism at Work
  • Québec: Impact of a Complex Identity
  • Atlantic Canada: Immigrants Wanted but Will They Come and Stay?
  • The North: Aboriginal Nations and New Canadians
  • Policy Reflections and Implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Appendices

Summary deck presentation here.

Filed under Multiculturalism

Quebec infringed on religious freedom by forcing Catholic school to teach secular course: Supreme Court

2015/03/21 Leave a comment

On the recent Supreme Court ruling:

Loyola told the Supreme Court it wasn’t challenging the constitutionality of any legislation. But it was invoking a regulatory provision that allows private schools to teach their own version of a course where their program is equivalent, the school said in its factum. However, Quebec’s Education Department doesn’t consider Loyola’s substitute course an equivalent one. One reason is that the approach recommended by the ERC course is non-denominational, while Loyola’s version aims to transmit the Catholic faith, the Quebec government argues.

Loyola has said it would teach all the same content at the ERC course Loyola’s former principal Paul Donovan told the Montreal Gazette on Wednesday.

“We just didn’t want to have to suppress or hold back the Catholic nature of the school,” Donovan said.

Private religious schools in Quebec can teach their own faiths, but separately from the ERC course.

It’s the second time the Supreme Court has weighed in on the course taught in Quebec’s schools since the 2008-2009 school year. A Drummondville couple, who are Catholics, had argued that refusing to exempt their sons from the compulsory course violated their freedom of conscience and religion. But in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court dismissed their appeal in 2012. The couple hadn’t proved that the ERC course interfered with their ability to pass their own faith onto their children, the decision said.

Quebec infringed on religious freedom by forcing Catholic school to teach secular course: Supreme Court.

Graeme Hamilton’s commentary on the fears of religious fundamentalism in Quebec:

Listening to politicians, it can feel as if Quebec is under assault from religious fundamentalists. The opposition Parti Québécois wants an observer to report annually to the National Assembly on “manifestations of religious fundamentalism.” The Liberal government has a working group to combat radicalism. The Coalition Avenir Québec proposes banning preaching that runs counter to Quebec values.

But those same legislators have no quarrel with a secular fundamentalism that has taken root in the province at the expense of religious rights. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada sent a message to Quebec that its state-sanctioned secularism can go too far.

In a ruling affirming the right of Montreal’s Loyola High School, a private Catholic boys school, to teach its own version of a provincially mandated course on ethics and religion, the court offered a timely reminder to politicians.

“The pursuit of secular values means respecting the right to hold and manifest different religious beliefs,” Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the majority. “A secular state respects religious differences, it does not seek to extinguish them.”

The pursuit of secular values means respecting the right to hold and manifest different religious beliefs

The ruling specifically applies to a small number of private religious schools in Quebec, but it resonates more widely at a time when governments contend with questions involving religious rights. Recently in Quebec, mosques have run up against obstacles over fears of religious extremism, and a Muslim woman was told she could not appear before a Quebec Court wearing her hijab. The federal government has taken a stand against the face-covering niqab, saying women cannot wear the garments during citizenship ceremonies.

Interference with a religious group’s beliefs or practices is justified only if they “conflict with or harm overriding public interests,” Justice Abella wrote.

… In a partially concurring opinion that argued for less restriction on Loyola, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Michael Moldaver wrote that it is enough for Loyola teachers to treat other religious viewpoints with respect; it does not have to treat them as equally legitimate.

“Indeed, presenting fundamentally incompatible religious doctrines as equally legitimate and equally credible could imply that both are equally false,” they wrote. “Surely this cannot be a perspective that a religious school can be compelled to adopt.”

John Zucchi, whose son was a student at Loyola when the ERC program was introduced and who was a plaintiff in the initial court case, said Thursday’s ruling provides crucial guidance. “This is helping the country to come to what I would call a sane form of secularism,” he said. “We don’t need to shut down one voice in the name of diversity and pluralism, but rather diversity and pluralism mean that all perspectives can be heard and be out in the public square.”

Graeme Hamilton: A secular fundamentalism has taken root in Quebec

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Pierre Karl Péladeau fait volte-face et s’excuse

2015/03/21 Leave a comment

Once the cat is out of the bag…

Les mots ont un sens. Les mots ont un poids. Le favori de la course à la direction du Parti québécois, Pierre Karl Péladeau, a reconnu jeudi soir avoir eu tort de présenter l’immigration comme un obstacle sur le chemin du pays du Québec.

Le PQ doit « rassembler le plus large possible », a fait valoir M. Péladeau lors d’une causerie entre les cinq prétendants à la succession de Pauline Marois et des militants péquistes de la région du Centre-du-Québec.

En route vers le motel Blanchet à Drummondville, le député de Saint-Jérôme a mis en ligne sur sa page Facebook un message intitulé « Mes excuses ». « Ça m’apparaissait important de chasser l’ambiguïté parce qu’il faut que ce soit clair, net et précis : […] ceux et celles qui ont décidé de venir s’installer ici au Québec, c’est une richesse pour le Québec », a-t-il répété une fois arrivé à destination.

… Les propos tenus par M. Péladeau mercredi soir attestent de la « déviation claire vers le nationalisme ethnique » prise par le PQ, estime le premier ministre Philippe Couillard. « Depuis la charte, il y a une dérive très malheureuse. Il n’y a plus d’arguments financiers [et] économiques pour la séparation du Québec. Alors, on essaie de s’accrocher à n’importe quoi », a déclaré le chef du gouvernement à l’entrée du caucus libéral. « D’après moi [cela] doit faire frémir ceux qui ont fondé ce parti-là. »

De son côté, le ministre Gaétan Barrette a reproché au PQ d’importer l’idéologie du Front national, parti d’extrême droite français, en sol québécois. « Le Parti québécois est en train de montrer son vrai visage. C’est un parti sectaire », a-t-il lancé.

Pierre Karl Péladeau fait volte-face et s’excuse | Le Devoir.

And Chantal Hébert’s commentary on the PQ leadership campaign:

PQ blind spot keeps Pierre Karl Péladeau the party favourite: Hébert

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Audrey Macklin: And just like that, you’re an illegal immigrant

2015/03/21 Leave a comment

Audrey Macklin on the “4-in, 4-out” rule, requiring all temporary foreign workers who have been in the country for four years or longer to leave, and remain outside Canada for at least four years.

Some Canadians may consider the government’s guest-worker regime to be misguided and believe it should not continue. But terminating it will not resolve the dilemma of those temporary foreign workers who are already here and who are the targets of the “4-in, 4-out” rule. Some Canadians may equally have little sympathy for temporary foreign workers who overstay their visas, no matter what their motives. Some may not care that non-status workers are even more precarious and exploitable than temporary foreign workers — after all, they are not supposed to be here, anyway.

But the point is that it is absolutely inevitable and predictable that they will be here. Governments, like people, might be assumed to intend the natural consequences of their actions. So why would the government devise a rule that is guaranteed to produce just-out-of-time illegality?

It is common knowledge that some sectors of the U.S. economy have become dependent on undocumented workers, of which there are an estimated 11 million. Some employers find them a desirable work force precisely because their deportability ensures that they will “work hard and work scared.” These employers are also known to wield their political influence accordingly. To my knowledge, there is no comparable market for non-status workers in Canada, at least not yet.

On March 31, temporary foreign workers will go to bed as lawfully employed and wake up the next day as illegal immigrants

Migrants without legal status are also easy targets for vilification. The slide from “illegal immigrant” to “criminal” in popular discourse is politically cheap and easy. A government that is looking to supplement the bogus refugee, the marriage fraudster and the foreign terrorist with a new category of bad immigrant and a new excuse to get tough on non-citizens might find it convenient to add “illegal immigrants” to the roster. The government’s role in illegalizing these migrants may escape notice.

Thanks in part to Canada’s historic commitment to permanent immigration, this country has not had a significant population of irregular immigrants, until now. Thanks to the “4-in, 4-out” rule, Canada’s population of “illegal immigrants” is about to increase, and not because hordes of foreign nationals have suddenly surged across the border clandestinely.

On March 31, temporary foreign workers will go to bed as lawfully employed, hard-working, tax-paying residents of Canada, and wake up the next day as illegal immigrants. A bad law will have made them illegal. A good law would put them on the path to permanent residence.

Audrey Macklin: And just like that, you’re an illegal immigrant

Filed under Multiculturalism

‘Behind Sweden’s tirade is a hidden Western agenda to tarnish Islam’ | Arab News

2015/03/20 Leave a comment

A reminder of some of the beliefs of those allied in the fight against ISIS and their denial of universal human rights:

Sweden and other Western countries have adopted double standards while dealing with human rights as they ignore the killing of thousands in Iraq, Syria and Palestine, and highlight the flogging of an individual in Saudi Arabia as a big issue, said Dr. Mohammed Badahdah, assistant secretary general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

Speaking to Arab News, he emphasized that Saudi Arabia’s rules and regulations as well as its judicial system are based on the Qur’an and Sunnah or Shariah. “Shariah laws are not made by Parliament or people’s representatives. They are divine laws given by the Almighty for the welfare and security of the whole humanity,” he explained.

“It’s the duty of all countries and societies to respect religious faiths, beliefs and cultures of different communities in order to promote peace and stability in the world,” Badahdah said while denouncing Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s anti-Saudi tirade.

“We are not imposing Shariah on others. Why do then Sweden and other Western countries criticize the Kingdom when we are implementing Shariah in accordance with our faith? This is clear interference in our internal affairs and Saudi Arabia will not tolerate such attacks,” he said.

‘Behind Sweden’s tirade is a hidden Western agenda to tarnish Islam’ | Arab News.

Filed under Religion Tagged with , ,

‘Mansplaining’ the return of political correctness: Neil Macdonald

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Neil Macdonald on the current trends in politically correct discourse (there is a line being sensitive in one’s use of language and being over-sensitive as some of his examples indicate):

Employers or school officials, faced with tens of thousands of sneering tweets, can be forgiven for thinking the quickest way out is to sacrifice the sinner, even if the sinner hasn’t really sinned.

Students who follow this crypto-salafist orthodoxy despise the concept of free, protected speech (except, obviously, their own).

On campuses, many still tend to follow the thinking of the feminist scholar and activist Catharine MacKinnon, who argues that free speech is just a weapon in the patriarchal arsenal.

In reality, this view is not very new at all. Back in the early 1990s, the head of student government at Stanford University declared “We don’t put as many restrictions on free speech as we should.”

Of course, there are others who think that way, too.

The Bush-era neoconservatives who clamped down on speech and stepped up surveillance in the name of security after 9/11 are one example.

The Canadian government, with the broad provisions in its Bill C-51 allowing it to order the removal of what it calls “terrorist propaganda” from the internet, is another. (Define terrorism? Canada’s justice minister says the public should just “look it up.”)

As the social critic and author Robert Hughes put it in his brilliant 1993 book The Culture of Complaint, “paleo-conservatives and free-speech therapists are both on the same wagon, the only difference being what they want to ban.”

But re-reading Hughes’s book I am confident of one thing: in another generation or two, language that now seems so inclusive and tolerant, words designed to create a “safe place” for discourse, will undoubtedly seem jarring, if not insulting. Language police will be insisting on new argot.

My grandchildren will no doubt someday stare agape at their parents for using the term “people of colour,” and inform them that any reference to colour is divisive and ugly.

Or that “transgender” implies that there was ever any validity to “gender” in the first place.

The urge to control other people’s speech is atavistic. It will never lessen, and my guess is the technology to enforce it will only grow more sophisticated.

‘Mansplaining’ the return of political correctness – World – CBC News.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Larry Miller and the case against the niqab – Wherry

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Aaron Wherry’s two questions:

First, if the government wishes to see the niqab banned, why doesn’t it change the regulations to reflect that? I asked the office of Minister Chris Alexander that question and a spokesman responded, “We are not going to speculate on hypotheticals and we are going to make our arguments in court.” (In an op-ed published today, law professor Richard Moon suggests the government amend the regulations, though Moon notes that would trigger a Charter challenge, which the government would lose.)

Second, and more crucial, it seems to me, if the government adamantly believes the niqab should be banned during the oath, why did the government apparently tell the court that the directive was not mandatory, but optional? Here, again, are the first three sentences of paragraph 30 of Justice Boswell’s ruling:

The Respondent argues that this application is premature. In its view, the Policy is not mandatory and citizenship judges are free not to apply it. As such, there is no way to know what would have happened had the Applicant attended the ceremony and refused to uncover her face.

So it would seem that while the government is publicly declaring that wearing the niqab during the oath is unequivocally not something that should be allowed, it has otherwise defended the policy as quite open to equivocation. Beyond the legal arguments here, that seems to my untrained eye like a serious complication for the government’s political argument.

Whatever Larry Miller’s views of where the hell one should situate oneself, the government’s basic argument would seem to amount to this: that a citizenship ceremony is of a particular nature that the government should be able to impose a standard of dress for it, regardless of an individual’s claim to religious freedom, so far as the niqab is concerned. In light of all else—and, I might add, the Supreme Court’s ruling on when a niqab should be removed during a trial—it remains a weak and uninspiring argument. It is a principle without a practical basis that would have the government dismiss a fundamental right. It is to presume that the state can, without substantial cause, dictate attire and place a limit on one’s religious freedom.

Larry Miller and the case against the niqab – Macleans.ca.

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Banning the niqab harms an open society. So does wearing it: Omer Aziz

2015/03/18 Leave a comment

Omer Azis on the niqab debate:

Assuming it is genuine modesty and not an ostentatious display of conservative religiosity that motivates a woman to wear a black veil sequestering her from the rest of society, a cultural practice that demands of one sex to cover up is inherently misogynistic. If anyone should be required to cover their faces, it is the men who torture and kill their daughters and sisters for marrying of their own free will. Let us not mince words here: Women are certainly ‘free’ to wear the niqab, in the same sense as they are ‘free’ to enter the mosque from the side and ‘free’ to stand behind the men while praying. This is a blinkered idea of freedom, but liberalism requires tolerating and legally protecting illiberal attitudes.

The main problem with the niqab, though, is that it diminishes liberal democracy. What separates liberal societies from dictatorships is that the former are open, allow for face-to-face consultation, encourage dissent, and recognize individuals as equals. Liberal societies must allow one citizen to see another citizen’s face when in conversation or contact. When only one party’s face is visible, the informalities of open conversation disappear, body language is eliminated, the natural empathy we humans feel when looking at our fellow human’s face is extinguished. A veil over the face of one citizen permanently alters the terms of the discussion, which is why niqabs have no place in classrooms and other institutions where free discourse is designed to flourish. Imagine a society where all women covered their faces, as some of the more totalitarian Islamists would impose. Call this society what you like, but it would be the farthest thing from liberal democracy.

The enemy of the open society, the late Czech playwright-president Vaclav Havel once wrote, ‘is a person with a fiercely serious countenance and burning eyes.’ Both the politician who seeks to ban what a woman may wear, and the patriarch who seeks to dictate what a woman must wear, are not friends of the open society.

Neither, however, is the niqab.

One of the most articulate commentary yet.

Banning the niqab harms an open society. So does wearing it – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

National Muslim group warns C-51 posturing ‘giving fodder to extremists’

2015/03/18 Leave a comment

Valid points:

“I quite honestly wanted to tell Ms. Ablonczy, ‘please, stop helping the terrorists win’,” NCCM Executive Director Ihsaan Gardee told iPolitics of their tense exchange.

In the exchange Thursday night, Ablonczy said she wanted to “put on the record” what she said was as “a continuing series of allegations” that the NCCM is linked to groups that have expressed support for “Islamic terrorist groups,” including Hamas. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former spokesman, Jason MacDonald, is already being sued by the NCCM for similar comments.

At the time, Gardee bristled at the comments, calling them “McCarthy-esque.”

Gardee later elaborated, warning that, “Violent extremists will now use this kind of thing to say to the young and to the vulnerable and uninformed that ‘See? Even if you are trying to be a part of Canadian society, your country will never accept you’ and that despite what they say, they are in fact at war with Islam and Muslims.”

“It’s seems to be open season,” he said.

National Muslim group warns C-51 posturing ‘giving fodder to extremists’

And in related news, it seems to be open season for inappropriate language by Conservative MPs (see earlier John Williamson apologizes for ‘offensive’ comment on temporary workers program):

“If you aren’t willing to show your face in a ceremony where you’re joining the best country in the world, then frankly … stay the hell where you came from,” he said.

“I think most Canadians feel the same. I may be saying it a little harshly, but it’s the way I feel. I’m so sick and tired of people wanting to come here because they know it’s a good country and then they want to change things before they even officially become a Canadian.”

In a statement released Tuesday, Mr. Miller said some of his comments were “inappropriate.”

“I stand by my view that anyone being sworn in as a new citizen of our country must uncover their face. However, I apologize for and retract my comments that went beyond this.”

Carl Vallée, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, said Mr. Miller’s comments went “beyond our clear position.”

Mr. Miller’s comments went further than Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said last week that the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by a small minority of Muslim women in Canada, was “rooted in a culture that is anti-women.”

Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said recent comments from the Conservative government were “seemingly designed to keep the electorate focused on identity politics in order to distract them from broader issues in an election year.”

“Even with an apology, the damage has been done, and continues to be done, by elected officials who seem intent on debating an issue that has already been fully addressed in our courts and which does little to address the real concerns Canadians have about their day-to-day lives,” Mr. Gardee said in a statement. “It further creates a climate in which Muslim women may be subjected to anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination.”

Again, quick apology but damage done.

Remarks on women wearing niqabs were ‘inappropriate,’ Tory MP says – The Globe and Mail.

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Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Family, friends of radicalized persons wary of reporting: experts

2015/03/18 Leave a comment

Some of the challenges in encouraging families and friends to play a greater part in de-radicalization:

Part of the problem is that friends and family members of individuals who are radicalized believe their only resort is to report their loved one to the police, which might then lead to criminal charges, according to Dr. Lorne Dawson, a terrorist radicalization expert and professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo.

“They (family members) have conflicting loyalties. They don’t know where to report the individual except for the police and they don’t want to be responsible for their loved one being arrested.”

As well, he says, family members may not take the threat seriously. “Maybe the person has a reputation for being over-the-top, or exaggerating things, or being rather extreme in their judgment and views on things.”

Calling the authorities is not ideal for a family that believes it may simply have an emotionally strung-out individual on their hands, he says.

Staff Sgt. David Zackrias heads the Diversity and Race Relations Section of the Ottawa Police Service, which aims to provide outreach and build bridges between police and diverse ethnic communities in Ottawa. He’s also the vice co-chair on the policing side of the Community and Police Action Committee (COMPAC), a community-police advisory body in Ottawa that meets once a month.

He urges family and community members to report an individual who is seemingly in the early stages of radicalization so the person can get help before a violent threshold is crossed.

“If public safety is in jeopardy, we need to make sure the right people are notified,” he says. “But if this is something that we could work with in terms of engagement and there’s an issue with a certain person who is in the infancy stage of being radicalized, then we engage the community and address those issues and share what resources are out there in the community.”

Such community resources may include a psychiatrist or social worker with the skills to help the person address the issue.

Most of Zackrias’ work within the Muslim community involves taking part in panel discussions with imams and Muslim community leaders, in which their concerns and grievances are brought forward.

“When the community comes and informs us about certain things in terms of they’re concerned that certain people are coming to town and giving hate speech, we provide them with the information to make an informed decision,” he says.

Last year, Public Safety initiated a strategy for countering violent extremism with a major focus on engaging and interacting with communities and individuals in order to research the root causes of terrorism and how to combat them, according to the department’s website.

Bessma Momani, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a non-partisan international governance think-tank based in Waterloo, Ont., says one of the biggest challenges facing a CVE strategy is building trust between communities and law enforcement.

“The RCMP and different municipal police forces have worked with vulnerable communities and leaders,” she said. “They’ve reached out and some of these programs are really fantastic.”

As well, she says that having an open dialogue among family members about the risks of extremism is vital, because young people are adept at hiding their lives on the Internet from others, and many people may not believe that radicalization could happen in their own homes.

“Having parents and families involved is a really important tool for not only deradicalization but also in preventing wannabe foreign fighters. Like any social problem, dialogue, bringing it to the fore, and having a conversation can be helpful,” she said.

According to a Dec. 2013 study in the Journal of Forensic Science of 119 lone-actors who engaged in or planned to commit acts of terrorism in the United States and Europe, in about 64 per cent of cases friends and family members knew of the individual’s intent to commit terrorism-related acts because the individual had verbally told them.

In more than 65 per cent of the cases, the individual expressed intent to hurt or harm others while in almost 80 per cent of the cases, others knew of the individual’s commitment to an extremist ideology. These findings suggest “friends and family can play important roles in efforts that seek to prevent terrorist plots.”

Of course, recent federal government messaging makes it harder for this kind of outreach and engagement.

Family, friends of radicalized persons wary of reporting: experts | Ottawa Citizen.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , ,

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