How much government accommodation can you expect because of religion or a disability? – Canada – CBC News

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Good reporting and discussion on reasonable accommodation issues and practices following the recent CBSA accommodation for Hindu priests visiting Canada:

From [Karen] Busby’s [director of the Centre for Human Rights Research at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg] perspective, the situation involving the request from the Hindu priests doesn’t appear to enter into the realm of creating an undue hardship.

But she says there is a different principle that could apply in such a situation, and that is whether the accommodation made is “contrary to fundamental Canadian values.”

“That’s a trickier question I think, and its something that’s not well defined in law.”

She also suggests the airport case is somewhat similar to one that arose at York University in Toronto earlier this year.In that case, a male Muslim students request not to work with women sparked controversy.

But one element of that story that was often lost, she observes, is that “when there was a little push put on him, he said Of course I will work with women.”

There are times, she says, “when Canadian values say if youre going to be in public life, in some way, you need to be able to interact with men and women.”

Also good reporting on how Service Canada and Service Ontario accommodate religious concerns regarding head coverings and gender (largely sensibly).

How much government accommodation can you expect because of religion or a disability? – Canada – CBC News.

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Stop the Anti-Semitism When Talking Gaza

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Commentary by Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian American, on the need to avoid antisemitism when criticizing Israel on Gaza:

But to those who want to cheer “Death to the Jews,” use Nazi imagery, or in any other way want to demonize the Jewish people, let me be clear: I don’t want you on our side. Your hateful rhetoric is not only morally repugnant, it’s hurting my family and the millions of other Palestinians struggling for basic human rights. Don’t attend events supporting Palestinians or post vile comments in our name on Facebook, etc. We don’t want the Palestinian cause to be defined by your hate.

Let’s follow the lead of people like [US Congressman] Ellison—and those in Europe engaged in the “Raise Your Voice” campaign—and vocally counter anti-Semitism wherever we see it, be it at an event or a posting on social media. We can’t afford to wait to speak out until we see anti-Semitic incidents in the United States like those happening in Europe.

Hate is hate regardless of the target. Let’s not lose our own humanity while trying to fight for the humanity of others.

Stop the Anti-Semitism When Talking Gaza – The Daily Beast.

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The Difficult Work Of Measuring Anti-Semitism In Europe | FiveThirtyEight

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Good piece on the challenges of collecting hard reliable data, in the absence of police-reported hate crimes (which both UK and Canada do), particularly with respect to social media:

Social media is one factor that complicates comparisons over time. One in 6 of the incidents this year through June were abusive comments on social media, a forum that scarcely existed a decade ago.

Rich said CST [UK’s Jewish Community Security Trust] sets a high bar for counting an anti-Semitic post on social media: It must have been reported to the group, and must originate from or be directed to someone in the U.K. “We’ve had to think quite a lot about how to develop processes for dealing with this,” Rich said. “Potentially the number of anti-Semitic tweets and Facebook comments could completely overwhelm our incident reports and make them completely meaningless.”

Groups like CST help supplement government statistics on hate crimes, which are inconsistently kept in the European Union. Only five of the 28 EU countries, including the U.K., have comprehensive data on racist crimes and hate crimes against Jews, Muslims and Roma people, according to a December analysis by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, or FRA.

“FRA has reiterated the necessity for EU member states to improve their data-collection methods,” Katya Andrusz, a spokeswoman for FRA, said in an email. “The agency has also called for member states to take measures to increase trust in the police and other authorities, as the two big challenges in gauging the extent of anti-Semitism are underrecording and underreporting, i.e. even when countries have the mechanisms in place to note the number of anti-Semitic incidents taking place, most victims don’t report them.”

Many of the articles about the rise in anti-Semitism cited a 2012 online survey of Jews in eight EU countries, conducted by FRA, finding that 2 in 3 respondents said anti-Semitism is a problem in their country. The survey, though, was the first of its kind, so it can’t say whether European Jews were reporting more anti-Semitism in 2012 than they had before. FRA is considering conducting another survey in several years. “There are preliminary plans to do another one, precisely for the reason you say” — i.e. that there is no trend data, Andrusz said. She added, “It’s impossible to say whether anti-Semitism is statistically on the rise in the EU, as the data simply doesn’t exist.”

The Difficult Work Of Measuring Anti-Semitism In Europe | FiveThirtyEight.

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Mirror Images: Antisemitism and Islamophobia – New Canadian Media – NCM

2014/08/09 Leave a comment

My take on the similarities and differences between antisemitism and islamophobia:

And for those protesting or supporting Israel, a do’s and don’t guide see How to Support Israel without Being Racist and How to Criticize Israel without Being Antisemitic for additional thoughts:

1.       Protest against the political entity Israel, Hamas, not the religion or ethnicity Jews, Muslims, Arabs.

2.       Never protest outside a mosque or synagogue. Find a neutral place e.g., federal or provincial parliaments, City halls.

3.       Avoid any use of Nazi imagery and language no ‘death to the Israelis, no death to the Jews,’no death to the Arabs, no death to the Muslims’ language.

4.       No violence or threats of violence.

5.       Hard as it may, try to understand where the other side is coming from. Not necessarily to accept, but to understand.

Mirror Images: Antisemitism and Islamophobia – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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CBSA allowed religious travellers to avoid female guards – Toronto – CBC News

2014/08/09 Leave a comment

I’m with the staff on this. Bad call by the managers:

Canada Border Services Agency managers at Toronto’s Pearson airport allowed a small group of Hindu priests to avoid screening by female border guards to comply with their religious beliefs, CBC News has learned.

A CBSA officer, outraged that such a request would be considered, spoke exclusively to CBC News about what happened at Pearson’s Terminal 3 on the evening of Monday, July 28. Fearing she could be disciplined for speaking out, the officer spoke on the condition that her name and identity be withheld.

The officer said she and her colleagues — whose job involves screening passengers for entry into Canada after they arrive on international flights — were told before their shift not to switch work stations with other officers without first asking a supervisor.

“The reason given was that there were five individuals coming in who had requested only to be served by male officers,” said the CBSA officer in an exclusive interview with CBCs Nil Koksal.

The five male travellers who made the request to CBSA are Hindu priests, called sadhus. Sadhus follow a strict lifestyle that requires them to avoid any contact with women.

And a reminder that these kinds of issues are not unique to any one religion.

CBSA allowed religious travellers to avoid female guards – Toronto – CBC News.

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Jonathan Kay: Sun News’ cynical attacks on Justin Trudeau have crossed the line into anti-Muslim hysteria

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

Kay nails it:

Moreover: If indeed it is true that al-Sunnah al-Nabawiah mosque remains a religious home for unassimilated Muslim immigrants with radical, un-Canadian views, shouldn’t that be all the more reason for Canadian politicians to let those congregants know that if they want to live and flourish in this country, they need to adapt to our values?

Justin Trudeau’s riding of Papineau is one of the poorest and most diverse in Canada. It is full of immigrants who are wrestling with the process of integrating into Canadian life. What sort of MP would we want for such a riding — one who brags to Sun News viewers about how he wouldn’t set foot within 50 feet of this or that house of prayer, lest he be tainted by association with the teeming Muslim hordes who pray therein … or someone who actually seeks to engage with these people and draw them into the political mainstream?

Jonathan Kay: Sun News’ cynical attacks on Justin Trudeau have crossed the line into anti-Muslim hysteria

Andrew Lawton, also in the National Post, piles on this critique:

 

When the PMO arranged my interview with James, I was looking forward to hearing what the government had done or was doing to address the radicalization alleged at the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque. Shockingly, what I presumed was the most relevant question to the discussion, appeared to dumbfound James, who skirted it no fewer than three times, offering up only scripted condemnations of Justin Trudeau.

“I think it was completely outrageous. I think it’s completely unacceptable that the leader of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, would associate with a group that allegedly radicalizes Canadians to join al-Qaeda and has even been listed by the Pentagon as a location known to them,” James told me during the live interview.

I asked, “Why is this a politics question and not a question of Canadian public safety and intelligence?”

I was expecting anything but the answer she gave.

“I thank you for that question, but as you know, I probably —I cannot comment on operational matters of national security, Andrew,” she said. “But I think the real question is here — Justin Trudeau knew about this. He knew about this and instead he went into this mosque, did a whole lot of handshaking and trying to win votes. He will stoop at nothing to try to win over terrorist organizations. I can’t believe this.”

Embarrassing. But even intelligent MPs sound stupid when they have to stick to stupid talking points (e.g., Chris Alexander defending the government’s handling of the F-35, among others).

Not sure this helps them.

Andrew Lawton: If Trudeau is schmoozing with terrorists, why aren’t we arresting any?

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Maytree Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

Maytree’s newest project, writing a collection of refugee stories:

What does escape look like up close? Why do people choose Canada? And once they land in a safe country, what happens next?

In Flight and Freedom, Maytree’s Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner draw on 30 astonishing interviews with refugees to Canada to document their extraordinary journeys of flight, and to transform a misunderstood group into familiar, human stories.

Each of the 30 stories documents an escape that is sometimes harrowing and always remarkable. The narrative then turns to contemporary lives and careers, and the impact of refugees-turned-Canadians in the communities they call home, from Halifax to Vancouver.

Stories focus on Canadians who arrived as refugees from notable conflicts around the world, from the War of 1812 to the ongoing War in Afghanistan. Beyond conflict zones, other stories profile people from persecuted groups like gay men and women. At the time of escape, some refugees were children, others were parents, and others got out alone. Notwithstanding the diverse events of a story, the single overriding imperative for all characters can be summed up in one sentence: “We have to run.”

Closing the book is a question: Would they get in to Canada today? Peter Showler, lawyer and former chairperson of the federal Immigration and Refugee Board, answers the hypothetical question by analyzing how the cases would be handled under Canada’s new refugee system.

You can sign up for updates (book out in 2015) at the link below:

Maytree Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada » Maytree.

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Rachel Brothers wins human rights case for wrongful firing – Nova Scotia

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

A reminder that discrimination can occur in a variety of contexts:

Donald Murray, chair of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, said Brothers was “undermined by association staff whose colourist thinking and behaviour created a toxic work environment at the head office in Halifax and the Annapolis Valley regional office in Kentville, where Ms. Brothers was employed as a regional educator.”

Jeff Overmars, a spokesman with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, said he can’t say too much about Tuesdays decision.

“We understand this is a very sensitive issue in the African Nova Scotian and other communities,” he said.

“It’s an issue we have to look into, to meet with the communities, to gain some insight and to better understand the history and complexity of the issue.”

Lawrence Hill, in his Massey Lectures Blood, covers some of the same ground as he discusses the history of colour and percentages of black blood, and argues for a universal, rather than “blood” approach.

Rachel Brothers wins human rights case for wrongful firing – Nova Scotia – CBC News.

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Don’t politicize women’s bodies

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

One take on the risks of banning the niqab. See also her previous piece (It’s Muslims themselves who give voice to verse) as well as a previous post on the CCMW study of Canadian women wearing the niqab and the individual stories and backgrounds of the women interviewed (Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs).

I still find that wearing the niqab (as distinct from the hijab) sends an anti-integration message:

In this context, it is especially important to put women first, to give women space to chart their own journeys, and to allow the veil and lack thereof to have meanings beyond their patriarchal origins.

Importantly, Muslim women ought to be free to make their own choices – which necessarily includes the right to make their own mistakes – as they navigate their way through multiple identities. As a woman who wore the niqab for 10 years in Canada through public high school at Streetsville Secondary School in Mississauga, and undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Toronto, I am grateful to have belonged to a liberal democracy that allowed me the space and time to have my own journey and find my own way. I am proud of Canadians for rejecting a copycat proposal to ban the face veil in Quebec earlier this year. In this instance, the EU has much to learn from the Canadian model.

Don’t politicize women’s bodies – The Globe and Mail.

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Australia: Queensland gets it right on multiculturalism

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

One regional, favourable view of multiculturalism:

Most migrants and refugees to Queensland still settle in the capital city, Brisbane.

Brisbane has the highest proportion of overseas-born residents 28.3 percent, ABS census 2011, followed by the Gold Coast 27.9 per cent and Logan 26.1 per cent.

Brisbane attracts more Indians and Chinese, the Gold Coast more Japanese, while Logan attracts more Samoans. Many are international students.

Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Cr Graham Quirk said Brisbane now holds a “Refugee Welcome Day”, acknowledging that more than 2000 refugees settled in Brisbane last year and would build a new Multicultural Performing Arts Centre in Sunnybank in 2015.

“The Multicultural Performing Arts Centre will include a theatre with a capacity for 300 people, rehearsal and studio spaces for community groups, a stand-alone kitchen and canteen as well as dining and entertainment facilities,” Cr Quirk said.“

Council has invested $3.9 million in 2014-15 for this combined facility which we will build with the Sunnybank Community Sports Club,” he said.“

And it will benefit the entire southside community once it is complete.”

Queensland gets it right on multiculturalism.

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