Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Hollywood Diversity Is a Special Effect | TIME

2015/10/26 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

Hollywood is the face of America to much of the world. Other cultures learn about us from what they see in our movies and television shows. And Hollywood has been creating roles of true substance for minorities, women, and other marginalized groups. For that, the industry should be applauded, and encouraged to do more. But if they want to achieve true diversity—and we don’t yet know if they do—that must happen not only in front of but behind the cameras, with writers, directors, producers, and others. They need to show they value those voices and stories in the larger culture. It’s a star, I think, within their grasp.

Source: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Hollywood Diversity Is a Special Effect | TIME

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Richmond man, Xun Wang, gets 7 years behind bars for illegal immigration scheme

2015/10/26 Leave a comment

Likely one of the more egregious examples of immigration fraud:

A Richmond, B.C., man who made millions helping hundreds of people file fraudulent immigration applications was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined more than $900,000 in provincial court today.

Crown prosecutor Jessica Patterson said Xun Wang, 46, received two fines — one for $187,000 and one for $730,000 — and she said the prison term will be reduced by several months for time already served.

Patterson said the judge “intended to send a message that these kinds of activities are not going to be tolerated.”

“He clearly picked up on the large scale of this operation and the scope of it. It occurred over a number of years and was very sophisticated and very planned, and that appears to be the reason,” said Patterson outside the Vancouver provincial courthouse on Friday morning.

Profitable enterprise

According to court records Wang ran two profitable but unlicensed immigration consulting businesses in Vancouver from 2006 to 2014 called New Can Consultants Ltd. and Wellong International Investments Ltd.

After he was arrested last year, the married father of two pleaded guilty to 15 charges, including illegal immigration consulting, misrepresentation, forgery, fraud, illegally obtaining tax credits and tax evasion.

Wang’s profitable enterprises included creating fake Chinese passports and misrepresenting clients so it would appear they have Canadian addresses and phone numbers when they actually lived in China.

Wang admitted in court that he took these steps in order to create the fictitious appearance of Canadian residency for his clients so they could maintain permanent resident status and obtain Canadian citizenship.

Business records showed up to 1,200 people paid $10 million for Wang’s services. Patterson said it was not yet clear what measures the Canada Border Services Agency would take to follow up on the 1,200 potentially fraudulent immigration applications.

Seven people who worked for Wang were charged in the case. Five are set to appear in court next month. Two are wanted on outstanding warrants.

Source: Richmond man, Xun Wang, gets 7 years behind bars for illegal immigration scheme – British Columbia – CBC News

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Citizenship: “Harder to get and easier to lose” Deck

2015/10/26 2 Comments

For those interested, my deck presented at a workshop at the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, October 24th (updated and expanded from my May presentation to the Canadian Bar Association immigration lawyers conference).

Citizenship – Canadian Ethnic Studies 24 Oct 2015

Other speakers included John Carlaw on how the Conservatives pragmatically adjusted their ideology and language to be more in favour of immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism, which he calls ‘Kenneyism’ (while making overall policies more restrictive – see his paper A party for new Canadians? The rhetoric and reality of neoconservative citizenship and immigration policy) and Christina Gabriel, who examined the rhetoric and language around spousal immigration.

 

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

One week after the Federal election: The aftermath in Québec’s context (#380)

2015/10/26 Leave a comment

Quebec Culture Blog well worth following for its insights and enjoyed working him in this piece.

Filed under Multiculturalism

Conservatives openly criticize party’s election performance, C-24 Citizenship

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

Interesting, Deepak Obhrai’s comment on C-24:

As the week wore on, more Conservatives opened up, with those in Calgary – Mr. Harper’s hometown – in a particularly candid mood.

Calgary Forest Lawn MP Deepak Obhrai, who most recently served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, talked to media of how he had never liked Bill C-24, a key part of the Harper Conservatives’ legislative agenda that was controversial in the election campaign. Bill C-24, now law, allows Ottawa to revoke the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens convicted of serious crimes such as terrorism.

“I was not comfortable with the whole idea,” Mr. Obhrai said in an interview. He said he does not think the government should have the power to take away citizenship, adding that, in his job, he had “travelled around the world and seen this abuse take place.” He said he never hid his feelings on the bill. “The Prime Minister was aware of the fact I was not very happy about this.”

The legislation unnerved members of the immigrant community, and the Tories encountered concern while door-knocking. Mr. Obhrai said he thinks it hurt his party.

He called Mr. Harper a “visionary leader,” but added that, with a new chief, the Tories need to present “a different, softer image.”

“Somewhere in the middle of the campaign, we became out of touch with Canadians.”

Source: Conservatives openly criticize party’s election performance – The Globe and Mail

For the record, he raised this concern in Parliament on 28 May 2014:

Mr. Speaker, one of the strongest human rights principles is to create all Canadian citizens equal, no matter what. That is the fundamental human rights situation. That is what I am concerned about in this bill, and I would like clarification on from my friend, the minister of citizenship. I agree very much with all of the other aspects that the minister has mentioned. I strongly support this bill except on this one condition, which is the fundamental right for a Canadian to be treated as a Canadian, no matter what.

When a Canadian citizen’s citizenship is revoked, unless that citizenship was obtained fraudulently—and I can agree with revoking it for that reason—we are treating one Canadian differently from another Canadian, and in my opinion that is against a fundamental human rights provision. That is the area of my concern in relation to this bill.

I would like the minister to speak about how he would address this issue of this fundamental human rights principle that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. We do not talk about dual nationality. If a person has obtained a Canadian citizenship, it is then his legitimate right to be treated as a Canadian citizen. That is what I am asking my dear colleague.

https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/5/28/deepak-obhrai-2/

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Michael Den Tandt: You want a ‘sunnier’ conservatism, Jason Kenney? What a comedian

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

Some uncomfortable truths here, particularly given the drubbing the Conservatives received in those suburban ridings where new Canadians and visible minorities form a majority or close to a majority of voters (see Visible minorities elected to Parliament close to parity, a remarkable achievement):

Jason Kenney is a wizard in a scrum. Intellectually nimble, rhetorically agile, reflexively partisan, the Conservatives’ former “Mr. Fix-it” is everything one could ask for in a future party leader, yes? Of course yes. Kenney is also, it turns out, a comedian.

“We need a conservatism that is sunnier and more optimistic than we have sometimes conveyed,” he was quoted by The Canadian Press as saying, following his party’s historic drubbing at the hands of Justin Trudeau, a man Kenney himself has incessantly belittled and mocked, for years.

Apparently defeat has refocused the former immigration and multiculturalism minister’s mind on the better angels of his nature. Kenney, long believed to be angling for the Tory leadership in a post-Harper era, has had his conversion on the road to Damascus. He wishes to purge his party of its grim, Harperesque baggage. Perhaps he will be the wire brush, to borrow the Liberal expression from the post-Sponsorship-scandal era, to scrape the Conservative party clean. Perhaps he will tell jokes and smile and speak of building a greater Canada. Perhaps he, too, will hold a news conference in the National Press Theatre, during which he gently reminds shell-shocked journalists they have a role to play in democracy, and are not despised.

Optimism, it has been miraculously revealed, works, and Jason Kenney will be its new blue paragon.

Seriously, now. If there is a single minister other than Stephen Harper who must wear the Conservative loss, it is Kenney. That’s due to his abilities and strengths, ironically enough, as much as his omissions and flaws.

It was Kenney who famously delivered Ontario’s 905 seats, where many hundreds of thousands of new Canadians reside, in the 2011 federal election. It was he, lovingly dubbed the Minister of Curry-In-a-Hurry, who managed to pull off the apparent miracle of streamlining and toughening Canada’s immigration and refugee system, while increasing support among the various communities most affected.

It was Kenney also who spoke up most loudly and clearly, among federal ministers, in the fall of 2013 when former Parti Québécois premier Pauline Marois hauled out her xenophobic charter of values, which later cost her the premiership. “If you want people to become a part of your society and fully participate in it, then you have to create a space (and) send a message that people are welcoming (and) including,” Kenney was quoted by CTV as saying at the time.

But two years later, in the heat of a campaign, there was Kenney front and centre in the bid to transform fear of niqab into votes. It was on Oct. 2, in fact, the day his colleagues Chris Alexander and Kellie Leitch unveiled their proposed “barbaric cultural practices” tip line, that Kenney said this to radio host Evan Solomon: “I believe it (the niqab) reflects a misogynistic culture that — a treatment of women as property rather than people, which is anchored in medieval tribal customs …”

Four days later, prime minister Stephen Harper doubled down, saying in an interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton that he’d consider banning the veil across the civil service. There were no women wearing niqabs in the civil service, it later emerged, but never mind. This was the Conservative leader saying the wrangling would go on, and on. That very week, Conservative support began to slump, polls showed. It never recovered.

 Source: Michael Den Tandt: You want a ‘sunnier’ conservatism, Jason Kenney? What a comedian | National Post

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

What a difference a day makes: The reframing of Canadian Muslims has begun

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

More evidence of how the change in tone is being noticed:

Women in headscarves are smiling everywhere. They are in the subway station in Montreal with brightly coloured headgear and cell phones to match. They are at a rally in Ottawa, up close with the prime-minister-designate as they snap selfies that will trend on Twitter. They are walking with their heads held just a little higher, returning smiles offered by random passersby.

What a difference a day makes. The same women who were expressing feelings of fear and discomfort just walking to a mall, or to school, are now the same women whose text emoticons are high-fives, fist bumps, and smiley faces as they share videos of Justin Trudeau bhangra dancing.

It is as though Canadian Muslims, and Canadian Muslim women in particular, stepped out of one frame and into another.

The previous frame had been imposed on them, without their consent and despite their protests. Throughout the election, Canadian Muslims watched as they were vilified as “other,” practitioners of “barbaric cultural practices,” and making choices alien from “Canadian values.”

This othering led to a documented spike in anti-Muslim incidents, including verbal and physical attacks on visibly Muslim women in both hijab and niqab, along with increased Islamophobic online postings and comments.

Yet this deliberate framing throughout the election period was nothing new. Canadian Muslim communities have endured years of it. Whether it was making sweeping generalizations about an entire faith – claiming that “Islamicism” was the greatest threat facing Canada – or suggesting that Canadian mosques could be harbouring radical extremists – a decade of Stephen Harper changed perceptions about Canadian Muslims in deeper and perhaps more hurtful ways than even the aftermath of 9/11.

Back then, Prime Minister Jean Chretien made it a point to visit Ottawa’s main mosque soon after those horrific attacks, memorably doffing his shoes and joining the congregants in a public show of solidarity.

Little of that was on show during the Harper years. After the deadly attack at Parliament Hill by a deranged individual pledging allegiance to violent extremist ideology a year ago, the Prime Minister went nowhere near a mosque.

The local police chief, on the other hand, reached out to community leaders to reassure them that the force was on alert in case of any backlash. Mr. Harper preferred to amplify the incident as a terrorist attack and underplay the details of the perpetrator’s life, including the fact that he was a homeless drug addict who had no formal connection to international terrorist groups.

…Canadian Muslims stepped out of those unfair frames every day as they continued to lead typical lives, yet the national framing and its impacts could not be ignored. A poll found that the number of Canadians holding negative impressions of Islam and Muslims had climbed to 54 per cent in 2013 from 46 per cent in 2009.

Is this now over? Probably not: There is a small but growing cottage industry of anti-Muslim bloggers and commentators who seem bent on suggesting that Islam and Muslims are inherently anti-democratic and dangerous. This may be helping to feed a nascent anti-Muslim movement in this country.

Yet a change in tone and rhetoric from the highest office in the land is certainly something to smile about. That alone will help change the picture, or at least refocus the lens.

 Source: What a difference a day makes: The reframing of Canadian Muslims has begun – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Random or arbitrary police carding will stop, province says

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

As always, the devil is in the details, but the direction is clear:

Random and arbitrary carding by police forces across Ontario will be illegal by the end of fall.

Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services, made the announcement during a debate Thursday where MPPs from across the province spoke out against carding. At the time they were considering a private member’s motion from an NDP MPP to ban random and arbitrary carding, also known as street checks.

“It’s a historic day,” said Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, who watched the debate in the legislature.

“This is a monumental shift in our province,” said Parsons, who has worked to end carding. She repeatedly paused to compose herself when talking to the Star outside the legislature.

“We have been around for 21 years. We have been fighting on this issue since the day our doors opened, in July 1994.”

Earlier in the legislature, Naqvi moved quickly during debate to address the motion from NDP MPP and deputy party leader Jagmeet Singh.

“We as a government stand opposed, Speaker, to any arbitrary, random stops by the police simply to collect information when there are no grounds or reason to do so,” Naqvi said. “We have heard from the community that street checks, by definition, are arbitrary as well as discriminatory and therefore cannot be regulated; they must simply be ended. The province agrees that these types of stops must end.”

Asked later, outside the legislature, if Premier Kathleen Wynne, who was not at Thursday’s debate on the issue, supports the ban of carding and random street checks, Naqvi emphatically said, “What we’re doing is our government’s position under the leadership of premier Kathleen Wynne.”

Filed under Multiculturalism

Immigrants in America More Likely Self-Employed, Study Finds | TIME

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

A marginal difference:

A new Pew Research Center study shows that 10 percent of Americans are self-employed, compared to 11 percent of immigrants.

… self-employed Americans and their employees accounted for 44 million jobs in 2014 or 30 percent of the national workforce.

Canadian data that I have seen shows a larger difference between Canadian-born and immigrants (Immigrants took the brunt of recession-year turn toward self-employment).

Source: Immigrants in America More Likely Self-Employed, Study Finds | TIME

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

My article: Visible minorities elected to Parliament close to parity, a remarkable achievement

2015/10/23 1 Comment

My article in today’s Hill Times (note updated 25 Oct with the addition of one Conservative MP):

In contrast to the 2011 election, where 9.4 percent of all MPs were visible minorities, 2015 representation is aligned to the number of visible minority citizens (14 percent compared to 15 percent). Moreover, the success of the Liberal Party in decisively winning the visible minority vote  suggests that the Conservative Party’s extensive outreach to immigrant and visible minority communities had limited impact in stemming losses, and that concerns over the impact of changes to citizenship and immigration may have played a part.

Moreover, the percentage of visible minorities elected was identical to the percentage of visible minority candidates, which also had increased to 14 percent from 10 percent in the elections of 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011 (see Visible Minority Candidates – 2015 Election – Background Note for details). The Liberal party had the most visible minority candidates (16 percent) with the Conservative party and the NDP had slight under-representation (13 percent)

For comparison, the number of women and Aboriginal MPs only slightly increased in 2015. Analysis by Equal Voice shows the number of elected rose from 25 percent in 2011 to 26 percent today (88 women). Representation of Aboriginal peoples also increased to 10 seats (3 percent) from 7.

To assess visible minority representation I have used candidate names, photos and biographies to identify visible minority candidates. Although not as exact as identifying women candidates (e.g., subjectivity in analyzing photos), it nevertheless provides a reasonably accurate indication of how well Canadian political party candidates represent the population of visible minorities who are also Canadian citizens (15 percent). I was not able to break this down by those who are first generation immigrants and those who were born in Canada (second generation).

 

Federal Election 2015 and 2011 ComparisonThe chart above contrasts the 2015 visible minority representation with the 2011 election results. Not surprisingly, the Liberals, given their overall strong election result, will have the caucus with the largest number of visible minority MPs: 39 or 21.2 percent, significantly above the percentage of visible minority citizens (and Liberal candidates). Conversely, given their poor results, both the Conservatives and the NDP elected less than half of their visible minority candidates.

Federal Election 2015 VisMin Mps GenderLooking at 2015 results only, the chart above provides the comparative numbers for each party in the 47 ridings that elected visible minority MPs, minority, broken down by gender. As others have noted, given that the overall number of visible minority MPs is comparable to the number of visible minority candidates (14 percent), visible minority candidates ran in ridings where they can be elected,.

While 23 of these 47 MPs come from ridings where 50 percent are visible minority, 15 come from ridings between 20 to 50 percent visible minority. Surprisingly, nine come from ridings with less than 20 percent visible minority, and five of those with less than five percent. In other words, visible minorities were even elected in ridings where over 80 percent are non-visible minorities.

Visible minority MPs are 68 percent men, 32 percent women, higher than the percentage of all women MPs (26 percent).

Liberal visible minority candidates won 39 seats (83 percent), the Conservatives five (13 percent), the NDP 2 (4 percent).

Table 1 2015 Election – List of Visible Minority MPs lists the ridings, their percentage of visible minorities, and the MPs elected.

Turning to the 33 ridings where visible minorities comprise more than 50 percent of the population  (which we will call visible majority ridings), the following characteristics emerge:

  • Both two-thirds of candidates (68) and two-thirds of elected MPs (23) are visible minority;
  • 48 percent are visible minority men, 21 percent visible minority women;
  • The Liberals took all but three of these ridings (two went Conservative, one NDP);
  • The popular vote for these 33 ridings shows stronger support for Liberals among visible majority ridings (52.3 percent) compared to overall results (39.5 percent). Riding-by-riding, the winning Liberal candidate won over 50 percent of the vote, a majority not just a plurality;
  • In contrast, the popular vote for the Conservatives in these ridings is virtually identical (31.6 percent) to their overall results (31.9 percent). It would appear their base vote is the same among visible minorities as the general population.
  • The NDP did less well in these ridings (15.9 percent) compared to their overall results (19.7 percent);
  • Out of the 9 ridings where Chinese Canadians formed the dominant group, 3 Chinese Canadians were elected. In contrast, out of the 14 ridings where South Asians formed the dominant group, 8 were elected, mainly Sikh Canadians; and,
  • 10 non-visible minority MPs were elected in these ridings.

Table 2 2015 Election – 33 Ridings more than 50 percent visible minorities provides the demographics of these ridings, along with the names of elected MPs and their share of the popular vote.

Implications

In many ways, this is a remarkable achievement, achieving close to parity in parliamentary representation of visible minorities. No other comparable country is as representative of its population.

Visible minority MPs, as all MPs, will be expected to play not only on the issues of interest to their constituents but also on broader policy issues and debates. And hopefully, the incoming government will provide greater latitude for all MPs for debates and discussion, rather than the excessive reliance on centralized talking points under the Conservative government.

They can be expected also to play on foreign policy and diaspora issues of interest to their community, much as other ethnic communities such as Ukrainian Canadians and Canadian Jews continue to do.

Secondly, with 39 visible minority MPs in the incoming Liberal government, we will need to see how many are appointed to cabinet and to which positions, and how this is balanced against other cabinet representation issues like regional representation (PM Trudeau has already committed to gender parity). The Conservative government relegated visible minorities to junior positions (multiculturalism, sport, seniors) and it remains to be seen whether Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau will appoint a visible minority member to a more senior position.

Thirdly, the Conservative party needs to reflect on the effectiveness of the extensive outreach of Minister Kenney and others to new Canadian communities. Being 20 percent behind the Liberals in many of these ridings means that ‘being there’ is not enough. While some of this shift reflects the general trend in urban Canada, it also likely reflects changes to citizenship and immigration policy which impact on these communities (e.g., more difficult family reunification and citizenship). And overplaying the niqab and related issues in such an obvious wedge politics manner can hardly have helped.

One thing is clear. Visible minorities are an intrinsic part of electoral and political strategies. No party can afford to ignore them, given their size and political weight. And one of the election’s lessons is that the divisiveness of wedge politics is not a winning strategy among visible minority and other voters. Hopefully, that will be an enduring lesson, sparing Canadians of whatever origin, of such approaches in the future, and strengthening overall integration.

Source: Visible minorities elected to Parliament close to parity, a remarkable achievement | hilltimes.com

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →