From Afghanistan to Iraq, the perils of overconfidence – Brian Stewart

2015/03/20 Leave a comment

Brian Stewart’s commentary on the recent audit on the aid program in Afghanistan and a reminder for the need for greater policy modesty:

My own view, shared by many others, is that central to Canada’s problem was an overconfident, relentless boosterism around this mission that was encouraged, even demanded, throughout by Ottawa.

“We went into a complex country without a proper strategy and this was a major problem. And there was over-optimism so we were not looking at the status of the insurgency,” Nipa Banerjee, who ran our aid there between 2003 and 2006, told Canadian Press this week.

In later years, the sunny Canadian outlook often astonished even NATO allies.

Chris Alexander, then our senior diplomat in Kabul and now the minister of citizenship and immigration, is remembered in one British memoir as “among the most persuasive of the optimists, and in many ways the golden boy of the effort in Afghanistan … a formidable operator who never let much check his unquenchable optimism.”

For many of Canada’s allies, our military and aid officials in Afghanistan simply ignored a trilogy of inconvenient facts: that the West didn’t have the military or civilian capacity necessary for the challenge at hand; that the Afghans were in no position to take over any time soon; and that the Taliban grew stronger thanks to sanctuaries in neighbouring Pakistan.

Some may be asking themselves if these elements, including overconfidence, apply to what looks to be our expanding war against ISIS in Iraq and possibly Syria.

One dark irony of this period was that the Conservative government and other ardent supporters of the war often criticized the media for being too pessimistic in its Afghan coverage.

The reality is most media were far too pliant and unquestioning of a military-civilian mission that, with rare exceptions, hid behind the false-confidence curtain dictated by Ottawa.

Understandably, many Canadians want to put that far-off war behind us and forget. But we simply can’t ignore the lessons learned about the cost of our simplistic over-optimism if we’re to avoid similar mistakes in Iraq or other campaigns to come.

From Afghanistan to Iraq, the perils of overconfidence – World – CBC News.

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Pierre Karl Péladeau says immigration hurts Quebec sovereignty

2015/03/20 Leave a comment

Just after he backed off a more comprehensive Quebec Values Charter in favour of the Bouchard Taylor approach, he does a Parizeau in his remarks on immigration and the ethnic vote:

Parti Québécois leadership candidate Pierre Karl Péladeau says he believes immigration is seriously compromising the province’s ability to achieve sovereignty.

The perceived front-runner in the contest to lead the separatist provincial party took that position Wednesday evening in a PQ leadership debate at Laval University in Quebec City.

“We don’t have 25 years ahead of us to achieve it. With demographics, with immigration, we’re definitely losing one riding each year,” Péladeau told a room of 350 people.

He said the PQ could be in danger of disappearing if immigrants continue to come to the province in great numbers.

Quebec would love to control immigration, he said; however, the PQ should not have any illusions about who really controls the number of newcomers to the province.

“Who’s responsible for the immigrants who come and settle in Quebec? It’s the federal government,” Péladeau said.

All the other leadership candidates took issue with his remarks.

Bernard Drainville, Alexandre Cloutier, Pierre Céré and Martine Ouellet all spoke about the PQ’s need to welcome immigrants and incorporate them into their sovereignty solution by showing them how great Quebec as a country could be.

Ironic that he was attacked by Drainville, the main advocate of the Quebec Values Charter.

Pierre Karl Péladeau says immigration hurts Quebec sovereignty – Montreal – CBC News.

French version here, with the comments of the other PQ leadership candidates:

Son rival Alexandre Cloutier, son interlocuteur lors de ce face à face, a promptement exprimé son désaccord.

«Pour moi, l’immigration n’a rien à voir là-dedans, a-t-il affirmé. Moi, je rêve de rallier tous les Québécois sans exception et je rêve que le PQ soit représentatif de l’ensemble de la population telle qu’elle existe.»

Au terme des échanges, le jeune candidat s’est dit «surpris» par les propos de M. Péladeau. Il a précisé qu’à ses yeux, les néo-Québécois «ne sont pas des adversaires».

Les autres adversaires du député de Saint-Jérôme ont également dénoncé ses commentaires.

«Notre responsabilité comme hommes et femmes politiques, c’est de convaincre nos concitoyens, a dit Bernard Drainville. Et moi, je ne fais aucune distinction entre un concitoyen dont les ancêtres sont arrivés ici en 1650 et un autre concitoyen dont la famille est arrivée à Dorval la semaine passée.»

«Les nouveaux Québécois, il faut travailler avec eux, a renchéri Martine Ouellet. Je pense que l’immigration est une force au Québec.»

Pierre Céré a dénoncé au cours du débat le «repli identitaire» opéré ces dernières années par le PQ. Au terme de la soirée, il a jugé que les commentaires du meneur de la course sont «extrêmement malheureux et extrêmement dommageables» pour le parti.

«C’est le malaise, a dit M. Céré. Non seulement ce qui a été dit l’a été de façon maladroite, je crois, mais c’est qu’une partie de la salle a applaudi. Et les propos étaient assez clairs et limpides.»

Questionné sur ses déclarations, M. Péladeau a affirmé en fin de soirée qu’il n’avait aucune intention de présenter les immigrants comme une menace pour le projet indépendantiste. Il a dit vouloir améliorer l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants.

«Le Québec s’est enrichi de la diversité des gens qui sont venus s’y installer, a-t-il dit. Et jamais, d’aucune façon, nous n’allons cesser cette richesse, cet enrichissement lié à l’augmentation de la diversité.»

La souveraineté minée par la démographie et l’immigration, dit Péladeau

 

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Tory-linked charity behind monument declared it was not active politically

2015/03/20 Leave a comment

Another illustration that charities chosen for CRA audits, and those not chosen, appear to reflect ideological or political criteria:

The charity behind the campaign to erect a monument to the victims of communism has declared zero political activity in its five-year history, even though it originally told the Canada Revenue Agency some of its work would be political.

A review of Tribute to Liberty’s official filings with the CRA reveals a clear intention to engage in political activity. When asked if it planned to engage in political activities, it answered “Yes” in its 2009 application for charitable status. It said this would involve contacting MPs and senators to gain their support for the project.

Yet, in the five years that followed, the charity answered “No” each time it was asked by the CRA in annual reporting forms whether it conducted political activity.

Dozens of Canadian charities have faced scrutiny since the 2012 Conservative budget set aside $8-million for CRA audits to determine whether they are following rules regarding political activity. The CRA has not published a list of the 60 charities it has identified for auditing. However, some of the groups that said they were audited were critical of government policy. The CRA has rejected suggestions the selection was politically motivated.

Tory-linked charity behind monument declared it was not active politically – The Globe and Mail.

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‘Behind Sweden’s tirade is a hidden Western agenda to tarnish Islam’ | Arab News

2015/03/20 Leave a comment

A reminder of some of the beliefs of those allied in the fight against ISIS and their denial of universal human rights:

Sweden and other Western countries have adopted double standards while dealing with human rights as they ignore the killing of thousands in Iraq, Syria and Palestine, and highlight the flogging of an individual in Saudi Arabia as a big issue, said Dr. Mohammed Badahdah, assistant secretary general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

Speaking to Arab News, he emphasized that Saudi Arabia’s rules and regulations as well as its judicial system are based on the Qur’an and Sunnah or Shariah. “Shariah laws are not made by Parliament or people’s representatives. They are divine laws given by the Almighty for the welfare and security of the whole humanity,” he explained.

“It’s the duty of all countries and societies to respect religious faiths, beliefs and cultures of different communities in order to promote peace and stability in the world,” Badahdah said while denouncing Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s anti-Saudi tirade.

“We are not imposing Shariah on others. Why do then Sweden and other Western countries criticize the Kingdom when we are implementing Shariah in accordance with our faith? This is clear interference in our internal affairs and Saudi Arabia will not tolerate such attacks,” he said.

‘Behind Sweden’s tirade is a hidden Western agenda to tarnish Islam’ | Arab News.

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The Demonization of Stephen Harper

2015/03/20 1 Comment

This is quite an (unintentionally) funny piece in its innuendo regarding unnamed former clerks, its many assertions (anecdote-based, bien sûr) and its systematic ignoring any evidence regarding flaws in the Government’s policy process or substance.

While some of the points regarding officials are valid (indeed I argued some myself in Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism), this article has little nuance or balance.

And publishing under a nom de plume, hiding behind anonymity, is at best cowardly, at worst unethical, whether in social media or sites like this:

Retired senior federal public servants stand as an interesting révélateur of the true mindset of the senior Canadian federal public service. With retirement comes the possibility of speaking up, after years of extramural discretion on matters of partisan politics. It is not that active senior public servants have no view on these matters, but in a system that is supposed to have a professional non-partisan public service, such views are expected to be toned down (if not suppressed) at least externally when federal public servants are on active duty.

However, when senior federal public servants formally retire these days, many do not really retire. On the basis of their former status, they seek employment in a variety of positions outside the federal public service: lobbyists for industry, return to private practice for lawyers who might procure access to government officials, refugee in academe, etc.. From such new perches, they have a much greater licence to speak on any matters they feel strongly about – whether these views are competent and informed or not.

The wise ones remain quite discrete in retirement, for they feel they have a devoir de réserve. But most are not that wise. They rather sense that their special status as certified mandarins in the federal public service for a while, stands as a proof that they can be presumed to be, in their own mind at least, better informed and wiser than most. This status is perceived as carrying with it a responsibility to remain on guard for us, lesser Canadians, even in their new civilian life

Indeed, this special status has often been the major asset they have displayed to persuade their new bosses of their value-adding capabilities. Such special status is undoubtedly real when it comes to the personal links mandarins have retained with senior public servants still in active duties – and their ability to parlay such intelligence into advantages in their new positions – privileged access that can be used by universities, law firms, lobby firms, etc. for their own benefits.

But such mundane advantages are usually not the main asset that retired mandarins claim to possess. They most often feel that their tenure and experience as mandarins have definitely established them as persons of superior quality whose storytelling and judgments have greater intrinsic value than those of ordinary citizens on any matter they choose to address.

So certain former clerks of Privy Council, not especially known for their great wisdom when in active duty, but rather more for their craftiness and disingenuity, have had no hesitation, in retirement, in trotting themselves out into the public forum to denounce actions of the government now in place, on the sole basis of their supposed former moral authority being sufficient for their views to be regarded as consequential if not canonical.

One can certainly point to some former senior federal civil servants who have, in retirement, demonstrated their extraordinary intellectual resourcefulness by impressive endeavours: path-breaking books, enlightening papers, imaginative initiatives, etc. But most have not shined in that way. They have simply parlayed their former overblown status into financially profitable sinecures in organizations naïve enough to believe that their ‘greatness’ would be value-adding somewhat in the new setting.

Such matters however are only of interest to the chroniclers in the social pages of the Ottawa daily newspapers. What is much more interesting is the storytelling of those retired mandarins.

The demonization of Stephen Harper (free but requires login)

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Michael Den Tandt: The Conservatives have Canadians soaking in fear

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Funny and pointed commentary by Den Tandt:

Despite the psychological edge conferred on ISIS militants by illiteracy, innumeracy, zealotry and plain old stupidity, they really are not able to defeat the combined militaries of the whole world, led by the U.S. Air Force, which owns the sky and space. Yet here we are, locked in a stalemate, a token war in which Canada is participating with half-a-dozen old fighter jets, transport planes and a single company of soldiers. If the threat to our nation were pervasive, we’d have more invested — no disrespect to the Canadians serving valiantly over there now. But the fear certainly feels pervasive.

Next on the list of Things of Which We Should be Terrified comes the home-grown ISIS militant: Would-be Che Guevaras, misfits, drop-outs, rebellious teens and pot-heads fleeing the oppressive yoke of mom and dad, now fifth columnists for the jihadist horde. With Michael Zehaf-Bibeau as their poster child, this legion of highly-trained, lethal … but no, wait — they’re mainly witless incompetents, witness the Via Rail terror trial chronicled by my colleague, Christie Blatchford.

Ottawa is not under siege, nor does it feel itself to be: Any third-rate guest house in Kabul has more rigorous security screening than did last week’s Manning Centre conference, where the nation’s most powerful conservatives mixed and mingled. Hmm.

…The political question is simply this: Why so much distemper, now? It looks like nothing so much as an effort to shore up the Conservative base, comprising no more than 30% of the electorate and perhaps less. These are moves to harden the core, not win the centre — or persuade a plurality. If this is truly the game plan for Election 2015, then the governing party may be in worse shape than public polls indicate. The prospect of loss, they say, brings a fear all its own.

Michael Den Tandt: The Conservatives have Canadians soaking in fear

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‘Mansplaining’ the return of political correctness: Neil Macdonald

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Neil Macdonald on the current trends in politically correct discourse (there is a line being sensitive in one’s use of language and being over-sensitive as some of his examples indicate):

Employers or school officials, faced with tens of thousands of sneering tweets, can be forgiven for thinking the quickest way out is to sacrifice the sinner, even if the sinner hasn’t really sinned.

Students who follow this crypto-salafist orthodoxy despise the concept of free, protected speech (except, obviously, their own).

On campuses, many still tend to follow the thinking of the feminist scholar and activist Catharine MacKinnon, who argues that free speech is just a weapon in the patriarchal arsenal.

In reality, this view is not very new at all. Back in the early 1990s, the head of student government at Stanford University declared “We don’t put as many restrictions on free speech as we should.”

Of course, there are others who think that way, too.

The Bush-era neoconservatives who clamped down on speech and stepped up surveillance in the name of security after 9/11 are one example.

The Canadian government, with the broad provisions in its Bill C-51 allowing it to order the removal of what it calls “terrorist propaganda” from the internet, is another. (Define terrorism? Canada’s justice minister says the public should just “look it up.”)

As the social critic and author Robert Hughes put it in his brilliant 1993 book The Culture of Complaint, “paleo-conservatives and free-speech therapists are both on the same wagon, the only difference being what they want to ban.”

But re-reading Hughes’s book I am confident of one thing: in another generation or two, language that now seems so inclusive and tolerant, words designed to create a “safe place” for discourse, will undoubtedly seem jarring, if not insulting. Language police will be insisting on new argot.

My grandchildren will no doubt someday stare agape at their parents for using the term “people of colour,” and inform them that any reference to colour is divisive and ugly.

Or that “transgender” implies that there was ever any validity to “gender” in the first place.

The urge to control other people’s speech is atavistic. It will never lessen, and my guess is the technology to enforce it will only grow more sophisticated.

‘Mansplaining’ the return of political correctness – World – CBC News.

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Microsoft’s new B.C. workforce may consist mostly of foreigners: draft plan

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Interesting reading:

The freedom of information documents, given to CBC News by a third party who works in the industry, reveal Microsoft Canada initially promised that only only 20 of those 400 new jobs — or five per cent — would go to Canadians. The documents also suggest that, through a variety of programs including the controversial Temporary Foreign Worker program (TFWP), the majority of the new workers would come from abroad.

The plans date from 2013 and 2014, and include letters and briefing notes from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and British Columbia’s Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. They show:

150 positions would be open to both Canadians and foreigners as “rotational employees” who would be brought in under the TFWP program with “no guaranteed number of Canadians.”

200 “core employees” would be brought in at the “executive [level], management or those with specialized knowledge,” but the company only committed that 10 per cent of those 200 core employees would be Canadian. The document states the number of Canadians “is likely to grow over time.”

50 positions would go to “foundry employees” — paid student interns from Canadian universities. But the document stipulates that some of those students could be international students, and do not have to be Canadians.

The documents also show that, in the planning stages, most of the 200 “core” employees at the Microsoft Centre of Excellence were expected to be foreign workers from three categories: intra-company transfers (people who have worked at least one year for Microsoft abroad); those brought in under the TFWP; and contract workers hired abroad who qualify to work in Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

…In December, CIC told CBC News “most” of the 400 jobs would be held by Canadians.

However, in a written statement yesterday, Microsoft Canada made no such promise. Instead, the company said a majority of its current workforce in Vancouver is Canadian, but that may not last for long.

“[As] we hire staff for our new excellence centre, we will be recruiting talent from around the world (in addition to Canada), which may result in that balance shifting,” officials with the company wrote.

Despite requests from CBC News, neither Microsoft Canada nor B.C.’s jobs ministry provided any updated ratios of foreign to Canadian workers.

In an email, a spokesman for B.C. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said the training centre will provide a “net benefit” by bringing in “at least $90 million annually for up to 10 years.”

Bond’s spokesman said no Canadians would be displaced from their jobs by the creation of the centre — although he would not say what proportion of the new positions would go to Canadians, calling that “proprietary information” belonging to Microsoft.

Seems like CIC may have exaggerated the initial job figures (doesn’t necessary mean that longer-term impact greater).

Microsoft’s new B.C. workforce may consist mostly of foreigners: draft plan – Politics – CBC News.

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Larry Miller and the case against the niqab – Wherry

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Aaron Wherry’s two questions:

First, if the government wishes to see the niqab banned, why doesn’t it change the regulations to reflect that? I asked the office of Minister Chris Alexander that question and a spokesman responded, “We are not going to speculate on hypotheticals and we are going to make our arguments in court.” (In an op-ed published today, law professor Richard Moon suggests the government amend the regulations, though Moon notes that would trigger a Charter challenge, which the government would lose.)

Second, and more crucial, it seems to me, if the government adamantly believes the niqab should be banned during the oath, why did the government apparently tell the court that the directive was not mandatory, but optional? Here, again, are the first three sentences of paragraph 30 of Justice Boswell’s ruling:

The Respondent argues that this application is premature. In its view, the Policy is not mandatory and citizenship judges are free not to apply it. As such, there is no way to know what would have happened had the Applicant attended the ceremony and refused to uncover her face.

So it would seem that while the government is publicly declaring that wearing the niqab during the oath is unequivocally not something that should be allowed, it has otherwise defended the policy as quite open to equivocation. Beyond the legal arguments here, that seems to my untrained eye like a serious complication for the government’s political argument.

Whatever Larry Miller’s views of where the hell one should situate oneself, the government’s basic argument would seem to amount to this: that a citizenship ceremony is of a particular nature that the government should be able to impose a standard of dress for it, regardless of an individual’s claim to religious freedom, so far as the niqab is concerned. In light of all else—and, I might add, the Supreme Court’s ruling on when a niqab should be removed during a trial—it remains a weak and uninspiring argument. It is a principle without a practical basis that would have the government dismiss a fundamental right. It is to presume that the state can, without substantial cause, dictate attire and place a limit on one’s religious freedom.

Larry Miller and the case against the niqab – Macleans.ca.

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Immigration: la proposition caquiste est insensée, selon Couillard

2015/03/19 Leave a comment

Premier Couillard responds to the latest proposals of the CAQ (Immigration: la CAQ veut resserrer les exigences):

Le premier ministre s’est insurgé mardi contre la volonté de la CAQ de montrer la sortie aux immigrants qui n’arrivent pas, à terme, à s’intégrer à la majorité francophone, au marché de l’emploi et aux «valeurs québécoises».

À son avis, la proposition de la CAQ ne tient pas la route et ferait fuir «les travailleurs qualifiés» désireux de s’implanter au Québec si elle devait être appliquée.

En vertu de la proposition caquiste, les immigrants seraient soumis à un certificat d’accompagnement transitoire qui leur accorderait trois ans – maximum quatre – pour faire leur devoir.

À défaut de satisfaire aux trois exigences édictées – connaissance du français, emploi, adhésion aux valeurs de la charte des droits et libertés – les nouveaux venus se verraient privés du certificat de sélection du Québec, un document requis pour obtenir le statut de résident permanent et de citoyen canadien.

En Chambre, le chef caquiste François Legault a rappelé que 42 pour cent des 50 000 immigrants que reçoit le Québec chaque année ne connaissent pas le français et que 78 pour cent d’entre eux ne suivent pas les cours d’intégration aux valeurs communes. Endémique, le taux de chômage atteint 17 pour cent chez les immigrés installés au Québec depuis moins de cinq ans.

Le chef du gouvernement libéral a dit convenir que l’emploi «est la source la plus rapide d’intégration à la société» et que l’accès au marché du travail permet «de développer la connaissance pratique du français».

Mais à ses yeux, le projet caquiste se démarque par son «simplisme» et est carrément «insensé».

«Qu’est-ce que c’est que cette histoire? On va faire passer des examens à des immigrants trois ans après leur arrivée et s’ils ne passent pas, bien, ils s’en retournent chez eux. Bravo!», a ironisé le premier ministre pendant la période de questions.

Selon lui, les resserrements préconisés par la formation de François Legault auraient un effet repoussoir sur les travailleurs qualifiés dont le Québec a besoin.

Immigration: la proposition caquiste est insensée, selon Couillard | Martin Ouellet | Politique québécoise.

Globe editorial mocking the CAQ proposal:

This “new pact” with immigrants would be accompanied by a Law on Interculturalism, whatever that means. Half a dozen years ago, the philosopher Charles Taylor said that interculturalism and multiculturalism are really the same thing; the prevailing Quebec ideology, however, insists that there is some distinction.

Mr. Legault is invoking the fear of “radicalization” and “preachers who would denigrate fundamental values.” Similarly last month, while foolishly raising alarm over a project for a mosque in Shawinigan, he called for the creation of a new agency that would scrutinize proposed new religious institutions. The goal is to block any Muslim applicants who “denigrate Quebec values.”

All this, curiously, is accompanied by a worry, among Mr. Legault and others, that immigrants who settle in Quebec have a low rate of actually staying: Only three-quarters of those who came between 2003 and 2012 are still there. Why not welcome them more warmly, rather than spread panic about their religious practices?

 François Legault puts out the unwelcome mat 

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