B.C.’s South Asians helped hand eight ridings to the NDP

2017/05/17 Leave a comment

The power of ethnic voting based upon issues that affect the community:

A range of negative factors, which some might call a perfect storm, hurt B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark and sharply swung South Asian voters to John Horgan’s New Democratic Party in the May 9 election.

The B.C. Liberals lost all eight Metro Vancouver ridings with large South Asian populations, with political observers saying the governing party failed to connect with voters on both regional issues and worries specific to South Asians.

South Asians felt particularly betrayed by the B.C. Liberals’ approach to the trucking and taxi industries in which South Asians are predominant, said Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist Shinder Purewal and prominent radio host Harjit Singh Gill.
Most of Metro Vancouver’s more than 260,000 South Asians also showed little interest in the B.C. Green party, which means that, unlike in many predominantly white urban ridings, the potential NDP vote was not siphoned off to the third-party Greens.

In north Surrey and north Delta, where South Asians often account for 50 to 80 per cent of the population in neighbourhoods, the NDP on May 9th took four ridings away from the B.C. Liberals (including the defeat of two cabinet ministers) and held on to three others.

The NDP’s George Chow also won Vancouver-Fraserview, which has a sizable South Asian population, defeating Liberal Attorney General Suzanne Anton.

In addition to issues of special concern to South Asians, Gill and Purewal made clear South Asians were miffed with the B.C. Liberals because of three key conflicts that cut across ethnic lines.

Like many others in Surrey, they said, South Asians were ticked with the B.C. Liberals for placing tolls on the Port Mann and proposed future bridges, about thousands of Surrey students making do with school portables and by the Liberals’ abandoned promise to build a second hospital in Surrey.

“South Asians felt betrayed by the people they had sent to Victoria,” said Gill, host of a popular Punjabi- and English-language radio talk show at 1550 AM.

Gill maintained his more than 100,000 listeners saw the B.C. Liberals as “becoming very arrogant” and under the influence of would-be Punjabi “kingmakers;” insiders whom he said had manoeuvred to have their favourites acclaimed as candidates, without nomination battles.

Gill focused several radio programs on the party’s failure to help thousands of Metro Vancouver truck drivers.

The United Truckers Association (UTA), whose membership is predominantly South Asian, publicly hammered the B.C. Liberals for abandoning truck drivers. “They’re going through a very hard time now,” Gill said. Many truckers had gone on strike and “are being exploited by their owners.”

Purewal, who attended UTA meetings as an observer, estimated 80 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s truck and taxi drivers are South Asians.

Surrey itself, he said, is home to more than 7,000 truck drivers.

The B.C. Liberals’ promise in March to support the arrival of Uber, the ride-hailing service, also aggravated many South Asian taxi drivers, said Gill and Purewal.

Source: B.C.’s South Asians helped hand eight ridings to the NDP | Vancouver Sun

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Racial Disparities Persist In Sudden Infant Deaths : NPR

2017/05/16 Leave a comment

Good data helps formulate questions and analysis, and inform future policy:

American Indian and Alaska Native families are much more likely to have an infant die suddenly and unexpectedly, and that risk has remained higher than in other ethnic groups since public health efforts were launched to prevent sudden infant death syndrome in the 1990s. African-American babies also face a higher risk, a study finds.

American Indians and Alaska Natives had a rate of 177.6 sudden, unexplained infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013 (down from 237.5 per 100,000 in 1995), compared to 172.4 for non-Hispanic blacks (down from 203), 84.5 for non-Hispanic whites (down from 93), 49.3 for Hispanics (down from 62.7) and 28.3 for Asians and Pacific Islanders (down from 59.3). The declines were statistically significant only among non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanics and Asians/Pacific Islanders.

“There are still significant gaps and disparities between races and ethnicities,” says Lori Feldman-Winter, a professor of pediatrics at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, N.J., who wasn’t involved with this study and was a co-author of the most recent sleep guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, released last fall.

“We had the overall picture, but no one had really taken a close look at what was happening within that,” says Sharyn Parks, an epidemiologist at the CDC and an author of the study, published Monday in Pediatrics.

The reasons behind those changes, and why rates among American Indians/Alaskan Natives and African-Americans remain so much higher than those of non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics and Asians/Pacific Islanders aren’t known, though.

One important consideration is that the study didn’t control for socioeconomic or other factors, such as prenatal or postnatal exposure to alcohol or tobacco, or breast-feeding patterns. So disparities or changes might be influenced by other factors besides race and ethnicity, say, the differences in the prevalence of prenatal care, says Parks.

It’s also not possible to determine if of the public health campaign on safe sleeping played a role in reducing death rates.

An editorial accompanying the study notes that while non-Hispanic black infants saw death rates decline significantly, separate research has shown that African-Americans are also less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to embrace the safe sleeping recommendations. That suggests something else may have helped drive the improvement in that group, says Richard Goldstein, an author of the editorial and a pediatrician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He says it’s important to consider all the factors that might have helped improve survival, including advances in care for premature infants and a decline in the rate of women younger than 20 having babies. Both preemies and infants born to young mothers are at higher risk of sudden unexplained death.

Source: Racial Disparities Persist In Sudden Infant Deaths : Shots – Health News : NPR

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with

Jonathan Kay: Cultural appropriation should be debated. Too bad Canada’s Writers Union instead chose to debase itself 

2017/05/16 Leave a comment

Along with Liz Renzetti, one of the best commentaries and sad that he felt compelled to resign:

What I (and other Canadian writers and editors) am angry about is the effort by TWUC and its Equity Task Force (which released its own statement) to shame Niedzviecki, and to suggest that his liberal approach to speech is somehow outside the bounds of respectable discourse. TWUC’s over-the-top apology describes the “pain” that the article allegedly caused. It’s part of what may be described as the medicalization of the marketplace of ideas: It is no longer enough to say that you merely disagree with something. Rather, the author must be stigmatized as a sort of dangerous thought criminal. Indeed, the Equity Task Force situates Niedzviecki as an apologist for “cultural genocide,” and accuses him of peddling “a long-debunked false universalism.” The Task Force also claims that the publication of his article is a symptom of “structural racism,” or possibly even “brazen malice.”

This is extraordinary language coming from an organization that represents the interests of “professionally published book authors.” Their mandate should be to seek the broadest possible range of opportunities for their constituents—not act as a chorus for the most restrictive views on acceptable speech.

Unfortunately, this controversy seems to have propelled TWUC in the opposite direction. Its Equity Task Force has released a list of demands aimed at changing TWUC policies, which reads like something out of an undergraduate protest group—including affirmative action hires at TWUC, more humiliating acts of retraction and apology, and sensitivity training sessions. As with all such manifestos, the stiff, dogmatic language carries the creepy whiff of party-line orthodoxy—which is all the more unsettling when you realize that the individuals making these demands are supposed to be professional writers.

Interestingly, the critiques of cultural appropriation offered by Indigenous writers are far more nuanced (and, to my mind, persuasive) than any you will find offered by TWUC. “Do I care if you have a native character in your stupid book about wandering pants or whatever?” writes First Nations writer Robert Jago, for instance. “No. Write away. It doesn’t affect me. But if you’re writing about Native politics, or if you’re writing about crime or drug use, or abuse—that stuff affects us. By writing us one way, and not understanding us properly, you are misrepresenting us and reinforcing harmful stereotypes. You might not think stereotypes matter, but they do when you’re Native and stereotypes prevent you from getting painkillers for an injury.”

“Wandering pants” is a particularly nice touch. But what I really appreciated here was that Jago didn’t go in for jargon: He writes about examples of the real harm—people not getting needed medical attention—that can result when writers get Indigenous culture wrong.

There’s a debate to be had about cultural appropriation: What takes priority—the right of artists to extend their imagination to the entire human experience, or the right of historically marginalized communities to protect themselves from possible misrepresentation. Personally, I land on the side of free speech: I’m fearful that, as at many points in history, small acts of well-intentioned censorship will expand into a full-fledged speech code that prohibits whole categories of art and discourse. But I appreciate why others take the opposite view, especially after I’ve read the critiques of my own views on Twitter.

What I don’t find helpful is the reflexive instinct to shame those with whom we disagree—the kind on display at TWUC this week. Indeed, it is these mobbings that encourage the idea that free speech is under siege from a systematic program of left wing censorship. On both sides, it is fear and suspicion that is driving the social media rage. And as of this writing, there’s no sign it will dissipate soon.

Source: Jonathan Kay: Cultural appropriation should be debated. Too bad Canada’s Writers Union instead chose to debase itself | National Post

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Official Islam in the Arab World: The Contest for Religious Authority – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

2017/05/16 Leave a comment

Interesting article on the limits that political regimes have on religious authorities:

All Arab states have large, official Muslim religious establishments that give governments a major role in religious life. These establishments have developed differently, according to each state’s historical experience. Through them, the state has a say over religious education, mosques, and religious broadcasting—turning official religious institutions into potent policy tools. However, the complexity of the religious landscape means they are rarely mere regime mouthpieces and it can be difficult to steer them in a particular direction.

Religious Institutions in the Arab World

  • Official religious institutions in the Arab world, though generally loyal to their countries’ regimes, are vast bureaucracies whose size and complexity allow them some autonomy.
  • Arab regimes hold sway over official religious structures. However, their ability to bend these religious institutions to suit their own purposes is mixed.
  • The evolution of official religious establishments is rooted substantially in the process of modern state formation.
  • Official religious institutions play multiple roles. These include involvement in endowments and charity, advice and scriptural interpretation, education, prayer, family law, and broadcasting.
  • Increasingly, the authority of official religious voices has been challenged by unofficial actors. Some of these actors stand wholly outside official structures, but others may find shelter in more autonomous parts of official religious institutions, adding to the complexity of the religious landscape in many countries.
  • International actors would like to see official religious representatives oppose violent extremism. However, religious officials have limited ideological tools to confront radical Islamists, and their priorities are different than those of actors from outside the region.

Regimes’ Relations With Religious Establishments

By acting intrusively in religious affairs and seeking to increase their control, regimes risk making religious officials appear to be mere functionaries, undermining their credibility. They also risk pushing dissidents into underground organizations.

 

By allowing official religious institutions some autonomy, regimes can enhance their monitoring ability and the integrity of religious officials. However, it also means they lose some control and indirectly create spaces for their critics to organize.

 

Western states should know the size and complexity of religious institutions means they are not always effective at fighting extremism as Western actors may wish. The regimes controlling them often have broader agendas than just combating radical groups.

 

For those seeking to defeat radical ideologies, aligning with authoritarian regimes and their religious establishments is attractive. However, by placing unrealistic expectations on what regimes and their establishments can and are willing to deliver, and by replicating an often self-defeating strategy of relying on authoritarian controls to combat nonconformist movements and ideas, this approach may offer only the illusion of a solution.

Source: Official Islam in the Arab World: The Contest for Religious Authority – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Ken Ward: Indonesia lacks answers to rise of political Islam- Nikkei Asian Review

2017/05/16 Leave a comment

More on Indonesia and the challenge of Islamic fundamentalists:

Purnama’s defeat and imprisonment also pose questions for Indonesia’s future as a country reputed for pluralism and tolerance, as well as for the “moderate” orientation of most of its Muslims. As happened in many Middle Eastern countries in recent decades, secular nationalism appears to be weakening in Indonesia and a less tolerant form of Islam seems to be consolidating itself. Secular nationalism in Indonesia has never found an eloquent and effective champion since President Sukarno, who died 47 years ago.

The tens of thousands of Indonesians who participated in the rallies held over the last six months were by no means all followers of HTI, the Islamic Defenders’ Front (IDF) or other radical Muslim groups. According to Greg Fealy, also of the Australian National University, and an astute observer of Indonesia’s Muslim politics, many of the participants saw the demonstrations as a legitimate form of religious activity and did not support radical political objectives such as the nationwide adoption of Islamic law.

Those rallies were usually termed actions “to defend Islam,” echoing the IDF’s name. This highlights an advantage that Muslim activists have over secularist or other opponents. It is much easier to “prove” that Islam is under attack than to show that, for example, secular nationalism is under threat. This is partly because the endless wars taking place throughout the Muslim world, largely waged by the U.S. with its local allies against various Muslim opponents, give an international dimension to claims that Islam is under threat.

Moreover, as Islam is by far Indonesia’s majority religion, it is easy to mount the case that Muslims are somehow under-represented. For example, if the governor of the capital city of a Muslim-majority nation like Indonesia is a non-Muslim, it is easy to argue that Muslims are obviously being denied their appropriate place. This is leading to a de facto redefinition, if not abandonment, of Indonesia’s longstanding national motto, Unity in Diversity: Non-Muslims may be elected to govern in non-Muslim-majority regions or cities, but not in Muslim-majority ones, according to such a redefinition.

The ideological counterpoint to Islam in Indonesia is Pancasila, the national doctrine or ideology. But its lofty if essentially generic principles lack an emotional pull. They do not lend themselves to being turned into catchy slogans for mass rallies. Nor does Pancasila have any international connection. A massacre of Christians in Egypt, for example, will not be seen to threaten Pancasila or bring pro-Pancasila demonstrators into the streets.

…HTI is a non-violent organization, however, and a court may refuse to ban it merely on the grounds of its long-term objectives. As pointed out by a former justice and human rights minister, the government has so far ignored the complex procedures it should follow before asking a court to ban HTI. The full legal process can take up to a year.

Such a long period will give Muslim organizations ample opportunity to combat what they will condemn as a new threat to Islam. The attempt to put HTI on trial cannot be blamed on Purnama. Instead Widodo will, correctly, be held responsible. He risks being targeted as anti-Muslim if HTI is banned, and as incompetent if it is not. In any case, Widodo has unintentionally offered his Muslim opponents a platform that will allow them to maintain their recent high level of activism.

Indonesia needs to develop an effective strategy for containing hardline currents of Islam, but the Widodo government has none. Focused primarily on securing investment for infrastructure and increasing gross domestic product, Widodo lacks the vision needed to reverse the trend toward intolerance.

Muslim influence from abroad, particularly the increasing spread of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam, threatens Indonesia’s traditions, which urgently require revitalization. Lately, however, the main vehicles for moderate Islam, Nahdatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, have allowed themselves to be upstaged by their radical counterparts. As for Widodo, whether or not he is re-elected in 2019, he does not seem to be a leader capable of restoring balance between political Islam and nationalism, or of inspiring a restoration of traditional Indonesian Muslim values of tolerance and respect for other religions.

Source: Ken Ward: Indonesia lacks answers to rise of political Islam- Nikkei Asian Review

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Does Australia’s values test have a future in Canada? Konrad Yakabuski

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

Yakabuski asks the valid question: could Australian dog whistle politics happen here?

To a certain extent, they already have: the use of the niqab and “barbaric cultural practices” tip line in the 2015 election, the Kellie Leitch and Steven Blaney leadership campaigns. As he notes, survey questions highlight an underlying concern about immigrant values.

That being said, while we naturally enough see the similarities with Australia – immigration-based countries, large number of foreign-born voters, considerable diversity – we often fail to see some of the differences:

  • Indigenous/white settler dichotomy in contrast to the more complex Canadian Indigenous/French settler/British settler background and a history, albeit highly imperfect, of accommodation and compromise;
  • a political system that provides greater opening for far right extremist voices;
  • a political system that results in fewer visible minorities being elected than in Canada; and,
  • a generally harsher political culture.

So while we always have to guard against complacency, we also need to keep in mind that national elections are largely fought in the 905 and BC’s Lower Mainland, where new Canadian voters, mainly visible minority, form the majority or significant plurality of voters.

The Liberal success in these ridings (they won 30 out of the 33 ridings where visible minorities are the majority) suggest that values or identity-based wedge politics are a losing, not winning, strategy:

When Malcolm Turnbull staged an internal Liberal coup to replace an unpopular Tony Abbott as party leader and Australia’s prime minister in 2015, it was hailed as victory of the moderns and moderates over the ultraconservative ideologues and their nasty dog-whistling strategists.

Guess who’s blowing dog whistles now?

The plan Mr. Turnbull unveiled last month to screen immigrants for Australian values (sound familiar?) and make it harder to obtain Australian citizenship represents a crass U-turn for a Prime Minister who only a few years ago attacked a then-Labor government for seeking to cut the number of temporary foreign workers entering the country. “If you support skilled migration and a diverse society, you don’t ramp up the chauvinistic rhetoric,” he tweeted in 2013.

Now, it is Mr. Turnbull’s turn to target the so-called 457 visa, replacing it with a program that puts new restrictions on foreign workers. The Prime Minister says the immigration changes are all about “putting Australians first.” But they are really about exploiting largely, but not exclusively, working-class resentment toward visible minorities, especially if they’re Muslims.

“If we believe that respect for women and children and saying no to violence … is an Australian value, and it is, then why should that not be made a key part, a very fundamental part, a very prominent part, of our process to be an Australian citizen?” Mr. Turnbull asked last month.

Well, for starters, because it demonstrates an astonishing degree of contempt for the very values that liberal democracies such as Australia purport to champion.

Is it really necessary to ask immigrants “under which circumstances is it permissible to cut female genitals” to convey the unacceptability of excision, which is already illegal? You can only answer yes if the real objective of such a measure is to pander to a substantial, but misguided, group of voters who seeks to alleviate their own insecurities by humiliating others.

You’d almost think this cockeyed plan was something cooked up by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who may or may not have been behind the 2015 election promise by former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to set up a “barbaric cultural practices” hotline. But Sir Lynton – the knighthood was bestowed by former British prime minister David Cameron after the so-called Wizard of Oz helped him win the 2015 British election – is currently too busy exercising the political dark arts in aid of Tory PM Theresa May’s election bid.

Sir Lynton’s business partner, Mark Textor, however, happens to be Mr. Turnbull’s chief pollster. And what the polls are telling Mr. Turnbull is that white, working-class voters in Australia are increasingly turning sour on immigration. This is something of a paradox in a country in which 28 per cent of the population is foreign-born, compared with about 21 per cent in Canada, and that has long been held up as a model multicultural society.

The truth is that both the Liberals (who are actually conservatives) and the Labor Party now only pay lip service to multiculturalism. Both are seeking to scratch an itch among white working- and middle-class voters. Labor recently ran an ad in Queensland promising to “build Australia first, buy Australian first and employ Australians first.” All of the dozen or so workers in the ad were white.

Support for the current policy of turning back boats of asylum seekers, or detaining them on islands off the Australian coast, remains strong, even among Labor voters. Hence, the dilemma for Labor Leader Bill Shorten, trapped between his party’s white working-class base and the urban progressives and immigrant voters Labor needs to win elections.

Mr. Turnbull, meanwhile, is looking over his shoulder at a renewed threat from the far-right One Nation party and Mr. Abbott, who appears to be angling for his old job. He just gave a speech denouncing the “cultural cowardice” of the elites, including the folks at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and their “pervasive ambivalence verging on hostility to our country and its values.”

Does Australia represent the ghost of Canadian politics yet to come? Polls show Canadians from across the political spectrum really like Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s idea of screening immigrants for Canadian values. She’s sticking to her guns, no matter how many old Red Tory friends she loses.

Hey, if Australia can go that low, why can’t we?

Source: Does Australia’s values test have a future in Canada? – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Don’t be like us, America: resist Trump’s war on the census

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

Good article by Anne Kingston:

It is never a good day for democracy when the head of the national census bureau quits. Canadians learned that in 2010 when Statistics Canada’s chief statistician, Munir Sheikh, resigned after then-industry minister, Tony Clement, falsely stated that the decision to axe the long-form census came from within StatsCan. Sheikh later said continuing budget cuts undermined the agency’s credibility.

For Americans, that day arrived this week, when U.S. Census Bureau director John H. Thompson, who’d held the job since 2013 and was expected to stay through 2017, suddenly resigned.  The back story remains a mystery. We do know the bureau, ramping up for the 2020 census was cash-strapped and under increasing political pressure. Months ago, insiders predicted a “train wreck” if the bureau didn’t get the resources it needed. Less than a week ago, Thompson stood before a combative congressional committee to request an extra $309 million for IT equipment.

Thompson’s exit, eclipsed by news of FBI director James Comey’s firing the same day, didn’t get the coverage it warranted. Yet his departure signals as potentially as big a blow to democracy.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has shredded data and threatened scientific research with a discipline absent from the general chaos that characterizes the regime. The past is being systemically deleted:  open data sets have been removed, Arctic climate research erased. Through it all, the president has engaged in 1984double-speak: “Rigorous science is critical to my administration’s efforts to achieve the twin goals of economic growth and environmental protection,” he said on Earth Day.

This all will be déjà vu all over again for Canadians—a warp-speed version of the data erasure witnessed during the decade-long Conservative government lead by Stephen Harper. Government funding of scientific research shrank, libraries were closed, irreplaceable research tossed, government scientists silenced, the long-form census was eliminated and key statistical studies were stopped. (Lest Canadians feel smug now, problems are ongoing even after regime change: in September 2016, Chief Statistician Wayne Smith stepped down, frustrated that Shared Services Canada held effective veto over many of the agency’s operations.)

Like Canadian scientists before them, American researchers raced to save data before the government permanently removed it. U.S. scientists have taken to the streets in protest, as Canadian scientists and citizens did before them. In tiny ways, the backlash has been successful: in January, the Trump administration dialled back its plan to delete climate-change pages on the EPA website, at least for now.

Trump’s proposed budget announced in March, however, called for brutal dismantling of scientific research (a full budget due this month still has to pass through Congress). Cuts of $7 billion in funding are destined to impede research on climate change, energy and health (it included an 18 per cent cut to the National Institutes of Health). The census bureau was one of the only federal agencies outside the Pentagon to get an increase. The $100-million bump only honoured previous commitments, however. The bureau called it insufficient, asking for a  21 percent, or $290 million, increase in 2017.

That’s small change, relatively. A properly executed census is a keystone of democracy, the largest civic action a government undertakes. Data collected provides snapshot of a nation—counting its people, their ages, where they work and live, how much money they earn, whether they live alone or with family, their marital status. It provides a baseline to measure progress or decline, particularly among the most marginalized.  The  information is necessary for governments—helping them to to make informed, fiscally-prudent decisions about where to allocate resources for schools, law enforcement, transportation, housing, social service agencies, even political campaigns. It reveals where to build roads and bridges—the “infrastructure” that was such a beloved cornerstone of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Major fault lines in the U.S. census, undertaken every 10 years, were evident in January. The U.S. Government Accountability Office put it on the “high-risk” list. That month, a leaked draft executive order revealed the government proposed the Census Bureau include a question on immigration status on the “long-form” census, or American Community Survey (ACS). The spectre of the White House using the information gleaned from the ACS and census to track down and deport undocumented immigrants triggered concerns that immigrants would be discouraged from participating.

March brought news that the government wanted to remove the first-ever question concerning sexual orientation and gender identity;  the LGBTQ community responded with accusations the government wanted  to “erase” them.   The fact the 2020 census will be the first conducted online has only ramped up cybersecurity concern amidst #Russiagate—and the need to reassure Americans that their private information will not be hacked.

If you want to thrust a nation into an autocracy, eliminating the data collection that allows it to see itself is a first step. For anyone else, including the business class of which the president remains an active member, it’s a disaster. Business depends on the census to determine where markets exist; where to step up operations and direct marketing. Business also depends on government-funded, pure-science research to stoke innovation.

“Our goal is a complete and accurate census,” Thompson said in March, when he was still director of the census bureau. Now he’s gone. Trump has the power to replace him. Given the explosive developments of the past week, many might see it as a low priority. It’s not. If you don’t measure a nation, its people no longer exist.

Source: Don’t be like us, America: resist Trump’s war on the census – Macleans.ca

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

On diversity, Canadian media is throwing stones in a glass house – Murad Hemmadi

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

I share the wish for more accurate data on diversity in the media (have asked for a breakdown from Labour Canada of the broadcasting sector) that would likely show under-representation in management ranks and columnists, likely less so with respect to journalists.

In this sense, media may be no different than other sectors where visible minorities tend to be at more junior levels compared to “whites” due in part to relatively shorter periods of time in Canada.

However, my general reading of articles and commentary on immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism indicates for the most part that the major issues are covered with a broader perspective than just “white.”

I wish I could quantify here the degree to which Canadian media is white. Then-Canadaland reporter Vicky Mochama once asked Canadian media outlets for diversity data. They were reluctant to cooperate, and did not opt instead to collect and publish the data themselves; it is, after all, harder to criticize organizations for what we can’t count. A J-Source attempt to gather self-reported diversity data about columnists produced incomplete results in part because some of those contacted were actively hostile to any such measure. So the best I can offer is that looking around newsrooms, the senior ranks are disproportionately white, and the people of colour present are more commonly found towards the bottom of the masthead and in strung-together contract positions or internships. The result of not having people in the building who understand specific identities and cultures is that your publication does not cover them often, if at all, and when it does it’s often in an insulting or stereotypical way.

Look, you can’t stretch your legs in Canadian media without kicking someone connected to you. Of those who opted to pledge their support for the appropriation prize online, Alison Uncles is editor-in-chief of this publication, and Maich runs the publishing arm at Rogers, which owns Maclean’s. (Both noted they were acting as individuals). Whyte himself was at Rogers until recently, while National Post editor-in-chief Anne Marie Owens and Coyne left Maclean’s a few years ago.

However permissive the workplace, it is always the case that to criticize or question the lack of diversity and pervasive whiteness of Canadian media is to risk alienating someone who may one day be a coworker or boss. To be clear, and for what it’s worth, I’ve never had it so much as hinted to me by those I work with or for that I should be less vocal about these topics. But faced with an industry whose power players often actively reject or else pay lip service to diversity, both in the workforce and the subjects covered, I’m left to wonder how often I can bring it up before it becomes my label—“that brown guy who keeps whining that we’re not diverse enough.” (Or in a more egregious example, think of Desmond Cole, who wrote about race too often, according to the Toronto Star’s publisher).

Told there’s nothing wrong, or that things aren’t as bad as we make them seem, we press our case again and again. With every passing insistence, white decision-makers are increasingly able to dismiss us as shrill and one-noted, muting us with calls for “civil discussion” in rooms reserved for higher-level, disproportionately white staff. Already, that repeated denial of what we see in our lives— “gas-lighting”—has a chilling effect of its own, teaching us that we best not talk about these things because we won’t be believed or taken seriously.

So imagine how discouraging it is to see the decision-makers who cannot find money in the newsroom for more diversity gladly offer to give their own for a cause that people of colour and Indigenous people have pointed out actively devalues us.

Of course, I don’t expect the people who pitched in to Whyte’s effort to pay for a permanent reporter position out of their own pockets, though the total they’ve pledged would have covered a month of my first full-time salary. And it’s true that “not quickly enough” will always be my view of how fast newsrooms must work to diversify. But the symbolism of white Canadian media decision-makers sponsoring an appropriation prize via a Thursday night Twitter thread—that’s something people of colour and Indigenous people in the industry could have done without.

Source: On diversity, Canadian media is throwing stones in a glass house – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Activist judge puts stop to citizenship revocation | Candice Malcolm

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

The usual rant against “unelected”  and “activist” judges (all judges are unelected and “activist” is used when government over-reach is ruled against).

The value of Canadian citizenship was undermined by the “streamlined” revocation process for those guilty of misrepresentation by not providing the basic right to a hearing.

As legal experts testified during hearings on C-24 and C-6, those given a parking ticket had greater procedural protections than those whose citizenship was in question.

The court ruling recognized that, as did the Senate in passing an amendment to C-6 to ensure procedural protections.

As government legal opinions are protected under ATIP (for valid reasons), we will never know the degree to which government lawyers cautioned the previous government on the risks of their approach to revocation (I suspect they did):

An unelected judge has made a ruling that will significantly weaken the value of Canadian citizenship.

The landmark decision delivered by the Federal Court this week drastically restricts the government’s ability to revoke citizenship from people who gained it through fraud or misrepresentation.

The previous Conservative government introduced a streamlined process for stripping citizenship from fraudsters, liars and terrorists. Canada has long revoked citizenship from those who become Canadians on false pretenses – a policy that even Justin Trudeau defended in 2015.

Despite Trudeau’s big talk that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” his government stripped more citizenships in its first year in office than the previous Conservative government had in seven years.

But now, thanks to judicial activism pushing a big government agenda, the streamlined process will be dismantled.

Individuals found to have lied or cheated to become a citizen will be afforded more tax-payer funded resources to plead their case and appeal decisions they don’t like.

Justice Jocelyne Gagné determined that while the rules do not violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they do infringe upon Canada’s Bill of Rights. Gagné ruled that those facing citizenship revocation “should be afforded an oral hearing before a court.”

This will all but end the practice of stripping citizenship. It will become too costly, too resource-intensive and too time-consuming.

The previous Conservative government spent years carefully crafting legislation to protect the integrity of Canadian citizenship. They held consultations, worked with non-partisan civil servants and cautiously introduced new rules to crack down on fraud and abuse in Canada’s immigration system.

Now, in a single day and without a coherent alternative, an activist judge has undone it with the slap of a gavel.

One unelected judge has overruled years of legislative accomplishments from Canada’s elected officials.

In our system of government, the judicial branch is designed to be a check on executive power. There is no practical check, however, on the unelected judges who lord over the Federal Court.

Canada’s judges have become super-legislators. They’ve given themselves the power to strike down laws they disagree with, and mask their dogmatic ideology with legalese.

Absurd decisions have become commonplace by activists on the bench.

In 2014, one judge struck down a policy to cut off additional welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers who were awaiting deportation from Canada.

The judge said it was “cruel and unusual” to deny bogus refugees – people already rejected by a Canadian immigration judge – from receiving healthcare benefits above and beyond what Canadian citizens receive.

You can’t make this stuff up.

In another case, legal obstacles thrown in front of immigration officials led to a lengthy delay in deporting career criminal Clinton Gayle. In the meantime, this thug was able to stay in Canada, commit crime after crime, and eventually murder a Toronto police officer.

When it comes to protecting the rights of foreign criminals, judges are steadfast. But when it comes to protecting Canadians – our safety, security and the value of our citizenship – these activist judges are nowhere to be found.

The decisions made by activist judges on the Federal Court have real consequences. Justice Gagné’s decision will no doubt make it much more difficult to strip citizenship and deport convicted fraudsters, gangsters, terrorists and war criminals.

The rights and freedoms of foreign criminals are judiciously protected by activist judges on the Federal Court. As for law-abiding Canadians? The jury is still out.

Source: Activist judge puts stop to citizenship revocation | MALCOLM | Columnists | Opin

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with

Réfugiés syriens: l’impact sur la minorité francophone au Canada a été ignoré

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

In the context of the push to meet the target and deadline, understandable oversight:

Le gouvernement fédéral n’a pas tenu compte de l’impact de la réinstallation des réfugiés syriens sur les communautés francophones en situation minoritaire, reproche le Commissariat aux langues officielles (CLO).

La commissaire par intérim, Ghislaine Saikaley, conclut que le ministère de l’Immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté (MIRC) a contrevenu à certaines de ses obligations en matière de bilinguisme en réinstallant au pays ces milliers de migrants qui ont fui la guerre civile.

Car tout au long du processus, le ministère «n’a jamais cherché à connaître» les besoins des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire, tranche la commissaire dans un rapport d’enquête préliminaire de 12 pages obtenu par La Presse canadienne.

Or, en vertu de la Loi sur les langues officielles, qui a un statut quasi-constitutionnel, le fédéral «a l’obligation de prendre des mesures positives de façon proactive» afin d’appuyer ces communautés et d’agir de façon à ne pas nuire à leur «développement» et leur «épanouissement», est-il écrit.

Des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire ont bien tenté d’ouvrir leurs portes à certains de ces réfugiés syriens parrainés par le gouvernement, et dont «approximativement 95 % ne parlaient ni français ni anglais à leur arrivée au Canada».

Mais ce fut en vain. «Sur les 39 propositions reçues à l’hiver 2016, huit ont été soumises par des organismes d’établissement francophones, mais aucune de celles-ci n’a été retenue», a noté la commissaire Saikaley.

Pour le porte-parole du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD) en matière de langues officielles, François Choquette, «c’est une occasion manquée, une occasion ratée». Car c’est par l’immigration que passe – à tout le moins en partie – la survie des communautés francophones minoritaires.

Même son de cloche du côté de la présidente de la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA), Sylviane Lanthier, qui rappelle que le gouvernement fédéral a souvent raté la cible de 4,4 % en matière d’immigration francophone hors Québec.

«Les communautés ont peu bénéficié de l’immigration, a-t-elle souligné en entrevue téléphonique. C’est important que le gouvernement fédéral maximise les effets positifs potentiels de l’accueil des réfugiés dans nos communautés.»

Car la vitalité de ces milieux «repose beaucoup, et de plus en plus, sur l’accueil et l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants, y compris des réfugiés qui se réinstallent au Canada», a fait valoir Mme Lanthier.

Les représentants du MIRC ont bien plaidé auprès du CLO qu’il y avait urgence d’agir en raison de la promesse du gouvernement libéral d’accueillir 25 000 réfugiés en l’espace de deux mois et demi, mais cet argument n’a pas convaincu le chien de garde du bilinguisme au pays.

«À cet égard, je tiens à souligner que les mécanismes pour tenir compte des besoins des (communautés linguistiques minoritaires) auraient déjà dû être en place au moment où l’initiative de réinstallation des réfugiés syriens a été annoncée», est-il écrit dans le rapport du CLO.

Source: Réfugiés syriens: l’impact sur la minorité francophone au Canada a été ignoré | Mélanie Marquis | National

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →