Les cégeps doutent de l’utilité de la Charte | Gabrielle Duchaine | Charte de la laïcité

2014/03/27 Leave a comment

From the Charter to the reality in the CEJEP (Quebec’s rough equivalent to high school):

Rappelons qu’une disposition de la Charte vise à interdire la prestation de services le visage couvert. «Des filles qui portent un voile, on en voit souvent, et de façon très stylisée en plus. Mais des visages voilés, jamais. Même les longs vêtements amples sont rares», note Johanne Fraser, présidente du syndicat des enseignants du cégep de Saint-Laurent, qui accueille une clientèle particulièrement hétérogène. Même son de cloche au Collège de Maisonneuve, où 85% des élèves de la formation continue proviennent de l’immigration récente.

Les cégeps doutent de l’utilité de la Charte | Gabrielle Duchaine | Charte de la laïcité.

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In Quebec, a dim future for sovereignty – Lysiane Gagnon

2014/03/27 Leave a comment

In light of the dramatic fall in PQ support following PKP’s fist pump, striking just how much public opinion in Quebec has gelled against sovereignty. Two weeks till the election, and a lot could change, but the trend line and generational divide is not encouraging for the PQ:

If there is another referendum, everybody seems to agree, including sovereigntist leaders, that the question will have to exclusively focus on sovereignty. This makes a Yes victory even harder to attain.

Prof. Durand’s data also show that support for sovereignty is lower than it was on the eve of the 1980 and 1995 referendums. The major difference, she says, is that sovereignty no longer mobilizes those under 50 and the most educated.

What’s the future of an option that doesn’t attract younger generations?

In Quebec, a dim future for sovereignty – The Globe and Mail.

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Jonathan Kay: Scotland shows Quebec what an intelligent and mature independence movement looks like

2014/03/26 Leave a comment

Good piece contrasting the approach by the Scottish nationalist and the PQ:

Quebec’s modern sovereigntist movement has been around, in its modern form, since the 1960s. Yet to this day, its leaders (including Parti Québécois Premier Pauline Marois) are fantastically vague about what sort of “independent” country they want. Extraordinary claims — Quebec will keep the dollar, and, oh, yes, have a seat on the Bank of Canada — are casually made and then forgotten. The question of how the most per-capita indebted province in Canada will pay its way (including its share of the Canadian federal debt) while forsaking the $16-billion that the rest of the country sends its way every year is entirely ignored.

In Scotland, by contrast, such meat-and-potatoes questions about what will happen in a newly independent nation are the meat and potatoes of this year’s campaign — and are explored in great detail in a lengthy text published by the Scottish government entitled Scotland’s Future — Your Guide to an Independent Scotland. As Jonathan Freedland writes in the March 20 edition of The New York Review of Books, the 649-page document “is short on the rhetoric of self-determination, long on the quotidian details of self-government. In a ‘Q & A’ section, the third question — after ‘Why should Scotland be independent?’ and ‘Can Scotland afford to be independent?’— is ‘What will happen to my pension?’ There are few rousing calls to Scottish pride or the spirit of Bannockburn, their place taken by information on postal services and the administration of drivers’ licenses.”

Jonathan Kay: Scotland shows Quebec what an intelligent and mature independence movement looks like | National Post.

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Immigrant spouses may have to meet language and education requirements | Canadian Immigrant

2014/03/26 Leave a comment

The Government sometimes can’t help itself making partisan shots rather than a serious discussion of the issues. There are integration challenges for spouses coming to Canada, best addressed through settlement and related services, as not allowing immediate family reunification, should the Government decide to go there, will hamper not foster integration:

Alexander’s office would not confirm if language and education requirements are in the cards. It said the government is proud of its record of condemning intolerance, hatred, and barbaric cultural practices.

“We can’t say the same for Justin Trudeau, who has refused to call honour killings barbaric,” said Alexis Pavlich, the minister’s press secretary. “Everyone is expected to respect Canadian values and abide by Canadian laws.”

Lawyer Avvy Go, executive director of the Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, who attended one of the consultations, said such a move would be “a direct attack on Canada’s family reunification program.”

“We will go back to a bachelor society, like when Canada had its Chinese head tax in place and people were prevented from bringing their wives and children here,” she said.

Alexander has been meeting with invited representatives of communities across Canada for input into a strategic plan to “strengthen the integrity of the immigration spousal sponsorship program.” In those meetings, he raised the idea of imposing the new requirements, some of those invited told the Star.

However, Pavlich, the minister’s press secretary, said it’s “irresponsible and unproductive” to characterize such discussions at the meetings as an indication of future policies.

Immigrant spouses may have to meet language and education requirements | Canadian Immigrant.

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Stop using ultrasound to determine sex of fetuses, urge doctors, radiologists

2014/03/26 Leave a comment

Interesting article on sex selection ultrasounds (seems to be an issue in the Indo, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Philippine communities). Sad combination of cultural preferences for boys, enabling technology, and the usual self-serving justification by the entrepreneurs offering the service:

Alla Boulavkina, a registered diagnostic medical sonographer and owner of Tri-Cities 3D Sono Image in Vancouver, which offers non-medical fetal ultrasounds, said the scans improve bonding between parents and babies, and that she limits exposure times. “I know how to do it correctly.”

Boulavkina offers gender determination, starting at 20 weeks’ gestation only. Demand for the service, she said, is growing.

“Everybody wants to know, ‘boy or girl?’ Not just to start shopping … it takes time to be mentally ready for the baby,” she said.

“It’s very important to know. It helps people to prepare and be happy. Because sometimes daddy wanted a boy, and then he sees girl, and he’s not happy, and it’s no good for the family. In this case, it gives time to slowly be prepared.”

Stop using ultrasound to determine sex of fetuses, urge doctors, radiologists.

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CSIS tracking 80 Canadians who came home after going abroad for ‘terrorist purposes’

2014/03/25 Leave a comment

CSIS doing its job:

But the speaking notes provided to the CSIS director acknowledge that the intelligence community faces challenges identifying and tracking the movements of such individuals, and bringing charges against them.

The number of individuals overseas is constantly in flux and their motivations are not always easy to discern, according to the notes. Their destinations are often in active conflict zones or failed states, meaning cooperation with foreign partners — and getting sound intelligence — can be difficult.

Further, those engaged in terrorist activities often travel on falsified documents and “Canada has not, to date, systematically collected exit information that could be used to reliably confirm an individual’s departure,” the notes state.

“Despite our best efforts it is highly likely there are Canadians we do not know of who are travelling overseas to engage in terrorist activities.”

CSIS tracking 80 Canadians who came home after going abroad for ‘terrorist purposes’.

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Toronto

2014/03/25 Leave a comment

Nice piece from the NY Times on Toronto and its diversity and neighbourhoods.

It’s a great walking town, and part of what makes it so much fun to explore is the range and variety of the neighborhoods in which the city takes pride, and which have resisted the homogenization that has occurred throughout so much of New York City — from Yorkville, with its fashionable shops and department stores, to Old Town, where you can find the St. Lawrence Market, an immense covered structure offering a huge selection of foods and crafts, and where, on Saturdays, local farmers sell their produce. Some of the neighborhoods are known for their architectural beauty: the charming Victorian houses along the tree-lined streets of Cabbagetown, originally a working-class Irish enclave; the equally attractive brick mansions and neo-Gothic cottages of the Annex, a district of artists, professors and students who attend the nearby University of Toronto; the brick rowhouses and manicured lawns of Roncesvalles and the mansions of Forest Hill.

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Sheryl Saperia: The case for revoking citizenship

2014/03/25 2 Comments

The alternate view to that expressed by Chris Selley a number of weeks ago (Actually, my citizenship is a right | National Post)  by Sheryl Saperia is Director of Policy for Canada at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)

Bill C-24 makes ordinary Canadians safer by adding a new layer of deterrence against engaging in terrorism, treason and armed conflict with Canada; facilitating the removal of people who pose a threat not only to Canada, but to the vulnerable individuals in our society susceptible to radicalization; and removing the coveted Canadian passport from those who would use it as a tool to support or carry out terrorist attacks.

Sheryl Saperia: The case for revoking citizenship | National Post.

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Diaspora Politics and PM Trip to Ukraine – My CBC Interview

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

In case interested, my short TV interview on how diaspora politics is a factor in Canada’s response to the crisis in Ukraine and the PM’s trip.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2443812861/

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Margaret MacMillan: How today is like the period before the First World War

2014/03/24 Leave a comment

Good interview with Margaret MacMillan with some interesting reflections:

Do you not see any developments in modern diplomacy that keep countries away from the precipice?

We have better international institutions and more of them. And we do have the capacity now to talk quickly to each other. But what we don’t have are the experienced diplomats who used to really know a country. There’s been a tendency in most countries to downplay the role of the diplomatic corps and to say, ‘do we really need diplomats?’ You’ve got it in the Harper government: ‘Do we really need all these people? They just hang out and go to cocktail parties.’

By the same token, diplomats did not prevent the First World War.

No, they didn’t. But they did actually deal with quite a few crises before World War One. You could argue that they had shown their value. I think good diplomatic services are very very useful. It’s also worrying to me what’s happening to newspapers. The media generally are closing down their overseas bureaux because they’re too expensive. What that means is we’re getting huge amounts of information but we’re not really getting the analysis and expertise that we all need.

We mistake being able to get lots of information from everywhere very quickly with actually getting knowledge.

Margaret MacMillan: How today is like the period before the First World War – The Globe and Mail.

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