Nine different ‘alphabets:’ Inuit experts meet to standardize language

A real challenge, given the power of language and connection to identity. But the likely risk of not coming up with a common agreed approach will mean greater challenges to maintain and strengthen Inuktitut:

Two Inuit go hunting. One hands the other his rifle and the recipient says “ma’na.”

His partner, though, has no idea what he’s just heard. The word for thanks in his dialect is “qujannamiik.”

There are only 60,000 Inuit in Canada, but they are divided between nine different writing forms and at least that many dialects. On Friday, language experts are to meet in Ottawa to help bridge that gulf.

“People can generally understand each other, but there are serious limitations for that understanding,” said Natan Obed, head of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit group.

“If we had one unified writing system, we could maximize the ability for us to read in our language and also educate our children and provide them with learning resources.”

Inuktitut fractured because it was spoken by widely dispersed groups who rarely interacted. The language splintered further when missionaries developed writing for it.

Syllabics, originally based on characters from Pitman shorthand, are most common in the Eastern Arctic. Roman orthography, the letters of the alphabet most of us recognize, is mostly used in the west.

The dialects have diverged so widely that some use sounds that speakers from other parts of the North can’t even pronounce. Obed’s group produces a magazine called Inuktitut that native speakers in the far west and the far east just can’t read.

The drive to establish a standard writing form dates back to a recommendation in a 2011 report on Inuit education. Last September, experts from the four major Inuit regions began that task and continue their work on Friday.

Controversy is expected.

Many argue orthography is the way to go. It’s in common use everywhere — especially on social media and the Internet, both widely used by Inuit.

Last week, Inuktitut interpreters and translators voted at a conference in Iqaluit in favour of moving to orthography.

But many don’t want to say goodbye to the triangles, circles and squiggles of syllabics. The debate gets more heated because the areas where Inuktitut is strongest — almost all Quebec Inuit say they’re fluent — are the same areas that use syllabics.

“There are more Inuit talking seriously about transitioning out of syllabics into orthography,” Obed said. “(But) it is very contentious because it gets to the heart of who people are and how they’ve learned and express themselves.

“People have equated linguistic preservation and use to syllabics,” Obed said. “Syllabics attachment is based on the overarching history and the fact that syllabics allowed people to retain their language and their culture at a time of colonization and great upheaval.”

Source: Nine different ‘alphabets:’ Inuit experts meet to standardize language – Macleans.ca

Liberals restoring refugee health benefits cut by previous government

Fully expected: in the Liberal platform and Minister McCallum’s mandate letter. Another commitment met, another Conservative policy undone:

The Liberal government has restored refugee health-care benefits cut by the previous Conservative government.

Speaking at a joint announcement Thursday, Immigration Minister John McCallum and Health Minister Jane Philpott said the Interim Federal Health Program, which provides health-care coverage for asylum claimants and refugees, will be fully restored to pre-2012 levels.

“All refugee claimants and refugees will now be covered,” Mr. McCallum told reporters in Ottawa. “The system had disintegrated into something of such enormous complexity that it was virtually unmanageable.”

The Conservative government scaled back refugee health-care benefits in 2012, arguing that the cuts would deter “bogus” refugees from coming to Canada and save taxpayers money. The Federal Court eventually found that the changes were unconstitutional and ordered the government to reinstate the benefits, leading the Conservatives to restore some. The Tory government launched an appeal of the court’s decision, which the Liberals eventually dropped.

Before 2012, refugee claimants had their health-care costs covered by the federal government until their application for status was decided or they became eligible for provincial health-care coverage.

The health-care benefits will be fully restored as of April 1, according to Mr. McCallum. The coverage will include hospital and physician services, while coverage for supplemental services, such as vision, urgent dental care and prescription drugs, will be similar to what provinces and territories provide to Canadians on social assistance.

Dr. Philpott said the return to the pre-2012 program will “simplify everything.”

“There will be one path. Refugees, … whatever category they will fall into, they will be eligible for the basic levels of care in addition to some supplementary levels of care. And this will help refugees, it will help health-care providers and it will help Canadians,” she said.

The government’s announcement comes months after it committed to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, who were already receiving health-care coverage. An exemption in the 2012 law ensures that refugees being settled as a “result of a public policy or humanitarian and compassionate considerations on the minister’s own initiative” receive full access to health-care benefits.

The government also announced an expansion of the program to cover certain services for refugees who have been identified for resettlement before they come to Canada. Starting April 1, 2017, those services will include coverage of the immigration medical examination, pre-departure vaccinations, services to manage disease outbreaks in refugee camps and medical support during travel to Canada.

Source: Liberals restoring refugee health benefits cut by previous government – The Globe and Mail

Temporary foreign workers program faces federal review

Not unexpected to see political pressure from Atlantic Canada.

Will be interesting to watch the political debate, given that former Minister Kenney sees one of his legacies threatened (after reversing earlier Conservative policies than made it easier for businesses to hire Temporary Foreign Workers) and the degree to which the Government responds:

While the Liberals criticized the Conservative government’s handling of the program, the party did not propose reforms in its 2015 election platform.

All seats in Atlantic Canada went to Liberals, and MPs from the region are pressing hard for changes, saying the restrictions hurt seasonal businesses and the service sector.

Nova Scotia Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, who is also Ms. Mihychuk’s parliamentary secretary, said the program needs to be overhauled to take into account the demands of seasonal businesses.

“Changes over the last couple of years have impacted seasonal industries. We still generate over 50 per cent of the regional GDP through seasonal industries. The work force is getting older. The out-migration is significant,” he said.

Yvonne Jones, the Liberal MP from Labrador, said the changes to the TFW program hurt her province’s tourism and fish processing industries, making it difficult to get seasonal labour.

“Because of the fact we are unable to recruit under the temporary foreign worker program, we have seen a lot of businesses having to close or scale back their hours and days of operations. This is really affecting services to communities that need that service,” Ms. Jones said.

Conservative MP Jason Kenney, the former minister who overhauled the program, said it would be dumb economic policy to exempt fish plant workers from the terms of the temporary workers program when so many Atlantic Canadians are unemployed and many jobless oil workers are returning from Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“This is classic Liberal position. Make it easy for local fish plant workers to go on unemployment insurance and make it easier for the employers to bring in fish plant workers from overseas,” he said.

Mr. Kenney said one of the reasons his government tightened the rules for employment insurance and temporary foreign workers was that communities in Atlantic Canada had local fish plant workers collecting employment insurance while foreigners were doing their jobs.

Ms. Mihychuk said the review by the Commons employment committee needs to encompass every sector of the economy, including the impact of the collapse in oil prices.

“You look at the massive layoffs in Alberta, it’s really changing the labour market,” she said. “A lot of indigenous people are strongly opposed to [TFW], saying it’s time for indigenous people to be given a chance. So there are a lot of different angles to the whole program.”

Unemployment among aboriginal people is more than twice the rate for non-aboriginals, according to the 2011 National Household Survey.

The Liberals also believe a credible pathway to citizenship for foreign workers is needed.

“It’s a situation that is complicated. These are people – excellent people – and a lot of them want to stay in the country,” Ms. Mihychuk added.

The Liberals say the Conservatives mismanaged the 2014 reforms and based many of their regional employment assumptions on inaccurate labour market data.

“Under the temporary workers program, basically, they connected it to data around employment statistics, but those employment statistics were not completely accurate,” Ms. Jones said. “They looked at large regions as opposed to individual areas where the problem was most sensitive. And because they didn’t go with the [mandatory] long-form census, a lot of the data was incomplete,” she added.

Mr. Kenney said the review is unnecessary, saying the reforms he brought in were balanced and well thought-out.

“I think our changes have turned out to be prescient given the downturn in the western economy, in particular where the most skilled part [of TFW] was being overused. With over 100,000 Albertans having lost their jobs in the past few months, and if more people were pouring into the Alberta labour market from abroad as de facto indentured workers while many Canadians are facing unemployment, that would be totally unacceptable,” he said.

Source: Temporary foreign workers program faces federal review – The Globe and Mail

ICYMI: The Interview: Crime author Ausma Zehanat Khan’s unique lens on Islam

Worth reading, have selected the quote below on the contrast between Canada and the USA:

Q: Do you wear a headscarf?

A: I don’t. No one can visibly identify me as a Muslim woman until the moment that I choose to identify myself, so there is a certain level of protection with that—which is not to say that everybody that I encounter is filled with anti-Muslim hatred, just that there are certain situations where you are aware of it. When I’m in Toronto, and I’m out in public with friends, or my husband, I dress any way I want. Sometimes, as when I’ve just been praying, I will still have my scarf on, and I’ll go out and never think twice about it. I don’t feel the pressure of looks or judgment.

But there have been many, many times here where I’ve felt that; that we’re attracting notice. So we’re careful. We don’t talk about issues in public, certainly not when we’re going to the airport. [laughs] We’re careful about what kind of books we have in public. When I want to pray inside my house, I draw my blinds. Those kinds of small accommodations are because you realize that people have heard negative things about Muslims and associate all Muslims with jihadists, and they’re wary and suspicious of them. And I’ve heard about Islamophobic incidents and attacks, so I’m wary and suspicious of other people, so it’s mutually reinforcing—even when I’m sure the majority of people don’t have those attitudes, just as the vast majority of Muslims are not jihadists. It’s a really sad state of affairs.

Source: The Interview: Crime author Ausma Zehanat Khan’s unique lens on Islam

Ontario public servants to get mandatory sensitivity training on indigenous people, history

While sad that this is needed (it’s 2016!), better late than never and likely one of the more significant TRC recommendations that will be implemented in the long-term.

Not sure what other provinces with large numbers of Indigenous peoples are doing but this approach should be considered by them if not already in place. The same applies to the federal government:

More than 60,000 members of Ontario’s public service will soon receive mandatory sensitivity training regarding the history and experiences of the province’s indigenous people, the Star has learned.

Premier Kathleen Wynne is expected to announce on Wednesday that every OPS employee will receive mandatory indigenous cultural competency and anti-racism training. Ontario’s public servants work in all government ministries from finance to child welfare, agencies and Crown corporations.

Wynne is also expected to further outline mandatory learning expectations in the province’s public education curriculum to include the impact of residential schools, the history of colonization and the role of treaties signed between the Crown and First Nations.

The changes push Ontario toward addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) 94 recommendations, released last June, which are meant to incorporate indigenous culture and teaching throughout Canadian society.

For 100 years, residential schools — run by churches and sanctioned by the government — took nearly 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children away from their families and communities and sent them away to school. Thousands of children never made it home and died while at the schools.

TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair called this dark period in Canadian history an act of cultural genocide as the impact of the mass removal of generations of children from their families left a legacy of broken families, poverty, mistrust of government, abuse, alcoholism and fractured lives.

A key component of the sensitivity training will be focused on violence against indigenous women and girls.

…The sensitivity training will instruct employees on terminology, colonial history in Ontario from treaties to child welfare and Indian hospitals such as the Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium, which operated from the 1940s to the 1970s. The training will discuss how social disparities and inequities grew from these experiences.

The training will include interactive cultural activities, the harm of stereotyping and the legacy of colonization. It will also teach better “communications and relationship-building skills to promote positive partnerships with indigenous people,” according to information on the event obtained by the Star.

Other courses required for Ontario public servants to take include workplace violence prevention and training on Ontario Human Rights Code requirements regarding persons with disabilities.

The premier is also expected to discuss further progress on collaborating with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit partners on how they are incorporating indigenous history and culture into the public school curriculum.

Source: Ontario public servants to get mandatory sensitivity training on indigenous people, history | Toronto Star

Indigenous peoples: In Canada, justice is not blind

The high numbers regarding indigenous incarceration rates are shocking. Comparable to Black incarceration rates in the USA:

While admissions of white adults to Canadian prisons declined through the last decade, Indigenous incarceration rates were surging: Up 112 per cent for women. Already, 36 per cent of the women and 25 per cent of men sentenced to provincial and territorial custody in Canada are Indigenous—a group that makes up just four per cent of the national population.

This helps explain why prison guard jobs are among the fastest-growing public occupation on the Prairies. And why criminologists have begun quietly referring to Canada’s prisons and jails as the country’s “new residential schools.”

In the past decade, the federal government passed more than 30 new crime laws, hiking punishment for a wide range of crimes, limiting parole opportunities and also broadening the grounds used to send young offenders to jail. At the same time, it has been ignoring calls to reform biased correctional admissions tests, bail and other laws disproportionately impacting Indigenous offenders. Instead, it appears to be incarcerating as many Indigenous people as possible, for as long as legally possible, with far-reaching consequences for Indigenous families.

But the problem isn’t just new laws. Although police “carding” in Toronto has put street checks, which disproportionately target minority populations, under the microscope, neither is racial profiling alone to blame. At every step, discriminatory practices and a biased system work against an Indigenous accused, from the moment a person is first identified by police, to their appearance before a judge, to their hearing before a parole board. The evidence is unambiguous: If you happen to be Indigenous, justice in Canada is not blind.

“What we are doing is using our criminal justice system to defend ourselves from the consequence of our own racism,” says Toronto criminal lawyer John Struthers, who cut his legal teeth as a Crown attorney in remote, northern communities. Rather than treat trauma, addictions, he says, “we keep the doors closed.”

Source: Cover preview: In Canada, justice is not blind – Macleans.ca

Changing Immigrant Characteristics and Entry Earnings: StatCan Study

Key takeaway of this study: Canadian work experience makes the largest difference in short-term (less than 2 years) economic outcomes, and provides an evidence-base for policy changes that reward it (e.g., Express Entry points). In the longer-term, education and age are more significant (View):

Immigration selection policies changed significantly during the 1990s and 2000s, at least in part to improve immigrant entry earnings. After the decline in both relative (to the Canadian-born) and absolute entry earnings during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong desire to improve the economic outcomes of immigrants shortly after their landing. Changes in selection policies and other factors altered immigrants’ characteristics across a number of dimensions, including demographics, source region, work experience and geographic distributions. This paper examines whether immigrants’ earnings immediately after their landing improved as a result of these changes and, if so, which characteristics contributed the most to this improvement.

Among all new immigrants, abstracting from economic cyclical variation, entry earnings—defined as earnings in the first two full years after landing—remained more or less constant throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The situation was very similar for principal applicants (PAs) in the economic class. During the 1990s, rising educational attainment at landing and the increasing share of immigrants in the economic class increased entry earnings. During the 2000s, a much more complex period in terms of immigrant selection, the factors that positively influenced immigrant entry earnings included changing distribution by immigration class, notably the rise of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP); changing source region; and, for immigrant women, rising educational attainment at landing. These factors were offset by less favourable economic conditions in destination cities and regions in the late 2000s.

However, one factor dominated all others: the rise in the share of new immigrants who had Canadian work experience, often in high-paying jobs, prior to obtaining permanent residency. Changes in this factor tended to increase entry earnings during the 2000s far more than any other variable studied. The increase in pre-landing Canadian work experience accounted for most of the positive effect of the rise of the PNP on entry earnings during the 2000s, since the increase in work experience was heavily concentrated among provincial nominees. Furthermore, differences in pre-landing Canadian work experience between provincial nominees (with more Canadian work experience) and skilled workers (SWs) (with less) accounted for virtually all of the entry earnings advantage that the provincial nominees held over the SWs during the 2000s. While other factors, such as differences in geographic distribution (more settled in the West), educational attainment at landing, unemployment in the destination regions and cities, and source region, contributed, either in a small positive or negative manner, to the entry earnings differences between provincial nominees and SWs, their contribution paled in comparison with the pre-landing Canadian work experience factor. Once adjusted for differences in pre-landing Canadian work experience, entry earnings were virtually identical between provincial nominees and SWs. These conclusions were found for all new immigrants, as well as for PAs in the economic class, and were evident for both men and women.

It is likely that the pre-landing Canadian work experience variable used here captures at least three effects. First is the effect of Canadian work experience on earnings early in immigrants’ working life after landing. Employers appear to be more willing to remunerate such experience relative to foreign work experience. Second, this variable may also reflect a selection effect. When immigrants are selected from the pool of temporary foreign workers, they come with information regarding how well they performed in their jobs in Canada. If an employer seeks to change the status of temporary foreign workers to a permanent one, it is likely because they have done well in their jobs. Hence, much of the effect on entry earnings could be because of this selection process. Third, during the 2000s, many of the workers on temporary visas who attained permanent status worked in high-paying jobs.

Source: Changing Immigrant Characteristics and Entry Earnings

Canada’s hardest-hit economies need immigration to thrive again: Moffat

Mike Moffat on the need to remove the need for a Labour Market Impact Assessment for graduates of Canadian universities in Express Entry point scoring (another issue is to restored pre-Permanent Resident credit towards citizenship residency requirements for international students as was done prior to the 2014 changes in the Citizenship Act):

So how can London, Windsor, St. Catharines et. al. increase their population of talented twentysomethings? The region does an excellent job of importing talent as our institutes of higher education are worldwide magnets for young achievers. In London, Western and Fanshawe bring in some of the most gifted students in the world, teach them skills highly in demand in the region while they become familiar with Canadian culture. We then allow these graduates to stay in the country for a period of up to three years via Canada’sPost-Graduation Work Permit Program(PGWPP); tech companies Darren Meister, Kadie Ward and I interviewed in London told me how incredibly valuable these workers are.

They also told us that, despite these workers having graduated in Canada and being in the country around seven years, the Federal government makes it difficult (and some cases impossible) to keep them in the country. They are sent back home, and London has fewer talented young workers.

The issue stems, in part, from year-old changes to Canada’s express entry system which makes it impossible for someone in the PGWPP program to gain express entry without a Labour Market Impact Assessment, as chronicled by Nicholas Keung:

“The problem, which the federal government denies, lies in the significance given to a certificate called the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). It is issued by Ottawa to ensure a candidate’s skills are sufficiently in demand to warrant hiring an immigrant.

Ottawa says applicants for Express Entry, such as international graduates, do not need an LMIA to qualify. But Express Entry acceptance is based on a point system and it’s not possible to earn enough points without an LMIA, immigration experts say.

“The new system is flawed,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Shoshana Green. “We want people who went to school and have work experience in Canada. These people are already fully integrated. And now we are ignoring them. It is just bizarre.””

The process to obtain a LMIA is arduous for smaller growth companies, and navigating it can be difficult, as immigration lawyerRonalee Carey describes:

“Last month I sent a young woman back to Japan. She’d come to Canada as an international student first to finish high school, then to attend Sheridan College in their Animation Program. Her employer consulted me after their Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), because her position was denied. They had been paying her the median wage for Ontario, as opposed to Ottawa, which was slightly higher. Meanwhile, they had no idea there were median wages specific to Ottawa. They offered her a raise and resubmitted the LMIA application.”

But it was too late.

The young woman had been working on a post-graduate work permit. It had expired, and she’d applied for an extension. However, a positive LMIA was required for the extension. Ultimately, her work permit application was denied, because the new LMIA application had not yet been processed.

And so on the plane she went.

These stories are all too common according to the tech firms I have spoken to. In order to obtain an LMIA, one must prove to the federal government that “there is a need for the foreign worker to fill the job you are offering and that there is no Canadian worker available to do the job.” Not only does this place a large burden on growth companies to convince a bureaucrat about the lack of Canadians for the position, it is also completely counterproductive for communities where there is a desperate need for young talent. Furthermore, it may be impossible for these companies to prove this point to the government’s satisfaction. As immigration lawyer Evan Green asked the Globe and Mail, “…how do you prove for someone with [little] work experience that there is no Canadian to do the job?”

Southwestern Ontario is desperate for economic growth from startups. Startups are desperate for these talented workers. These workers are desperate to stay in Canada. Yet we are kicking them out. It makes absolutely no sense. If the federal government truly wants to help London and the rest of southwestern Ontario, the place to start is to recognize the region needs talented young people and to reform the Express Entry system to allow us to keep more of our graduates.

Source: Canada’s hardest-hit economies need immigration to thrive again

Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert: It’s time for Canada to get serious about national security

Overview of the security agency perspective from Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert. Challenge to the rest of government and society lies with counter-radicalization efforts, as they flag below:

Radicalization prevention begins at home, in our communities and across various levels of government. Furthermore, the development of counter-narratives to violent extremism must not be seen as the exclusive domain of security agencies. Counter-radicalization is a long-term battle of ideas that can only be won through collaborative action across society, and more specifically by applying proven commercial marketing strategies.

With the move of the multiculturalism program back to Canadian Heritage, there is an opportunity for the program to play a larger role in such policy discussions and initiatives than was the case recently at CIC/IRCC (as was done previously before the move to CIC/IRCC).

Source: Luc Portelance and Ray Boisvert: It’s time for Canada to get serious about national security | National Post

Two decades on, too much is the same: Ontario’s anti-racism office is government on syndication

A lesson from the past, and how little would appear to have changed (I am less pessimistic, there has been progress, imperfect as it is, and the issues are more widely discussed than before).

But having a ‘race or ethnic origin lens’ (along with gender, sexual orientation etc) should improve policy making and outcomes.

However, there is a real challenge to ensuring that both a ‘race lens’ and a separate office become not merely a paper exercise but rather one that leads to concrete and tangible results:

Spurred on by protests over police violence against minorities, frustrated with an education system ostensibly public but systemically biased against darker skin, faced with a children’s aid society anything but colourblind, an Ontario premier vows to act.

A top academic drafts a report that claims “the soothing balm of ‘multiculturalism’ cannot mask racism.” He finds “a great deal of anger, anxiety, frustration and impatience amongst those with whom I talked in the visible minority communities.” They were filled with a “bitter sense” the exercise was “yet another reporting charade.”

“It was truly depressing.”

And it was 23 years ago.

The premier wasn’t Kathleen Wynne, but Bob Rae. The party loyalist tapped for expertise was former provincial NDP leader Stephen Lewis and his report on racism in Ontario was not written in bureaucratese, but as a poignant, personal letter to Rae. It was sparked by what came to be known as the Yonge Street Riots — protests over police violence against young, black men.

It was a call to action. It touted the newly created Anti-Racism Secretariat as one way to start stitching together gaping wounds between communities.

And for three years it sought to do that, sought to analyze government policies through a “race lens,” pushed for greater equity in legislation.

Then Rae lost power and Mike Harris turned the province Tory blue. Shutting down the secretariat was a key campaign pledge.

Two decades later, and everything that’s old is new again. Wynne announced Tuesday she’s going to create an anti-racism directorate, admitting she didn’t now how that differs from a secretariat. Minister Michael Coteau will tack the responsibility onto his existing files and report back soon with what exactly the office will do and what kind of budget it will require.

Her reasons why are, upon reading Lewis’s decades-old letter, like government on syndication.

“The Black Lives Matter movement, the issue of carding, the debate surrounding the Syrian refugee crisis – these events and many others illuminate and illustrate a systemic racism that runs the length of our shared history right up to this very moment,” Wynne said. She promised a “a wide anti-racist lens” will be used to shape government policy.

Change the date line and one could easily believe Lewis penned his letter this decade. He wrote “there must surely be a way to combine constructive policing with public confidence that to serve and protect is not a threat to visible minority communities.”

He notes all minority communities face discrimination, but anti-Black (his capital B) is the most pervasive: “It is Blacks who are being shot, it is Black youth that is unemployed in excessive numbers, it is Black students who are being inappropriately streamed in schools, it is Black kids who are disproportionately dropping-out.”

‘We haven’t dealt with the problems… and it’s not for lack of good intentions’

The Liberals are acting now, but they also bear responsibility for a decade of inaction, having 10 years ago passed a bill that allowed them to create essentially the same office. But they didn’t.

Those who remember the 90s, the Yonge Street Riots and Rae’s best intentions have what can best be described as a cynical optimism about this latest attempt.

“Every effort should be made but made understanding there are greater chances for failure and disillusionment than there are for real success and improvement,” said Lennox Farrell, a retired teacher who co-chaired one of Rae’s anti-racism secretariat advisory committees. That process also began with the highest of hopes, but he soon found the meetings exhausting, circular, counterproductive. He worries the new directorate will just be “more paper.”

Source: Two decades on, too much is the same: Ontario’s anti-racism office is government on syndication | National Post