John McCallum wants to ‘substantially increase’ immigration to fill Canada’s labour needs

2016/08/15 1 Comment

Does suggest that the on-line consultations exercise, launched this summer, was more cosmetic than substantive.

I find the call for increased immigration levels has a bit of “field of dreams” quality, rather than being evidence-based:

If Immigration Minister John McCallum gets his way, Canada will significantly increase immigration beyond its current record level as a way to fill the country’s labour needs.

Pointing to an aging population and looming labour shortages, McCallum made the pitch in Manila during a speech to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines on Friday.

“So why not substantially increase the number of immigrants coming to Canada? And that is, I think, I hope, what we are about to do,” McCallum said, according to a transcript of his remarks obtained by CBC News.

Earlier in the week, McCallum was in Beijing, where he sought to open more offices where Chinese can apply for visas, in the hope of attracting more high-skilled workers.

The Trudeau government is already seeking to admit between 280,000 and 305,000 new permanent residents in 2016 — a record increase from the 260,000 to 285,000 newcomers the previous Conservative government had planned to welcome by the end of 2015.

Key to the Liberal government’s larger plan to promote innovation and grow the economy is McCallum’s three-year immigration plan, which he plans to unveil this fall.

McCallum said no final decision on immigration has been made and that he has to get his cabinet colleagues on board with his new plan and convince Canadians it’s the right thing to do.

“But the direction in which I would like to go is to increase substantially the number of immigrants,” McCallum said Friday.

Reducing ‘barriers’ to immigration

The express entry system launched under the previous Conservative government promised transformative changes to Canada’s economic immigration policy.

McCallum will ease some of the rules to make it easier for international students to come to Canada and become permanent residents.

He is also going to eliminate what is known as a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) —  a document all employers need to hire foreign nationals over Canadian workers.

Businesses have said it is the biggest flaw with express entry, a requirement the previous government borrowed from the temporary foreign worker program.

The Liberal government also tasked a parliamentary committee with a review of the controversial foreign worker program, but Parliament adjourned before the report was tabled. It will now be made public in the fall.

“So we’re going to make it easier for international students, we’re going to reduce some of the barriers in our immigration system … we don’t think that every immigrant needs to go through what we call a labour market impact assessment process. We think it can be simplified. We think there are some rules which are no longer necessary,” McCallum said.

“Now, we have to convince Canadians of this. But I think it’s a good idea.”

Source: John McCallum wants to ‘substantially increase’ immigration to fill Canada’s labour needs – Politics – CBC News

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Collacott: Birth citizenship makes no sense

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

Martin is silent on the previous government’s effort to abolish birthright citizenship, which failed due to provincial opposition as the numbers were too small to justify the cost of such a major change to vital statistics and other identity systems. See my earlier What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com.

Again, a more practical and realizable measure is to collect better and regular data, and regulate or ban birthright citizenship consulting services:

Acquisition of citizenship simply by virtue of having been born on the soil of a country, in fact, makes such little sense that all developed nations where it has been available except Canada and the United States have abolished it in recent years.

The U.S. had originally put it in place after the Civil War, when some southern states tried to deny former slaves the right to become American citizens. Today, the issue of whether to continue with birth citizenship revolves largely around the question of what to do with the millions of illegal migrants and their children who were born in the U.S. and therefore have an automatic right to citizenship. In general, the Democratic Party wants to keep birth citizenship in place since those who benefit from it can be expected to vote for that party when they are old enough to do so. In the circumstances, this has made it difficult to abolish despite the fact that it goes against the interests of Americans in general.

 On our side of the border, a petition has been launched by Richmond resident Kerry Starchuk to do away with birth citizenship and therefore birth tourism. The petition is on the Parliamentary website under the sponsorship of MP Alice Wong. While sponsorship does not necessarily mean that the MP agrees with the petition, it can be assumed that he or she considers it to be a legitimate subject for discussion. To date more than 6,700 people have signed it — more than 13 times the number required for it to be tabled before the House of Commons.

The federal government’s reaction to attempts to abolish birth citizenship has been puzzling to say the least.

Earlier this month, federal government spokespeople made it clear that their main concern with birth tourists was that they pay their hospital bills — which in some cases involve deposits that are three times what the hospital requires from local residents. Curiously, however, the spokespeople made no mention of the fact that when the newborns get older they will be able to use their citizenship to incur substantial costs on Canadian taxpayers because of the benefits they will be eligible to claim.

One of the issues raised in relation to doing away with birth citizenship is that it would be costly to do so. The extent of such costs, however, is open to debate and must be weighed against those incurred when the birth citizenship babies get older.

What is clear is that birth citizenship works against the interests of Canadians in general and that a good number are now aware of this and want it done away with.

Whether the federal government is prepared to act accordingly remains to be seen.

Source: Opinion: Birth citizenship makes no sense | Vancouver Sun

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Don Macpherson: Tweeting a revival of identity politics in Quebec

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

Sigh:

It’s become apparent in the PQ leadership campaign. When the PQ is not in a position to achieve its founding objective of Quebec independence, it usually falls back on its strongest issue, the defence of the identity of French-speaking Quebecers.

In the PQ campaign, Jean-François Lisée moved quickly to lay claim to that issue by proposing policies on identity and official secularism.

The former promotes a one-way “cultural concordance” requiring newcomers to adapt to the French-speaking majority, while the latter would allow public bodies to discriminate in hiring new employees against job-seekers wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim hijab.

When Alexandre Cloutier, believed to be the front-runner in the PQ race, tweeted best wishes to Quebec Muslims at the end of the Ramadan fast, Lisée saw an opportunity to portray Cloutier as soft on secularism and, by extension, identity.

Lisée responded with a tweet of his own, criticizing Cloutier for marking a religious holiday. When Cloutier pointed out that Lisée himself has tweeted Christmas and Easter wishes, the latter replied that those are statutory holidays. But that’s because they were originally religious holidays of the majority.

And Lisée followed up with a blog post linking Cloutier with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his “multiculturalism,” both of which are anathema to PQ members.

Halfway through the PQ leadership campaign, which concludes Oct. 7, Lisée appears to have outflanked the other four candidates on identity, and his efforts to establish himself as the “identity candidate” may be paying off.

Lisée is willing to “take on the identity questions,” well-known nationalist historian Éric Bédard, a promoter of the “charter of values,” told La Presse.

And while PQ leadership candidates tweetfight over the identity issue, yet another tweet signals that the Coalition Avenir Québec party is competing for it with the PQ.

Tweeted by a pro-CAQ account, it drew attention to a newspaper report on a campaign-like summer tour of key ridings by Coalition leader François Legault, which began this week.

The theme of the tour is “Debout pour le Québec”—Standing Up for Quebec. Legault said identity will be a major issue in the tour. And he said that when the National Assembly resumes sitting next month, the CAQ will press the governing Liberals to keep their election promise to pass legislation limiting religious accommodations.

This follows Legault’s announcement last November of a new strategy of competing with the PQ for nationalist votes on issues including language and immigration.

“With what’s been happening in recent years in Quebec,” Legault told L’actualité magazine this year, “immigration has become an issue almost as important as language.”

It’s not only in Quebec. The Brexit vote in Great Britain and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the United States show the potential power of the immigration issue.

And in Quebec, with two years remaining until the next general election is due, the competition among politicians over identity has time to escalate.

Source: Don Macpherson: Tweeting a revival of identity politics in Quebec | Montreal Gazette

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The head of Google’s Brain team is more worried about the lack of diversity in artificial intelligence than an AI apocalypse – Recode

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

The next frontier of diversity?

As some would have it, robots are poised to take over the world in about 3 … 2 … 1 …

But one machine-learning expert — who is, after all, in a position to know — thinks that’s not the biggest issue facing artificial intelligence. In fact, it’s not an issue at all.

“I am personally not worried about an AI apocalypse, as I consider that a completely made-up fear,” Jeff Dean, a senior fellow at Google, wrote during a Reddit AMA on Aug. 11. “I am concerned about the lack of diversity in the AI research community and in computer science more generally.” (Emphasis his.)

Ding, ding, ding. The issue that the tech industry is trying to maneuver their way around, for better or worse, is the same issue that can stunt the progress of “humanistic thinking” in the development of artificial intelligence, according to Dean.

For the optimists in the audience, Google Brain wants to improve lives, Dean wrote. And how can you improve lives without people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds helping to build and develop the technology you hope will impact positive change? (Answer: You can’t.)

“One of the things I really like about our Brain Residency program is that the residents bring a wide range of backgrounds, areas of expertise (e.g. we have physicists, mathematicians, biologists, neuroscientists, electrical engineers, as well as computer scientists), and other kinds of diversity to our research efforts,” Dean wrote.

“In my experience, whenever you bring people together with different kinds of expertise, different perspectives, etc., you end up achieving things that none of you could do individually, because no one person has the entire skills and perspective necessary.”

Source: The head of Google’s Brain team is more worried about the lack of diversity in artificial intelligence than an AI apocalypse – Recode

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Farhad’s and Mike’s Week in Tech: Betting on … Diverse Work Forces – The New York Times

2016/08/15 Leave a comment

More on lack of diversity in tech, this time with respect to Snapchat and its obliviousness to diversity:

Farhad: Finally, Snapchat put out a racist picture filter — again. This week the photo-messaging app unveiled a feature that lets you turn your face into that of an anime character. At least, that was what it said it intended. What it ended up with was “yellowface” — a filter that turns your face into a crude racial caricature of Asian people. This is bad enough on its own, but it’s made worse by the fact that it isn’t the first time this happened. Snapchat released a blackface filter in April.

The company has taken the filter down, but what’s the deal? Should we read something more into the fact that the company has recently put out two obviously overtly racist products?

Mike: So it’s pretty mind-boggling that both of these things got through the organization and into the app. It brings up a few questions.

What do the ranks of the organization look like in order to make something like this O.K. in the eyes of at least a number of people in the company? Questions of diversity obviously spring to mind — which Snapchat has never really addressed or divulged numbers on publicly — and I imagine a more diverse staff might have at least caused some people to question their choices in putting these filters out.

If there were indeed people inside of Snapchat that found these filters objectionable — and I certainly hope there were — what does the organization structure look like and how does it function in a way that allows these decisions to go unchecked and ultimately carried out? Are those people who would object able to make their voices heard internally? And if not, why not?

I doubt we’ll get a ton of transparency from Snapchat on the issue, since they’re quite a secretive company anyway.

Farhad: katie zhu, a Chinese-American engineer and product manager who works at Medium (and who prefers that her name be rendered in lowercase), published a really insightful post on this incident. She urged people to delete Snapchat.

 “They’ve repeatedly demonstrated their blasé attitude towards issues of diversity, inclusion and representation,” she wrote.

She pointed out that Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s chief executive, was unwilling to disclose how diverse his company is during an interview at the Code Conference last year. Spiegel also seemed uncomfortable with the notion that the tech industry has had a particular problem hiring a diverse work force (which seems obvious according to the numbers).

“I think I’m saying that diversity is a challenge everywhere, including tech — and that’s kind of that,” Spiegel told the interviewer, Walt Mossberg. When Mossberg pressed him, Spiegel still seemed hesitant. “There are so many things that feed into diversity and inequality that unpacking them on the stage is probably not the best use of time,” he said.

Mike: I was at that conference. It was super awkward.

Farhad: Snapchat says it recently hired a recruiter to focus on hiring underrepresented minorities, so perhaps Spiegel’s view has changed.

To me, these two incidents do underscore the importance of a diverse work force: Tech companies are usually small groups of homogeneous people who are trying to make products that satisfy the entire planet. At the very least, a diverse work force can help guard against them making choices that offend large swaths of their potential userbase. Even more than that, a diverse work force can help them come up with new ideas that may not have occurred to 20-something Stanford bros.

Mike: That’s why I applaud companies that make it a goal of theirs to strive for diversity at the outset, something that, unless you’ve really made it a point to think about these issues, an entrepreneur may not have even thought of. Perhaps it is also on the venture capitalists and mentors to remind young entrepreneurs that aiming for diversity is, in fact, a strength, and something to be considered when growing the company.

One would hope this doesn’t happen again, but this is tech: anything goes, however terrible.

Source: Farhad’s and Mike’s Week in Tech: Betting on Jet and Diverse Work Forces – The New York Times

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Muslim Women in the U.K. Are The Most Economically Disadvantaged | TIME

2016/08/13 Leave a comment

Not surprising given patterns of UK immigration. Comparable numbers in Canada: the unemployment rate of Muslim women is 10 percent higher than Christian women, the participation rate 8 percent lower:

A new report has found that Muslim women are the most economically disadvantaged group in Britain, blighted by the highest level of unemployment compared to other religious and ethnic groups in the country.

Muslims, who make up 4.8% of the population of England and Wales, are more than two times likely to be unemployed compared to the general population. Women make up 65% of economic inactive Muslims are women, compared to 59% across all religions, says the report released by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, a cross-party group of British lawmakers.

The report also found that traditional family practices affected Muslim women’s job prospects; 44% of all economically inactive Muslim women were not in work because they were looking after the home, compared to a national average of 16%.

The report says Muslim women looking for work or in employment also face a “triple penalty” of being a woman, part of an ethnic minority and being Muslim. It said Muslim women suffered the “impact of Islamophobia” on women’s job prospects, facing discrimination due to their beliefs, culture or clothing.

“We heard evidence that stereotypical views of Muslim women can act as a barrier to work,” the Committee Chair and Conservative Member of Parliament Maria Miller said in a statement. “The data suggests that in communities these patterns are shifting across generations but we remain concerned that this shift is happening too slowly and that not all Muslim women are being treated equally.”

The committee called on the government to roll out a plan to tackle these inequalities by the end of 2016. They also called for “name-blind recruitment” for all employers, following studies that suggest people with white-sounding names are more likely to get interviews.

Source: Muslim Women in the U.K. Are The Most Economically Disadvantaged | TIME

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Justin Trudeau to apologize for historic persecution of gay Canadians

2016/08/13 Leave a comment

Working the way through the needed apology list:

As early as this autumn, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will apologize on behalf of all Canadians to those who were imprisoned, fired from their jobs or otherwise persecuted in the past because of their sexuality.

That apology is a key element in a broad range of reforms that will collectively represent one of the greatest advances for sexual minorities in Canada’s history.

“This is a long-awaited moment and a very emotional moment, to be honest,” said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale, a national organization that advocates for the rights of sexual minorities. “For the government to recognize the damage that it caused, the harm that it caused, to thousands and thousands of Canadians is a historic moment for our communities.”

The Globe and Mail has learned of the planned reforms from numerous sources within and outside the government.

In essence, the Liberals have decided to act on most or all of the recommendations of The Just Society, a report submitted to the government in June by Egale. The title refers to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s program for rights protection and social reform.

Those recommendations include:

  • Apologizing to people who were convicted of gross indecency for committing homosexual acts in the years before 1969, when same-sex acts between consensual adults were decriminalized. Those convictions will be pardoned, expunged or in some other fashion stricken from the records of those convicted;
  • Apologizing to those who were dismissed from the public service, discharged from the military or otherwise discriminated against in government work because they were homosexual. It was only in the 1990s that the federal government ceased efforts to identify and expel homosexuals in the military;
  • Eliminating the difference in the age of consent for sexual acts. The current age of consent is 16, but it is 18 for anal intercourse, which discriminates against and stigmatizes young homosexuals.
  • Examining whether and how to compensate those who suffered past discrimination because of who they were or whom they loved. This could involve individual compensation and/or funding for programs or services;
  • Requiring all police officers or others who work in the justice system to receive human-rights training, with an emphasis on the historic wrong of treating members of sexual minorities as criminals and on the current bias that all too often still exists;
  • Providing similar training to Customs officials, who still are more likely to ban homosexual materials from crossing the border, while permitting their heterosexual equivalents;
  • Implementing procedures to protect the dignity of transgender or intersex persons in prisons or jails;
  • Eliminating laws, such as keeping a bawdy house, that can be used to criminally charge those who visit a bathhouse or who practise group sex.

Some actions can be taken immediately; others will take longer, though the government is committed to fully acting on the Just Society recommendations before the next election.

Source: Justin Trudeau to apologize for historic persecution of gay Canadians – The Globe and Mail

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Germany: Who′s afraid of dual citizenship? | Opinion | DW.COM

2016/08/13 Leave a comment

While in my opinion the article focuses too much on identify aspects of dual citizenship while ignoring the practical aspects that require many to retain their old citizenship in order to be able to easily visit their country of origin, it gives a flavour of German debates:

The issue of dual citizenship is dividing opinion in Germany. The arguments against it are old fashioned to say the least: Citizens cannot “serve two masters,” and the conflict of allegiance for those who possess two passports is emphasized. Such arguments are designed to influence mood and create fear: Opponents of dual citizenship often talk of the threat of a “fifth column” for despots and autocrats, and call into question the democratic will and capacity of those with two passports. The message is clear: Danger is on the way!

But the argument is not aimed at Trump supporters among American-Germans, Le Pen supporters among French-Germans, Kaczynski fans among the 690,000 Polish-Germans, nor those among the 570,000 Russian-Germans that are sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. No, the problem is with those among the 530,000 Turkish-German dual citizens in Germany that support Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan is currently Germany’s favorite bogeyman, the one person that threatens European democracy and that we should all be afraid of. And we should also fear his fifth column, the Turkish-Germans living here and just waiting for Ankara to give them the signal to mobilize.

Enemies of democracy

 However: Doing away with dual citizenship will not solve any of the real or perceived problems that its opponents envision. Dual citizenship is anchored in current EU law. Thus, EU citizens cannot be deprived of it. Therefore Germans have to tolerate the Orban supporters among Hungarian-Germans as well as the nostalgic right-wing extremist Ustashe fans among Croatian-Germans.

Apparently, the real issue only has to do with the Turks. In that case it would serve us well to recall a few facts: According to the 2011 federal census, about 4.3 million people in Germany had citizenship in a second country in addition to being German passport holders. Of those, some 500,000 were Turks. In comparison: 1.5 million Turkish people were living in Germany without German passports, and 800,000 people of Turkish origin had only a German passport. So, on the whole, less than 20 percent of all Turks in Germany have dual citizenship. So where exactly does the threat to German democracy lie?

This most recent discussion on dual citizenship flared up at a pro-Erdogan demonstration two weekends ago in Cologne. Some 30,000 to 40,000 people demonstrated at the event – which figures out to about six or seven percent of all Turkish-German dual citizens, or 1.5 percent of all persons of Turkish descent living in Germany. Even if every single person at the event were an avowed enemy of democracy – it would still be no greater a number than all opinion polls and election results tend to register among ethnic Germans with no immigrant background.

Not a threat – an enrichment

The favorite argument of dual citizenship opponents is the equation: two passports = dual allegiance. That has little to do with reality. Multi-faceted identity is a matter of fact for millions of people with migrant backgrounds living in Germany. It is a matter of different languages, different cultures and different answers to the question: Where do I feel comfortable, where am I at home? Dual citizenship is a possible answer, and a clear sign of belonging to two different worlds. The belief that someone who is forced to forfeit a passport will also forfeit his or her loyalty is a fallacy. It would only lead to bitterness, hypocrisy and estrangement. For loyalty is like love: You can force someone to have sex, but you cannot force them to love you!

Of course democracy must have the possibility to defend itself against its enemies. But modern democracies can only survive and flourish as open societies. One expression of this openness is to allow citizens to live their identities as they feel them – even if that means they need two passports to do so.

Source: Opinion: Who′s afraid of dual citizenship? | Opinion | DW.COM | 09.08.2016

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Germany mulls stripping citizenship in terror crackdown – France 24

2016/08/13 Leave a comment

To watch:

Germany’s interior minister has proposed tough new security measures including deporting foreigners and revoking citizenship after two attacks claimed by the Islamic state group.

At a press conference on Thursday Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière outlined plans to beef up federal security forces, make the promotion of terrorism a crime and strip German citizenship from dual nationals who fight for foreign militias.

After terrorist attacks on German soil this year, two of them by migrants, the minister has been under intense pressure from both the political right, who want fewer Muslim migrants, and the left, who’ve been calling for a stronger police presence.

“A lot of people … are worried about further attacks. That is understandable,” De Maizière told reporters. “No one can guarantee absolute security, but we must do what is possible.”

‘Politically reasonable’

Revoking German citizenship would go some way towards dealing with the estimated 820 Germans fighting in Syria and Iraq who may pose a threat on their return to Germany.

It’s nonetheless considered a controversial proposal with Green lawmaker Volker Beck among those condemning it as “desperate activism”.

Social Democrats (SPD) chief Sigmar Gabriel said his party — the government’s junior coalition partner — are not open to just “any populist quick fix”, but that they are “ready for discussions on anything that can contribute to reinforcing security”.

And the security package has yet to be approved by the country’s right-left coalition and German parliament.

Deportations

Beyond the issue of homegrown terrorism, the minister is proposing to make it easier to deport terror suspects and detain foreigners who have committed crimes or are a public security risk.

A tightening of German and European Union weapons laws is also on the cards.

De Maizière said he was limiting himself to policies that could be implemented quickly, and that he considered “politically reasonable”.

Source: Germany mulls stripping citizenship in terror crackdown – France 24

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ICYMI: Ottawa poised to ease rules for temporary foreign worker program

2016/08/13 Leave a comment

Getting rid of the LMIA, if followed through as the Minister indicated, is significant:

The federal government is setting the stage for a loosening of temporary foreign worker rules after vocal complaints from Canadian employers that recent Conservative changes went too far.

A Liberal-dominated House of Commons committee has completed a report on options for altering the controversial program and will make the recommendations public next month when Parliament resumes.

The report is expected to acknowledge the need for temporary foreign workers in specific sectors and will stress the importance of providing foreign workers with options to become permanent Canadian residents. The number of foreign-worker approvals has been on the decline in recent years in light of a softer jobs market in some regions and tighter rules brought in by the Conservatives after high-profile allegations of abuse in the program.

The report by the human-resources committee was completed in June but wasn’t made public in time for the summer recess. The government has said it is waiting on those recommendations before moving ahead later this year with changes to the program. However, Immigration Minister John McCallum tipped the government’s hand this week in an interview with The Globe and Mail in China when he said the Liberal government will make it easier for companies to bring in foreign workers.

“We’re also going to reduce some of the barriers and the silly rules … in order to give companies freedom to bring in the best and the brightest,” said Mr. McCallum. “We’ll get rid of many of these [required] labour-market impact assessments which slow things down enormously.”

A spokesperson in Mr. McCallum’s office said the minister’s reference to silly rules relates to some of the restrictions that apply to visiting professors. The spokesperson also noted that the minister has said the government is looking at waving labour-market impact assessments in certain cases where that would help attract top talent to come to Canada.

“What the minister wants to do is just find a middle ground,” said the spokesperson.

A labour-market impact assessment is a government screening process designed to ensure there is a legitimate need for a temporary foreign worker and that no Canadian is available to do the job. The minister said the Conservative changes went too far and the Liberals are trying to strike an “intermediate” position. Government officials stressed Wednesday that no final decisions have been made.

Opposition MPs on the committee said Wednesday that the minister’s comments reflect the view of the Liberal majority that worked on the report.

Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, the committee vice-chair, said Mr. McCallum’s comments are “absolutely” in line with the conclusions of the yet-to-be-released study.

“The government was wanting to go in one specific direction and wanted the report to back them up,” he said. Mr. Zimmer said he agrees with the Liberals that there are some legitimate industry needs for foreign workers, but that requests need to be constantly weighed against economic realities.

“The conditions in our economy simply have changed,” he said. “He can’t just say broadly that we need them absolutely. We always need to be looking at what our economy is doing.”

Source: Ottawa poised to ease rules for temporary foreign worker program – The Globe and Mail

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