How to immigrate to Canada if you’re a polygamist

While there is a policy rationale for the allowing people to “regularize” their marriage, and I can imagine the complex policy and legal discussions that led to this policy, I tend to be with Gillis on this.

… sharp eyes will notice a contradiction between these guidelines and longstanding immigration policy in Canada. Polygamy is considered a crime in Canada. Criminality is supposed to exclude you from eligibility for residency. As Kurland put it in an email to me this morning: “Who lets the CIC choose the sections of Canada’s Criminal Code to ignore?”

Evidently, the policy recognizes the legality of polygamy in some countries, such as Jordan, Iraq and Syria, allowing for people to adjust their living arrangements so they comply with Canadian law. Our flexibility is this regard is remarkable: children from marriages other than the applicant’s first, for instance, can come along as dependents to Canada, provided the other parent confirms they were not abducted.

Depending on your outlook, I guess this all makes us either sophisticated, cosmopolitan and nuanced—or credulous to a fault.

How to immigrate to Canada if you’re a polygamist – Canada, Charlie Gillis, News & Politics – Macleans.ca.

Le complot islamiste n’est pas une menace, dit Gérard Bouchard

A dose of reality from Gérard Bouchard:

Il n’y a pas à s’étonner, cependant, du malaise et de la peur qui accompagnent la présence de croyances religieuses. « La rencontre interculturelle interpelle toujours au fond de chacun ce qui s’y trouve de moins rationnel – ou de plus émotif -, à savoir : l’identité, les valeurs, les idéaux, les traditions […] », a-t-il dit.

Le complot islamiste n’est pas une menace, dit Gérard Bouchard | Le Devoir.

When prodigal jihadis come home: Brender

Good piece by Natalie Brender on the issue of returning jihadis. Never easy, and touchy, but other countries have embraced finding such counter-narratives as one means to reduce potential future jihadis. I witnessed one of the UK initiatives in this area; while I cannot judge the results, the approach was interesting and appeared to engage youth at risk and have merit:

One means of creating “counter-narratives” about Islam and militant politics is by drawing on the credibility of those who once embraced those ideas and now renounce them. To this end, the brief [U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations] urges, efforts at countering violent extremism should include “[e]ducating Muslim thought leaders in mosques and on university campuses through workshops and testimonies from former radicals about why Islamist hardliners threaten Muslim communities.”

Such efforts must originate within Muslim communities; they will not succeed if viewed as propaganda by Western governments. But Western governments can help by providing resources to enable Muslim-led counter-extremism activities to succeed. For that reason, Canada’s government, and Canadians, should keep an open mind to the possibility that some fighters returning to this country might now be ex-jihadists ready to support the anti-extremist cause.

When prodigal jihadis come home: Brender | Toronto Star.

Réplique à Charles Taylor – Les religions «indiscrètes» doivent respecter la société civile | Le Devoir

And the inevitable reply to the arguments of Charles Taylor from Yvan Lamonde, also from McGill, arguing in favour of laicité and secularism. Part of the problem is that many of the secularists are as fundamentalist in their beliefs as the more fundamentalist religious believers, rather than having a more nuanced and open approach to questions of identities. Calling other religions “indiscrètes” says it all.

We live in the world of real people, with all their complexities and identities, not in a theoretical construct.

Est-ce cette liberté individuelle d’un certain type qui justifie qu’on veuille occuper l’espace civil gouvernemental de signes dont des croyants ne seraient absolument pas capables de se départir momentanément, entre huit et dix-sept heures, sans jouer leur identité ? Identité religieuse dans un espace d’identité civile. Pourquoi la « visibilité incontournable » des religions « indiscrètes », pourquoi le jusqu’au-boutisme religieux devraient-ils prévaloir dans la société civile, dans l’espace de l’État ?

Où est la contradiction ? Où est la confusion ? Finalement, l’argument de la « réponse » religieuse donnée à une certaine quête humaine est-il l’ultime justification de la liberté religieuse individuelle et d’un plaidoyer en faveur d’un forcing du religieux dans l’espace étatique neutre ?

Réplique à Charles Taylor – Les religions «indiscrètes» doivent respecter la société civile | Le Devoir.

Multiculturalism rich in church’s 100-year history – Local – The Moose Jaw Times Herald

A nice little story from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, population just over 100,000, reminding just how much multiculturalism and diversity are part of Canada, even in rural Western Canada.

Multiculturalism rich in church’s 100-year history – Local – The Moose Jaw Times Herald.

‘Wear hijabs in and out of class’: Pupils at state Islam school become the first to be forced to cover up with Muslim headscarf | Mail Online

The debate in the UK on state schools with dress codes, in and out of school. Lacking in the article is a comparison with other faith-based state schools, and their dress codes (e.g., Catholic, Jewish, Sikh etc), and how they are applied.

Quebec, ironically, also provides state financing to faith-based schools, despite it ongoing focus on secularism.

A reminder that providing financing can reinforce parallel communities and reduce opportunities for integration.

‘Wear hijabs in and out of class’: Pupils at state Islam school become the first to be forced to cover up with Muslim headscarf | Mail Online.

Muslims finding common ground with Christians: The path to peace – The Globe and Mail

A good example of an inter-faith initiative, Common Word, trying to reduce violence between Muslims and Christians. While I am not sure how effective this initiative will be among the more militant fundamentalists, it nevertheless is providing a forum and space for moderates, and respect for the commonalities among different faiths.

Muslims finding common ground with Christians: The path to peace – The Globe and Mail.

PQ leader Pauline Marois losing her feminist allies: Hébert | Toronto Star

One of the ironies of the debate over the proposed Charter.

PQ leader Pauline Marois losing her feminist allies: Hébert | Toronto Star.

And in other Charter-related news, Tom Mulcair, Leader of the Official Opposition and NDP, maintains his position against the proposed Charter but will not provide any funding for a legal challenge, trimming his sails somewhat:

Charte des valeurs québécoises – Thomas Mulcair modère ses intentions

And no surprise, the hijab is largely accepted, the niqab is not. Previous polls in English Canada are similar; covering the face is rejection and separation, not integration:

Pour certaines personnes, c’est le concept de la domination homme-femme. D’autres ont tout simplement un sentiment anti-islam. Mais il y a aussi le fait que le niqab crée une distance entre les gens qui est en dehors des normes sociales. Des gens vivent un inconfort par rapport à ça.

Sondage sur la tolérance des Québécois: le hijab oui, le niqab non

Muslim extremism: That’s just calling it like it is | Toronto Sun

A number of columns by critics of Islam and Muslims (Michael Coren, Farzana Hassan), who focus on the extremists among them, without recognizing that all religions have their fundamentalists, conservatives and extremists, as well as the majority who are more moderate believers.

The issue is more how extremism manifests itself; unfortunately, in the case of Muslims, it manifests itself in terrorism and blowing people up. And that is the problem, unlike most other communities where it is more internal to how people live their lives (e.g., the choices made by conservative Jews, Christians, Sikhs and the like), although there are also issues from an integration perspective.

I could not find the source reference to Imam Soharwardy (the Calgary Imam referred to in the second article), just the blog commenting on it without a direct link.

Muslim extremism: That’s just calling it like it is | Home | Toronto Sun.

Calgary imam to Muslims: “Go home”

Deeper Than God: Ronald Dworkin’s Religious Atheism

A good review and overview by Stanley Fish in the NYTimes of Ronald Dworkin’s last book, Religion without God. Some of the argumentation is complex, but treating belief and non-belief as equal rights (freedom of and freedom from religion), and how liberals recreate an ethnical framework, is of interest. Quote:

By “ethical independence” Dworkin means the individual’s independence to decide for himself or herself how to acknowledge the “felt conviction that the universe really does embody a sublime beauty.” One form of acknowledgment might be the practice of theism — traditional religion with its rituals, sacred texts, formal prayers, proscribed and prescribed activities; but the conviction of the universe’s beauty does not, says Dworkin, “suppose any god” as its ground. Once we see this, we are on the way to “decoupling religion from a god” and admitting into the ranks of the religious those who are possessed by that conviction but do not trace it back to any deity. They will be, Dworkin declares, “religious atheists.”

Deeper Than God: Ronald Dworkin’s Religious Atheism