Lyons, Cotler and Lew: To counter antisemitism, Canadians must first be able to recognize it

2024/11/13 Leave a comment

Op-ed promoting the antisemitism guidebook:

…Canadians should unite to combat antisemitism not only because it is an abhorrent, dangerous, and deadly prejudice, but because it is toxic to the very fabric of our democracy and society. Antisemitism is known as the “canary in the coal-mine” for all forms of hatred and intolerance – a weathervane for growing societal intolerance and prejudice – because what starts with the Jews does not end with the Jews.

Simply put, antisemitism is a threat not only to Jewish individuals and the Jewish community, but to Canadian society and democracy as a whole. Our hope is that the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Definition will be a valuable tool for Canadians seeking to combat this threat and address the rising tide of antisemitism.

Source: To counter antisemitism, Canadians must first be able to recognize it

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Keller: Donald Trump’s victory is about class, not race. And that’s a good thing

2024/11/13 Leave a comment

I would argue both but more discussion about class and less about identity is positive:

…A multiracial society is a lot more difficult to sustain if politics is fought over immutable characteristics, with skin colour or ethnicity dictating how I vote, and which party courts or targets me. Democrats have long accused the MAGA movement of being white supremacy on steroids, but more and more blue-collar voters of all races, particularly Hispanics, don’t see it that way. They see MAGA as a working-class movement.

It’s not a great thing for a society to have deep class divisions – but it’s a heck of a lot better than a deep racial divide. Class, in the U.S. and Canada, is not a fixed thing. It’s mutable, evolving and debatable. It’s about everything from lifestyle to mindset to culture, all which can and do change – unlike skin colour.

It’s notable that, while Ms. Harris and Democrats ran against the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that ruled against a constitutional right to abortion, they never mentioned the monumental 2023 Supreme Court decision that declared affirmative action in college admission unconstitutional. Race-blind admission is a popular policy, even in Democratic-controlled California, where whites are a minority.

In the years to come, Democrats and Republicans alike will continue to appeal to voters on the basis of tribal identities – small town versus city, college versus blue collar, conservative versus progressive. But electoral appeals based on race have become a lot less salient in American politics. That’s progress.

Source: Donald Trump’s victory is about class, not race. And that’s a good thing

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Trump is stacking his White House with immigration hawks

2024/11/13 Leave a comment

Will be a bumpy ride and the direction is clear. As the economic and human toll becomes clearer, there may be some pushback:

President-elect Donald Trump is set to install immigration hawks for two major White House roles, key positions that don’t require Senate confirmation and will enable them to enact his sweeping immigration agenda across the federal government.

Tom Homan, his pick for “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, his deputy White House chief of staff for policy, won’t formally helm any arms of government, but they are likely to carry enormous sway with cabinet secretaries and agency directors. They are expected to be viewed as the president’s direct emissaries, empowered to push for specific actions and track progress implementing Trump’s agenda.

But beyond DHS, they will likely take interest in the Department of Health and Human Services — which plays a role in handling refugee resettlement and unaccompanied migrant children — and the Labor Department, which issues key certifications for certain employment-based visa programs.

The State Department, which issues visas, will also be a focus, as will the Justice Department, which runs the immigration courts.

The expected installation of Homan and Miller signals Trump intends to deliver on his promise of mass deportations. The Trump transition didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Homan formerly headed the DHS division responsible for arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants. He spent much of his career working on immigration enforcement, holding leadership roles at Immigration and Customs Enforcement during both the Obama and Trump administrations.

And Miller has spent more than a decade in Washington working to reduce legal immigration to the United States and increase deportations. He was one of the earliest supporters of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid and has remained closely allied with the president through the tumultuous years since.

“Trump is clearly being far more deliberate about how he’s making his appointments and spending his time working with people he knows and trusts,” said Daniel Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for increased restrictions on immigration.

Source: Trump is stacking his White House with immigration hawks

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Su: Institutions, not international students, are to blame for rising asylum claims

2024/11/12 Leave a comment

A really good analysis of the data, highlighting the bad actors among public and private institutions. Of course, the main responsibility lies with federal and provincial governments for allowing this situation to develop; the institutions were just responding to the conditions (and incentives) set:

…Among educational institutions, we know who the bad actors are. See table 1.

Of the 650 designated learning institutes, 301 did not have a single study permit holder apply for asylum, IRCC data shows.

On the other hand, 80 institutions had more than 100 asylum claims each, which account for 77 per cent of total asylum applications. Within that, there are 16 institutions with more than 500 asylum claims each and four institutions with more than 1,000 claims each.

https://e.infogram.com/4d844113-a432-4f28-87dc-38d8f9bf2b92?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fnovember-2024%2Finstitutions-students-asylum%2F&src=embed#async_embed

The absolute number of asylum claims is high and the increase over the last seven years is steep, especially after 2022, when pandemic border restrictions were lifted. But the percentage of international students who applied for asylum is low.

https://e.infogram.com/c3343ba8-0a7d-4cde-98fb-2e0e9e6aa167?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fnovember-2024%2Finstitutions-students-asylum%2F&src=embed#async_embed

However, there were 37 institutions where 10 per cent or more of study-permit holders applied for asylum. Here are the 11 where the percentage was higher than 30 per cent:

https://e.infogram.com/6e093816-71ac-490d-94a4-9edf5c9a3d71?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fnovember-2024%2Finstitutions-students-asylum%2F&src=embed#async_embed

The high percentage of international students applying for asylum from these institutions could point to someone at the institution, or the institution itself, suggesting or assisting students with their applications.

Or the institution could be advertising to potential study-permit holders that applying for asylum once they arrive is a viable pathway to staying in Canada amid the changing policy environment.

Specifically, I found a handful of colleges where 100 per cent of their international students have claimed asylum in recent years.

In 2020, the Institute of Technology Development of Canada (ITD) had 10 study permits approved and 10 asylum claims made. In 2023, the Canadian Technology College had 10 study permits approved and 10 asylum claims made, while DEA Canadian College had five study permits approved and five asylum claims made.

More concerning is that while some institutions do not have a 100-per-cent asylum application rate among their study permit holders, their absolute numbers are high.

In 2024, CIMT College had 330 study permits approved and 280 asylum claims – an 85-per-cent rate.

The numbers are similar at the Canadian Career Education College, which had 265 study permits approved and 200 asylum claims made – a 75-per-cent rate. While it is unclear from the data what year the study-permit holders who applied for asylum got their study permits, the trend is worth examining…

Source: Institutions, not international students, are to blame for rising asylum claims

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Black and Arab people overrepresented in Quebec City police stops, data show 

2024/11/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

New data from Quebec City police show that Black, Arab and, to a lesser extent, Latino people are overrepresented in police stops, a recurring pattern across North America. Researchers and advocates say this is evidence of racial profiling, which the force denies.

The data, obtained by The Globe and Mail through an access to information request, break down by race the 4,567 stops done by Quebec City police between Jan. 1, 2023, and July 13, 2024.

They include street checks and arbitrary traffic stops conducted under a Highway Safety Code provision invalidated by the Quebec Superior Court in a landmark 2022 racial profiling case. Police continued to use the provision pending appeal by the Quebec government, but the Court of Appeal confirmed the lower court ruling in October. Street checks occur when police ask individuals to provide ID or other information without detaining or arresting them.

White people were under-represented in police stops, making up 83.1 per cent of stops, compared with 90.6 per cent of the Quebec City population, according to the 2021 census.

Source: Black and Arab people overrepresented in Quebec City police stops, data show

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Chris Selley: Imagine the chaos if Israeli soccer comes to Canada

2024/11/12 Leave a comment

Not an appealing thought experiment:

…It was a terribly grim landmark day for European Jews, and indeed for Europe in general. The World Jewish Congress estimates there are only about 30,000 Jews in the Netherlands: roughly one-eighth as many as in 1939, on the eve of the Holocaust. There might be even fewer than that in very short order, if Thursday’s madness becomes routine. Canadians, Jews especially, are right to wonder whether it could happen here.

The answer is, basically, sure it could. But it could also be prevented. And this should have been. It looks like a colossal failure of policing. It’s easy to say from a desk on the other side of the Atlantic, but this was entirely predictable.

Reports out of Amsterdam Wednesday night were alarmingly and obviously portentous of what occurred the next day. Some purported Maccabi-supporting hooligans had assaulted a taxi driver and ripped down Palestinian flags, while chanting anti-Palestinian slogans.

Even if it weren’t true, the fact those stories were out there in the wild should have been reason enough to expect retaliation — and then some.

Clearly what happened Thursday night isn’t primarily about soccer. It’s about primordial hatred. But alas, soccer incubates primordial hatred. That’s true within the Netherlands: Ajax supporters, few of whom are Jewish, have traditionally embraced the team’s Jewish roots (they often refer to themselves as “the Jews”) and their rivals — especially supporters of Rotterdam club Feyenoord — have often taunted Ajax with antisemitic chants like “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas, followed by a hissing noise. From a North American perspective, it’s almost beyond belief.

…It’s not inconceivable that Israel might qualify for the 2026 World Cup, and that it might play one or more games in Toronto or Vancouver. I shudder to imagine what that would look like. Police don’t just need to be prepared for serious Amsterdam-style violence; they, and their political overseers, need somehow to convince Canadian Jews and their friends that they’re actually safe. It’s a tough job, nowadays.

Source: Chris Selley: Imagine the chaos if Israeli soccer comes to Canada

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Statelessness in Canada Webinar: My Analysis of Self-Reported and Operational Data

2024/11/12 Leave a comment

The Lanark & Renfrew LIP organized a webinar, Statelessness: A Global, a Canadian, and a Human Perspective, featuring Deny Dobobrov: Director of International Relations, World Roma Federation, Jamie Chai Yun Lew: Author, Professor, and Lawyer, University of Ottawa and myself.

My presentation is below:

Statelessless StatisticsDownload

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Coyne: The U.S. election shows that sometimes the people get it wrong

2024/11/11 Leave a comment

One of his better columns. Many other examples, Brexit being perhaps one of the best among Western countries:

…But that is an entirely separate question from whether it is rational, in response, to vote for a candidate such as Mr. Trump. The Biden administration made its share of mistakes; Ms. Harris has her flaws; the American economy could be performing better (though quite honestly it’s hard to see how); identity politics has a lot to answer for. But the notion that any of these, or all of them, represent such a dire threat, such an emergency, as to justify a “remedy” such as Mr. Trump – there is no other word for this but irrational.

It is not polite to say this. The notion that “the people are always right” is a staple of democratic discourse. And there is much truth in this. Indeed, I have often been forced to acknowledge it myself – the issue in which I had been so heavily invested, the factors that I had felt sure really ought to decide this or that election, proved, in the fullness of time, not to be of such overwhelming importance as all that, at least when set beside all the many other issues and considerations that combine, by some extraordinary alchemy, to produce a vote.

The average voter, busy as they are with the regular distractions of life, may take a broader and I dare say better view of things than the full-time pundit, too caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of politics. But it is not necessarily true, always and everywhere. Indeed, it can’t be true for all voters – in any election, the abiding wisdom of the majority must be set against what is presumably the abject folly of the minority.

Who’s to say we must necessarily pay homage to the former, just because they slightly outnumber the latter? Sometimes the people – some of the people at any rate – get it wrong. Especially the people who say the reason they voted for Donald Trump is that he is a “man of God,” or will “get tough with Russia,” or “cares about people like me.”

It is expected of politicians, especially losing politicians, that they must nevertheless grit their teeth and mouth the words, “The people are always right.” But such pieties are not required of columnists.

Source: The U.S. election shows that sometimes the people get it wrong

Filed under Politics Tagged with ,

Khrushcheva: Enablers, profit-mongers and blind believers sent Trump back to the White House

2024/11/11 Leave a comment

One of the more mordant commentaries:

…Mr. Trump had plenty of help in converting voters to his debauched religion. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch’s highly profitable propaganda machine, distorted discourse and stoked outrage. Tech billionaires supported Mr. Trump’s rise more directly – Elon Musk was Mr. Trump’s second-largestfinancial backer – in the hopes of benefiting from a deregulation spree. (Tesla shares have already surged.) Such tech titans – together with the silent powerbrokers of Wall Street, like Jamie Dimon – are the modern American equivalents of the German business leaders who thought they could control Adolf Hitler. Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans are under no such illusions, which helps to explain why even those who once attempted to challenge him have rolled over.

Cowardly Republican politicians have helped Mr. Trump to shake the political radioactivity that should have engulfed him after he incited his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The next day, figures like Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham finally seemed prepared to wash their hands of Mr. Trump. But days later, they refused to vote for his impeachment. And when Mr. Trump launched his campaign for the party’s nomination again, they quickly fell into line. Nobody wants to be on a dictator’s bad side. And, given the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting the president virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, Mr. Trump will be nothing if not a dictator.

How did it come to this? A majority of white Americans have lost faith in their country. Members of the profit-hungry business elite have gained an unfettered ability to use their pocketbooks to shape politics. And Republican politicians have sacrificed their own integrity – and American democracy – at the altar of power.

Source: Enablers, profit-mongers and blind believers sent Trump back to the White House

Filed under Politics Tagged with ,

Layoffs on the table for permanent government employees as part of spending review

2024/11/11 Leave a comment

These will be mild compared to what is likely coming under a likely Conservative government:

The federal government has been looking for ways to tighten its budget and curb the size of the public service, which has swelled in recent years. While the Liberal government has said it would do so through attrition and hiring freezes, cutting the jobs of permanent government employees wasn’t on the table.

But Canada’s biggest public sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), says that no longer seems to be the case.

During a meeting on Thursday between Treasury Board officials and PSAC, the union said it was told the government will be  “widening the net” to reduce its spending, looking to cut term and casual employees and “opening the door for departments to slash permanent employees” through layoffs.

The union said the Liberal government has assigned budget reduction targets “in salary line items” to federal departments. But it has not released those targets, claiming they were protected under Cabinet privilege and would only be made public in June 2025.

“It’s just really disappointing that, once again, there’s this doublespeak from the federal government,” said PSAC’s national executive vice-president Alex Silas, who noted that the government said the meeting was not a consultation.

Silas said the idea of cutting casual and term positions “is bad enough,” but the idea of cutting permanent positions is “shameful.” He said there was a lack of detail in the government’s presentation about the potential cuts, but that departments and agencies were coming up with their own plans and were “encouraged” to consult with unions.

In April, the federal government announced it would seek to cut the size of the public service by 5,000 full-time positions primarily through natural attrition over the course of four years, as part of an effort to save $15.8 billion over five years and reallocate it elsewhere.

According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the size of the public service in 2024 is 367,772—up from 300,450 in 2020….

Source: Layoffs on the table for permanent government employees as part of spending review

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

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