Income and mobility of immigrants, 2013

2015/12/08 Leave a comment

Latest from Statistics Canada. Striking that median income differences are relatively small, save for Canadian Experience Class, Skilled Workers and Provincial Nominees (above the median), Business Class below the median and below Refugees):

Employment income of immigrant taxfilers varies by the category under which they were admitted

The immigrant taxfilers who landed in Canada since 1980 as principal applicants under the Canadian experience class and skilled workers categories earned more in 2013 than other immigrants. Their median employment income was estimated at $49,000 and $48,000 respectively, while it was $29,000 for those admitted under the family and refugee classes.

Chart 1  Chart 1: Median employment income of immigrant taxfilers by immigrant admission category, 2013
Median employment income of immigrant taxfilers by immigrant admission category, 2013

Chart 1: Median employment income of immigrant taxfilers by immigrant admission category, 2013

Employment income of immigrant taxfilers increases over time since landing in Canada

The median employment income of immigrant taxfilers who landed in 2003 was estimated at $15,800 in 2004 (one year after landing). For the same cohort, it increased to $26,000 in 2008 and rose to $32,000 in 2013.

The median employment income of refugees who landed in 2003 also increased over the same period. While it was $13,800 in 2004, it increased to $18,600 in 2008 and rose to $23,000 in 2013.

The retention of immigrant taxfilers is lower in the Atlantic provinces than in other provinces

In 2013, 91% of immigrant taxfilers who had landed one year earlier filed taxes in their province of landing. The proportions were the highest in Alberta (96%) and Ontario (94%). The Atlantic provinces had lower retention: 79% in Nova Scotia, 70% in New Brunswick, 68% in Newfoundland and Labrador and 43% in Prince Edward Island.

Source: The Daily — Income and mobility of immigrants, 2013

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How fear became the politician’s weapon of choice

2015/12/08 Leave a comment

Ian Buruma on the politics of fear:

As long as France’s state of emergency lasts, police may arrest people without warrants, break down the doors of private residences in the middle of the night, take over restaurants and other public places with armed force, and generally behave like agents in a police state. Most French citizens are now so frightened of Islamist attacks that such measures are widely supported. But they are almost certainly counterproductive.

A national leader can declare war on a state, not on a network of revolutionaries. Islamic State, despite its claims, is not a state, and Mr. Hollande should not treat it as one. Besides, even if bombing IS strongholds in Iraq or Syria makes military sense, it won’t break the spell of Islamist revolution for frustrated, bored and marginalized young people in French slums.

On the contrary: The canny leaders of IS also rely on an apocalyptic “us or them” view of the world. Most Muslims are not violent revolutionaries who condone, let alone admire, mass violence. IS seeks to broaden its support, especially among young Muslims, by convincing them that true Muslims are in an existential war with the West – that the infidels are their mortal enemies. For them no less than for Mr. Trump, fear is the most powerful weapon.

So the more a Western government allows its policemen to humiliate and bully Muslims in the name of security, the more IS is likely to win European recruits. The only way to combat revolutionary Islamist violence is to gain the trust of law-abiding Muslims in the West. This will not be easy, but arbitrary arrests are surely the wrong way to go about it.

Likewise, when it comes to civil wars in the Middle East, Western restraint is usually a better strategy than hasty military intervention driven by domestic fear. Republican candidates in the United States are already using the recent murder spree in Paris to blame President Barack Obama, and by extension any future Democratic candidate, for being weak. Mr. Trump has promised to “bomb the shit out of ISIS.”

This bellicosity has had the effect of pushing Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, into distancing herself from Mr. Obama. As with Mr. Hollande, she has to assuage public fear by talking tough and promising more military action.

Mr. Obama has consistently resisted the temptation to unleash more wars. His policies have sometimes been inconsistent and irresolute. But in his refusal to give in to panic and act rashly, he has been far braver than all the big talkers who accuse him of being a wimp.

Source: How fear became the politician’s weapon of choice – The Globe and Mail

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Trudeau Cabinet takes diversity, inclusiveness to an unparalleled extent | hilltimes.com

2015/12/08 Leave a comment

My piece in The Hill Times:

The Liberal government has emphasized its diversity and inclusive language in speeches, in Cabinet, in Cabinet committees, and in Cabinet ministers’ mandate letters. This emphasis has been reinforced by the return of the multiculturalism program to Canadian Heritage. All together, these initiatives represent the mainstreaming of diversity, inclusiveness and multiculturalism to an unparalleled extent.

It starts with the language of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who regularly emphasizes that: “Canadians understand that diversity is our strength. We know that Canada has succeeded—culturally, politically, economically—because of our diversity, not in spite of it.”

It continues with the creation of the Cabinet Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, with a strong inclusion mandate for indigenous and new Canadians: “Considers issues concerning the social fabric of Canada and the promotion of Canadian pluralism. Examines initiatives designed to strengthen the relationship with indigenous Canadians, improve the economic performance of immigrants, and promote Canadian diversity, multiculturalism, and linguistic duality.”

It is reflected in his choice of ministers: 50 per cent women, 17 per cent visible minority. And is further reinforced in the shared mandate letter commitments for all ministers with two strong multiculturalism-related commitments: “Canadians expect us, in our work, to reflect the values we all embrace: inclusion, honesty, hard work, fiscal prudence, and generosity of spirit. We will be a government that governs for all Canadians, and I expect you, in your work, to bring Canadians together.

“You are expected to do your part to fulfill our government’s commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership.”

Holding all ministers to account, with PMO tracking of these and other shared commitments (in addition to minister-specific commitments), should ensure greater progress on the two objectives of multiculturalism:  recognition and equality.

It will take some time to see how well these commitments are implemented.

Equally important, the previous government’s weak record on the diversity of judicial appointments (less than two per cent visible minority) will start to be addressed.

Overall, the new government made few changes to how government is formally organized (machinery changes). This was wise given the disruption and turmoil that such changes can entail (e.g., the Martin government’s splitting apart Human Resources and Skills Development and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2004, reversed by the Harper government in 2006).

This makes the return of the multiculturalism program to Canadian Heritage all the more striking, after some eight years at Citizenship and Immigration (now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship or IRCC).

The original transfer to CIC was largely driven by political reasons given then Immigration minister Jason Kenney’s political outreach role with ethnic groups. However, there was also a policy rationale. Multiculturalism deals with longer-term multi-generational issues (along with ‘mainstream’ visible minority relations) in contrast to the newcomer focus of the immigration, integration and citizenship programs, and multiculturalism could be seen as a logical extension of CIC’s mandate, and was portrayed as such in one of CIC’s strategic objectives, ‘building an integrated society.’

In practice, however, the multiculturalism program withered away at CIC.

When the program moved to CIC in 2008, it had a $13-million budget: $12-million for grants and contributions and 73 full-time positions. The last departmental performance report (2013-14) showed 29 full-time positions (a decline of 60 per cent) with a $9.8-million budget. Money for grants and contributions fell to $7.9-million.

Negotiations over the resources to be returned to Canadian Heritage will be challenging, given the impact may be felt in other program areas in IRCC that benefited from the redistribution of Multiculturalism funds. Moreover, the weakened capacity will require a major rebuilding and restaffing effort.

From a policy perspective, the return of multiculturalism to Canadian Heritage reinforces the overall government diversity and inclusion agenda, as well as the Canadian identity agenda, which fits nicely with Canadian Heritage’s overall mandate.

However, Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s specific mandate letter commitments make no mention of multiculturalism. This apparent oversight may just be to provide the public service time to manage the return of multiculturalism and reintegrate within Canadian Heritage. Furthermore, the lack of a junior minister may make it harder for the multiculturalism program to define its new role within Canadian Heritage and, more broadly, across government.

Joly’s public statements to date have not included any significant references to multiculturalism. Her general orientation, however, has been clear: to promote the “symbols of progressiveness. That was (sic) the soul of our platform.”

Overall, the commitment to a diversity and inclusion agenda, supported by a Cabinet committee and shared ministerial mandate letter commitments, and the rebuilding of multiculturalism back at Canadian Heritage bode well for a more effective inclusion, diversity, and multiculturalism strategy across government.

Source: Trudeau Cabinet takes diversity, inclusiveness to an unparalleled extent | hilltimes.com

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There will be some hard things said: Muslim group hears about Truth and Reconciliation

2015/12/08 Leave a comment

Another good initiative in building bridges and understanding by the Canadian Council for Muslim Women:

It’s a been a time of soul-searching for Muslims trying to find their place in Canada. That’s why it’s the right time to hear about Truth and Reconciliation right from the source, says the organizer of a panel that brought Muslim and Aboriginal people together.

“I thought we should take a step back and put our own problems into perspective,” said Ferrukh Faruqui, who moderated the event on Saturday.

Faruqui grew up in Winnipeg and went to medical school there, but admits she knew little of the historic struggles of Canada’s First Nations. “We want to listen to truths long buried and offer our support.”

The panel organized by the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Council for Muslim Women consisted of Faruqui as moderator and three guests: Minwaashin Lodge co-founder Irene Compton;  Victoria Tenasco-Commanda, the culture co-ordinator at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, and Shady Hafez, a Carleton University student whose mother is Algonquin and father is Syrian.

The panel spent much of its time talking about echoes of the residential school system, which operated for more than 150 years. Some 150,000 aboriginal children went through the system, and thousands never returned home. The last school closed only about 20 years ago. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which probed the history of that school system and its lasting repercussions were released last June in a summary report. A final report is to be released Dec. 15.

“I am going to warn you that there will be some hard things said,” warned Compton before she started to speak.

Source: There will be some hard things said: Muslim group hears about Truth and Reconciliation | Ottawa Citizen

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No surprise here: Canada a turnoff for some refugees – Saunders

2015/12/07 Leave a comment

Doug Saunders on Canadian smugness:

It was only in the early 20th century, under Wilfrid Laurier’s leadership, that Canada learned to attract and keep people – by spending serious money on agencies and campaigns abroad, and giving people land and cash to come. No period has come close to the Laurier decade for keeping immigrants.

We soon fell back to our exclusionary patterns. With the exception of the 1910s and the 1950s, immigration in the 20th century contributed little to Canada’s population growth: In many decades people didn’t want to come; in others, people arriving barely outnumbered those departing. We spent much of that century turning away refugees and warning each other about the civilizational threats posed by southern and eastern Europeans and Asians. Only after 1999 did immigration, for the first time, overtake childbirth as the main source of population growth.

Still, we spend more money keeping newcomers out, and throwing obstacles in the way of their settlement and citizenship, than we do welcoming them. The mean-spirited politics of the past decade, the policies denying health care to asylum seekers and the cruel temporary-worker rules and family-reunification restrictions are well known overseas, and the best-qualified people would rather go elsewhere. We think we’re a hot date, but we really need to upgrade our Tinder profile.

Even in Britain, Canada has become a turnoff: We are currently the fourth-most-popular country for British emigration, far behind Australia (which receives twice as many people), the United States and Spain. In fact, it’s a net loss: During the past decade, an average of 5,200 British emigrants came here each year, while 8,500 moved the other way. Worse, the British Post Office surveyed British emigrants, and the happiest were those in France, Spain, the United States, Australia and Thailand – Canada didn’t make the list.

We should heed the lesson we learned a few years ago in Ireland: After the country’s economy collapsed in 2008, Ottawa hoped for a migration boom of skilled workers. But only about 1,000 a year came, and they complainedabout unfriendly conditions and unaffordable cities. Only after paying for a big advertising and outreach campaign did that rise to 5,000 – for a year, until things got better in Ireland.

Next time we have a months-long national debate about migrants, maybe it shouldn’t be about them, but about us – why we still seem so cold and unwelcoming, even to those we want.

Source: No surprise here: Canada a turnoff for some refugees – The Globe and Mail

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A modern public service has great expectations to meet: Lynch

2015/12/07 Leave a comment

Kevin Lynch’s (former PCO Clerk) prescriptions for rebuilding the public service:

First, a strong analytic policy capacity that is both broad and deep is a basic necessity of effective governing in an increasingly interconnected, complex and uncertain world….

Second, a risk-management orientation. In a world experiencing a sharp spike in risk and volatility, the smart response by government is proactive – not reactive – risk management….

Third, an innovation focus. In a world where technological innovation is at an inflexion point, disrupting how business is done in sector after sector, government should be at the leading edge of innovation adaptation. It is not.  …

A re-empowered public service can be a magnet for talent and contribute significantly to Canada’s long-term success as a strong economy and vibrant society. It now has great expectations to meet.

Source: A modern public service has great expectations to meet – The Globe and Mail

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How Young Brains Get Radicalized – The Daily Beast

2015/12/07 Leave a comment

Not surprising, the same neuroscience that helps explain greater willingness to take risks (e.g., drunk driving, extreme sports etc) also plays a role in understanding susceptibility to radicalization:

Fortunately, findings from neuroscience may help us to understand where these vulnerabilities exist, and why some brains—particularly adolescent brains—are more susceptible to believing whatever they are fed. Such neural insights are important because they contribute to a better understanding of how to combat radicalization here at home.

According to peer-reviewed research, radicalization is made easier in brains that have impaired functioning in one of the main regions responsible for generating the ability to doubt. Specifically, scientists have found that damage to the brain area known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) may cause individuals to have a “doubt deficit”—a hindered ability to question, scrutinize, or be skeptical of new information.

In a 2012 study published in the journal Neuropsychology, researchers found that patients with damage to the vmPFC scored higher on measures of religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism compared to others.

Such qualities would make people with similar impairments, such as those with decreased or disrupted brain activation in the vmPFC, the perfect prey for ISIS recruiters. According to the authors of the study, “Individuals high in authoritarianism tend to easily submit to authority, are often aggressive in the name of authority, and tend to hold dogmatic beliefs without a reflexive critique.”

So the question is, who possesses poor brain circuitry in the prefrontal cortex that could produce doubt deficits? The unsettling answer: young people.

There is overwhelming evidence that teenagers and those in their early 20s have brain circuits in the prefrontal cortex that are still developing. It may come as no surprise that this brain region is also involved in controlling impulses, regulating our emotions, and making sound decisions. The brain’s wiring simply hasn’t had a chance to make all the proper connections to support such behavior.

This falls in line with what is actually being observed in the real world. Teenagers are commonly targeted through the Internet by ISIS recruiters, like 19-year-old Asher Abid Khan from Texas, who was drawn to the group after watching propaganda videos put up by ISIS online.

In another case, ISIS members spent months carefully grooming a 23-year-old female named Alex, who was a devout Christian and Sunday school teacher. A recruiter known to her only as “Faisal” provided the lonely girl with constant companionship by spending hours communicating with her through Skype, Twitter, and email, teaching her the fundamentals and rituals of Islam as a first step.

By being so persistent, ISIS recruiters are also exploiting the brain’s natural tendency to accept beliefs rather than reject them. Since the latter requires an additional evaluation phase, which means more work for the brain, its default state is to believe.

These accounts clearly show that ISIS recruiters recognize the young brain’s vulnerabilities—and how to take advantage of them. If we want to protect against their techniques, we have to understand these vulnerabilities as well.

Source: How Young Brains Get Radicalized – The Daily Beast

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Douglas Todd: Racism, a word to use with care

2015/12/07 Leave a comment

Perspective from former British Columbia Premier and federal cabinet minister Dosanjh:

Suffering is difficult to compare — and the fact such global acts of racism are more enormous than what has happened in B.C. or Canada does not lessen the pain for those who have been discriminated against here.

Nevertheless, when former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh first came to Canada almost 50 years ago, he was among the many newcomers who found the West Coast a “fair and inclusive” place compared to where he had been.

After growing up in the Punjab region of South Asia and later moving to Britain, Dosanjh was relieved to come to B.C. and get away from the exceptional “colour consciousness” and harsh caste system he had experienced in India.

The budding young lawyer was also pleased to leave behind the marauding “skin heads and teddy boys” of England, where maverick politician Enoch Powell had just made his infamous 1968 “rivers of blood” speech about unchecked immigration.

B.C.’s record in regards to racism is “not great historically,” says Dosanjh, who served in the federal Liberal cabinet following years as a provincial NDP cabinet minister and premier.

Still, Dosanjh believes it’s wise to put past incidents of B.C. racism into perspective.

“We have learned in B.C. And we’ve been moving forward, including on the First Nations file. To not acknowledge the distance we have come is to do an injustice to Canada,” he says.

Dosanjh remains painfully aware of the ruthless bigotry promulgated elsewhere today, and not only by ISIS. He knows hundreds of millions of India’s lower castes are still discriminated against as “unclean” and that China continues to brutally target Muslim ethnic minorities.

The term racism is often abused in Canada, Dosanjh believes. Last week he gained national attention, and applause, for challenging how Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne tossed out the epithet.

When Wynne suggested people criticizing the federal government’s promise to rapidly bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada were masking “racism and xenophobia,” Dosanjh said Wynne had “in one fell swoop” insulted not only him but the 67 per cent of Canadians who disagreed with the government.

Dosanjh believes Wynne was trying to silence Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s critics by lobbing the often-misused word (which the Oxford Dictionary helpfully defines as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior”).

Similarly, people of many ethnicities have charged Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and the city’s housing developers with manipulating the racist label to shut down protests about the way international investors are fuelling Metro Vancouver’s astronomical housing prices.

In ethics, the principal of proportionality is key. In just-war theory, the response to an act of aggression should be proportional to the initial violence. In the courts, the punishment should fit the crime.

Is it possible that many charges about B.C.’s history of racism are disproportionate?

For his part, Dosanjh said he “doesn’t recognize” the portraits of a horrifyingly racist B.C. often painted by academics and activists.

“Some experts become vested in continuing to say what they’re saying even when things have changed. They focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. It’s like a new religion; after it starts, it ossifies.”

Does it create unnecessary division to allege that racial intolerance has been worse that it actually has been?

It’s crucial to remain on guard and denounce racism whenever it arises. But, in the name of proportionality and building community, it’s also important not to exaggerate it.

Source: Douglas Todd: Racism, a word to use with care

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Can’t Put Down Your Device? That’s by Design – The New York Times

2015/12/07 Leave a comment

Next time you can’t stop yourself looking at your various social media feeds and other apps, consider how companies are engineering such stickiness:

Tech companies tend to present these feedback loops as consumer conveniences. A new Intel TV ad, for instance, shows a young girl in the back of a car growing sad because the laptop on which she was watching a singalong video suddenly runs out of power. The company’s new battery-preserving processor, though, ultimately saves the day, “so you never have to stop watching.” T-Mobile has just introduced BingeOn, a feature that offers subscribers on certain plans unlimited high-speed access to popular streaming video channels.

An image from “Network Effect.”

There’s even an industry term for the experts who continually test and tweak apps and sites to better hook consumers, keep them coming back and persuade them to stay longer: growth hackers.

“How do you drive habitual use of a product?” said Sean Ellis, the chief executive of GrowthHackers.com, a software company specializing in online growth techniques. “It’s not just about getting new people. It’s about retaining the people you already have and, ultimately, getting them to bring in more people.”

As an example, Mr. Ellis described how he recently started using a free meditation app, called Calm, which has a calendar feature that gently nudges subscribers to use the service more. Every time he finishes a session, the app “shows me I’m doing one every three to four days,” Mr. Ellis said. “But it’s clear to me that I should be doing one every day, based on the graphic.”

Yet technologists like Tristan Harris, a design ethicist who is also a product philosopher at Google, warn that growth hacking, taken to its extreme, can encourage sites and apps to escalate their use of persuasive design techniques with potentially unintended consequences for consumers. He compares online engagement maximization efforts to the so-called bliss-point techniques some food companies have developed to hook consumers on a stew of fat, salt and sugar.

“The ‘I don’t have enough willpower’ conversation misses the fact that there are 1,000 people on the other side of the screen whose job is to break down the self-regulation that you have,” said Mr. Harris, who emphasized that he was speaking only for himself and not for Google.

Mr. Harris is also the co-director of an effort called Time Well Spent, which encourages tech companies to provide more choices for users who would like to limit session-prolonging techniques like autoplaying one video or song after another. He said he envisioned alternative app designs that might measure success not in followers, connections, endorsements or likes accumulated, but in meaningful relationships developed or desired jobs offered.

“Right now, many company leaders and designers would like to do these things differently, but the incentives aren’t aligned to do this,” Mr. Harris said.

Certainly, it may be difficult for efforts like Time Well Spent and art projects like “Network Effect” to sway companies that find themselves in increasingly heated competition for online users’ attention.

Source: Can’t Put Down Your Device? That’s by Design – The New York Times

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Immigrants in Parliament, including cabinet ministers and just announced parliamentary secretaries | Canadian Immigrant

2015/12/05 Leave a comment

For those interested, and impatiently awaiting the updated Parliamentary MP listing with birthplace and birthdate info, Diana Manole went through google and other tools to piece together this list: 41 foreign-born MPs, 35 of which are visible minority.

Source: Immigrants in Parliament, including cabinet ministers and just announced parliamentary secretaries | Canadian Immigrant

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