Ending mandatory long-form census has hurt Canada – Globe Editorial

2014/11/08 Leave a comment

The Globe on the ideologically driven decision to cancel the Census and the private member bill to restore it:

The warnings were prophetic. The compulsory long-form census in 2006 had a 93.5 per cent response rate. The voluntary one in 2011 had a 68.6 per cent response rate, even though more surveys were sent to more homes. When the 2011 data were released, they came with prominent warnings about contamination due to “higher non-response error.” Information gathered about more than one quarter of all Canadian communities wasn’t released because too few people in those places filled out the voluntary form. Aboriginal communities were particularly underrepresented.

Think-tanks, economists, scientists and academics in Canada and around the world have dismissed the 2011 data as fatally flawed. It can’t be compared in a meaningful way with the 2006 data, because they were gathered using different methodologies. Vital research projects on issues like income, unemployment and poverty that require long-term data have been compromised. And Statistics Canada can’t provide an accurate picture of how Canadians are faring, relative to 2006, since the 2008 economic crash.

Statisticians are statisticians so we don’t have to be. If they say they need accurate, regular, comparable census, then that’s what they should get from the government. Mr. Hsu’s bill may be doomed, but it will go down fighting to reverse a decision that has harmed the country in tangible ways.

Ending mandatory long-form census has hurt Canada – The Globe and Mail.

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Quebec union apologizes for liquor store video that singled out immigrants

2014/11/08 Leave a comment

Same narrow mindset that brought us the Quebec Values Charter. The CSN, if I recall correctly, may have supported the Charter:

The video, recorded in Alberta, included comments from a French-speaking man suggesting private liquor sales in the province have resulted in a poor level of customer service.

The unidentified man asserts that immigrant business owners from India and Pakistan are uninformed salespeople when it comes to the sale of alcohol.

Following a backlash from outraged residents of Quebec and Alberta, the union, the Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux, issued an apology and announced its decision to remove the controversial remarks from the video.

Devinder Toor owns 14 Alberta liquor stores and has been in the alcohol sales business for 14 years.

He says he and his staff stay on top of available products in the market.“We are very confident,” explains Toor. “The staff works to answer all the needs of the customers. We try to put the best value for the customers in terms of knowledge, prices and everything.”

Quebec union apologizes for liquor store video that singled out immigrants | Toronto Star.

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Ottawa students use satire to battle ISIL and highlight plight of Arab women with video

2014/11/08 Leave a comment

One of the better examples of grass-roots efforts to create a radicalization counter-narrative, and a funny parody of Apple ads in the ISIS context (watch the video report – 2 minutes):

Inspired by Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, the trio and half a dozen occasional cast members are attempting to bring satire into places and minds that have never experienced it.

“We are trying to take the best of this world and introduce it to the Middle East and bring the best of the Middle East and introduce it to this world,’ says Barghouthi, a Carleton University biology student.

Prime among the trio’s target audience are Canadian Muslims in their own age group – the same young western Muslims that ISIL has in its sights.

“ISIS has been able to get wide attention across the world by using very slick videos made by highly qualified people,” says Marwah. “By making people laugh we hope our message will sink in.“

“Our message to young Muslims is that ISIS is using Islam in a sick way – using it as an excuse to kill people,” says Carleton political management student Marwah. “They are going after your emotions. Canada is a beautiful country, don’t let this stuff spoil it for you.”

Marwah says he has seen no evidence in his circle of friends that the ISIL message is resonating.

“For all of us, I think to know that someone would want to kill people in the name of our religion is frustrating,” he says.

Ottawa students use satire to battle ISIL and highlight plight of Arab women with video | Ottawa Citizen.

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Feds brace for backlash against new immigration rules (against polygamy, forced marriages)

2014/11/07 Leave a comment

Apart from the silly and pandering name (Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act), and whether in its application it will make much of a difference, or provide effective new powers, hard to disagree with the overall intent and principles behind the Bill.

After all, the case mentioned by Alexander, the Shafia murders (Shafia jury finds all guilty of 1st-degree murder), were successfully prosecuted under existing laws:

The bill would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, making permanent residents or temporary residents inadmissible if they practice polygamy in Canada.

The bill would also amend the Civil Marriage Act to ban marriage for anyone under the age of 16.

It also changes the Criminal Code to impose a maximum five-year prison term on anyone who “celebrates, aids or participates” in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons is being married against their will, or is not of legal age.

Alexander noted the case of an Afghan immigrant accused of stabbing his wife to death last year, apparently because he felt dishonoured by her independence.

He cited another case in which an Afghan-Canadian man, his second wife and their son were convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of his three teenaged daughters and his first wife — also because he felt they were bringing dishonour on the family by dating or dressing in ways he found offensive.

“Honour-based killings are nothing more than murders,” Alexander said.“We will be working through this bill to make sure that such killings are considered the murders that we know them to be. There is absolutely no room for ambiguity.”

But I don’t buy the argument that countries like the UAE are likely to protest. Most immigrants from the Gulf are guest workers, not citizens, and given their own restrictions and the bad publicity, unlikely to be an issue.

Better reporting on how these measures would be implemented and enforced would be more useful.

Feds brace for backlash against new immigration rules.

More substantive reporting here:

But some immigration lawyers are questioning the need for the new legislation, saying they are aware of few cases of polygamy among immigrants to Canada and don’t see early and forced marriage as a pervasive concern.

Immigration lawyer Joel Sandaluk said the polygamy portion of the bill was particularly puzzling because the practice is already illegal in Canada. He said the legislation seems to be aimed at individuals who were married in another country before arriving in Canada, but added that he believes their numbers are relatively few.

After practising immigration law in Canada for 15 years, he said he’s never come across the issue. “It’s just something that’s completely outside of my experience as an immigration lawyer,” he said.

Mr. Sandaluk said he also wasn’t aware of a particular concern with the ability to prosecute forced marriages, and pointed to the language of the announcement and the term “barbaric cultural practices” as evidence that the government is targeting a specific subset of the population.

“What the government I think is doing is sending a political message with this legislation,” he said. “And I think this is better considered posturing rather than policy.”

Experts question use of bill banning immigrants in polygamous marriages

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Policy making suffering in Canada without the long-form census

2014/11/07 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, the Government will not take advice to reinstate the Census:

Perhaps the biggest casualty of the switch to the new survey is the ability to analyze trends over time – among the most critical components of any research tool. The household survey and the long-form census are so different that we are no longer able to compare different periods in a statistically rigorous way.

We see nothing wrong in requiring Canadians by law to complete a survey as important as this one. Even in the U.S., where trust in government is not exactly high, the American Community Survey is mandatory. The authorities have reasoned – and few citizens have objected – that a mandatory response is the only way to ensure adequate data quality.

If the government in Ottawa can be persuaded to bring back the mandatory long-form survey for the next census, due in 2016, we will have a gap of 10 years since the last such exercise.

That may not be ideal, but it would be acceptable. The full census was conducted at 10-year intervals prior to the introduction of the current five-year cycle in 1986. Indeed, a 10-year break would be less disruptive than continuing with the new household survey, which leaves us with a complete break in historical data.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said recently that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” His comments were made in the context of child and maternal health, but they apply equally to other areas of policy making, and drive better performance in business planning and economic analysis.

My experience in working with the NHS and in talking to those more experienced than me, confirms these weaknesses of the NHS compared to the Census.

A short-sighted and ideological move that weakens evidence-based policy for governments and needed information for business decisions.

Policy making suffering in Canada without the long-form census – The Globe and Mail.

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Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims

2014/11/07 Leave a comment

Valid point (like saying “some of my best friends are Jewish”):

Racial and religious hatreds have one thing in common: they are not inspired by the race or religion of the hater, but by the religion or race of the victim. This is clearest in the case of antisemitism, which can appear as either a racial or a religious hatred, or indeed both. What’s constant is that it involves hating Jewish people, whatever the reasons given. Similarly, if you hate black people, you hate them on racist grounds whatever the colour of your own skin, and if you hate Muslims, Catholics, Quakers or Mormons, you hate them for their religion – whatever your own beliefs. So it is perfectly possible for religious hatred to be motivated by atheism and it may be quite common in the modern world.

The claim that Islam isn’t a race and so it is entirely rational to hate and fear it gains its moral force from the implicit claim that there is something uniquely horrible about racial hatred. I don’t think there is, though I see why we assume it: 50 or 60 years ago racial prejudice was an entirely natural part of English life. In order to change that, it was necessary to mark it as a uniquely dreadful and disfiguring condition: racism became a kind of moral leprosy. Without in any way wishing to roll back that progress, it’s worth noting that in other societies and at other times racial prejudice has not been the most urgent incitement to communal hatred.

Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

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Public service still shrinking, but signs show hiring picking up

2014/11/06 Leave a comment

PS_Hiring_2013-14Understandably, latest report focus on hiring after recent rounds of downsizing:

In its latest annual report, the Public Service Commission revealed signs the bureaucracy is coming out of a major downsizing and gearing up to hire. More jobs were advertised, more people applied and more were hired, moved and promoted within the bureaucracy than the year before.

“What we are now seeing in the data – and we started to see it turn around last year – is that the demand by departments for new hires is starting to go up. So we do anticipate that we will turn the corner on this and start to hire new graduates into permanent jobs in the coming year,” PSC president Anne-Marie Robinson recently told the Senate finance committee.

In fact, the commission has been active getting the message out that once the downsizing is completed, the government will recruit new talent.

Robinson said the public service is “changing” as it emerges smaller and leaner from the 2012 federal budget cuts, which reduced the number of employees by 10 per cent from March 2011.

But last year also saw the first increase in hiring and staffing, both of which had fallen every year for four years. Overall, hiring and staffing jumped 11.7 per cent over the previous year – a far cry from the hiring spree in the years before the Conservatives froze operating budgets and put the brakes on spending.

Relative little on employment equity, which awaits the more comprehensive Treasury Board report, but the above graph highlights the main trends for visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples.

For visible minorities, applicants are greater than labour market availability (LMA), appointments less. The report, unless I missed it, did not have any up-to-date figures on actual representation within the public service.

Public service still shrinking, but signs show hiring picking up | Ottawa Citizen.

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Legatum Prosperity Index

2014/11/06 Leave a comment

The_2014_Legatum_Prosperity_Index_-_HomeFor those who like indicators and graphics, The Legatum Prosperity Index of a UK-based think tank, provides both in spades, both in pdf forum and interactive web-graphics.

Legatum Prosperity Index (website)

Download The Legatum Prosperity IndexTM (for pdf)

A bit clunky to generate comparative tables, but from an immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism perspective, the two questions of interest and Canada’s score (one of the highest):

  • Good place to live for ethnic minorities: Canada 90.8 %
  • Good place to live for immigrants: Canada 88.8 %

For the policy wonks who are interested in detailed methodology, there is an extensive separate report. Suffice to say, that for those interested in the above two indicators, the source if the Gallop World Poll.

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Refugee health care temporarily restored in most categories

2014/11/06 2 Comments

Government partial compliance with the refugee claimant health care coverage:

“We are doing this because the court has ordered us to do it. We respect that decision while not agreeing with it,” Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said following question period on Tuesday.

The government had until the end of today to review a 2012 policy the Federal Court deemed unconstitutional, “cruel and unusual” last July.

The government had asked for a stay until an appeal is heard, but that request was rejected on Friday. A date for the appeal has not been set.

“Under the temporary measures, most beneficiaries are eligible to receive coverage for hospital, medical and laboratory services, including pre- and post-natal care as well as laboratory and diagnostic services,” the government said in a notice posted on the website of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration over an hour after the minister spoke.

Children under 19 years of age will receive full coverage, while pregnant women will be covered for all but supplemental health benefits.

Supplemental benefits include “limited dental and vision care, prosthetics and devices to assist mobility, home care and long-term care, psychological counselling provided by a registered clinical psychologist, and post-arrival health assessments.”

However, refugee claimants in seven of the 12 categories included in the governments chart will not be covered for drugs or supplemental health coverage.

….The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, one of the groups that took the government to court over the changes the Conservatives brought in back in 2012, says the temporary plan does not comply with the Federal Court ruling.

“The government is still being punitive, they’re being selective and the court told them to reinstate all benefits,” said Peter Showler, co-chair of the refugee lawyers’ group and a former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He is also an expert in refugee law at the University of Ottawa.

Showler was critical of the government’s decision to deprive certain refugee claimants of coverage for prescription medications.

“They are not in compliance with the decision based on the information that the government put out on its website today.”

Refugee health care temporarily restored in most categories – Politics – CBC News.

And the link to the table outlining what is covered and what is not:

Text of the government’s temporary plan for refugee health care

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How to prosecute radicalized Canadians a quandary, Senate group hears | Ottawa Citizen

2014/11/05 Leave a comment

The challenges of prosecuting radicalized Canadians and Government messaging of note from Senator Beyak:

“The legitimate investigation by the police of those individuals does not necessarily coincide at this moment in time to there being that many cases that are ready to go for charges.”

He and Saunders then detailed how seven Canadians, including five initial suspects in the Toronto-18 terror case, have been placed on peace bonds, court orders that restrict the movement of people not found guilty of an offence but deemed a risk to others. They also mean stiffer sentences for someone if later found guilty of a crime.

But even that power is limited, according to police. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, speaking before the committee last week, complained that the legal threshold for obtaining peace bonds needs to be lowered to a “reasonable suspicion.”

Saunders later added that gathering evidence against suspected Canadian overseas fighters who have returned to Canada is even more difficult.

“It’s a challenge the police face, to gather evidence for activities that people may have been engaged in while they’re overseas in countries where it’s difficult for our authorities to have access to,” he said.

He added: “We have to prove that somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that will not be changed.”

After more than an hour of committee questioning, Sen. Lynn Beyak’s frustrations boiled over.

Canadians “don’t want to hear us talk, they don’t want to hear 1,000 reasons why we can’t solve this problem,” she told the witnesses.

“They want us to put our collective heads together and find a way to protect the rights of 35 million Canadians instead of the rights of 90 or 93 or 130 individuals.

“There has to be a better way for Canadians then to just listen to us talk and the problem gets worse.”

Part of the trade-off with the rule-of-law that the Government so often cites as one of the key Canadian values along with freedom, democracy, and human rights.

How to prosecute radicalized Canadians a quandary, Senate group hears | Ottawa Citizen.

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