Liberal deal with Bloc means hate-speech laws will lose exemption for ‘sincerely held’ religious belief

2025/12/02 Leave a comment

This will create considerable debate and will likely lead to court challenges. A good faith or “sincerely held” clause should not be a “get out of jail” card, but in the end, it will depend on context and specifics, and would to extreme religious extremists and positions:

The Liberals have agreed to remove religious exemptions from Canada’s hate-speech laws to secure Bloc Québécois support to help pass its bill targeting hate and terror symbols, National Post has learned through a source close to the talks.

Currently, the law exempts hateful or antisemitic speech if it based in good faith on the interpretation of a religious text, but that immunity is set to be removed. Additionally, the Liberals are expected to back off plans to eliminate the need for a provincial attorney general’s sign-off to pursue a hate-propaganda prosecution.

The removal of the religious exemption is expected to come via an amendment to the Criminal Code in the form of Bill C-9 at the parliamentary justice committee that will be supported by both the Liberals and Bloc, a senior government source confirmed.

The source was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss party negotiations publicly.

“We do have Bloc partnership,” the source said. “The bill is in a place now, even with those Bloc amendments, that everyone is happy,” they added in reference to Liberal and Bloc MPs.

Bill C-9, which fulfilled a campaign promise Prime Minister Mark Carney made during the spring election, was his minority government’s first major justice bill introduced earlier this fall by Justice Minister Sean Fraser.

It seeks multiple changes to the Criminal Code to confront the issue of hate, with the Liberals citing a rise in police-reported incidents in recent years, particularly in the wake of sustained anti-Israel protests over the last two years.

Chief among the proposed changes is creating a new offence for intimidating someone to the point of blocking their access to a place of worship or another centre used by an identifiable group, as well as criminalizing the act of promoting hate by displaying a hate or terror symbol, such as one tied to a listed terrorist organization or a swastika.

The Opposition Conservatives have lambasted the current effort as censorship, saying provisions already exist within criminal law to counter hate, and that the bill’s proposal to remove the requirement for a provincial attorney general’s (AG) consent to lay a hate propaganda charge took away an “important safeguard,” according to the party.

The Liberals are now expected to accept another amendment eliminating that change from the bill entirely. That, too, was a Bloc request.

When the bill was first presented back in September, the Liberals argued that removing the AG requirement would help streamline the process of laying hate propaganda charges, while critics said it was an additional check on a charge with serious implications for free speech.

Once the amendments are passed, the Liberals and Bloc are expected to vote the bill through committee and the House of Commons. However, it is unclear when the justice committee will debate clause-by-clause amendments to the bill.

The House is scheduled to rise on Dec. 12.

The original text of the bill did not contain changes to the existing religious defences for hate speech, but the Bloc has consistently raised the need for it to be addressed.

Currently, Section 319 of the Criminal Code contains an exemption stating no person shall be convicted of promoting hateful or antisemitic speech if they expressed “in good faith” an opinion “based on a belief in a religious text.”…

Source: Liberal deal with Bloc means hate-speech laws will lose exemption for ‘sincerely held’ religious belief

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The Age of Depopulation

2025/12/01 Leave a comment

Policy makers have yet to confront the prospect and the related reality that immigration can only partially delay the inevitable:

…Prosperity in a depopulating world will also depend on open economies: free trade in goods, services, and finance to counter the constraints that declining populations otherwise engender. And as the hunger for scarce talent becomes more acute, the movement of people will take on new economic salience. In the shadow of depopulation, immigration will matter even more than it does today.

Not all aged societies, however, will be capable of assimilating young immigrants or turning them into loyal and productive citizens. And not all migrants will be capable of contributing effectively to receiving economies, especially given the stark lack of basic skills characterizing too many of the world’s rapidly growing populations today.

Pragmatic migration strategies will be of benefit to depopulating societies in the generations ahead—bolstering their labor forces, tax bases, and consumer spending while also rewarding the immigrants’ countries of origin with lucrative remittances. With populations shrinking, governments will have to compete for migrants, with an even greater premium placed on attracting talent from abroad. Getting competitive migration policies right—and securing public support for them—will be a major task for future governments but one well worth the effort….

A NEW CHAPTER

The era of depopulation is nigh. Dramatic aging and the indefinite decline of the human population—eventually on a global scale—will mark the end of an extraordinary chapter of human history and the beginning of another, quite possibly no less extraordinary than the one before it. Depopulation will transform humanity profoundly, likely in numerous ways societies have not begun to consider and may not yet be in a position to understand.

Yet for all the momentous changes ahead, people can also expect important and perhaps reassuring continuities. Humanity has already found the formula for banishing material scarcity and engineering ever-greater prosperity. That formula can work regardless of whether populations rise or fall. Routinized material advance has been made possible by a system of peaceful human cooperation—deep, vast, and unfathomably complex—and that largely market-based system will continue to unfold from the current era into the next. Human volition—the driver behind today’s worldwide declines in childbearing—stands to be no less powerful a force tomorrow than it is today.

Humanity bestrides the planet, explores the cosmos, and continues to reshape itself because humans are the world’s most inventive, adaptable animal. But it will take more than a bit of inventiveness and adaptability to cope with the unintended future consequences of the family and fertility choices being made today.

NICHOLAS EBERSTADT is Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute and Senior Adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research. Eberstadt has served as a consultant to the World Bank and to the U.S. government, including at the State Department, the Agency for International Development, and the President’s Council on Bioethics. His books include Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis and Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications.

Source: The Age of Depopulation

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Immigrants from China struggling to obtain security clearances for government jobs, senator says

2025/12/01 2 Comments

Of note and not surprising (Senator Woo tends to underestimate risks of foreign interference):

A senator told a parliamentary committee that he’s hearing of immigrants from China, with marginal connections to the ruling Chinese Communist Party or other government bodies, who are finding it difficult to obtain security clearances for Canadian public-sector jobs.

Senator Yuen Pau Woo raised the matter during a meeting of the Senate committee on foreign affairs and international trade Thursday, where he asked officials from the Department of Global Affairs to address it.

“I’ve encountered more and more cases of individuals looking to do government jobs, maybe work for a senator, or an MP, having their security clearances rejected or not responded to at all,” Mr. Woo said.

On the face of it, Mr. Woo said, it seems this is happening because the applicants “come from the People’s Republic of China and have the most tangential links to the CCP or some government organ,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, which has ruled China for 76 years….

Source: Immigrants from China struggling to obtain security clearances for government jobs, senator says

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Why increased candidate diversity can help rebuild trust in Canadian politics

2025/12/01 Leave a comment

Interesting experiment:

Inside our national experiment on trust

How do we do so? In 2023, we ran an online national survey which presented 4,950 respondents from all backgrounds with fictional candidate profiles, each with a set of randomized attributes (for example, race, gender and political party).

We asked respondents to rate the trustworthiness of these fictional candidates. We use these responses to determine what kinds of candidates are more or less trusted and what kinds of Canadians the respondents tend to trust or distrust. We also look at racialized and gender aspects of both candidates and voters.

We then consider the role of context in trust, including things such as racial diversity and socio-economic status at the level of communities within which racialized Canadians live.

Finally, we examine how trust based on shared racialized status can translate to broader system-level attitudes such as being satisfied with Canadian democracy.

What the findings show

We’ve already learned a few interesting things. For example, our experimental results suggest that racialized candidates are on average assessed as more trustworthy than others by Canadians of all backgrounds, but that racialized Canadians are less trusting generally.

We also find that both women and racialized candidates are more trusted than their male and white counterparts, but the intersectionality of women and racialized candidates creates weaker trust than expected. We also uncovered some evidence that racialized Canadians are more satisfied with democracy when there are more racialized candidates running in their districts.

Trust is fragile and while there may be some hope that Canada is in a stronger position relative to our closest friends and allies globally, we need to be vigilant about how we can build and strengthen trust relationships between Canadians and our politicians.

Source: Why increased candidate diversity can help rebuild trust in Canadian politics

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Why I boycotted Ottawa’s AI task force

2025/12/01 Leave a comment

Not sure how his boycott improves representation. Risks being “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face” rather than having a meaningful impact:

Our community deserves stronger representation at the table. Who better to help develop guardrails for racial bias in AI than those who have already felt its sting?

The Black community understands viscerally what is at stake when algorithms decide how long you spend in jail, whether you get a job interview, a loan or suffer a false arrest. Our lived experiences and expertise would only strengthen (not weaken) Canada’s AI strategy, making it more robust and more just for everyone.

Yet, the message from those in charge has been clear: they don’t really want us to participate in developing AI strategy.

That is why I decided to take a stand: As a Black scholar whose decade of research has identified the real harm AI poses to the Black community, and one who believes in the genuine participation of this community in addressing that harm, I could not in good conscience take any step directly or indirectly that would lend moral legitimacy to the current composition of Canada’s AI task force.

Therefore, I refrained from making any submission during its consultation process, which ended Oct. 31.

When Black voices are meaningfully included, I and others in the Black community will be happy to contribute.

Gideon Christian is an associate professor and university research chair in AI and law at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on racial bias in AI technologies.

Source: Why I boycotted Ottawa’s AI task force

And a letter from Liberal MP Greg Fergus, Boycotting the AI task force is counterproductive:

I was disappointed to see Gideon Christian’s recent Policy Options article “Why I boycotted Ottawa’s AI task force.”

I am a Member of Parliament. I hear from young people every day about their concerns regarding their place in the future of this country, and the incessant barriers they face in trying to forge their path in it. We all share an essential role in fighting and championing for our youth. We must strive to dismantle these barriers.

I am certain Professor Christian, based on his extensive career, has seen firsthand how the young, diverse, brilliant minds of our future make us stronger. They push us to innovate, to be better. We are building a world for them to inherit, one bolstered by technological growth. They deserve a seat at the table.

The appointment of a young Black scholar to the task force, regardless of the timing, gives her a valuable opportunity to contribute. I find it deeply unfortunate that Professor Christian would reduce her appointment to a symbolic gesture or optics, or that he would imply that she is lacking in qualification.

Rather than disputing her appointment, why would he not choose to act as a mentor instead? He chooses to boycott. This is not a choice I would make. I hope he will change his mind.

We need to be fighting for unity and co-operation where all are included, not tearing each other down. As an older Black Canadian, I am particularly pleased to see this emerging young Black leader access tables of influence.

I truly think we stand to gain by making places for the leaders of tomorrow. I believe we will soon see what can be accomplished by this taskforce and the great work done by young Canadians.

Together, we can build a future worthy of our youth.

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Canadian Immigration Tracker: Third quarter 2025 update

2025/12/01 Leave a comment

Regular quarterly update across immigration programs: Permanent Residents, Temporary Residents (workers, students and visas, asylum seekers) and Citizenship. Trend across all programs shows year-over-year and two-year decline.

Covid-19 Immigration Effects – Key Slides – 2025 SeptemberDownload

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Lederman: The backlash against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Nakba exhibit is preposterous

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…But it is ludicrous to suggest that historical events not be explored – that perhaps they should even be suppressed – by a national museum devoted to human rights, in order to counter this disturbing rise. One should not have anything to do with the other. If someone walks away from a Nakba exhibit wanting to bully (or worse) some Jews, the problem is not with the museum – which, not incidentally, includes a comprehensive permanent gallery about the Holocaust.

“Sharing the stories or experiences of one group doesn’t somehow take away the experiences of another,” as the museum’s director and CEO Isha Khan told me. In an interview, Ms. Khan said the concerns are being heard and she stressed that the exhibition is still in development. “We take our responsibility very seriously. And this exhibition is being given the same care and thoughtful concern that any exhibit would,” she said. 

“I know that these are polarized times,” she continued. “Our job is to cut through that … and to inspire reflection, bring people together in dialogue. We hope this will do that.”

With the current state of discourse, the history of the Middle East has been dumbed down to the point of absurdity to fit social media posts and a prevailing narrative. There is more reason than ever for a museum to offer enlightenment.

Source: The backlash against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Nakba exhibit is preposterous

Predictably enough, the National Post has the contrary position, weak IMO: Terry Newman: Actually, the backlash against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ ‘Nakba’ exhibit is justified

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Here’s how much the cuts to Canada’s international students have hurt Ontario colleges and universities

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Starting to get a better sense of the numbers and how governments created this problem through a mixture of underfunding of post-secondary education and over-reliance on international students:

Ontario colleges and universities have been hit with more than $4.6 billion in lost revenues amid the drastic cuts to international students, new post-secondary figures obtained by the Star show.

And with Ottawa just announcing even fewer foreign students for 2026, for universities alone the impact is expected to increase from the $2.1 billion blow they are already dealing with.

The new numbers have the province’s universities now warning they “cannot cut their way out of these growing fiscal challenges.”

…Universities have already cut $550 million in the last few years, mainly through program loss, fewer services and staff cuts, and many schools are staring down deficits this school year. 

Colleges have cut $1.8 billion in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, by cutting up to 10,000 jobs, and 600 programs as well as shuttering a number of campuses. …

Source: Here’s how much the cuts to Canada’s international students have hurt Ontario colleges and universities

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Thousands of former international students’ visas will expire soon. What happens next is murky

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Would be nice if we had reliable exit data to know:

Tens of thousands of international students who were granted postgraduate work permits will see their visas expire this year, casting doubt on their futures in Canada and leading economists to wonder if some will stay in the country as undocumented residents.

There were 31,610 people with valid postgraduate work permits in the country as of Sept. 30, and those visas will expire by Dec. 31, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) provided to The Globe and Mail.

Those numbers have recently come under scrutiny by economists and immigration experts because it’s unclear how many temporary residents remain in the country after their visas expire, adding to the undocumented population….

In a statement to The Globe, the federal Immigration Department said it did not have an estimate of the number of people in Canada on expired postgraduate work permits. 

“Once someone receives a permit, they must abide by the condition of their permit, including the legal requirement to leave Canada at the end of the authorized period of stay,” the IRCC said in the e-mailed statement. 

Last year, the Canada Border Services Agency deported approximately 18,000 people, but the agency does not publicly break that number down by type of study or work permit. 

The latest IRCC data show that the number of expiring postgraduate work permits is down sharply from the same period last year, when approximately 70,000 were due to expire. …

Source: Thousands of former international students’ visas will expire soon. What happens next is murky

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USA: New Immigration Policy Likely To Block Many Family Immigrants

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Of course, that is the point:

The Trump administration has proposed a new immigration policy likely to block many family-based immigrants from coming to America. The policy would label more family immigrants a “public charge,” allowing officials to prevent their entry. However, new research undermines the policy push, finding that a recent Federal Register notice ignores crucial empirical evidence: Individuals entering as family immigrants start with lower initial earnings but quickly adapt by trying new jobs and investing in skills and education that lead to rapid earnings growth. They are also unlikely to receive public assistance income.

Individuals who immigrate with family members or join them in the United States have been a central feature of immigration throughout American history. After Intel’s Andy Grove immigrated to America as a refugee following the Hungarian Revolution, he immediately pursued ways to sponsor his parents, who joined him in the United States. Years earlier, in 1885, a 16-year-old Friedrich Trump, Donald Trump’s grandfather, immigrated to America to join his sister Katherine, who “had immigrated to New York a year earlier,” according to Trump biographer Gwenda Blair.In 1930, Mary Anne MacLeod immigrated to America from Scotland as an unskilled 18-year-old to live with her married sister in Queens. Six years later, she met Fred Trump at a party, they married and had children, one of whom was Donald Trump. “Donald Trump is a product of (family) ‘chain migration,’” according to Columbia University historian Mae M. Ngai.

…DHS concedes in the Federal Register notice that new immigrants are not eligible for federal means-tested public benefits for at least five years after entering the United States. (The rules differ for refugees and asylees.) DHS also notes that sponsors of family immigrants sign legally binding affidavits of support. If considered, the affidavits of support should mitigate concerns that individuals may become a public charge since sponsors can reimburse benefit costs.

DHS does not express or cite concern that removing a structured review of applicants detailed by regulation in favor of subjective determinations by consular officers and others will, based on previous estimates, result in hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually being denied entry. The proposed rule does not consider it a cost that the DHS action will prevent many Americans from living in the United States with a spouse, child or other close relative, which will be the primary impact of the new policy.

The Federal Register notice cannot detail any quantitative benefits from the new policy, stating “DHS anticipates this proposed rule will produce benefits but is limited to providing a qualitative analysis.” The “qualitative” benefits DHS anticipates will not go to Americans or the U.S. economy, but to government personnel who will not be “unnecessarily” limited in their “ability to make public charge inadmissibility determinations.”

In recent weeks, the State Department issued a notice to consular officers to direct them to deny visas to people with obesity, diabetes or other health issues if they could be considered potential public charges. “A diplomat who received last week’s cable, and also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said State Department leadership has been very active in finding new ways to deny foreigners entry into the U.S. or just slow down the system,” reported the Washington Post (November 13, 2025)….

Source: New Immigration Policy Likely To Block Many Family Immigrants

Filed under Immigration, Trump administration Tagged with ,

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