Cabinet is not a meritocracy. And it hasn’t been for decades.

2015/11/05 Leave a comment

Laura Payton provides the best rebuttal to Andrew Coyne’s blather against gender parity in Cabinet (Andrew Coyne: Trudeau cabinet should be based on merit, not gender):

Here’s the thing: Cabinet is not a meritocracy. It hasn’t been, at least as far back as 1968. It’s always been influenced by a range of factors, including where an MP is from and whether he or she is an anglophone or francophone. And while those factors are practical, other selections seem to be made based on someone’s fundraising ability or skill at obfuscating in the House of Commons.

Give me a good merit-based reason why Julian Fantino held three cabinet posts, all of them disastrous. What exactly qualified Fantino to be the minister for international development? Or look at Peter MacKay, who held a range of high-profile posts, including Foreign Affairs and Justice. Any time cabinet speculation took over with the Conservatives in charge, it was assumed he would never be excluded from cabinet, simply because he was the PC leader who agreed to merge the party with the Canadian Alliance, thereby allowing Stephen Harper to lead the combined forces to victory. Never mind the bungled military procurement files or his use of a search-and-rescue helicopter to shave a couple of hours off his trip back to Ontario when his vacation was interrupted. And who can forget Chris Alexander’s deft touch with immigration matters?

Given that women are half the population, it’s downright strange that no federal government before this one has striven to put more of them into cabinet. Lots of deserving people are left out of cabinet, simply because there are too many excellent MPs from one region or another, and not all of them will make it. It’s bizarre to argue that Trudeau’s pledge to include more women in cabinet means leaving out qualified men, because the corollary is that so many women have been left out of cabinet to squeeze in men who have better fundraising networks, are better known to Ottawa-based party insiders, or know how to follow orders.

Canada’s federal parties have a long way to go to hit gender parity and to elect a representative number of visible minorities. There are 5o women in the Liberal caucus of 184 MPs, for example. While the NDP led the way with 43 per cent female candidates (rather than quotas, they asked riding associations to look for female or visible-minority candidates), the Conservatives were only able to find enough female candidates to make up 19 per cent of their total. You can’t tell me there aren’t more smart women who would want to run if they didn’t feel the hurdles were too high to clear.

Source: Cabinet is not a meritocracy. And it hasn’t been for decades.

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Advocates say Canada’s refugee resettlement goals unrealistic

2015/11/05 2 Comments

Good depiction of some of the challenges with a great closing line:

Tom Denton with Hospitality House Refugee Ministry, a pioneer in the resettlement of refugees in Canada, said the paperwork demand for refugees has soared since the Kosovars came here.

“The system has become far more complex. Biometrics are required. Medical examinations are required. Security clearances are required.

“If they want to bring in 25,000 in short order, it would require some very fresh thinking,” he said of the Liberals.

“The [Department of Citizenship and Immigration] is so tied up in its own paperwork they would somehow to have to find a way to bypass all of that stuff in order to bring in numbers like this quickly.”

He predicted the Liberals will push back the Jan. 1 deadline. “I have a feeling they’re going to give themselves some wiggle room to bring the 25,000 in over a longer period of time.”

Mr. Denton said the civil servants who drove the refugee effort of the boat people in the late 1970s “had a rescuing mentality.” He said: “They were bent on rescuing people – to hell with the paperwork.” And while he says the immigration officials are just as motivated today, there’s “systemic constipation in the system.”

Source: Advocates say Canada’s refugee resettlement goals unrealistic – The Globe and Mail

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As Trudeau takes power, judge adjourns citizenship court battle

2015/11/05 Leave a comment

No surprise as expected. New government under Minister McCallum committed to repeal revocation provisions:

As Justin Trudeau makes his way to Rideau Hall this morning, federal lawyers appear ready to act on one of his key campaign promises: scrapping the controversial Conservative law that gives Ottawa the power to strip convicted terrorists of their Canadian citizenship.

The Justice Department last week requested an indefinite adjournment in five high-profile court challenges targeting the Harper-era revocation law, saying federal lawyers assigned to the cases can’t move forward without direction from the incoming Trudeau Liberals. “Given the election outcome resulting in a new government, we are seeking instructions on next steps in this litigation,” says an Oct. 27 letter from senior counsel Angela Marinos, sent to the Federal Court office in Toronto. “Given that there will be a transition period after the Cabinet is sworn in, we cannot confirm, at this time, when those instructions will be conveyed.”

Lawyers for all sides consented to the adjournment request, and the order was rubber-stamped by Justice Russel Zinn on Monday—48 hours before Trudeau and his ministers were to be officially sworn in by Governor General David Johnston.

The adjournment essentially hits the pause button on a cluster of court cases that triggered intense debate during the election, giving the new PM and his advisors plenty of time to determine how best to repeal the Tory law, as promised. All parties to the court actions are scheduled to reconvene Dec. 9 for a case management conference in Toronto; by then, the Liberals’ specific intentions should be evident.

Source: As Trudeau takes power, judge adjourns citizenship court battle – Macleans.ca

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How Ontario politicians teamed up to rein in police carding: Cohn 

2015/11/04 Leave a comment

Good overview by Regg-Cohn on how the carding issue was addressed, with all party support (all too rare):

Provincial politicians are not usually top of mind when dealing with tensions in the inner cities or outer suburbs. But all three parties answered the call.

NDP deputy leader Jagmeet Singh launched a public campaign for change earlier this year, disclosing that he’d been carded more than 10 times by police — accosting him, questioning him, profiling him. A turban-wearing Sikh (which apparently arouses suspicions), Singh is a lawyer who now represents the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton — and knows his rights. But in news conferences, he made the case that most young people don’t know they have a right to refuse police street checks unless they are under suspicion for a crime.

Leading a legislative debate last month, Singh exhorted his fellow MPPs to “send a clear message to the entire province that arbitrary and discriminatory carding and street checks are not acceptable.”

The appeal from Singh’s third-place New Democrats struck a chord with the Progressive Conservatives. As the official Opposition, they have hewed to a rigid law and order line ever since John Tory led the party from 2004-09 and cleaved to police unions (a pattern he continued after becoming Toronto’s mayor last year).

The current PC leader, Patrick Brown, is taking a broader view. After reaching out to ethnic communities, notably people of South Asian descent, he is acutely aware that carding is seen as profiling. The PCs’ new legal affairs critic, Randy Hillier — a rambunctious libertarian but also a civil libertarian — delivered a passionate critique of carding for infringing on fundamental freedoms.

“Societies that arbitrarily or unduly limit people’s freedoms and liberties are also places where individual safety is in jeopardy,” Hillier argued.

The governing Liberals were ready to respond. Community Safety Minister Yasir Naqvi announced that his party would support the opposition motion to ban discriminatory street checks.

“There is zero tolerance when it comes to any kind of racial profiling or discrimination in interactions that our police engage in,” he announced.

Naqvi, who, like Singh, is a lawyer of South Asian descent, says he has never been carded. But after conducting consultations across the province through the summer, he heard an earful about the practice — and learned about his own tin ear.

His ministry’s initial consultation paper caused a storm for repeating the police claim, unquestioningly, that street checks are a “necessary and valuable tool.” Naqvi was embarrassed into admitting that he’d never asked police to back up their assertions.

Source: How Ontario politicians teamed up to rein in police carding: Cohn | Toronto Star

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2 Muslim inmates file rights complaints against Alberta prison

2015/11/04 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how the Commission rules.

Underlines the mistake the Government made in cutting back non-Christian chaplains::

Two Muslim inmates have filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission over their treatment at Grande Cache Institution, a federal prison in northwestern Alberta.

Nicolas Hovanesian, 30, and Mohammed Karim, 35, say they have been called terrorists, subjected to racist jokes and refused adequate time for prayers and ceremonies in the prison chapel.

The alleged incidents took place over the past two years.

Hovanesian told CBC News that Mark McGee, a Catholic priest and chaplain for the past nine years at Grande Cache, would cut short their Friday prayers and limit their access to the chapel. “Like Eid,” Hovanesian said. “We were in the middle of our celebrations and he kicked us out of the chapel because there was a Catholic band practice … our religion was trumped because of band practice.

The men said they were both suspended from the chapel and faced institutional discipline because they refused to call the priest “Father.” While other inmates were allowed to use the washroom in the chapel, Karim said, they were refused access to it to wash before prayers, which is a requirement for Muslims.

In several cases, they said, the priest made disparaging remarks to themselves and others, especially to converts. “Like say, there was a white Muslim, like a convert, he would make comments like, say, ‘You’re white, why are you Muslim, you should be Catholic,'” Hovanesian said.

Dirty blankets as prayer mats

Karim said Muslim inmates were given dirty blankets to use as prayer mats. Then, when several prayer mats and other religious items were donated to the institution by a mosque in Edmonton, the chaplain charged the inmates $20 each to use them. “Some guys here only make $20 every two weeks in pay,” said Hovanesian.

Amira Elghawaby, communications director with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, told CBC News she is aware of the complaints and has heard of similar cases across the country. “There should be a standard of spiritual care that is provided across the board and there should not be any discrimination or any kind,” she said.

“If the government is really serious in ensuring that Canada’s prison system is preparing inmates to eventually be released into society … it’s critical that there is an effort made to ensure that religious and spiritual services are done in a very professional and open manner.”

Source: 2 Muslim inmates file rights complaints against Alberta prison – Canada – CBC News

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New executives anxiously await Liberal marching orders

2015/11/04 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to observe over the next year whether or not there are major changes (my expectation is that the incoming government will move incrementally, as they develop a better sense of current senior public service executives, given that dramatic change is disruptive when a public service  is trying to deliver an ambitious agenda):

There has been much speculation about whether executives – particularly the deputy ministers, almost all of whom were promoted to top jobs by outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper – are up to implementing the agenda of a more activist government.

Some argue the public service needs a shakeup at the top to bring about the “culture change” expected after Liberal promises of openness and respect in the battered relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. “You can’t change culture with the leadership that created that culture in the first place,” said one official.

But most expect the government will opt for continuity, quietly shuffling the people it wants in or out of top posts in coming months.

There’s no word, for instance, whether Justin Trudeau intends to keep Charette as his deputy minister and secretary to cabinet, but incoming prime ministers typically do, if only for a few months.

There’s much debate on what needs to be done to “fix” the public service. Numerous studies – many done by APEX – have examined the problems facing executives and the changing nature of their work over the decade.

[Linda] Duxbury says public service culture was reshaped at every level over the past decade by a government that didn’t respect public servants, didn’t want their advice, barked orders from the Prime Minister’s Office, ignored data, and rewarded “doers” and implementers. Those who “joined the public service to serve didn’t know what their jobs were anymore,” she said.

But “I sense there is a pent-up demand in the public service to show people what they could do, given half the chance,” said Duxbury.

She is confident many of the senior executives who worked in government before the Conservative ethos took hold can quickly adapt to Liberal demands. They have the needed policy- and decision-making skills but have spent the past decade “out of their comfort zone,” with those skills “dormant and pushed underground,” Duxbury said.

She argues political leaders, not senior bureaucrats, set the tone in government and “if the Liberals practise what they preach, we could see a blossoming of the public service.”

James Lahey, a former senior bureaucrat who teaches federal executives at the University of Ottawa, said he thinks executives are generally up to the challenge, and those who aren’t will be weeded out. The risk is that if they aren’t fast enough, the government, with a small window to show progress, will look elsewhere for help.

“In general, people are energized by the expected change in tone and chance to do what they like but haven’t been able to do as freely,” said Lahey.

Lisanne Lacroix, APEX’s former chief executive officer, said the bureaucracy reacted to the Conservative culture of fear and disrespect by building a system that turned leaders into micro-managers: too controlling; focused on details rather than priorities, not trusting the people who work for them; avoiding risks and wanting no surprises.

“I feel people are tactical, not strategic; focused on the narrow and short-term, and their decisions are guided by rules, not judgment. People are paid to do, not to think or question,” Lacroix said.

“We need leaders but the culture is such that the ones promoted and rewarded are the micro-managers, and that has to change.”

Source: New executives anxiously await Liberal marching orders | Ottawa Citizen

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Experts say Liberal counter-radicalization office should bridge, not drive, regional efforts

2015/11/04 Leave a comment

Not sure it is an either/or choice, some mix of the two approaches may be best:

The challenges, say security and radicalization experts, will lie in defining exactly how the office would work with regional actors: namely, whether it will act as a bridge or a driver.

“Is this going to be driven top-down by government or will it be government supporting more grassroots initiatives?” asked Michael Zekulin, a terrorism researcher at the University of Calgary. “I think most people would agree that it cannot be government-driven because part of the narrative is that government is part of the problem.”

During committee hearings on C-51, the Conservatives’ controversial anti-terrorism legislation, the critique given most often by terrorism researchers was that the bill ignored the need to nip radicalization in the bud, before individuals become inspired to commit violence.

Yet nothing in the legislation provided any kind of a plan for doing that.

The RCMP also promised to launch their own $3.1.-million program — initially called the Countering Violent Extremism Program but later changed to the Terrorism Prevention Program — which then-Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney admitted had no designated timeline and relies on “leveraging existing resources the RCMP already has in place, including frontline police officers, Integrated National Security Enforcement Team members and outreach coordinators.”

At this point, there are few details available about what the Liberals would plan to do differently or how a national coordinator would work with existing programs already being implemented by regional bodies.

There are various initiatives being launched by police agencies and local governments across Canada, said Lorne Dawson, co-director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.

In September, the City of Montreal was the only Canadian city out of 23 from across the globe that signed on to the Strong Cities Network, a forum for leaders to share best practices and community-based approaches for tackling violent extremism, while the Edmonton and Ottawa police departments are rumoured to be planning their own counter-extremism initiatives.

The York Regional Police are also in the process of hiring a “Counter Violent Extremism Subject Matter Expert” and just two months ago the Calgary Police Service launched ReDirect, which aims to prevent youth from becoming radicalized after several high-profile instances of local youth leaving the country to join ISIS.

One of those young men was Damian Clairmont, who died in January 2014 after going to Syria to fight with ISIS.

His mother, Christianne Boudreau, became an active proponent for stronger initiatives to prevent youth from becoming radicalized and in addition to launching her own family counselling network, Hayat Canada, also helped launch the the Extreme Dialogue video campaign earlier this year.

Boudreau says it’s essential to have someone who can coordinate efforts nationally and help integrate global best practices into domestic, community-based approaches. But she cautions that any coordinator will face the added challenge of having to earn the trust of organizations who may be skeptical of working with the government.

“I think the biggest difficulty is the diversity of the various organizations and helping them connect — there’s inter-faith, there’s the authorities and everybody else involved, and right now [there’s] the trust factor with the authorities, with the government,” she said, noting that any national coordinator should also be prepared to work with international partners as well as domestic ones to learn and adapt best practices.

“It’s integral to help bring the groups together to help cross those barriers, to help foster the diversity that’s there and help everybody get along.”

Experts say Liberal counter-radicalization office should bridge, not drive, regional efforts

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Liberals to restore mandatory long-form census

2015/11/04 Leave a comment

Expected, needed and welcome:

Restoring the long-form census will be among the first acts of the new Liberal government, which takes office Wednesday.

Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau and his cabinet are expected to move quickly on the formal decision to reinstate the mandatory questionnaire that was axed by the Conservatives in 2010, the Star has learned.

The move, seen as vital by those who rely on the census data, is an important symbolic one, too, for the Liberals, demonstrating a commitment to science-based policy while taking the first steps of undoing the legacy of almost a decade of Conservative rule.

“It will be fairly easy because it doesn’t take legislation. All it requires is cabinet saying so,” said Ivan Fellegi, who served as Canada’s chief statistician for 23 years and retired in 2008.

“It’s definitely an excellent step,” he told the Star Monday.

Fellegi was among the many voices who raised concerns about the Tory move in 2010 — done with no consultation — to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary household survey for the 2011 census. The eight-question mandatory short form was distributed as well.

The 61-question long-form census — sent to one in five households –— included questions on language, aboriginal heritage, ethnicity, education, employment and commuting habits and was meant to provide greater insight into the country and its citizens.

The responses to those questions — and the trends revealed from one census to the next — helped public officials plan infrastructure and urban services and give private businesses insight into their customers.

Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, quit in protest over the decision, warning that a voluntary survey would not work.

That warning was borne out as many experts viewed the data from the National Household Survey with suspicion because it was voluntary.

Indeed, because of the questionable nature of some results, Statistics Canada was unable to publish detailed census data for some smaller communities.

“The move to the voluntary census had a fairly substantial impact, particularly for small towns and cities and neighbourhoods . . . that’s where the impact was really felt,” said Doug Norris, the chief demographer at Environics Analytics.

But Norris said the missing data was equally felt by the business community.

“Many companies depend on the census data as a bit of a building block for many other types of information they develop to make their decisions,” Norris said.

Source: Liberals to restore mandatory long-form census | Toronto Star

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Punjabi now third language in the House | hilltimes.com

2015/11/03 Leave a comment

The changing face of Canada and Parliament:

With the election of 20 Punjabi-speaking MPs on Oct. 19, the Punjabi language is now the third most common in the House of Commons after English and French.

In total, 23 MPs of South Asian origin were elected to the House last month. Three of them—Liberal MP Chandra Arya (Nepean, Ont.) who was born and raised in India, Gary Anandasangaree (Scarborough-Rouge Park, Ont.) who is Tamil, and Maryam Monsef (Peterborough-Kwartha, Ont.) who is of Afghan origin—do not speak Punjabi.

Of the 20 who do speak Punjabi, 18 are Liberals and two are Conservatives.

The NDP does not have any Punjabi-speaking MPs in caucus after B.C. MPs Jinny Sims and Jasbir Sandhu both lost on Oct. 19.

Among the newly-elected Punjabi-speaking MPs, 14 are males and six are females. Ontario elected 12, British Columbia four, Alberta three and one is from Quebec.

Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) is scheduled to unveil his Cabinet this week and some of these Liberal MPs are expected to be included in the front bench.

According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, 430,705 Canadians identified Punjabi as their mother tongue, making it the third most common language after English and French.

About 100 million people in the world are native speakers of Punjabi, most of them based in Pakistan and India. In the Indian state of Punjab, Punjabi is the official language. In Pakistan, despite being the single largest linguistic group, Punjabi does not have official language status in the province of Punjab. Instead, Urdu and English are used in schools and offices.

 In an interview with The Hill Times, Navdeep Bains, a Liberal elected in Mississauga-Malton, Ont., said that although 20 Punjabi-speaking MPs have been elected, these MPs represent all constituents regardless of their party affiliation or ethnic origin.

“It speaks to our commitment to diversity and allowing individual [MPs] to play an important role in our political institutions,” said Mr. Bains.

Source: Punjabi now third language in the House | hilltimes.com

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New Ontario Human Rights commissioner Renu Mandhane vows aggressive approach

2015/11/03 Leave a comment

Good profile on the background and values of the incoming commissioner:

The story underscores the empathy and compassion friends, colleagues and family say 38-year-old Mandhane — academic, lawyer, High Park-Junction resident, mother of two young boys, front line international human rights advocate — brings to her new job as the province’s top domestic rights watchdog, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

“It was that moment where I realized, wow, I’m hard-wired to really think about the underdog and the perspective of people who are less privileged than I am.”

Her brother, Piush Mandhane, an Edmonton pediatrician and medical researcher, says Renu “always had a sense of ethics and what is right and wrong. And she’s always been willing to stand up for what she believes in.

“I think Ontario couldn’t have got a better person,” he says. “That position comes with a lot of carrots, and then some sticks. I think she will know when to use which.”

Mandhane leaves her old job as executive director of the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program to take on her new role, beginning Monday.

During her time at the program, Mandhane edited a 2015 research paper on migrants to Canada with mental health issues who are subject to arbitrary imprisonment. It is a bleak assessment of how the country deals with these newcomers, and prompted calls for more humane treatment and an end to indefinite detention.

She also works with PEN International, and through the U of T rights program helped produce a 2015 research paper on freedom-of-speech challenges in India.

With her new role comes a public profile and the power to make change.

Source: New Ontario Human Rights commissioner Renu Mandhane vows aggressive approach | Toronto Star

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