The [US] Foreign Service is too white. We’d know — we’re top diplomats.

2015/08/22 Leave a comment

Good article on the need for diversity within the US foreign service by former senior diplomats:

Like Wall Street and the medical and legal professions of the mid-20th century, the diplomatic corps long drew its members from traditionally elite, exclusive institutions, not themselves very diverse at the time. Moreover, college students of color rarely knew that diplomacy was a professional option for them.

That’s changing. Today, our diplomats are more representative. But we haven’t made nearly enough progress. According to the latest statistics, 82 percent of Foreign Service officers (the commissioned career officers serving in embassies and consulates abroad as well as some policy positions stateside) are white. Seven percent are Asian American, 5.4 percent are African American, and 5 percent are Latino. About 60 percent are men. In contrast, the U.S. population is more than 50 percent female, more than 17 percent Hispanic and more than 14 percent African American.

U.S. foreign policy is informed and improved by a wider range of experiences, understandings and outlooks. To represent America abroad and relate to the world beyond our borders, the nation needs diplomats whose family stories, language skills, religious traditions and cultural sensitivities help them to establish connections and avoid misunderstandings. For some of our international allies that are themselves facing diversity issues, American diplomats of diverse backgrounds can help them build bridges. For others, diversity in the American diplomatic corps makes the United States seem more approachable.

….How can the Foreign Service draw upon the country’s total talent pool? The challenge isn’t only eliminating the last vestiges of discrimination but also actively recruiting the most talented and dedicated people from every segment of society, especially those of great ability but limited means.

When the Foreign Service drew upon a narrow swath of the population, most future diplomats already knew people who had represented the country overseas. As part of their upbringings, these young people acquired the mannerisms that would make them at home in the Foreign Service. To diversify the diplomatic service, we must recognize that promising young people from less privileged backgrounds do not enjoy these advantages and assurances. They need to know that the Foreign Service welcomes their skills and experiences. They need role models with whom they can identify. And they need the reassurance that diplomacy can be rewarding and remunerative.

Not sure what the Canadian numbers are. Anecdotally from my time there, things were starting to change.

The Foreign Service is too white. We’d know — we’re top diplomats. – The Washington Post.

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How do tech’s biggest companies compare on diversity? | The Verge

2015/08/22 Leave a comment

How_do_tech’s_biggest_companies_compare_on_diversity____The_VergeSome good comparative data. Chart above highlights Asian Americans given other minorities are relatively small (Amazon rates higher given the number of people who ship product):

Key takeaways [for overall employment]:

  • Amazon sets the bar for female employment with 37 percent of its US workforce. Microsoft lags the pack with just 24 percent (sampled average is 29 percent female) — far below the 47 percent of the US workforce that’s female.
  • Apple employs a higher percentage of people claiming hispanic / Latino origin than its peers in the US. At 12 percent of its US workforce, it’s well ahead of Twitter’s 2 percent (sampled average is 8 percent Hispanic or Latino).
  • Amazon employs far more people that identify as Black or African American than the other companies sampled. At 15 percent, it is well ahead of Facebook’s 1 percent and the 2 percent employed by Google and Twitter (sampled average is 7 percent).
  • Amazon (13 percent) and Apple (16 percent) lag the others in the percentage of employees who identify as Asian (sampled average is 23 percent).
  • The sampled average for people that identify as Asian is 23 percent of the workforce even though they compromise just 4.7 percent of the US population.

And what about the leadership composition of some of the world’s most powerful and profitable companies?

Key takeaways [for leadership]:

  • Facebook (23 percent) and Twitter (22 percent) are the best at promoting women into leadership roles among the companies sampled. Microsoft is the worst at 13 percent (sampled average is 18 percent).
  • While women represent an average of 29 percent of all employees in the US tech firms sampled, that number quickly falls to 18 percent of leadership positions (Women make up 47 percent of the US workforce).
  • Amazon’s leadership is the whitest at 90 percent followed by Apple at 87 percent, far above Twitter’s 68 percent (sampled average is 79 percent white).
  • Amazon (75 percent) and Apple (72 percent) promote the greatest percentage of white males into leadership positions (sampled average is 65 percent).

As dire as these charts appear, the tech industry is advancing toward the goal of greater inclusiveness and transparency. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Intel have all released customized reports showing mid-2015 progress globally, beyond the 2014 US data provided in the EEO-1. Progress is slow, but it is happening.

How do tech’s biggest companies compare on diversity? | The Verge.

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Un leader musulman veut que Québec interdise les moqueries sur la religion

2015/08/22 Leave a comment

One of the more conservative voices of Islam in Quebec, arguing for limiting freedom of expression with respect to religion:

La loi devrait explicitement interdire à quiconque de se moquer de la religion, a soutenu jeudi un des leaders de la communauté musulmane du Québec, Salam Elmenyawi.

En commission parlementaire qui étudie le projet de loi 59 sur le discours haineux, le président du Conseil musulman de Montréal a tenu des propos qui ont fait sourciller les partis d’opposition, estimant que M. Elmenyawi cherchait en fait à brimer la liberté d’expression au Québec.

Il a plaidé pour que Québec adopte la ligne dure avec son projet de loi 59, affirmant qu’il pouvait tolérer qu’on l’insulte, lui, mais jamais qu’on insulte sa religion.

Le mémoire présenté par le Conseil musulman de Montréal exhorte Québec à inclure notamment dans son projet de loi «la prévention de la dérision et le dénigrement de toute religion et de ses personnalités».

Car la liberté d’expression ne devrait pas inclure le droit de tourner en dérision une religion, a insisté M. Elmenyawi, qui ne s’exprimait qu’en anglais. Ses propos étaient traduits en français par un interprète.

La députée caquiste de Montarville, Nathalie Roy, lui a fait remarquer que son discours allait totalement à l’encontre des Chartes des droits, québécoise et canadienne, qui garantissent à toute personne le droit de s’exprimer librement.

«Vous allez loin, a commenté Mme Roy. Si on ne peut pas se moquer, si on ne peut pas rire d’une religion, quelle qu’elle soit, ça va à l’encontre de notre liberté d’expression. Ca va très, très loin ce que vous demandez.»

Le leader musulman en a rajouté, en faisant valoir que lorsqu’on tourne en dérision l’islam, «vous vous moquez de moi, vous vous moquez de ma femme, vous vous moquez du prophète, de la mère du prophète».

Et il a dit que si une personne ose insulter la mère du prophète, «c’est comme si on insultait ma mère, ça me touche, moi, personnellement».

«Vous pouvez m’insulter, moi, mais n’insultez pas ma religion!», a lancé le leader musulman aux élus réunis dans le Salon rouge de l’Assemblée nationale.

Un leader musulman veut que Québec interdise les moqueries sur la religion | Jocelyne Richer | Actualités.

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The “Ethnic Vote”: All Over the Map – Adams and Griffith

2015/08/21 Leave a comment

Further to our earlier op-ed in the Globe (Why Canada’s politicians fixate on the ethnic vote), Michael and I expanded it to include more information of visible minority representation and comparisons to the US:

Remarkably, the immigrants who were elected to Canada’s parliament in 2011 had not only become citizens, gotten themselves nominated, and then won election—but they represented all five main political parties and included many visible minorities: 18 Conservatives (15 visible minorities, of 166 elected), 18 New Democrats (12 visible minorities, of 103), four Liberals (2 visible minorities, of 34), and one each in the Bloc (1 visible minority, of 4) and the Green Party (no visible minority).

The Green Party is 100 per cent foreign-born: Elizabeth May is from Hartford, CT.

Another “only in Canada” fact is that our most right-wing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, attracts a substantial contingent of candidates born abroad.

The Bloc is dedicated to dismantling the country, but managed to be inclusive of the foreign-born and visible minorities. Only in Canada!

With respect to visible minorities (defined in the U.S. as non-white races and Hispanic), the U.S. has worse representation than Canada: 20 per cent in the House of Representatives compared to their population share of 37 per cent, only six per cent in the Senate), the vast majority of these are American-born visible minorities, mainly African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos, not immigrants.

Only 16 foreign-born members sit in either of the two houses. But many of these were born abroad to American parents, the most famous being John McCain and Canada’s Ted Cruz.

But even if we include all of these legislators as foreign born, they are still less than three per cent of Congress, where demographic parity would suggest that almost 70 foreign-born “should be” in both houses (to match the 13 per cent of “legal” Americans who are foreign-born).

Another “only in Canada” fact is that our most right-wing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, attracts a substantial contingent of candidates born abroad. In most countries, right-wing parties are anti-immigrant and would be unlikely to either attract or accept foreign-born candidates.

The “Ethnic Vote”: All Over the Map – New Canadian Media.

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Court challenge slams new Citizenship Act as ‘anti-Canadian’

2015/08/21 Leave a comment

The expected court challenge by BCCLA and CARL. We will see whether or not the assertions of the Government regarding these changes to the Citizenship Act being constitutional hold water:

This citizenship-stripping law is unjust, legally unsound and violates the core values of equality enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” says Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, one of the litigators handling the case and a member of the executive of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

“With this law the federal government shows a flagrant disregard for these values, and for the basic rights of all Canadians. We are asking the court to strike the law down.”

The Minister of Immigration Chris Alexander vigorously defended Bill C-24 both when it was first introduced and as it was debated in Parliament.

…“The value of citizenship has never been more widely recognized as it is today, but it only has value because there are rules governing it,” Alexander told the Star last year, rejecting the growing criticism and opposition to the act.

“Citizenship of course involves rights and enormous privileges in Canada, but it also, for those of us born here and for naturalized Canadians, involves responsibilities.

“This act reminds us where we come from and why citizenship has value. When we take on the obligations of citizens we’re following in the footsteps of millions of people who came here and made outstanding contributions over centuries. And we’re celebrating that diversity, solidifying the order and rule of law we have here.”

But according to Waldman, the law doesn’t do that at all, but rather creates two classes of citizens, a profoundly unfair process and exposes many Canadians to not only losing their citizenship without due process but also their rights to move and travel out of the country.

…“All Canadian citizens used to have the same citizenship rights, no matter what their origins,” says Josh Paterson, executive director of the BCCLA. “Now this new law has divided us into classes of citizens — those who can lose their citizenship and those who can’t. Bill C-24 is anti-immigrant, anti-Canadian, and anti-democratic. It undermines — quite literally — what it means to be Canadian.”

This is fundamentally an issue of equality, Paterson says in an interview with the Star.

Court challenge slams new Citizenship Act as ‘anti-Canadian’ | Toronto Star.

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Guest column: Canada’s migrant worker program a model for the world | Windsor Star

2015/08/21 1 Comment

Ken Enns, owner of Enns Plant Farm, on the need for Temporary Foreign Workers in the agriculture sector:

Our workers are here on eight-month contracts, can leave and go home at any time they want, must be paid minimum wage plus whatever bonus is negotiated, full health care coverage when they step off the plane, full workman’s compensation, free weekly transport to town for shopping and supplied living accommodations.

They go home after eight months with a very large amount of money to put their children through university, they support their families, send home generators, tools to start machine shops, home appliances and all the things they cannot get at home.

We have many workers who have applied to return now for 25 and 30 years in a row. They continually ask if they can bring more of their family members for the next year — hardly the request from a person who is a “slave,” as described in the article.

We have the finest labour program in the world and we should be holding it up as a model for the world to follow. This is how you treat and protect your migrant workers.

Instead of trashing the program, we should be increasing it. Instead of giving foreign aid to impoverished nations, we should have their people come here and we could get some benefit for all that aid.

Our industry is one of a very few that can compete with and do better than the Americans. Our labour program is one of the reasons.

Guest column: Canada’s migrant worker program a model for the world | Windsor Star.

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Adler won’t apologize for Holocaust reference

2015/08/21 Leave a comment

Questionable judgement. May be valid to note in a bio but on a sign?

Conservative candidate Mark Adler is defending a reference to the Holocaust on his campaign signage, which has led to claims that he’s exploiting an atrocity to win votes in the Toronto riding of York Centre.

A photo of one of Adler’s campaign signs has been making the rounds online; the sign makes the observation that he is “the son of a Holocaust survivor.” It caught the eye of The Walrus’ editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay, who posted photos of the sign on Twitter Sunday.

“Who needs Yad Vashem when Holocaust awareness is now being promoted on partisan Conservative signage?” Kay wrote on Twitter.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/08/17/adler-wont-apologize-for-holocaust-reference/ (paywall)

As Robyn Urback notes:

The problem is that his message still only speaks to a proportion of his constituents, and it loses all tact when it’s blown up to 30-inch text. What’s more, with the spotlight now pointed in his direction, Adler’s other claims have become the subject of scrutiny, including his long-held assertion that he is the first Canadian MP born to Holocaust survivors. According to the Canadian Jewish News, the designation actually belongs to former Liberal MP Raymonde Falco. None of this really matters, of course, except maybe to show how easily experiences are cheapened when they’re turned into mere talking points.
I have no doubt that Adler didn’t intend to trivialize the experience of the Holocaust by using it for partisan gain, but that also doesn’t really matter. In politics, perception trumps intention, and in this case, the delivery was about as tactful as listing colitis on the “about me” section of a dating profile. The fact that your parents were viciously persecuted during the Second World War isn’t exactly on the same level as a pledge to keep the “economy strong,” which is why they look so strange sharing space on a campaign billboard. Some things simply do not lend themselves to bullet points.

Were your parents chased by Nazis? Vote Tory

I never felt the fact that my maternal grandparents were killed during the Holocaust made me more or less qualified to represent the Government at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

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How to correctly engage with Catholicism and Islam in public commentary

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

Useful piece providing some guidance on how to discuss religion in public (leave it to my more religiously-literate readers to comment and correct):

Whether it’s same-sex marriage, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, deradicalisation programs or Islamic State (IS), academics and commentators have found a need to engage with religion. Some do so with an ease built from familiarity, others less smoothly.

The problems begin with a common view that those who study religion do so based upon faith requiring belief rather than scholarship. This misguided view encourages commentators who would otherwise hesitate to reach beyond their areas of expertise to weigh in on religion.

Yet the approaches used for the study of texts such as the Quran or Bible are no less rigorous than those employed in other legal and literary fields. Similar methodologies from anthropology, sociology and the political sciences are adapted to undertake research on religion.

But the allure to ignore this complexity appears too strong for some who borrow a few verses from the Quran to argue that Islam is a religion of peace or, vice versa, point to other verses suggesting it to be a religion of war. Others, upon hearing Pope Francis’ teachings on the environment, demand Catholic politicians’ adherence yet ignore the more authoritative teachings on abortion or same-sex marriage.

Left to the private sphere, as a spiritual belief, such mistakes would be the burden of the individual and the business of an imam or priest. But when public policy is being shaped it is incumbent upon public figures to be better versed. The below list responds to common mistakes that emerge when discussing Catholicism and Islam.

Roman Catholicism

  1. Quoting scripture in an effort to reinforce your argument.
  2. Referencing a pope’s encyclical as dogma for all Catholics.
  3. Quoting the Old Testament as a reference for Catholic dogma.

Islam

  1. Generalisations.
  2. Reading the text outside of the context.
  3. Confusing ideology with religion.
  4. Talking in a vacuum.

How to correctly engage with Catholicism and Islam in public commentary.

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Canada’s ethnic enclaves more diverse than you think, study finds

2015/08/20 1 Comment

Toronto Star coverage of the Dan Hiebert IRPP study:

The report by the Institute for Research on Public Policy found neighbourhoods with a dominant ethnic population are actually places of cultural diversity rather than cultural isolation. In fact, the average number of cultural backgrounds represented, even in enclaves, is close to 15, the study found.

And surprisingly, it also found that members of visible minorities who live in modern-day enclaves in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal are less likely to experience poverty than their counterparts who live outside them.

“The accelerated development of enclaves in Canadian metropolitan areas does not pose a threat but should instead be seen as an opportunity and a challenge,” said the study to be released by the Montreal-based think tank on Wednesday.

“Any assumption that enclaves are monocultural is decidedly incorrect. We see that in Montreal, enclaves are more diverse than other parts of the city, and in Toronto they are just as diverse as other parts of that city. Even in Vancouver, enclaves tend to be highly diverse social settings.”

Based on census data for 1996 to 2006 and the 2011 National Household Survey, University of British Columbia professor Daniel Hiebert examined whether enclaves are becoming more prominent in Canada’s urban landscape, the demographics of residents of these enclaves, and their relationship with poverty.

Greater Toronto’s social landscape changed rapidly between 1996 and 2006, when nearly two-thirds of the visible minority populations lived in areas where more than half of the population identified with a visible minority background.

In all, 3 million people in the GTA live in white-dominant areas, 1 million in mixed and visible-minority-dominant areas and 1.4 million in enclaves.

Canada’s ethnic enclaves more diverse than you think, study finds | Toronto Star.

Link to the study: Ethnocultural Minority Enclaves in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver

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Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

Good interview with Chris Boudreau who nails the problems with the Government’s approach:

Why are you opposed to Mr. Harper’s proposed law?

A few people have said it’s a great idea. But then I explain to them it’s smoke and mirrors because the politicians are not really doing anything about the problem. They’ve cut back all the programs in prisons for counselling. They’ve cut back a lot of resources for youth. That’s what they’ve done; it’s cut, cut, cut … [The politicians] are thinking, ‘We’ll give it harsh words and it will look like we’re doing something.’ The only way [the terrorists] are getting in is through other countries. So what are you going to do – stop them from going to the surrounding countries as well? It’s not well thought out. It’s just whole window dressing, smoke and mirrors. They can fool everybody because people are just not educated in this topic and that makes it easy for politicians to turn it around for an election program.

If the federal government passed a law forbidding travel to terrorist regions, would it make a difference?

A lot of the fixes and the laws and the rigidity, that’s at the back end. That’s dealing with the symptoms. The root cause of the problem is something completely different even if it’s not radicalization in this sense. And going over to join ISIS – you’re still looking at white supremacy on the rise and lots of other different cults. So there’s a root problem we really have to start looking at. We can’t just turn a blind eye and think that by throwing everybody in jail that fixes it.

Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban – The Globe and Mail.

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