How to do an on-screen accent—and why it can be okay

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Good interview with the lead actor of Kim’s Convenience, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (we have seen the play but not yet the TV series):

As TV shows and films begin to reflect a wider, more diverse audience, it’s also opened the door for a tricky topic: an actor’s use of an accent. It can be off-putting to audiences unfamiliar with the accent—and it can be downright racist-feeling to the communities themselves, especially when the creator doesn’t have roots in the community, and the accent feels like a comical costume. (In the Chuck Lorre show Two Broke Girls, for example, the joke around restaurant owner Han Lee tends to be laughing at, not with, the thickly accented character.)

For Asians, the accent is a particularly prickly subject. For people of colour who want to assimilate, it can be inherently embarrassing to hear something they’re trying to escape; for people of colour fiercely proud and protective of their culture, an inauthentic accent can enrage, as it did for some viewers of Fresh Off the Boat; for actors of colour, it can be limiting, as explored on Aziz Ansari’s Netflix show Master of None, and it can be difficult to be caught in between the first two groups. In general, it can leave people on tenterhooks that any accented Asian character could be another Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles, whose stilted tongue and social buffoonery represented an incredible setback for Asian representation.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, 44, plays the storeowner family patriarch Appa in the pioneering new CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience, and he’s been personally grappling with the politics and the practicalities of doing an accent his entire career. Here, Lee explains why Appa leans into his accent, where it comes from—and why, done right, it’s okay.

“It’s who Appa is—not the accent, but that’s his makeup. He’s an immigrant, English is his second language, and he had to learn English at a very late stage of his life, so he’s going to have vestiges of his original voice, his mother tongue. That also informs who he is. His frustration is not being able to articulate how he feels, or any points he tries to make in an argument. It’s a singularly frustrating thing.

“I remember in Winnipeg, someone very helpfully in a talkback said, ‘You know, if you just spoke more slowly and clearly, everybody could understand you. Because I missed every third word that came out of your mouth.’ A lot of people in the audience rolled their eyes and went, ‘Oh my God,’ but I responded. I said: I’m sorry you felt that way, but can you imagine what it’s like for this man, a trained teacher in his home country, a very well-respected position—he’s an intelligent man, he doesn’t sound intelligent maybe to you because English is his second language, but his brain is still there. Can you imagine his struggles, day in, day out, that people aren’t able to understand him? As frustrated as you were because you couldn’t understand him, he’s even more frustrated because you can’t understand him.

“For me, I can get touchy about the accent. For the longest time, I couldn’t do a Korean accent. It was just the way I was raised—I didn’t want to be Korean. I wanted to be Canadian. I didn’t want kimbap at school, all I wanted was sandwiches, or soups, but none of this Korean stuff. When you’re a kid and you’re really trying to fit in, you push away everything that reminds you of your family because your family is different. That kind of extended itself as I got older; then, as an Asian actor, I was asked to utilize these accents. That’s fine: I can do Cantonese, and Mandarin, I can do passable Japanese, I can do some Filipino, Vietnamese—but not Korean. Korean for me was a roadblock. I remember I was doing this one episode of Mayday, and I was playing the role of Captain Park, the Korean Airlines pilot who crashes his plane into the side of this mountain. When I auditioned for the role, no accent was required. So I can do all the pilot lingo, I love it—I book the role. Then, on set, the director says, ‘We want the Korean accent, to give it some flavour.’ I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’ ‘But you’re Korean.’ So I tried it and I was so bad that they ended up giving all my lines to the copilot. That was embarrassing—so embarrassing. It was terrible.

“When I read for Kim’s Convenience for the first time ever the words struck me so much and the writing was so incredibly articulate. And he has the rhythms. As soon as I started reading it—and I’ve told this story a million times, everyone’s sick of it—it was like a key being turned in my head, a door being opened, and my dad’s voice just started coming out. So I use my dad’s accent—that’s my dad’s voice that I use on stage. But a lot of the time it’s a modified accent, because if I went full Korean accent people wouldn’t be able to understand a lot of what I’m saying. So there are times where I’ll cheat, I’ll pull back, and it’s not 100 per cent consistent, and I realize that. That’s one of these horrible decisions you have to make as an actor. Is it really going to affect who this character is if you’re not letter-perfect on the accent, or is it more important to get the story points across? Over the years it’s morphed into this whole Appa speak I have. But sometimes the accent isn’t 100 per cent there.

“I get feedback, and I’m sensitive to it—I hear people go, ‘That doesn’t sound Korean, who is this guy! He’s not Korean, he should be ashamed, he sounds terrible, how come they can’t get accents right?’ That bothers me. I care about the character so much. I am Korean. And you know what, and pardon my French, but f–k you, that’s my dad’s voice. So if you don’t like it, go f–k yourself, because that’s how my dad sounds. But on the other side, I hear a lot of people saying that it sounds like their dad. I’ve had Korean families whose fathers have passed away, they’re in tears, and they say, ‘You sound just like our Appa did.’ They hadn’t heard his voice in years. And it’s incredibly moving.

“The accent—the accent isn’t the joke. It’s part of who he is, but it isn’t the joke. Yes, we’re in the entertainment field, and we will mine some of that because it is situational humour. You will get a point where we’ll say, ‘Here’s where some fun can be made, playing with the accent, and his inability and people mishearing what he says.’ But at the same time, that’s not all it is. So for people to summarily dismiss it as, ‘Well, it’s just a voice, he should be ashamed,’ well, they’re not really looking. They’re taking so many things out of context, and it’s a lazy way of criticizing somebody because it’s the most obvious and easiest thing to pick on. That’s why when you’re looking for directors and people to work on Kim’s Convenience, we wanted to make sure they knew where the source of the true humour was. Appa is not just a voice. He’s not a stereotype. A stereotype is the end of a character. Appa is an archetype—they take his mould, they use that as a basis, and they build that up into a three-dimensional character. You have his hopes, his fears, his foibles and his strengths, and that’s what I love about him. He’s a character.

“But it’s funny, though—the majority of people who are screaming racism about the accent online are white. And it’s like: what’s racist about it? They won’t say—but is it because you’re seeing Asians on the screen? Oh, no? Well, then it must be because he sounds different. Well, guess what: Asian people have accents. The accent isn’t about a joke, it’s part of who that character is, but it doesn’t make it intrinsically racist. If you’re uncomfortable with that baggage, then you need to examine it yourself and see where it comes from.”

Source: How to do an on-screen accent—and why it can be okay – Macleans.ca

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For the Wealthy, Citizenship at a Premium | Boston Review

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Good in-depth article on investment citizenship:

In Southern Europe, citizenship-by-investment programs are intrinsically tied to property markets that were badly hurt by the 2008 crisis. The bursting of Spain’s real estate bubble left millions of empty homes, plummeting values, and entire ghost cities of half-finished villas. After such bad press, Mediterranean countries have struggled to lure back second homeowners who were essential to the economy (almost 20 percent of the housing stock in Mediterranean Europe is second homes, compared to just 3 percent in Northern Europe). In all of these markets, property developers have been frightened by the growing polarization between Northern and Southern Europe and have urged national governments to respond by courting global elites in place of traditional buyers from Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. The Brexit vote has only exacerbated this trend by taking UK buyers off the market and complicating the residency status of current British homeowners. Despite the challenges, some in the real estate industry are excited by citizenship-by-investment. Before 2008, they felt that EU-based property markets limited their business to merely well-off European clients; the innovation of citizenship-by-investment allows them to go after the truly global elites.

Those with a crisp new Maltese passport will probably not be getting to know the island very well. Initial residency is easy to fudge. After the wait period is over, newly Maltese citizens can work in Stockholm, enroll their children in heavily subsidized Dutch universities, or use Germany’s universal healthcare system. The selling of citizenship appears to many as a Southern European scheme to profit from the employment opportunities and stability of their Northern neighbors by selling access to stronger job markets and welfare states through their own immigration ministries. Michael Briguglio, a professor at the University of Malta and a former Green Party local councilor, called the country a “hub,” adding that the IIP is meant to attract “certain business people from China, Russia, and certain Arab countries to give them an open door to Europe. It’s a global form of patronage.” This issue is particularly sensitive in Malta, which is intensely Catholic; divorce was legalized only in 2011, and natives have a long history of viewing their island as a Christian entrepôt amidst Muslim trade routes. While the IIP vets criminal records and financial holdings, there seems to be little fear that citizenship-buyers will pose a safety threat. The pressing European worry of radicalization thus seems to apply only to poor migrants, ignoring a long history of economically comfortable and cosmopolitan participants in terrorist organizations.

For small countries, using passports as an asset to be exchanged for cash seems reasonable given a dearth of economic options.

As Southern Europe continues to have tense relations with wealthier EU nations over austerity, many politicians have been forced to cast a wider net to find allies and investors. Cyprus has drawn a large Russian population. China has invested in infrastructure and real estate in Greece and Spain. Portugal even saw the acquisition of a large national bank by its former colony, Angola. Compared to privatizing national industries or providing staging grounds for non-EU companies, selling passports is easy because it is geared toward mobility. It also reinforces the logic that small countries must constantly innovate in order to stay relevant to business opportunities and protect themselves from economic hardship. As Lino Bianco, a Maltese professor and the ambassador to Bulgaria, put it: “Maltese are survivors by circumstances. They turn failures into successes.” Using passports as an asset to be exchanged for cash seems reasonable given a dearth of economic options and a long history of trading, migration, and outside rule by regional powers. Unlike in larger countries, Maltese citizenship has always been negotiable and responsive to wider power struggles on the European continent. The most important thing for the Maltese was to get the best deal possible.

What differentiates citizenship-investors from those who go through a naturalization process is sweat equity. Citizenship-for-sale programs cynically reject the notion of national community, even at a time of rising xenophobia in Europe. Investors can experience citizenship—and all its attendant bonds, prejudices, and heart-stirring emotions—through a bank transfer and a paper booklet while the vast majority of those struggling to migrate must cross deserts, pack into dinghies, live in the shadows, struggle to maintain hope in detention centers, face deportation, study languages and history, and maybe, just maybe—only after many years—stand proudly among their friends and families with their hand on their heart.

Source: For the Wealthy, Citizenship at a Premium | Boston Review

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New passport processing system exposed to security gaps, audit finds

2016/10/13 Leave a comment

Another example, on a smaller scale than Shared Services Canada and the Phoenix pay system problems, of just how difficult it is for government to execute successfully IT projects:

The audit, which was completed in February 2016 and quietly posted to the departmental website a few months later, said IRCC leveraged expertise from industry and other federal departments and established several oversight mechanisms to track key project areas. But identified risks were not consistently monitored and addressed, the report said.

It also found there was no evidence that the information technology security plan was being followed, and that key security measures were missing, including a preliminary threat- and risk-assessment.

One year ago, the department suspended its use of a new system to process passport applications after CBC News reported on widespread glitches with the program.

The department said it was “pausing” the processing of passports through the GCMS in order to incorporate “lessons learned” during the testing phase.

No passports are currently being issued through the GCMS, but the department confirmed that refugee travel documents have been processed through the system since fall 2015.

At least 1,500 Canadian passports had been produced under a flawed new system that opened the door to fraud and tampering, according to documents obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada.

Internal records revealed the processing program was rushed into operation on May 9, despite warnings from senior officials that it was not ready and could present new security risks.

The department insisted that no passports have been issued with security gaps and that at no point had the integrity or security of the passport issuance been compromised.

Since the launch of the new system, officials had been scrambling to fix hundreds of glitches and to seal security gaps. Weeks after the new process was brought on line, there were calls to stop production.

Recommendations ignored

Those recommendations were ignored, and the passports continued to be issued in the first phase of production under the new system, designed to enhance security and integrate with other global programs.

Numerous reports obtained by CBC/Radio Canada showed that during a period of several weeks, it was possible for employees to alter the photo on a passport after it had been approved. There were also numerous reports of discrepancies between information contained in the database and what actually appeared on a passport.

In some cases, information disappeared from the system, making it difficult to verify if the applicant had used questionable guarantors or had made repeated claims of lost or stolen passports in the past.

That information acts as a safeguard to flag potential problems with applications.

Management accepted all six recommendations stemming from the audit, which ranged from medium to high risk. One plank of the “action plan” was to secure spending authorities to advance the project to the next phase.

Source: New passport processing system exposed to security gaps, audit finds – Politics – CBC News

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Whiteness is a racial construct. It’s time to take it apart: Denise Balkissoon

2016/10/12 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on “whiteness:”

Being white in Canada means a lower chance of developing cancer, hypertension and asthma. It also means being less likely to live in poverty. That doesn’t mean that every white person is healthy, wealthy or the prime minister (though every PM we have had has been white).

It does mean that as cards are dealt in the hand of life, white is a good one to get. But unearned benefits based on an unchosen identity are uncomfortable to grapple with – and that’s why people prefer not to say “white.”

“As a social concept, ‘white’ is profound in its meaning,” Robin DiAngelo, an educator and consultant in California, told me. “It means people who either come from or appear to come from Europe, but it’s necessarily a construct of oppression.”

Dr. DiAngelo, who is white, has dedicated her professional life to examining what it means to be white, what she calls “the missing piece” of studies of race and racism. She spent years as a professor and now leads workshops and seminars about racism for mainly all-white audiences, which include sharing language that helps to deconstruct whiteness.

Because, as with every other race, white is a construct. Racialization, or using ethnicity as an excuse to disenfranchise individuals and groups, can happen to people with light skin, too. In 2016, Ukrainians and Italians in Canada are pretty much white, but both were interned as enemy aliens in the past.

Italian-Canadians are an interesting case: Greeted with prejudice when they first arrived, they’ve since persuaded us to adopt their patio culture (after receiving tickets for eating outdoors in mid-20th century Toronto) and have been elected to every level of government. They now enjoy the benefits of whiteness, but many say that they’ll never be mangia-cakes.Yes, race is complicated.

Dr. DiAngelo tries to teach people not to be afraid of terms such as “white privilege” – daily, unspoken advantages due to skin colour – or “white supremacy,” the entrenchment of whiteness as the sun around which other, inferior cultures revolve.

That fear is a problem. Toronto Mayor John Tory, at an election campaign event two years ago, demurred on whether white privilege existed, while Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson recently called those who accused him of white supremacy as being “vulgar and rude.” What’s actually vulgar is that being white increases access to power and privilege, and that by not engaging with that truth, politicians can help to maintain that inequality.

Dr. DiAngelo has a term for that avoidance, too. “White fragility,” she says, is the inability to cope with conversations about race that don’t protect individual white people’s sense of innocence. Western society maintains that racism is an act that individuals do, not a system that all of us exist in.

Thus, she says, it teaches us that “being a good person and being complicit with racism are mutually exclusive.” To hear an accusation of racism is to believe one’s basic morality is in question, which stirs up guilt and defensiveness, leading to anger and avoidance.

White people experience obvious physical relief, Dr. DiAngelo says, when she tells them it isn’t a personal failing to ascribe to white supremacy. It’s what we’ve all been taught from birth. The conversations don’t necessarily get easier from there, she says, but her audiences’ ability to listen, and to cope with unpleasantness, gradually improves.

The solution to white fragility, she says, is to build up stamina; just as with exercise, that involves doing the painful task over and over again until you get better. So try it. Say “white.” Say it to white people.

Source: Whiteness is a racial construct. It’s time to take it apart – The Globe and Mail

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Angus Reid’s survey actually shows high level of support for our diverse society: Cardozo

2016/10/12 1 Comment

Good analysis by Andrew Cardozo:

Much is being made of a new Angus Reid poll on the attitudes of Canadians towards minorities, coming out as it does on the heels of Kellie Leitch’s plan to test immigrants on “anti-Canadian” values. Polling people’s attitudes on diversity is always a good thing as the mood does change from time to time, depending on the issues that face us.

While Angus Reid is a hugely credible polling organization, this poll is somewhere between incomplete and not very informative.

There were two sets of questions on diversity in the poll. Interestingly, the first did not receive coverage—not even in Reid’s own article on the CBC News website—while the second, the more sensational one, garnered all the coverage. Surprising!

Respondents were asked to first comment on: “How well immigrants are integrating into society.” A full 67 per cent said they were satisfied and 33 per cent said they were dissatisfied. (The report does not reveal how many had no opinion, which seems odd. Not even one per cent? But I digress.)

This is a good news story, no? Two to one, Canadians believe immigrants are integrating well. Not many government policies or societal trends get that kind of support.

Sadly, the questions that received all the coverage, perhaps because they align more with Leitch’s narrative in some way, are actually simplistic in the extreme. And further, while the questions did not use the word “multiculturalism,” Reid’s reporting did.

Here are the statements that respondents were asked to comment on: should minorities do more to fit in with mainstream society; and should we do more to encourage cultural diversity with different groups keeping their own customs and languages.

Trouble is, that is not the conundrum that defines multiculturalism. It is perhaps the conundrum that defines segregation. Should minorities fit in or live segregated lives? One or the other. Binary. No combination, no nuance.

Multiculturalism, from its very inception as a government policy in 1971 by one Pierre Trudeau, has been about both integration and cultural retention. Check the Hansard on that. Canadian individuals, immigrants and Canadian born, can generally walk and chew gum at the same time, and they do it all the time.

Interestingly, the poll came out on October 3, during Rosh Hashanah. And you have to think of all the Canadian Jews who were marking the high holiday. Most are able to get time off work and were celebrating the new year with family and friends. Jews are among the most integrated of minority groups in Canada and they contribute in significant ways in virtually every facet of Canadian society, and yet Rosh Hashanah, is widely celebrated.

So which of Angus Reid’s two statements do they fall under: fitting in or keeping their own customs? Or did they walk and chew gum?

One is tempted, on this basis, to dismiss the poll as incomplete or sloppy. But let’s look at a few other examples and try to guess what it is pointing to.

As Reid points out, attitudes change. In the 1990s, wearing a turban in the Armed Forces was a hugely controversial issue, which the Mulroney government settled at great political cost. It is part of what gave rise to the Reform Party. And, of course, today the Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan wears a turban, and, given his mastery of his role in the Canadian Forces, his competence shone through.

Several Jewish MPs celebrated last week.

Several Muslim MPs, like Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, celebrated Eid last month while being a federal minister as did several MPs, including Conservative Ziad Aboultaif and Liberal Ahmed Hussen. Walk and chew gum.

As the world watches the horrors of Hurricane Matthew bearing down on Haiti, former Michaëlle Jean, Canada’s former governor general and now head of La Francophonie, was helping to find aid for the victims of yet another catastrophe to hit her country of origin.

To turn back to Leitch’s issue of anti-Canadian values, one is tempted to ask, are these the anti-Canadian values we should be concerned about?

If there is a conundrum with multiculturalism, it is about the limits of cultural retention and how far we go in reasonable accommodation—a debate that rages on in Quebec. It’s a good discussion to have, but in a free and democratic society, there will rarely be unanimity about where that line exists. It’s about how we make walking and chewing gum at the same time possible. Multiculturalism works when we do both things.

When a practice restricts people’s integration that is a point of discussion like wearing a niqab. But is the solution to legislate what a woman should wear, or is it to find ways in which she will feel comfortable removing it? Or may be the rest of us just get over it?

Leitch gets some support because there is a view that immigrants bring over anti-Canadian values. Whether it was the Irish Fenian who assassinated Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 1868, or the people responsible for the Air India bombing in 1985 or the shooter who killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo in 2014, (Cirillo’s assassin was Canadian born) these people had values that were not in keeping with Canadian values of equality and justice.

It would be helpful if Leitch could be more specific. Yes, we want to root out undesirable elements and want to be clear about basic Canadian values such as gender equality and respect for diversity. At the same time we need to do all we can so we don’t import terrorism or violence.

Likewise, Angus Reid might be more specific with his questions rather than erect headline-catching false conundrum.

Perhaps the newsworthy story is that Canadians believe immigrants should integrate, that’s two to one, and that they generally like the way they are integrating, that’s two to one.

Source: Angus Reid’s survey actually shows high level of support for our diverse society – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

A less nuanced analysis is Margaret Wente’s:

Yet in liberal discourse, any resistance to immigration on any grounds makes you a racist, and any questions about immigration policy are perceived as illegitimate. People get frustrated by that. They’re also frustrated by a narrative that, in their view, only goes one way. They feel they’re constantly being harangued by their betters that it is they who must accommodate the newcomers. No one ever talks about what the newcomers should do to accommodate them.

And so they’re not thrilled when Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s Premier, dons a head scarf to meet with the woman who insisted on her right to wear the niqab during the citizenship ceremony – and then tweets that it’s “an honour.” They are not thrilled when their Prime Minister promotes inclusivity by visiting a mosque where the women have to sit upstairs. They don’t like it when a Muslim boys’ soccer team refuses to play against girls.

Kellie Leitch taps into that sentiment. I don’t doubt for a moment that Canada has its share of racists – but if the Liberals ignore the genuine concerns of people who think accommodation should go both ways, they’re asking for a backlash.

Many progressives (including, I suspect, Mr. Trudeau) hold a romantic view of immigration as a sort of global social-justice project, which obliges us to share our good fortune with as much of the rest of the world as possible, while declaring that every other culture is just as good as ours is.

Thankfully, most Canadians don’t share this woozy notion. They pride themselves on their tolerance. But they’re also hard-headed pragmatists. They think immigration policy should serve our national interests, and that our leaders should not forget it.

 How much diversity do Canadians want? 

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Race, School Ratings And Real Estate: A ‘Legal Gray Area’ : NPR

2016/10/12 Leave a comment

Not surprising that neighbourhoods become a proxy for race:

With her infant son in a sling, Monique Black strolls through a weekend open house in the gentrified Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. There are lots of factors to consider when looking for a home — in this one, Monique notices, the tiny window in the second bedroom doesn’t let in enough light. But for parents like Black and her husband, Jonny, there’s a more important question: How good are the nearby schools?

It’s well-known in the real estate industry that highly rated schools translate into higher housing values. Several studies confirm this, and even put a dollar figure on it: an average premium of $50 a square foot, in a 2013 national study.

In Chappaqua, N.Y., an affluent bedroom community for New York City, the town supervisor recently went so far as to declare that, “The schools are our biggest industry — whether you have kids in the school or not, that’s what maintains our property values.”

But some advocates for fair housing see a potential problem with the close ties between school ratings and real estate. They say the common denominator, too often, is race. And they argue that the problem has intensified in the last decade with new web platforms bringing all kinds of information directly to homebuyers.

“A school rating map mirrors a racial dot map,” showing patterns of segregation and diversity, observes Sally Santangelo, the executive director of Central New York Fair Housing, a group that provides education and legal assistance to oppose housing discrimination.

Which, in turn, raises some complicated questions about how factors like test scores and school ratings are used to influence home-buying decisions.

Characteristics like safety and parent involvement — the qualities Monique and Jonny say they value in a school— can be hard to quantify. Most states base their school ratings primarily on more easily measured factors, like standardized test scores and graduation rates. And these indicators, in turn, are heavily influenced by inequities of race and class.

There’s a large, persistent, and well-documented gap in test scores between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers. There are many reasons for these disparities: income and wealth gaps, disciplinary policies that “push out” black students from school systems, less experienced teachers, the early-learning gap between high- and low-income children. But they all end up reflected in one number: a school rating.

“A lot of time, with schools that serve majorities of students of color, you get a negative rating because the test scores are low,” says Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, an assistant professor who studies race and housing at Virginia Commonwealth University. But, she says, “most of the variation in test scores is explained by the kids’ own poverty or the poverty of their school.”

Housing patterns and school ratings, of course, also reinforce each other. In most places around the country, school budgets are partly linked to local property taxes. Highly rated schools beget higher housing values, which in turn beget more richly resourced schools.

It’s a virtuous cycle for a town like Chappaqua, but a vicious cycle elsewhere.

What does all this mean for potential homeowners like Monique Black? Or for realtors who see school quality as a selling point?

For a realtor, directly discussing the racial composition of a neighborhood with homebuyers is against the law. In 1968, the Fair Housing Act outlawed the practice of racial “steering” by realtors. This can mean showing different properties to a white family and a black family who have the same requirements, or telling them different things about the desirability of a given property or neighborhood, in a way that tends to maintain segregation or perpetuate discrimination.

The National Fair Housing Alliance, an advocacy group, conducts “mystery shopper” sales tests, sending out people of various backgrounds to pose as house hunters and determine whether they hear different messages.

In a 2006 report, the NFHA documented some form of steering in 87 percent of these encounters. And, says Morgan Williams, the organization’s general counsel, this steering included discussions of school quality.

“A striking pattern regarding schools emerged from these sales tests,” the report states. “Instead of making blatant comments about the racial composition of neighborhoods, many real estate agents told whites to avoid certain areas because of the schools. It is evident from the investigation that schools have become a proxy for the racial or ethnic composition of neighborhoods.”

For example, white testers reported that they were told to avoid the Tarrytown, N.Y., schools, which are predominately Hispanic. In several cases, the report says, agents there told whites that the schools were “bad,” but Latinos were told that the same schools were “good.”

In Philadelphia, an agent told a white tester that the schools in a particular town were very good, then added, “But don’t tell anyone I told you that.”

Source: Race, School Ratings And Real Estate: A ‘Legal Gray Area’ : NPR Ed : NPR

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Government officials were aware of arcane law that stripped Canadians born abroad of citizenship

2016/10/12 Leave a comment

“Lost Canadians, the Mennonite angle:

“The Canadian government was aware and warned repeatedly years before an arcane law began stripping longtime Canadians of their citizenship, says a man who spent decades lobbying for change.

Bill Janzen, the former head of the Mennonite Central Committee’s office in Ottawa, said he and his colleagues met with the federal government throughout the 1980s and 1990s to find a fix to the so-called 28-year rule.

The provision was part of a 1977 law that automatically removed citizenship from people born abroad to Canadian parents who were also born outside the country.

“The government holds a big responsibility for this,” Janzen said. “They’ve created a mess.”

The law applies to people born between Feb. 15, 1977, and April 16, 1981, no matter how quickly after their birth they moved to Canada. It was rescinded in 2009, but the change didn’t apply retroactively.

The only way to prevent the automatic loss of citizenship was to apply to retain it before the age of 28 — a detail legal experts contend the government failed to adequately communicate to those affected.

Janzen said he has heard numerous stories of people going to citizenship officials and being told they had never heard of the law.

“They said, ’Don’t worry about it. Go home and enjoy Canada… Once a Canadian, always a Canadian,’ ” Janzen said, noting that officials often pointed out the absence of any expiry date on their citizenship cards.

“It happened again and again and again.”

Janzen has helped more than 180 people navigate the expensive and time-intensive process of regaining their citizenship over the years, So far, 160 requests have been approved.

Immigration Minister John McCallum could not be reached for comment, but a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said in an email the government advised those affected “when possible” of the need to apply before the age of 28 to retain their citizenship.

“As we do not have data on the number of individuals who might have been impacted, we were unable to advise people systematically,” Sonia Lesage wrote, adding that the number of people who remain affected is “very small.”

Lesage said the immigration minister has discretionary authority to grant citizenship in “cases of special and unusual hardship” and she encouraged anyone who thinks they might be affected to contact the department.

…Janzen said cost is a big challenge for many of the people caught by the 28-year rule, some of whom are “desperately poor.”“If your basic legal status is not settled, it’s so paralyzing,” he said. “For some of them, they’ve known there’s a problem and they’ve not known how to solve it (so) they’ve lived under the wire secretly. That’s no way to live.”

While other cases do exist, the issue appears to have had a disproportionate impact on Canada’s Mennonite community.

James Schellenberg of the Mennonite Central Committee described many of those affected as descendants of Mennonites who, by and large, left Canada in the 1920s for Mexico, Paraguay and elsewhere in Central and South America.

Starting in 2003, two years before the first of those who were affected began turning 28, Mennonite officials put advertisements warning of the law in newspapers popular among Mennonites.

Everyone I talked to seemed very confused. They didn’t know what exactly was going on.

Some people inquired at immigration offices but officials told them not to worry, said Marvin Dueck, an Ontario-based immigration lawyer who has worked on about 50 lost-citizenship cases.

“Once a Canadian, always a Canadian. That was a common response,” Dueck said. “And once a government official says that, why should they trust the Mennonite Central Committee?”

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Mississauga mayor files hate-crime complaint after inflammatory article

2016/10/12 Leave a comment

Valid complaint (the website subsequently took down the offending post):

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie says she has filed a hate-crime complaint with Peel police after a local website published an article claiming the mayor is trying to convert the city to Islam so “they can kill her son just for being gay.”

The article, published by the Mississauga Gazette on Friday, also claims that Crombie “won’t rest until all girls in Mississauga are victims of rich rapists,” describing the actions of Muslim boys in Mississauga high schools, claiming they routinely assault girls.

“Racism and flat-out lies have no place in Mississauga,” Crombie said Saturday.

“I was very disturbed. I have sent the article to Peel police . . . To paint any group like this, based on religion or ethnicity or anything, is reprehensible.”

Crombie said she has also contacted her own lawyer to address what she believes is a libel against her. The article’s listed author is Acton Michaels, identified as the Gazette’s editor in chief. He did not respond to the Star.

A man who confirmed to the Star that he’s the webmaster and co-owner of the Gazette said that though he might have posted the article, he is not responsible for it. “I’m responsible for the stuff I write . . . everybody else, I just put the content up,” said Kevin Johnston.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t entirely read the article, I just knew it was about young ladies being pestered by Muslim boys at a high school.”

Johnston said his recollection is that he launched the publication in 2014. According to the website, which features numerous ads promoting restaurants, sports leagues, developers and at least one of Canada’s major banks, the Mississauga Gazette has 13 people working for it including Johnston and Michaels.

 Asked if he will remove the article from the website, Johnston said, “If I’m instructed by a court of law with my name on the court order to remove something, I certainly would.” He also said it will be removed if one of the website’s investors or co-owners asked him to do so.

Asked if it would be removed for any possible legal issue, he responded: “Would I do it because you’re suggesting that some article . . . that was placed on a website should come down because . . . Bonnie thinks it should? No, I wouldn’t do that.”

Last year Crombie publicly criticized Johnston during a council meeting after he spread literature denigrating the Muslim community while advocating against the construction of a proposed new mosque. Crombie, city staff and all but one councillor supported the mosque’s construction, which was approved.

After the Gazette article’s publication, Johnston said, the Muslim community is “the only community that (Crombie is) doing anything for. I mean, come on, we have Islamic Heritage Month now in Ontario for the entire month of October. I take issue with that.”

Since being elected in 2014, Crombie has helped organize an effort to raise $5 million to settle Syrian refugees, championed the new mosque’s construction and last month led a push for a city-wide parking exemption to accommodate celebrations for Eid al-Adha, a significant Islamic holy day.

The article published Friday includes the headline, “Bonnie’s Muslims Are Molesting Teenage Girls in Mississauga Highschools.” It claims that Michaels was told by the father of a Grade 10 student at Rick Hansen Secondary School that she has been routinely assaulted by Muslim boys there. The article claims that the school has refused to comment and that such incidents involving Muslim boys are common in Mississauga high schools.

Source: Mississauga mayor files hate-crime complaint after inflammatory article | Toronto Star

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Citizenship Week Statement from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

2016/10/11 Leave a comment

Hard to disagree with the message.

The good news about citizenship is that IRCC has addressed the previous backlog of over 300,000 through granting citizenship to some 500,000 people during 2014 and 2015.

The bad news is the sharp decline in those applying to become citizens, from a previous average of 200,000 per year to 130,000 in 2015 and only 36,000 in the first half of this year.

The steep increase in fees from $100 to $530 in 2015 largely responsible. More to come later this week:

“Every year Citizenship Week gives Canadians the opportunity to reflect on what it means to be Canadian: the rights we enjoy, the responsibilities we share, and the diversity that makes us strong.

“Canada is respected around the world for our success at reaching out to newcomers and embracing them into our great nation. This makes our citizenship both valued and sought-after. And one of the strongest pillars of success and integration is the act of becoming a citizen, which is why we encourage newcomers to take the path to citizenship.

“I am proud to say that the citizenship processing backlog has been reduced by more than 80%, and as such, most new citizenship applications are being processed within 12 months.

“As the Prime Minister has said many times, we are a strong country because of our diversity and not in spite of it. During Citizenship Week, let us join together and celebrate that diversity and the hundreds of cultures that make up Canada.

“I encourage Canadians to reaffirm their citizenship this week as a sign of pride in our traditions, history, and institutions. And I encourage you to share what your citizenship means to you on social media using #MyCitizenship and #CitizenshipWeek.”

Source: Statement from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship – Canada News Centre

 

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Trudeau government revoking citizenship at much higher rate than Conservatives

2016/10/11 Leave a comment

The lack of procedural protections for citizenship revocation in cases of fraud or misrepresentation, flagged as a concern in both hearings on the Harper government’s C-24 and the Trudeau government’s C-6, continues to draw attention, given both the increased number of revocations and the Monsef case (although I would argue misrepresentation of her birthplace by her mother is not material in the way that misrepresenting residency).

And while the Trudeau government continued use of this power is questionable, the higher rate reflects in part the increased number of investigations following implementation of this provision in C-24 on 28 May 2015.

IRCC data shows 24 investigations initiated before this provision came into force, and 324 in the seven months after. The number of cases in the pipeline increased, and thus normal that more revocations would result, as the government applies the law:

The Trudeau government used powers granted by the Harper government’s controversial citizenship law to make 184 revocation decisions without legal hearings between November 2015 and the end of August. About 90 per cent of the decisions resulted in a negative finding and the loss of a person’s citizenship.

The numbers show that the Trudeau government has used the law far more aggressively than the Harper government itself.

But in a Federal Court filing late Friday, the government said it would not grant a moratorium on revocation cases, and added that claims by some that the system was revoking large numbers of citizenship are speculative.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau made the sanctity of citizenship an issue in last year’s federal election.

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Trudeau said in a leaders’ debate three weeks before storming to victory.

He used it to dress down Stephen Harper for passing Bill C-24, a law that aimed to strip dual citizens of their Canadian passports if they were convicted of crimes of terrorism, treason or espionage against Canada, or took up arms against Canada.

Immigrant communities rallied to the Liberal Party, concerned that Canadians born overseas would be reduced by C-24 to an insecure second-class status.

Once elected, one of the Liberals’ first acts was to repeal the parts of C-24 that applied to those convicted of terrorism-related crimes, ensuring that they can keep their Canadian passports.

But the Trudeau government left intact other parts of the law that allow the government to strip citizenship from other holders of Canadian passports for misrepresentation.

The 184 revocation decisions of the first 10 months of the Trudeau government nearly match the total number of decisions over a 27-year period between 1988 and the last month of the Harper government in October 2015.

Revocations increase as Trudeau takes office

Although the powers being used come from a law passed by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the law has been used much more aggressively under Trudeau.

In the first full month of the law’s operation, June 2015, only three revocation decisions were made. None were made in July or August, two in September and two more in October.

The Trudeau cabinet was sworn in on Nov. 4, 2015. That month saw 21 revocation decisions. The following month there were 59. The year 2016 averaged 13 decisions a month up to Aug. 31, the latest data CBC News has been able to obtain.

The monthly average under the Harper government from 2013 to 2015 was only 2.4 cases a month, some under the auspices of C-24 and some under rules that existed previously.

Citizenship revocation decisions by year (in persons)

2013 2014 2015 2016 (8 months)
January 13
February 4 7 25
March 17 7
April 5 14
May 5 16 18
June 4 1 3 7
July 10
August 10
September 4 2
October 1 2
November 4 21
December 7 59
Total 15 15 132 104

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Liberals accused of hypocrisy

In recent days, following revelations that the birthplace of one of its own cabinet ministers was misrepresented on her passport documents, the government has said it is open to reforming the system.

But in the preceding months, it had used the revocation measures at an unprecedented rate.

“The Liberals criticized these provisions when they were in opposition,” says Laura Track of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. “They said they were going to fix it. And yet they have been using it even more than the Conservatives did.”

The government says the revocation decisions are being taken to protect the integrity of the citizenship system and are aimed at cases of fraud.

Nancy Caron of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said “many cases that are being processed for revocation are as a result of large-scale investigations into possible residence fraud.”

The department carried out those investigations with Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP. Investigations led by those agencies have resulted in the conviction of immigration consultants who helped individuals obtain citizenship illegally.

“The revocation process is then undertaken to determine whether the individuals associated with these investigations, fraudulently obtained their Canadian citizenship through having intentionally misled the government of Canada about key aspects of their citizenship application such as concealing past criminal activities or submitting false documents to demonstrate residence in Canada when in fact they were not living in Canada‎. Many of the decisions to revoke citizenship that have been made since May 2015 directly result from those investigations,” Caron said in an email to CBC News.

Source: Trudeau government revoking citizenship at much higher rate than Conservatives – Politics – CBC News

Filed under C-24, C-6, Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with , , ,

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