Harper government back in the middle of historic Turkey-Armenia dispute

2015/04/25 Leave a comment

Not an easy issue to stickhandle, given the Harper government’s strong public profile on the Armenian genocide. However, a full minister vs a junior minister sends the signal:

The Harper government is sending Immigration Minister Chris Alexander to Armenia to attend the commemoration of the 1915 massacre of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks. It’s a historic tragedy that Ottawa calls genocide, to the anger of Turkey.

Meanwhile, junior foreign affairs minister Lynne Yelich is off to Turkey to lead Canada’s delegation, including veterans of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, at ceremonies marking the centenary of the start of the Gallipoli campaign.

Canada’s position is noticed by both sides. The Conservatives have publicly endorsed the Armenian view that the 1915 slaughter of 1.5 million people was genocide. The label has strained relations between Canada and Turkey, which wants the Harper government to change its stand.

Armenia and Turkey both invited Gov. Gen. David Johnston to their events, but he chose to attend a Gallipoli ceremony at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa on Saturday.

Armenian ambassador Armen Yeganian said his government is more than pleased that a “high-level” representative from the Harper cabinet will be in Armenia.

From a diaspora politics perspective, the Armenian Canadian community is twice as large, more politically active and more established than the Turkish Canadian community.

Harper government back in the middle of historic Turkey-Armenia dispute – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Multiculturalism

Parent group to put kids on strike to protest Ontario sex-ed

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

The multicultural defence against Ontario’s new sex education curriculum:

Omar Kasmieh, 35, one of the organizers of the strike, said some parents feel some of the subject matter does not reflect their culture or will be taught too early.

“There are a lot of parents coming from different backgrounds that don’t feel this is consistent with their beliefs,” he said. “There’s material that’s considered age inappropriate. … Canada is a multicultural society and they need to honour that.

“The hope is to for the ministry to realize that there are a significant number of parents who are not happy [with the curriculum].”

More than 4,500 people have liked the Facebook group’s page. Pictures of the flyers have accumulated about 1,800 likes and have been shared almost 2,500 times.

Mr. Kasmieh is a physician in Syria and is planning to get his medical license in Canada. This year, he will graduate from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. He said he believes the number of people who are unhappy is higher than the number who have liked the Facebook page because some don’t have access to social media.

He said parents who take their children out of school should instruct them at home so they don’t fall behind.

“We want kids to be educated in the public system, and pulling kids out of school for homeschooling isn’t a good option for parents. We trust our school system and know it’s the best environment for our kids, but parents are also educators and there should be more open dialogue,” Mr. Kasmieh said.

Some parents have said they don’t feel that the government included them in the conversation on how their children should be taught on the sensitive issue and that the program should not be implemented in September.

Mr. Kasmieh said the ministry should have prepared a briefing to the public on the new curriculum and released a draft.

The problem is that most parents behind such opposition likely are uncomfortable with any form of sex education. And of course parents can opt-out their kids out.

Multiculturalism can be used to justify accommodation (which opting out is one form) but cannot be used to impose the views of more traditional communities, or members of communities, on the broader population.

Parent group to put kids on strike to protest Ontario sex-ed – The Globe and Mail.

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Terry Glavin: Canada’s unhappy affair with China’s princeling millionaires

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

Terry Glavin on the set-for-abuse investor immigrant program, cancelled by the Conservatives and refashioned to address some of the abuse (not convinced that the new Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Pilot Program will completely address some of these issues):

To give you a sense of how absurdly the taboo had throttled Canadian debates it’s instructive to recall the rubbish that was uttered when Harper finally got around to shutting it all down last year with a resolve to start from scratch. Vancouver MP Don Davies, the New Democrats’ international trade critic, accused the government of “damaging Canada’s economy and trade relationships.” Then there was Liberal warhorse John McCallum (Markham—Unionville): “Are Conservatives inadvertently picking on Chinese people?”

China’s massive Operation Skynet fraud squad is now rummaging through Vancouver’s real estate industry. British Columbia’s police agencies won’t say whether they’re cooperating, but even if they were it wouldn’t be easy work. Over its final decade or so, the Immigrant Investor Program drew more than 30,000 Chinese millionaires to British Columbia.

Just one of the unseemly costs of Ottawa’s wheel-greasing for Beijing’s princelings is a sum that might well amount to billions of dollars in no-interest loans that should have gone to British Columbia’s provincial treasury. Instead, the money got spent on thousands of back-door keys the Canada-Quebec Accord made available with a wink and a nod to Chinese millionaires bound for Vancouver, in transit through Montreal.

It says something unflattering all round that what we know now about Canada’s immigrant-investor courtship of Beijing’s princelings is mainly due to the courage and persistence of a single reporter

Contrast that with the marquee billing given to the gluttonous wastrel Mike Duffy, a senator facing criminal charges that may or may not involve the prime minister’s former chief of staff having improperly repaid the federal treasury for travel and living expenses that Duffy may or may not have improperly billed the taxpayer, to the amount of $90,000. It’s a gripping yarn and dozens of journalists are on the story, but it says something unflattering all round that what we know now about Canada’s immigrant-investor courtship of Beijing’s princelings is mainly due to the courage and persistence of a single reporter.

Ian Young, Vancouver correspondent for the South China Morning Post, has been almost alone in chasing down the immigrant investor scandal. It was Young who recently ferreted out the data demonstrating that Canada’s investor class immigrants, about 80 per cent of whom are Chinese millionaires, appear to have contributed less to the federal treasury over the past quarter of a century in tax on earnings than the bedraggled refugees Canada admitted over that period.

Nobody seems to even know where all these bigshot investors have gone. Surveys by the China Merchants Bank show that nearly a quarter of Mainland China’s millionaires had already emigrated by 2013, but vacancy rates in Vancouver’s posh new condo districts are perhaps 30 per cent. The city doesn’t keep track, but University of British Columbia geography professor David Ley has been tracing the relationship between the rise in Vancouver residential property prices and the influx of immigrant investors over the years. The lines run in direct lockstep.

Terry Glavin: Canada’s unhappy affair with China’s princeling millionaires

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

UK: Anjem Choudary claims all Muslim MPs and voters are ‘apostates’ sinning against Islam

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

Hardly representative of most Muslims in the UK, and sharp contrast to Canadian Imams who call for Muslims to vote (Ontario imams to urge Muslims vote in federal election):

Hard to know why someone like that remains in a liberal democracy rather than choosing to living in a Muslim majority country. But for ideologues and fundamentalists like him, no country will be “pure” enough in its application of Islamic practices:

Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has claimed that all Muslim MPs and voters are “apostates” as the general election approaches.

Writing on Twitter that voting is a “sin” against Islam, he argued that Parliament violated religious law because Allah is “the only legislator”.

Mr Choudary wrote: “The only excuse is for a new Muslim or someone totally ignorant about voting and also what’s known from Islam by necessity.”

In a stream of messages using the #StayMuslimDontVote hashtag, the cleric called Muslims who vote or run as an MP are “apostates”, meaning they have abandoned their beliefs.

Anyone doing so does not believe that Allah is the “only, exclusive legislator and commander” and is therefore a “kaafir” (disbeliever), he claimed.

Mr Choudary, who has headed banned groups including Islam4UK and al-Muhajiroun, instructed his followers not to follow any imams who tell them voting is religiously permitted.

It comes after his group released a series of videos as part of the campaign discouraging British Muslims from taking part in the democratic process, while other organisations encourage them to vote.

Anjem Choudary claims all Muslim MPs and voters are ‘apostates’ sinning against Islam – General Election 2015 – UK Politics – The Independent.

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Clement: “I’m here also for the public servant who wants to work hard, who needs sick benefits when they are truly sick.”

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

Really?

When I was truly sick (cancer), I could use my bank of sick days (and it was considerable) as well as drawing upon discretionary sick leave for executives on full salary, before going on long-term disability at 70 percent salary.

So these and related changes impact upon those with catastrophic illnesses in a very material way, not just curbing abuse (of which there is some):

But the government doesn’t necessarily expect to realize the full $900 million in savings, Treasury Board President Tony Clement said Wednesday after the weekly Conservative caucus meeting.

“The budget is the budget, and the savings are the savings,” Clement said. “But there is some breathing room for me recognized in that calculation.”

The government has told civil service unions it expects to eliminate the system that allows public servants to bank sick days and carry them over from year to year.

Ottawa is hoping instead to provide short-term disability benefits through an insurance company.

Talks have been going on for the last year and are expected to last until at least June with 47 meeting days scheduled to take place, on top of the nearly 200 negotiating sessions that have been held so far.

Clement said he wants to bargain in good faith, even though the government is already counting the $900 million in savings from future sick leave liability toward its projected $1.4-billion surplus in 2015-16.

“They clearly want a Liberal or an NDP government to negotiate with, who will roll over and accept their positions,” Clement said of the unions with which he is bargaining.

“I’m here for the taxpayer,” he said. “I’m here also for the public servant who wants to work hard, who needs sick benefits when they are truly sick.”

Clement says public servants’ sick days an easy target for cuts (paywall)

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Bernard Drainville se retire de la course

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

The coronation continues:

« J’y allais pour gagner. Ceux qui me connaissent savent que je joue pour gagner. Toujours. J’ai tout donné, comme mon équipe, mais il faut se rendre à l’évidence: dans les dernières semaines, le vote s’est cristallisé et Pierre-Karl a rassemblé une nette majorité derrière lui », a déclaré M. Drainville lors d’une conférence de presse mercredi après-midi. « Continuer la course en sachant cela n’aurait pas eu de sens. Pour continuer, y’aurait fallu mener une campagne très dure, trop dure. Il ne faut pas être trop égoïste là-dedans. Il faut penser à l’équipe, à notre parti et à la cause qu’on porte », a-t-il ajouté.

À ce moment-ci, cinq des sept députés ayant donné leur appui à sa candidature gagneront aussi le camp de M. Péladeau. Il s’agit de Sylvain Gaudreault (Jonquière), Alain Therrien (Sanguinet), Mathieu Traversy (Terrebonne), Sylvain Roy (Bonaventure) et Guy Leclair (Beauharnois) font partie du lot. Les députes d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Carole Poirier, et de Berthier, André Villeneuve, poursuivaient quant à eux leur réflexion mercredi après-midi.

La décision de Bernard Drainville suscite l’étonnement dans les rangs du PQ. L’élu de Marie-Victorin avait recommandé jeudi dernier aux militants péquistes de ne pas céder « à la tentation de s’accrocher à un sauveur », qui pourrait n’être qu’« un mirage », mais plutôt de choisir un chef capable de faire gagner le PQ « au jour un ». M. Drainville a ouvert trois jours plus tard (dimanche) un local de campagne dans l’arrondissement de Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve à Montréal. Pourtant, il songeait déjà à abandonner la course à la chefferie. Ses députés alliés ont été associés à sa réflexion lundi et mardi.

« J’ai rapidement réuni mon équipe et nous avons convenu que notre tâche pour la suite était de continuer à porter nos idées, tout en amorçant dès maintenant le rassemblement. J’ai rencontré Pierre-Karl et nous avons eu des discussions très franches et amicales pour éclaircir certaines questions et préparer la suite. Je dois dire que ça a porté ses fruits », a soutenu M. Drainville, accompagné de sa garde rapprochée.

Bernard Drainville se retire de la course | Le Devoir.

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Time for a new kind of black activism in Toronto

2015/04/23 Leave a comment

Interesting how the young activists feel that they are not recognized, welcomed or listened to by the current generation:

We are graduate students whose work, as well as experience, has made us acutely aware of the plights facing black youth within a society that privileges certain groups over others. We are aware that black youth are under-represented among post-secondary graduates and in the workforce, and overrepresented in the criminal justice system. And we are working alongside members of our community to address these issues. If the older generation of activists has not noticed our work or that of our cohorts it may because ours is, for our community, a new kind of more democratic activism.

Perhaps the most surprising comments in the Star article came from Valerie Steele, president of the Jamaican Diaspora Canada Foundation, whose work we greatly admire. She added her voice to the chorus lamenting the lack of young black leaders. But we had met with Steele before the article came out and explained to her our concern that too many black youth feel isolated and marginalized from the activist community. That too many of these older activists seem to fail to understand the needs and realities of black youth and in so doing actively stifle their voices.

It’s time for the current generation of activists to open the space for young voices, to democratically engage the youth they claim to champion. We strongly believe that the next generation of black leadership must work in concert with those who have slipped through the cracks or who are on the margins of society. Only then can we claim truly to represent our community.

As our antecedents have recognized, the only way to effect meaningful change is to have grassroots-level organizing. To this end, we have established the Jamaican Canadian Youth Council, a youth-led organization. We seek to establish ourselves as a supportive agent to empower, mobilize and motivate young people across Ontario to work collaboratively toward creating programs to generate change.

We know this can work because we’ve seen it happen. Contrary to what the older generation of activists is saying, there is an impressive group of emerging leaders who not only work for the community’s marginalized youth, but with them.

Time for a new kind of black activism in Toronto | Toronto Star.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

SwiftKey Emoji Report – World Patterns of Use

2015/04/23 Leave a comment

Interesting reading and yet another indicator of attitudes (little surprise between the similarity between Canadians and Americans). Of course, this is among those who use emojis, so likely skewed towards a younger demographic:

  • Canadians score highest in emoji categories some may consider to be more American (money, raunchy, violent, sports)
  • French use four times as many heart emoji than other languages, and it’s the only language for which a ‘smiley’ is not #1
  • Flowers and plants emoji are used at more than 4X the average rate by Arabic speakers
  • Russian speakers use three times as much romantic emoji than the average
  • Australia’s emoji use characterizes it as the land of vice & indulgence, using
    double the average amount of alcohol-themed emoji, 65% more drug emoji than average and leading for both junk food and holiday emoji
  • Americans lead for a random assortment of emoji & categories, including skulls, birthday cake, fire, tech, LGBT, meat and female-oriented emoji

http://www.scribd.com/doc/262594751/SwiftKey-Emoji-Report 

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German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism

2015/04/23 Leave a comment

Australia’s wartime internment and related measures in relation to the German Australian community.

In comparison, Canada had just over 8,500 internees, 5,000 of which were Ukrainian origin, 2,000 German origin. But Canada did not expel them after the war unlike Australia (or unlike many Japanese Canadians ‘encouraged’ to return to Japan following their internment during WW II):

In total, 6890 persons were interned in Australia during the war, including 67 women and 84 children. Despite the official designation “prisoners of war” given to them by the Commonwealth authorities, the internees were mostly civilian Australian residents. They included approximately 700 “naturalised British subjects” and some 70 “native-born British subjects” who were Australian by birth, sometimes second- or even third-generation Australians of German ancestry.

At the end of the war, a total of 6150 persons were “repatriated” – that is, summarily shipped to Germany: a mass deportation unparalleled in Australian history. Of these, 5414 had been interned, the others were family members or non-interned “ex-enemy aliens” who either accepted the government’s offer to be repatriated or were ordered to leave the country.

Six hundred and ninety-nine people were compulsorily deported. The internees who had been brought to Australia from British dominions overseas were not allowed to return to their previous places of residence. They were all summarily deported.

Most of the internees consented to leave Australia voluntarily. They were convinced that there was no future for them in a country that had robbed them of their rights and freedom. A few protested and appealed to stay, only to be rejected by the Aliens Tribunal that had been set up by the Department of Defence.

The tribunal, consisting of a single magistrate, rubber-stamped the applications according to the guidelines issued by the government. As a rule, businessmen and importers were to be deported, while farmers – who were said to “have shown themselves of less potential danger than the German businessman” – were allowed to stay, unless there were unspecified “special reasons”.

Workingmen were to be deported “if there seems to be any doubt of their obtaining regular employment” after the war. Here, as elsewhere, the official language with its curious linguistic construction – that is, some individuals had shown themselves to be less potentially dangerous – reveals the real political motivation hiding behind the bureaucratic rhetoric.

German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism.

Filed under Historical Recognition Tagged with ,

George Takei And Company To Hollywood Gatekeepers: Fix Your Diversity Problem

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

More on the lack of diversity in Hollywood:

Remember that Deadline article from a few weeks back? In which the writer pointed out that Hollywood is diversifying — and claimed that’s a bad thing?

At least one good thing may come of it:

A media coalition of multi-ethnic Hollywood watchdogs — including the American Indians in Film and Television, Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, NAACP Hollywood Bureau and National Hispanic Media Coalition — is calling on the industry’s talent agencies to meet with the coalition and talk about how to inject more color into their lineups, not less.

“Although the major talent agencies are located in Los Angeles, the most diverse city in the world, they seem largely unaware of the amazing talent that exists in communities right under their noses,” actor and activist George Takei said in the group’s press release. “They should partner with these coalitions for their mutual benefit: more representation and jobs for Asian American and other actors of color, and more dollars for the agencies.”

A recent report from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the majority-white lineup of Hollywood’s most elite talent agencies is where the industry’s lack of diversity comes from.

“Despite modest gains in a few areas, minority talent remained underrepresented on every front at the dominant agencies,” the researchers wrote. In 2013, for instance, ethnic minorities made up about 40 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for only 17 percent of film roles.

These agencies control the playing field, reports Dennis Romero for the LA Weekly. “They send out agency-approved lists of directors and talent. They ‘package’ deals with studios that bring pre-selected producers, directors and leading actors to the table. And they foster rising stars. From what we’ve been told, none of those pursuits includes many people of color.”

The conversation rages on, but it’s worth noting that we’ve been here before. Earlier this month, Code Switch’s Gene Demby wrote that “this isn’t the first time prime-time TV has gone through a wave of brownification; in fact, network TV was way, way browner 20 years ago than it is today.”

George Takei And Company To Hollywood Gatekeepers: Fix Your Diversity Problem : Code Switch : NPR.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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