Les réfugiés scolarisés en anglais? | Le Devoir

2015/11/27 Leave a comment

One of the little details regarding refugee integration in Quebec and the sensitivities re language:

La ministre de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion, Kathleen Weil, a semé la confusion, mercredi, en affirmant que les commissions scolaires anglophones pourront assurer la formation professionnelle de réfugiés syriens adultes pour ensuite soutenir que tous les efforts de son ministère viseront à les diriger vers des cours en français.

En vertu de la loi 101, tous les enfants d’immigrants doivent fréquenter l’école française. Or, la Commission scolaire anglophone Lester-B.-Pearson (CSLBP) a demandé au gouvernement Couillard de permettre à des enfants de réfugiés syriens de fréquenter ses écoles en invoquant l’article 85.1 de la Charte de la langue française, qui permet des exceptions pour des raisons humanitaires.

Kathleen Weil, tout comme la ministre responsable de la Charte de la langue française, Hélène David, ont refusé, mercredi, d’accéder à cette demande. Toutefois, les immigrants, comme tous les Québécois, ont le choix de leur langue d’enseignement en ce qui a trait à la formation professionnelle, ainsi qu’au cégep et à l’université. Pour la Commission scolaire Lester-B.-Pearson, « il existe toutes sortes de possibilités en matière de formation professionnelle », a indiqué en anglais la ministre de l’Immigration lors d’une conférence de presse en matinée. « J’ai appelé la commission scolaire parce que je comprends ce désir d’aider. »

Priorité au français

Au terme de la réunion du Conseil des ministres en après-midi, Kathleen Weil tenait un discours différent. « La priorité, c’est la francisation, a-t-elle déclaré. Toutes nos actions avec les réfugiés, avec les immigrants, c’est de les orienter vers des cours de français. » Que ce soit à Montréal, à Laval ou à Longueuil, « ils sont là dans un bain linguistique français ».

On ne peut pas travailler en anglais seulement à Montréal. « Non, honnêtement, non, non. Essayez donc, si vous êtes unilingues anglophones, de trouver un emploi à Montréal », a dit la ministre. Du moins, un emploi qui exige un certain « niveau de scolarisation », a-t-elle dû préciser.

Source: Les réfugiés scolarisés en anglais? | Le Devoir

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Experts: Yes, Anti-Refugee Rhetoric Helps ISIS – The Daily Beast

2015/11/26 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, not understood by so many:

President Obama said Sunday that by rejecting and vilifying Syrian refugees, Republicans (and Democrats who are going along with them) are doing the terrorists’ work for them.

“Prejudice and discrimination helps ISIL and undermines our national security,” Obama said. This sounds like a political talking point, but if you speak with the independent academics who actually study the mentality and motivations behind terrorism, it turns out Obama is correct.  Broad anti-Muslim suspicion and rhetoric is not only anti-American, it helps the terrorists!

I spoke with a number of our nation’s top academics who study the pathology and psychology of terrorism in general and ISIS in particular. Every single one agreed that the anti-Syrian refugee policies and rhetoric help ISIS.

“There is no place for bigotry in effective counterterrorism,” Professor James Forest, the director of the graduate program in security studies and interim director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at UMass Lowell, told me. “Terrorist groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State thrive when they can exploit the vulnerable seams within a society, when they can exacerbate prejudices.”

Arie W. Kruglanski, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, has written about how ISIS recruitment strategy is based on psychology, not theology.  And within that context, Kruglanski told me: “The refugee debate could fuel the bitterness and sense of grievance of young Muslims anywhere and could be used by ISIS propaganda machine to enhance anti-US sentiment and boost recruitment.”

“Counterterrorism tries to do two things,” explained Professor Max Abrahms, a political scientist at Northeastern University who studies terrorism. “You try to neutralize existing terrorists and you try to not breed new ones. The surest way to breed new ones is if you’re indiscriminate—for instance, punishing non-violent, moderate Muslims.”

In fact, Abrahms noted he thinks an attack like the one in Paris, from so-called homegrown terrorists, is less likely “because the American Muslim population is much happier, better integrated and does better financially.”

A more moderate Muslim population yields a smaller share of extremists and better relations with law enforcement—which explains why Muslims helped law enforcement prevent one out of every two al-Qaeda related plots against the U.S. since 2009.

“We need to cherish the support and moderation of the American Muslim community,” says Abrahms.

Source: Experts: Yes, Anti-Refugee Rhetoric Helps ISIS – The Daily Beast

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B.C. Sikh community rallies in support of Syrian refugees

2015/11/25 Leave a comment

Good vignette:

The Sikh community in B.C.’s Lower Mainland is rallying to provide support for thousands of incoming Syrian refugees, with offers this week that include food, transportation and even private school for children.

Randeep Sarai, MP for Surrey Centre, convened a meeting over the weekend where roughly 30 community representatives immediately offered a variety goods and services. The federal government will announce details of its Syrian refugee plan on Tuesday, but – if past distribution models are used – B.C. is projected to receive between 2,500 and 3,500 refugees in the next couple of months.

Community organizer Balwant Sanghera, who attended the meeting, said Gurdwaras from Vancouver, Richmond, New Westminster, Abbotsford and Surrey have all agreed to collect food, clothing, blankets and other donations from their congregations. They also plan to launch a provincewide campaign to find free accommodations for the refugees.

“We are very proud to be Canadians and we are also proud of our heritage,” Mr. Sanghera said. “We feel really good if we can be of any help if we are needed.”

Source: B.C. Sikh community rallies in support of Syrian refugees – The Globe and Mail

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

2015/11/24 Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/11/23 Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their lifeblood is the gratuitous message amplification so many proffer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saunders: Avert extremism before it starts by building better neighbourhoods

2015/11/23 1 Comment

Good in-depth piece by Doug Saunders on the lessons learned from an international study on integration, directed by Manjula Luthria of the World Bank, and how they may avoid future faultiness in Canadian multiculturalism and integration:

The first set of barriers is physical, involving housing, neighbourhoods and transportation.

It’s important to allow immigrants and refugees, after their initial settlement, to join clusters of other people from the same background, in places where they can help each other out. A strong body of research has shown that integration happens faster and more effectively when immigrants settle in common districts. Isolation tends to breed alienation (and, in English-speaking countries, extremism tends to emerge from isolated individuals in non-immigrant neighbourhoods; “ethnic” districts are less prone to extremism)..…

The second group of barriers are institutional: those that prevent immigrants from having their credentials recognized, their health care and social crises addressed, and that stand in the way of their children getting the education and assistance they need.

Absolutely crucial here are schools: Too many school systems have built-in incentives for children – especially male offspring of immigrants – to drop out early. While Canadian cities have considerable experience with educating classes of mixed experience (and we know these mixes are good educationally, for both newcomers and established Canadian students), many school boards today are providing only one teacher per class. A larger class size with multiple teachers and teaching assistants offering several levels of education is a recipe for inclusion….

Third are economic barriers. Key here is small business. Previous immigrant groups have succeeded in Canada and other Western countries because they’ve been able to set up shop, in an ad hoc way, without many bureaucratic or legal barriers. This is tougher today: It is increasingly difficult for immigrants to find low-cost spaces on streets with pedestrian traffic, in which they can start a business; they often live in areas where there are few such spaces at all. When they do get a space, they discover that licensing, regulatory and hygiene requirements often impose impossible costs on a small-scale business: The need to install, say, a $40,000 ventilation system has scuppered many a promising immigrant food enterprise….

Fourth are citizenship and inclusion barriers, both legal (the ability to become a citizen) and de facto (the ability to participate in the community and have access to the resources of the government with or without citizenship). There is probably nothing more threatening to integration than having a large population living in your city on a more or less permanent basis without a pathway to full, legal citizenship…

Germany learned this the hard way, when two million Turks went 40 years without access to citizenship, and became an isolated, lost generation who couldn’t invest in their communities or futures. (In recent years, German Turks have become citizens in greater numbers, and now are becoming a success story.) The United States is still learning this with its 12 million long-term residents, many of them born in the U.S. These people are “illegal,” and thus lack the privileges of citizenship, including full education access. The result: an enormous lost opportunity.

Ambitious immigrants, if they don’t know they’ll become citizens, won’t invest in their communities, start legal businesses, put their kids in higher education or enter the financial or political system: They’ll be stranded. Whether we call them “illegal aliens” or “temporary foreign workers,” we’re risking failed integration – not just for them but for the wider community around them – if we put up barriers to citizenship, inclusion, voting and economic participation.

….

The most successful and non-controversial refugee groups are those that are transformed, as quickly as possible, into regular “economic” immigrants: If they’re included quickly in the employment, education and housing systems of the established immigrant community, they will be more likely to stabilize their lives, give up their temporary mindset and become valuable members of their communities.

If we fear for the futures of our newly settled refugees – or worry that the 300,000 immigrants who settle in our cities every year won’t live the Canadian dream of the previous millions – then we need to step back and look at what has worked. We need to follow the dotted line that leads from a faraway country, through a low-cost neighbourhood somewhere, into the centre of our economies and lives. And we need to see where that line may be interrupted, and restore its path. Integration is something that happens, naturally, if we provide the right footholds.

Source: Saunders: Avert extremism before it starts by building better neighbourhoods – The Globe and Mail

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The two faces of the Syrian crisis: a toddler and a tech titan, earlier fears of Vietnamese refugees

2015/11/21 Leave a comment

Anne Kingston, on the different images we have of refugees and how that reflects on us:

That a dead toddler and a tech titan have become the faces of one of the world’s worst refugee crises is telling. Where the Daily Mail and their ilk rely on dehumanizing refugees, those who are sympathetic have wound up making them unrealistically ultra-human. Most refugees, no matter where from, are not adorable small children. And odds are low that they or their progeny will revolutionize technology, create neat products people the world over clamour to buy, or contribute billions to the economy. They usually end up working jobs beneath their training and education. Some end up driving taxis, which is what Steve Job’s biological father did.

We search for unifying image to make sense, to rally around. But which images resonate with us says a great deal. One of the emblematic images from the Paris attack was the “Paris for Peace” symbol, the spontaneous illustration by a French artist. The other is a haunting photograph  by Associated Press photographer Jerome Delay of a body lying on the sidewalk outside the Bataclan Theater covered by a blanket, illuminated by lamplight. It is also a powerful tribute to humanity. All that is known about this unnamed person is that only hours earlier he or she was enjoying life in a jubilant crowd listening to music, before, in a  flash becoming a victim of  life’s circumstance. All we know that he or she was human, which in the end is all that should matter.

Source: The two faces of the Syrian crisis: a toddler and a tech titan – Macleans.ca

And Martin Patriquin reminds of the parallel worries that existed with Vietnamese refugees:

Of course, no system is perfect. Nothing is. All we can do is rely on historical precedent. Despite widespread concerns, neither increased criminality or a communist insurgency accompanied those 60,000 Vietnamese refugees. Today, Canada’s Vietnamese population stands at about 220,000—less than a third of the National Citizens’ Coalition’s dire prediction. Among them are politicians, writers, artists and Olympians. If this is anyone’s nightmare, it’s Chairman Mao’s.

Syria undoubtedly poses a security risk. Yet it takes a particularly blinkered sort of logic to come to the conclusion that its people are terrorists in waiting. Again, a bit of history: Canada has accepted roughly 2.5 million refugees and immigrants over the last 10 years alone, according to Statistics Canada data. The country’s Muslim population has doubled every one of the last three decades. And yet the two Islamist terrorist attacks, including that on the Parliament buildings last year, were perpetuated by born-and-bred Canadian converts to that religion.

No, Syrians are running because they are desperate. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights data, close to 200,000, including 20,000 children, have been killed since 2015—the vast majority by the Syrian regime. If it isn’t the regime they are fleeing, it’s the hundreds of armed groups that constitute the rebellion against it. Time only means more bloodshed. Right now is the worst time to be thinking the worst of Syria’s myriad victims.

The fault with fearing refugees

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Calgary Mayor Nenshi ‘shaken’ by racism in debate over refugee crisis

2015/11/20 Leave a comment

One of the best argued pieces on refugee and immigration fears:

“I don’t mind telling you that I have been shaken over the last four months by a tiny minority of the discourse,” the mayor said in an interview in his office.

“I haven’t heard stuff like that in a long time, and I think the really divisive rhetoric [around accommodating Syrian refugees] during the election gave people permission to say stuff that wasn’t polite to say in modern society. And that is absolutely different than it was six or seven months ago.”

Since becoming the country’s first Muslim mayor in 2010, Mr. Nenshi has been reluctant to wade into the often sensitive and difficult discussions that have taken place about followers of his religion. He says he is the mayor of a multicultural community of 1.2 million and not a religious authority who can speak on behalf of Muslims everywhere.

However, the current conversation in Canada and around the world seems to have stirred some genuine feelings of angst from within. He said he is “very concerned” when Muslims “are asked to apologize for Muslims everywhere.”

“Every one of the terrorists so far has been a man,” he said. “We don’t ask all men to apologize on behalf of all men when stuff like this happens. We certainly don’t ask Christians to apologize when there is a mass shooting involving someone who happens to be Christian.

“But, of course, it’s different, because these people [the terrorists] purport to be doing this work in the name of their faith. But the guy in Norway [mass murderer Anders Breivik] was also that way. But we didn’t ask every Lutheran to apologize for what he did.”

The mayor said Canada has a “tiny minority” of people who assume anyone who is a Muslim or an Arab “must be in cahoots with the terrorists that they are, in fact, actually fleeing from.” He also questioned some of the terrorists-will-come logic being used in an attempt to thwart the Syrian refugee plan in this country.

He said if he was organizing a plot to infiltrate Canada, he would consider the fact that terrorists were able to get people in France and Belgium to do horrible things inside their own countries. “If someone pulls out a French passport, they can be in Calgary in seven hours,” the mayor said, “without checks of any kind.

“So why would I want to embed bad guys, put them on leaky boats where they could die, have them sit in a refugee camp possibly for 18 months, in the hopes they might end up in a country where they might want to do bad stuff? It’s way easier to do bad stuff in other ways.”

The mayor said that when he hears about the racist behaviour that has taken place in recent days in this country, it hurts him as a Canadian.

Source: Calgary Mayor Nenshi ‘shaken’ by racism in debate over refugee crisis – The Globe and Mail

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Even after Paris – especially after Paris: Bringing refugees to Canada must be done well, not fast – Mike Molloy

2015/11/18 Leave a comment

Reasonable note of caution from a settlement and integration perspective:

The argument is about the rushed time frame. The enthusiasm of the Prime Minister, the ambitious goal he has set, the unprecedented creation of a large cabinet committee to co-ordinate the government’s response are a gust of fresh air after the stonewalling and obfuscation of the Harper regime.

The logistical and accommodation challenges are obvious. The argument championed by our front-line settlement workers, many of them former refugees, is that no matter how difficult it might be for refugees to spend their first months in crowded, improvised accommodation in Canada, anything will be better than their current circumstances. They will be safe. They will be welcome. They will be looked after by people who care. Their circumstances will improve from month to month. Strong arguments.

The counter argument is that our communities, our schools and our excellent settlement agencies will be able to do a better job from the start if the refugees arrive over the next few months rather than the next six weeks.

During the heady days of the Indochinese movement in 1979-80, when the challenge was to accept 60,000 people, a monthly average of 4,500 refugees arrived throughout the October-to-June peak period. On arrival at reception centres on military bases in Montreal and Edmonton, they had three to five days to clean up (deeply appreciated after months in squalid refugee camps), rest and eat.

They were welcomed, issued winter clothing and counselled about what would happen next. The underlying and time-tested philosophy was that they would quickly proceed to their new communities with dignity – clean, well equipped and rested. The faster we got them to their sponsors or new communities the better for them, and the sooner they would adapt to their new lives.

It worked. It has always worked. Keeping refugees in holding camps has never been the Canadian way.

Most importantly, as we allowed a little more time for processing overseas, the Indochinese refugees arrived with their medical and security clearances in hand. They had been screened, so when they left the Canadian reception centre they were Permanent Residents of Canada cleared for security and criminality, they were eligible to work, to study and for medical coverage, and they were on track for citizenship.

Memo to the Prime Minister: You are on the right track. Give yourself and the rest of us, including the refugees, a break. The media and the Opposition will fuss if they are not all here by Dec. 31 – but no one else will.

Do it as quickly as possible, but most importantly – do it well.

Source: Even after Paris – especially after Paris: Bringing refugees to Canada must be done well, not fast – The Globe and Mail

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Private sponsors build a nation – and leave a legacy: Omidvar

2015/11/17 Leave a comment

Ratna Omidvar’s suggestions on refugees:

How can Canada regain its leadership as a country of compassion again?

  • Consider annual targets for refugee intake as floors and not as ceilings. Given the volatility in the world today, in Syria and in many other places, it seems that we must be flexible and nimble.
  • Make family reunification a cornerstone of refugee policy by working with the Canadian Syrian community and by expanding the notion of families as more than the nuclear unit. Recognize that displacement makes for chaos with families scattered across Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and others left behind in Syria.
  • Match the public enthusiasm for private sponsors. As private sponsorships rise, so should government-assisted refugees.
  • Enhance participation of private sponsors by considering a tax credit or clarifying eligibility for charitable receipts.
  • Expedite the arrival of refugees who are privately sponsored. The long wait periods of four to five years has been absurd and damaging. Once refugees are selected, there is a strong case to bring them to Canada immediately. A delay in resettlement is not good for sponsors, who plan for a year-long sponsorship based on current schedules, jobs, residences and family situations. Delays can unravel plans and sap goodwill. But most importantly, waiting works against the security and well-being of these future Canadians who are in limbo in fragile, sometimes hostile conditions.

All nations have their moments of regret and shame, but we never regret moments of compassion. One such moment was Canada’s response to the Indochinese refugee crisis.

Another moment is on us today. Canada has a unique opportunity to show ourselves and the world what we are made of.

 Source: Private sponsors build a nation – and leave a legacy – The Globe and Mail

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