Securities regulators urged to make gender diversity policies mandatory

Hard to argue with greater transparency and reporting as a way to encourage change, which should also apply to visible minorities:

Canadian securities regulators should make gender-diversity policies mandatory for companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange after a majority of companies rejected voluntary standards this year, according to Women’s Executive Network founder Pamela Jeffery.

Ms. Jeffery, who heads the Toronto-based advocacy organization for women in business, told an Ontario Securities Commission round-table forum that Britain’s corporate governance code requires companies to report annually on their diversity policies, and the country has seen rapid improvement in the proportion of women on its boards and in senior executive roles.

“Given that only 14 per cent of [Canadian] issuers have disclosed the adoption of a written policy, we’d like to see issuers required to disclose a written board and executive board diversity policy,” Ms. Jeffery said.

Canadian companies should also be required to report annually on their internal targets for women, she said.

The OSC forum Tuesday was organized to discuss compliance to date with new voluntary standards, introduced this year, that recommend companies should create gender-diversity policies to get more women in senior roles.

A report released Monday by securities regulators shows only 14 per cent of 722 TSX-listed companies have created formal diversity policies in the wake of the new standards, while 65 per cent said they have decided not to have a policy and a further 21 per cent reported only informal policies or policies that do not mention gender diversity.

Osgoode Hall law professor Aaron Dhir, who specializes in issues of corporate diversity, told the OSC forum his research shows Australia and Britain both saw significant increases in the proportion of women on their boards after they introduced new reporting standards.

In Australia, for example, the proportion of women on ASX 200 boards grew to 20 per cent in 2014 from 8 per cent in 2011 after regulators introduced a rule similar to Canada’s new standard. In 2011, 61 per cent of Australian companies reported having a diversity policy, which has grown to almost 100 per cent this year, Prof. Dhir said.

Canada’s new standard is one of the best Prof. Dhir said he has seen compared to diversity rules in other countries like the United States, but companies need time to respond. He is “cautiously optimistic” more will adopt diversity policies in coming years.

Source: Securities regulators urged to make gender diversity policies mandatory – The Globe and Mail

Linguist documents dying languages still spoken in Toronto

Interesting. Another aspect of Toronto’s diversity and the diversity within communities:

Paolo Frascà’s rare Italian dialect “fossilized” in Toronto and found its own community here.

“That is why I speak the dialect probably better than the people in my generation back home in Italy,” said Frascà, 24. “It’s because I moved here when I was 13 years old.”

He speaks a language particular to a small town of about 3,000 people in the region of Calabria in southern Italy. This tongue is closer to Latin than typical Italian because of the region’s late Romanization. Back home, younger generations like his don’t speak Santonofrese — named after the town of Sant’Onofrio —because it is seen as “lowbrow.” He says that thanks to Toronto’s large Italian community, there may be several endangered languages and dialects like his preserved in the city as people continue to speak them with their family.

That’s not always the case, though. Anastasia Riehl, who started the Endangered Languages Alliance Toronto, has been documenting which of the world’s dying languages are spoken in Toronto, including Frascà’s. Some are spoken by just one or two people in the city, or even in the world. Without a community to share it, those people stop speaking their language and absorb the regional language instead.

Riehl began the Alliance in Toronto after her Cornell University grad school colleague, David Kaufman, launched one in New York. After years of documenting languages overseas, she discovered the last fluent speaker of a dying Latvian language, Livonian, lived outside Toronto. The woman, Grizelda Kristina, was 101 and ailing.

“That’s when I was like, ‘OK, let’s just say we’re going to do this,’” she said of the day in 2011 when she hopped on a flight to Toronto from Argentina, where she was vacationing, to interview the woman, who died two years later.

Since then, she’s interviewed more than a dozen speakers of eight endangered languages from around the world. She’s working on a short documentary detailing the stories of three speakers. Riehl has taken time off from her role running the Strathy Language Unit at Queen’s University to devote more time to the project.

Toronto’s position as one of the most diverse cities in the world — more than 30 per cent of its residents speak a language other than English or French — makes it an “as good if not better” place to document endangered languages.

The city’s website pegs the number of languages and dialects spoken in the city at more than 140, but Riehl estimates there are “dozens” that don’t appear in census figures. Any language becomes endangered, according to the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), when its speakers cease to use it and when it is no longer passed on to the next generation.

“The global context we’re in has definitely impacted [language loss] because people have all these pressures to speak a more dominant language,” Riehl said, explaining that the phenomenon doesn’t only appear in English-speaking countries. “It’s a sad way to think about it, but it’s one of the few things [immigrants] bring with them.”

She says the best way to preserve a language is for children to speak it and use it.

“I’m thinking of these refugees, especially the kids who end up in these new places — it just seems like it’s so much better for them if there can be a way to support them in their native language.”

But the shyness younger immigrant generations, like Frascà’s, experience in speaking their language contrasts with the shame indigenous peoples of North America were forced to bear for years under colonization, said David Kaufman, founder of the Endangered Languages Alliance in New York and Riehl’s former Cornell colleague.

“The tragedy in New York, I would say, is that you can find almost every language under the sun except the indigenous language of New York itself, which is Lenape,” an Algonquin language, he said, adding that the only place the language is now spoken and taught is in Ontario.

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Investigation shows cracks in Canada’s plan to stop homegrown terrorism

More indications of the gap in the Government’s anti-radicalization strategy:

Federal authorities argue they are tackling the problem in a number of ways, by enhancing enforcement powers, toughening laws and developing strategies to counter terrorist propaganda.

But with gaps in programs to prevent radicalization, grassroots communities across Canada have stepped up, using their own time and money to stop young people from reaching the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

“We Canadians have been scared into believing that there are locust-like masses” of terrorists, says Hussein Hamdani, who’s helped with 10 intervention cases of young would-be terrorists, and sat on the government’s terrorism advisory panel for a decade.

“All this rhetoric, and there seems to be no corresponding investment in prevention.”

Instead of being given counselling or mentorship, he argues Canadian youth at risk of radicalization are largely ignored, left to watch videos glorifying their compatriots abroad.

… Security experts such as Phil Gurski say Canada is at risk of losing the battle for the hearts and minds of at-risk youth, without improved efforts to combat the underlying message of violent extremists.

“The Islamic State has a lot going for it. It’s got territory, it’s got quasi-religious authority,” says Gurski, who spent 12 years as a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent and has specialized in al-Qaida-inspired radicalization for three decades.

Others like Blaney argue Canada has a solid record of deterring attacks and thwarting terrorist travel, but it’s hard to deny ISIL’s momentum.

…“There’s a sense of purpose, there’s a sense of addressing historical grievances,” Gurski explains. “That’s why people are flocking to it — that’s why it’s got 20,000 foreign fighters.”

 

… But how big is the threat?

By last October, the RCMP flagged 80 Canadians as having returned after supporting groups like ISIL abroad.

Source: Investigation shows cracks in Canada’s plan to stop homegrown terrorism | Calgary Herald

Multiculturalism: Getting the Balance Right – Reflections for a new government

With a federal election upon us and the possible change of government, what are the multiculturalism policy changes an incoming government may wish to consider, and which policies may it wish to keep?

The Conservative Government under Minister Kenney refashioned multiculturalism through greater emphasis on integration than accommodation. In many ways, this was reverting to the original recommendations of the 1969 Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism that stressed integration over assimilation, while recognizing the need for individuals and groups to maintain their cultural identities within the overall Canadian legal and values framework.

But Kenney made a number of important shifts. He emphasized that multiculturalism involved relations between all groups of Canadians, not just ‘mainstream’/visible minority relations. Prejudice and discrimination were issues between different visible minority groups. Religious diversity became a more explicit part of multiculturalism. Emphasis shifted from equality and employment equity to ensuring government services were more attuned to serving an increasingly diverse population.

The government also delivered on a series of historical recognition activities for groups that had either been subject to wartime internment (i.e., Ukrainian and Italian Canadians) and immigration restrictions (i.e., Chinese, Indo, and Jewish Canadians). He revised the grants and contribution program to include both project funding and event funding (food and folklore), but with an explicit focus on bringing communities together. He broadened racism and discrimination programming to include specific forms but disappointingly only focused on antisemitism, largely abandoning broader messaging.

The citizenship program reinforced this integration messaging, as well as warnings against ‘barbaric cultural practices’ such as forced marriage and importing ‘homeland’ conflicts into Canada. The Government also used niqabs at citizenship ceremonies as a wedge issue.

Many of the above policy shifts were needed and reflect the ongoing evolution of Canadian diversity. However, in its focus on social cohesion the Government neglected social inclusion.

Early symbolic changes could include language changes. Fully accept that multiculturalism is the Canadian brand of diversity and stop trying to shift to pluralism (which is less integrative). Retain the emphasis on integration — across all communities — but with more acknowledgement of accommodation. Stop using the niqab as a wedge issue but reinforce that accommodation cuts both ways. Reduce the emphasis on the monarchy, both for Canadian identity reasons as well as the mixed history British colonialism has for many groups. Re-assert the equality aspects of multiculturalism along with employment equity.

Beyond language, what other policy and program changes should be considered?

The Annual Report on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act needs to become a more informative, evidence-based report on the state of multiculturalism in Canada. Ideally, submissions made by individual departments extolling their progress would be complemented by more independent perspectives.

A new government will certainly wish to revisit the program’s objectives. While the core of first objective, “promote intercultural understanding … and equal opportunity … core democratic values” should remain, more inclusive language on accommodation should replace the emphasis “civic memory and pride.” The second objective — improving the responsiveness to an increasingly diverse population — needs to be broadened to (re)include employment equity within government institutions, given the poor record of some departments and agencies. No change is required to the third objective which essentially enables international activity.

A new government needs to ensure that specific anti-racism initiatives (i.e., antisemitism) are complemented by broader anti-discrimination messaging, along with other targeted initiatives as appropriate (e.g., anti-Muslim activity).

This needs to be linked to a review of the current governance arrangements for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, established as part of redress for Japanese Canadian World War II internment. The Foundation, arms-length but with board members appointed by the Government, has arguably not lived up to expectations. Consultations and evaluation, jointly with the National Association of Japanese Canadians, are needed to ensure its continued relevance and effectiveness.

Moreover, responsibility for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) needs to be brought back to the multiculturalism program rather than being housed in the Office of Religious Freedom as IHRA’s focus is broader than religion.

A new government should examine the balance between grant and contribution funding for immigrants (almost $600 million for settlement services and the like) and funding for longer-term integration issues under multiculturalism (less than $9 million). Shifting $10 million to multiculturalism projects — more than doubling the budget — would allow for more effective programming to address second-generation issues such as racism and discrimination, radicalization and extremism, and equity and inclusion, with little or no detectable impact on settlement services. A new government will also need to consider whether it wishes to retain ministerial sign-off on projects (for greater political direction) or have this delegated as it does for settlement programming to improve program timeliness and efficiency.

A review of the effectiveness of the Government’s $30 million contribution in 2006 to the Global Centre for Pluralism would allow those board members appointed by the Government to play a more effective role.

A new government will also need to address the dilution of multiculturalism resources and expertise within CIC. Resources have been cut and dispersed, and beyond the Annual Report, and the small grant and contribution, there is little sign that longer-term integration issues are being given the attention that they deserve. Part of this reflects the natural consequences of the functional rather than business line model, which invariably results in resources and management attention devolving to CIC’s ‘centre of gravity’ — immigration.

One of the clearest examples is the loss of research capacity and focus on multiculturalism and longer-term second-generation issues. Given the importance of these to the ongoing success of integration, this capacity needs to be strengthened. A more ambitious agenda would include resuscitating the Ethnic Diversity Survey (not to mention the Census!), last conducted in 2002, but strengthened to reflect religious as well as ethnic diversity.

This dilution has been further exacerbated by the complex web of Ministerial responsibilities between Minister Kenney, as the political minister responsible, Minister Alexander as the departmental minister, and junior Minister Uppal, having largely a ceremonial role. Absent any major machinery change — disruptive at the best of times — any new Prime Minister  should consider only having two ministers, one being the senior minister for CIC, the other being the junior minister, ideally responsible for both citizenship and multiculturalism, to provide somewhat of a counter-weight to the immigration centre of gravity.

While in an ideal world, the 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act should be reviewed and updated, the current Act provides sufficient flexibility for governments to interpret and implement policies and programs, as demonstrated under the Conservative government. However, should a new government wish to be more ambitious, any review of the Act should also consider whether a parliamentary Multiculturalism Commissioner would be appropriate to provide a stronger political focus.

While compared to some of the other immigration and citizenship-related issues facing a new government, multiculturalism will be a secondary priority. However, more inclusive language into any messaging can set the tone and signal changes in direction, with more substantive changes to follow as priorities allow.

— Multiculturalism: Getting the Balance Right

What Kevin Page gets wrong in his new book: Tapp

Stephen Tapp, a former senior economist at the PBO, on the weaknesses in Page’s book:

Regrettably, Page’s repeated demands for transparency merely become slogans. Critical questions go unaddressed about the fully transparent government he so desires, such as:

  • What are the pros—and cons—of an open approach to government in a time of ubiquitous social media, 24/7 news and political commentary, when information (and any misinformation and missteps) can quickly go viral?
  • Should the media have open access to public servants, and if so, how would the civil service convey the facts as well as the context of complex, competing factors that cabinet weighs in its decision-making?
  • Should senior civil servants speak out publicly when they disagree with the political choices of a democratically elected government—which is at odds with the Westminster system?
  • Which countries should Canada be following to improve our public service?

Likely – and hopefully – this will prompt a reply from Page and thus continue an important conversation.

Source: What Kevin Page gets wrong in his new book – Macleans.ca

Banishment is a poor tool in fight against terrorism: Roach and Forcese

Apart from the principled concern regarding revocation (two classes of citizenship), Roach and Forcese outline practical concerns:

Given all this, how should we evaluate revocation as anti-terrorism? Cancelling the citizenship of convicted terrorists may be politically popular because it appeals to our fear and anger at terrorists. However, there are both principled and practical concerns about revocation as an anti-terror tool.

The principled issue can be summarized simply: Whether a government can take away citizenship (for something other than fraud in acquiring it) is a totally novel constitutional issue. The question has never arisen, because revocation of this sort has never existed since the Charter came into existence. But if Canadian courts follow the path of their U.S. counterparts, they will guard sternly against revocations.

Add to that the discriminatory nature of the citizenship-stripping law – confined to dual nationals – and the due process minimalism that afflicts the system and you have the makings for a serious constitutional dust-up.

But focus also on the practical issues. In the best-case scenario, the government actually banishes a truly dangerous individual, but only by displacing risk to a foreign country, even assuming that foreign state co-operates in their removal.

In the worst case, the government tries to remove the individual to the tender embraces of a torturing state. Under international law, no one can be removed to face torture and maltreatment. And whatever it might have said in earlier cases, the Supreme Court would have to ignore a lot of its recent Charter pronouncements to permit deportations to torture.

And so, since the men the government wishes to banish would be removed to countries with poor records on torture, we should expect citizenship revocation proceedings to spill over to endless disputes over deportation.

The last time we tried this – with “security certificates” – the government was budgeting more than $5-million a year, a person, by 2009 in its decade-long effort (so far 100-per-cent unsuccessful) to use a procedurally doubtful process to remove people to maltreatment.

To put that in context: The entire national annual budget for the RCMP’s much-delayed front-line “terrorism prevention program” has been $1.1-million (slated to rise to a very modest $3.1-million under the 2015 budget).

There is every reason to believe, therefore, that Canada is now repeating its prioritization of expensive, noisy, controversial, often-fruitless efforts to chase problems out of the country, rather than focus on fixing them before they become problems.

Moreover, despite intelligence warnings about prison radicalization, Canada has no developed policy countering prison radicalization.

Inattention to what experts call terrorist “disengagement” is a mistake. If the Islamic State’s call to violence resonates among the disaffected, there should be more prosecutions and convictions. Some convicts, such as the VIA train plotters, will be sentenced to life imprisonment, but others will not. They will eventually be released. It is in all our interests to attempt to rehabilitate them.

Citizenship-stripping of those terrorists who have dual nationality reduces pressure to take this matter seriously by fostering the illusion that we can simply prosecute and deport our way out of the problem of IS-inspired terrorism.

Source: Banishment is a poor tool in fight against terrorism – The Globe and Mail

Temporary foreign workers get first dibs under express entry

More teething pains or more substantive problems? Early results or signalling a trend?

Jason Kenney, who was responsible for the Harper government’s transformation of Canada’s immigration system during his time as immigration minister, on Friday touted express entry as “a system that’s fast, that connects people to the labour market so they can realize their dreams and fulfil their potential upon arrival in Canada.”

“New economic immigrants are arriving in Canada in months rather than years,” Kenney said during a news conference in Vancouver.

“A growing percentage have jobs lined up before they get to Canada rather than being stuck in survival jobs for years following their arrival.”

While that may be the goal, express entry has opened the door to very few new economic immigrants. To date, it has favoured a large number of temporary foreign workers and other foreign nationals already in the country.

Over 85 per cent of the foreign nationals who were selected for admission under express entry in the first six months of the year — 11,047 out of 12,304 — were already in Canada, according to a report published by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in July.

The report shows that three per cent were living in India, followed by two per cent in the U.S. and one per cent in the Philippines. Even smaller percentages resided in other countries.

As of July 6, Canada had issued 844 visas to foreign nationals and their dependents resulting in only 411 admissions being fast tracked for permanency residency.

“Implementing the express entry system was a significant undertaking and we continue to monitor it closely,” the government report said, cautioning it is only “a snapshot” intended to capture “one moment in time.”

While immigration officials are working tirelessly to iron the kinks out of the system, the report said Canada will meet its immigration quota not through express entry but by drawing from a backlog of applications submitted under the old system.

The majority of new economic immigrants to Canada will not be drawn using the new system until it’s in full flight in 2017.

‘Unusable’ for businesses

Businesses say the system’s biggest flaw is a new requirement borrowed from the newly reformed temporary foreign worker program, which Kenney and Chris Alexander announced last year following a series of stories published by CBC’s Go Public team alleging abuse of the program.

Under express entry, it isn’t enough that economic immigrants have to line up a job before applying to come to Canada — that offer must also be backed by a positive labour market impact assessment. That assessment, or LMIA, is a document all employers now need to hire a foreign worker over a Canadian one.

This is a new requirement under an economic stream that sees upwards of 250,000 new permanent residents admitted each year.

“It’s made it unusable for many employers that we hear from and for small and medium businesses,” said Sarah Anson-Cartwright, the director of skills policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the largest business association in the country representing some 200,000 employers

Members of the Chamber, she said, are disillusioned with a process that has become too “onerous.” Employers are complaining that their assessment forms are being rejected due to inadvertent omissions or typos.

Source: Temporary foreign workers get first dibs under express entry – Politics – CBC News

Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote: Book Launch Toronto 13 October

For those of you in Toronto, Ryerson’s  Centre for Immigration and Settlement and the Global Diversity Exchange are hosting my book launch, Tuesday October 13th at 11 am. Poster below:

Griffith Ryerson GDX flyer

Griffith Ryerson GDX flyer

Yes, minister, no more: Today’s bureaucrats have a different attitude: Yakabuski quoting Paquet

Yakabuski presents one side of the debate on the political-bureaucratic relationship, that of Gilles Paquet and his followers, which emphasize ‘loyal implementation’ at the expense of  ‘fearless advice.’

Many others take the contrary view, flagging the rise of ideology and the decline of ‘fearless advice’ (e.g., among the former public servants fingered by Paquet and his acolytes, Mel Cappe on ideology over evidence, Ralph Heintzman: Creeping politicization in the public service, Kevin Page delivers a warning to the public service, among academics, Boundary between politics, public service is ‘no man’s land’: Donald Savoie, David Zussman quoted in Ideology, minority rule, distrust shaped Harper government’s relationship with public service).

As I argued in my book, Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism, written from my perspective working to implement change by then Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and CIC Minister Kenney, the public service failed to provide impartial ‘fearless advice’ and recognize its own ideologies and biases, and was not quick enough to shift to ‘loyal implementation’ once the advice had been given. (Disclosure: I had worked with Paquet and his press on Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias but our divergence of views was too great).

Canadians need to understand better how the balance between the bureaucratic and political roles plays out in the related debates over evidence-based policy (and which evidence), the decline of government policy expertise and data and other issues.

While academics and some journalists can and do raise these issues, former public servants should also contribute to discussions on the role of the public service and the political-bureaucratic relationship given their on-the-ground experience.

While such contributions run the risk of having a partisan element in their critique of Conservative government actions (and certainly being perceived this way), it is also non-partisan in that such contributions also form advice to any future government on both framework and specific policy issues (which of course, it would be free to accept or refuse).

And of course, the sharper ideological edge of the Conservative government compared to the more centrist public servant perspective accentuates distrust on both sides:

This view is echoed in a March article in Optimum Online, a public-sector management journal that Prof. Paquet edits. The article, by a senior Ottawa-based policy analyst using a pseudonym, asserts that “many senior federal public servants [develop] a conviction that they are better guardians of basic values of our democracy than elected officials. While this attitude had to be somewhat tamed while they were on active duty, it has become fully unleashed in retirement.”

The author goes on: “This has naturally generated a flow of self-righteous condemnation of current government policies by many newly unencumbered retired senior officials, and has thereby provided immense moral support for those senior public servants still in active duty – former colleagues and friends – to heighten their own passive (or semi-active) opposition to the elected government from within. As a result, the corridor of what has come to be regarded as tolerable disloyalty from within would appear to have widened considerably.”

This trend is nearly certain to outlive the Harper government. Future governments will become even more suspicious of the bureaucracy they inherit. To some extent, such suspicion has always existed. But Canada has always resisted the American practice of administrations stuffing the top layers of the bureaucracy with political appointees. Prof. Paquet worries that will change unless the principles of bureaucratic loyalty and discretion are restored.

“Loyalty breeds loyalty,” he says. “It’s 50-50.”

For my take on the same article, see The Demonization of Stephen Harper.

A review I did on an earlier Paquet article, Super-Bureaucrats as Enfants du siècle, provides further material for this ongoing debate (‘Mental Prisons,’ the Public Service and Gilles Paquet).

Source: Yes, minister, no more: Today’s bureaucrats have a different attitude – The Globe and Mail

And my letter to the editor on this can be found here.

Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist

Appears an initiative aimed at providing teachers with tools to identify potential radicalization went a bit too far with too broad a reach:

Last week the Australian government sparked public furor over a campaign to help teachers identify signs of the radicalization process in the classroom with a prepared pamphlet.

The 32-page document, known as the “radicalization awareness information kit,” provides warning signs to indicate whether a young person is on a path to violent extremism. The pamphlet paints outlandish examples of radicalized youth who range in character, including a student named Karen who was “involved in the alternative music scene, student politics and left-wing activism.” Local media lambasted the government for conflating activism with violent extremism, blurring the line between national security threats and political expression.

While the illustrations were exceptionally misguided, the greater concern lies with creating a simplified checklist to identify young people as potential terrorists. As the Guardian rightly pointed out, doling out a canned guideline of behaviors to identify extremism not only engenders intolerance, it creates a culture of profiling—akin to the one that led to the arrest in Texas of a 14-year-old Muslim student who wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade clock that was mistaken for a bomb. A similar program in the U.K. led to an at-risk radicalization list to include a three-year-old as a potential future extremist.

…Gary Bouma, a professor involved with the initiative, reportedly distanced himself from the report upon learning it was distributed to teachers. Bouma tells the Daily Beast he did not “distance himself” from the research, but was merely concerned that teachers would not be provided with training to complement the booklet. Bouma says he’s been assured that teachers will receive the proper training to use the manuals, but what type of training would that entail?

“There’s a difference between people who get involved in what you would call incidental violence as a result of a political protest,” Victoria University professor Michele Grossman told the Guardian, referring to the case study linking a student’s penchant for left-wing activism to extremism. “To me, that’s not what we mean when we talk about facing and tackling the very serious issues around violent extremism.”

Source: Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist – The Daily Beast