Removing religion as hate speech defence worth exploring: anti-Semitism envoy

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Worth consideration but of course not without contention (Andrew Bennett, the former ambassador for religious freedom, currently at Cardus, appears to be ruling it out, unlike Lyons):

Canada’s special envoy for combating antisemitism is “very interested” in exploring the idea of removing religion as a possible defence against hate speech charges, she said Thursday, raising concern about creating a possible chill on religious expression.

Deborah Lyons, whose title also includes preserving Holocaust remembrance, made the comment before a parliamentary committee that is studying antisemitism on university campuses.

“I am very interested in exploring (it) as an option because I think, frankly, we are seeing it used in this country and in other places as a defence that frankly does not stand the ground in these very difficult times,” she testified Thursday.

Still, Lyons said she is not ready to offer a final opinion on the matter, and is still discussing it with Justice Department officials.

Jewish leaders, students and faculty have for months been voicing concerns over an increase in hate speech and violence since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war last fall.

Lyons said she believes universities’ equity, diversity and inclusion strategies are “failing Jews in this country” because they don’t make much mention of antisemitism specifically.

Her office is working to develop better training to counter anti-Jewish discrimination, which she hopes institutions, including governments, will use.

Members of Parliament also asked Lyons about the role police and prosecutors play in laying hate speech related charges, and whether Criminal Code changes are needed.

They pointed to a recent decision by Quebec prosecutors not to charge Montreal imam Adil Charkaoui over comments said during a prayer — a scenario Lyons says she is discussing with the government.

The comments were delivered at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal, and led to a complaint alleging threats and incitement of violence, which was investigated by the RCMP.

Leading a prayer in Arabic, Charkaoui had called on God to “take care of aggressor Zionists,” adding “O God, don’t leave any of them.”

Last week the province’s director of public prosecutions announced that a committee of three Crown attorneys found the evidence insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the words amounted to an incitement of hatred toward an identifiable group, as defined in the Criminal Code.

Using the case as an example, Bloc Québécois MP Rhéal Fortin asked Lyons whether she supports his party’s proposal to eliminate a section of the Criminal Code that allows the use of religious beliefs or a religious text as a defence against the promotion of hatred and antisemitism.

The Criminal Code states that people shouldn’t be convicted of the willful promotion of hatred or antisemitism — defined as downplaying or denying the Holocaust — if, “in good faith,” they expressed an opinion “on a religious subject” or “based on a belief in a religious text.”

Fortin says his party wants to ban “exceptions” to hate speech based on religion.

“Certainly I think that it’s something we’ve got to continue to examine,” Lyons said.

Justice Minister Arif Virani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He is already seeking to increase the punishments for existing hate-related offences — including increasing the maximum consequence for advocating genocide to life imprisonment — in the Liberals’ legislation against online harms, tabled back in February.

The stiffer criminal justice reforms have fallen under harsh scrutiny from critics, including civil liberty advocacy groups, who say it could stifle free speech. Justice officials say criminal charges would only be laid in the most extreme examples.

Removing religion as a possible defence to a hate speech charge would likely be welcomed by those who oppose religion, but would create “genuine fear” for those who have deeply held religious beliefs about what they could say in the public square, said Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett, who works at the public policy think tank Cardus.

“Often, religious people privatize their faith because they’re afraid that if I speak about what I believe, in good faith, in the public square, I’m going to be cancelled, or I’m going to be shut down,” said Bennett, Cardus’s faith communities program director.

He says if a “chill” is placed on religious expression it risks marginalizing a sizable part of the population, including many new Canadians for whom “religion is not just some sort of cultural relic” but “informs all aspects of society.”

“In many cases, they’ve come here because of the religious freedom we enjoy, and so to then say to those new Canadians in particular, ‘Oh, by the way, you can’t speak about your religion publicly for fear of being censured,’ I think that’s a very bad message to send.”

Bennett said the debate raises questions of how hate is defined and what makes a hateful view “different from a peacefully-held opinion that someone might profoundly disagree with?”

In the case of Charkaoui’s comments, Marco Mendicino, a Liberal MP, said he found the call by Quebec’s Crown not to press charges against the imam “incomprehensible and deeply problematic.”

Charkaoui’s comments were “perhaps one of the most egregious offences that I have seen” he told Thursday’s committee.

Mendicino, a former prosecutor who previously served as public safety minister, also cited other examples of demonstrators chanting offensive language, including glorifying Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.

He believes “Zionists” fit the Criminal Code’s definition of an identifiable group, which refers to “any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.”

Source: Removing religion as hate speech defence worth exploring: anti-Semitism envoy

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Montréal et Gatineau, l’immigration et les jeunes accélèrent le déclin du français, selon Québec

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Ongoing concern one without easy solutions particularly for youth:

Malgré un maintien relatif de l’utilisation de la langue dans l’espace public, le déclin du français se poursuit, accéléré par l’immigration, par les habitudes de consommation des jeunes Québécois et par la situation à Montréal, indique le ministre de la Langue française, Jean-François Roberge.

« J’aimerais ça vous dire : “Oui, oui, c’est réglé !” Ce n’est pas le cas encore », a lancé l’élu caquiste à sa sortie du Salon bleu, mercredi, une petite heure après avoir déposé en chambre le plus récent Rapport sur l’évolution de la situation linguistique de l’Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).

Rendu public tous les cinq ans, ce document fait une revue multidisciplinaire de l’usage de la langue de Molière au Québec. On y apprend notamment que le français dans l’espace public — une statistique sur laquelle s’appuyait le commissaire à la langue française, Benoît Dubreuil, dans un rapport en septembre — a très légèrement reculé entre 2007 (79,1 %) et 2022 (78,7 %).

Il y est aussi relevé que la proportion de personnes travaillant principalement en français est passée de 81,8 % en 2001 à 79,9 % 20 ans plus tard, en 2021. Sur la même période, l’anglais a progressé, passant de 12,3 % à 14 %.

Accosté par la presse parlementaire, mercredi, le ministre Roberge a tenu à rappeler qu’il « y a plusieurs indicateurs à surveiller ». « Tant mieux s’il y a des secteurs où on recule moins, où on a atteint un certain plateau, mais il reste qu’on n’a pas arrêté le déclin encore », a-t-il dit.

Trois « fractures »

L’élu caquiste a cerné « trois enjeux en particulier » dans le dossier du français. Il cite au premier chef la « fracture régionale » qui existe entre Montréal, Gatineau et le reste du Québec. Selon l’OQLF, 59,5 % des Montréalais s’exprimaient en français lorsqu’ils étaient à l’extérieur de la maison en 2022. Ce chiffre s’élevait à 63 % à Gatineau.

« On voit que Montréal et Gatineau sont des régions où il y a un écart très, très grand par rapport au reste du Québec », a soulevé M. Roberge mercredi.

Selon le rapport de l’OQLF, « la proportion de personnes parlant principalement le français à la maison a diminué dans chacune des RMR [régions métropolitaines de recensement] du Québec » de 2016 et 2021. « Cette diminution a cependant été plus prononcée sur l’île de Montréal, dans la couronne de Montréal et dans la RMR de Gatineau qu’ailleurs au Québec », peut-on lire.

« Maintenant, en ce moment, avec l’arrivée massive de travailleurs temporaires et de demandeurs d’asile, c’est sûr que ç’a un impact », a déclaré M. Roberge. Aux dernières nouvelles, plus de 560 000 immigrants non permanents résidaient au Québec, dont une part importante dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal.

Les données de l’OQLF montrent par ailleurs que tout près d’un tiers (31,6 %) des résidents non permanents ne parviennent pas à entretenir une conversation en français. « C’est une autre ligne de fracture », a lancé M. Roberge mercredi.

« Je l’ai nommé, je vais le redire encore aussi : quand on accueille 30 000, 35 000 étudiants non québécois anglophones au centre-ville de Montréal, qui après ont des emplois étudiants, ça aussi, ça contribue à angliciser les milieux de travail », a-t-il ajouté.

Beaucoup d’anglais chez les jeunes

Selon M. Roberge, la dernière « fracture » est « générationnelle ». D’après une étude de l’OQLF citée dans le rapport, 55 % des jeunes qui utilisent les réseaux sociaux affirment publier leur contenu « soit autant en français qu’en anglais, soit principalement en anglais ».

« Même parmi les jeunes francophones, la part de personnes publiant principalement en français n’était pas particulièrement élevée (52 %) », écrit l’Office.

À la période des questions à Ottawa, mercredi, le chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, a reproché au premier ministre canadien, Justin Trudeau, d’« affaiblir le français », notamment chez les jeunes, avec ses politiques linguistiques. « On est préoccupés par le déclin du français qu’on voit à travers le pays, y compris au Québec », a rétorqué M. Trudeau, tout en affirmant que « ce n’est pas la minorité anglophone qui est une menace pour le français au Québec ».

Le ministre Roberge, qui a déposé le mois dernier un plan d’action visant à renverser le déclin de la langue, espère quant à lui « changer l’environnement » culturel des jeunes Québécois.

« Un jeune qui a 15, 16, 17 ans, s’il baigne dans un environnement culturel anglophone, bien il a plus de chances, évidemment, d’utiliser l’anglais au quotidien, de publier sur les réseaux sociaux en anglais, a-t-il soutenu mercredi. Quand il ouvre la télé, il n’ouvre pas la télé traditionnelle. Il va aller sur Netflix, il va aller sur Disney, il va aller sur toutes les plateformes de diffusion en continu. »

Alerté par un comité indépendant des risques pour la santé du français du manque de « découvrabilité » des contenus francophones, le gouvernement de François Legault s’est engagé, au début de l’année, à déposer un projet de loi pour forcer les plateformes numériques à mettre en avant davantage de contenus du Québec. « On va faire flèche de tout bois », avait affirmé en janvier le ministre de la Culture et des Communications, Mathieu Lacombe.

Plan d’action

Voilà deux ans presque jour pour jour que le gouvernement de la Coalition avenir Québec a adopté la loi 96. Cette vaste réforme de la loi 101 agit dans plusieurs sphères, avec pour objectif de protéger la langue française.

Le mois dernier, le ministre Roberge a rendu public le résultat des travaux du Groupe d’action pour l’avenir de la langue française. Dans son plan d’action, le gouvernement Legault s’engage à rehausser les fonds pour la francisation, à légiférer dans le domaine de la culture et à renforcer les exigences de français imposées aux nouveaux arrivants, entre autres.

« Donnons-nous le temps d’implanter nos mesures et de voir ce qu’elles vont changer. Si on doit aller plus loin, on le fera », a dit M. Roberge mercredi.

Interrogé au moment du dépôt de son plan d’action, l’élu caquiste avait refusé de se fixer un échéancier d’inversion du déclin du français. « Je pense qu’on va [l’]inverser […] très rapidement », avait-il dit.

Source: Montréal et Gatineau, l’immigration et les jeunes accélèrent le déclin du français, selon Québec

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France is proud of its secularism. But struggles grow in this approach to faith, school, integration

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Interesting long read (with influence on Quebec approach):

Brought into the international spotlight by the ban on hijabs for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, France’s unique approach to “laïcité” — loosely translated as “secularism” — has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the country.

The struggle cuts to the core of how France approaches not only the place of religion in public life, but also the integration of its mostly immigrant-origin Muslim population, Western Europe’s largest.

Perhaps the most contested ground is public schools, where visible signs of faith are barred under policies seeking to foster a shared sense of national unity. That includes the headscarves some Muslim women want to wear for piety and modesty, even as others fight them as a symbol of oppression. 

“It has become a privilege to be allowed to practice our religion,” said Majda Ould Ibbat, who was considering leaving Marseille, France’s second-largest city, until she discovered a private Muslim school, Ibn Khaldoun, where her children could both freely live their faith and flourish academically.

“We wanted them to have a great education, and with our principles and our values,” added Ould Ibbat, who only started wearing a headscarf recently, while her teen daughter, Minane, hasn’t felt ready to. Her 15-year-old son, Chahid, often prays in the school’s mosque during recess. 

For Minane, as for many French Muslim youth, navigating French culture and her spiritual identity is getting harder. The 19-year-old nursing student has heard people say even on the streets of multicultural Marseille that there’s no place for Muslims.

“I ask myself if Islam is accepted in France,” she said in her parents’ apartment, where a bright orange Berber rug woven by her Moroccan grandmother hangs next to Koranic verses in Arabic. 

Minane also lives with the collective trauma that has scarred much of France — the gripping fear of Islamist attacks, which have targeted schools and are seen by many as evidence that laïcité (pronounced lah-eee-see-tay) needs to be strictly enforced to prevent radicalization.

Minane vividly remembers observing a moment of silence at Ibn Khaldoun in honor of Samuel Paty, a public school teacher beheaded by a radicalized Islamist in 2020. A memorial to Paty as a defender of France’s values hangs in the entrance of the Education Ministry in Paris.

For its officials and most educators, secularism in public schools and other public institutions is essential. They say it encourages a sense of belonging to a united French identity and prevents those who are less or not religiously observant from feeling pressured, while leaving everyone free to worship in private spaces.

For many French Muslims, however, and other critics, laïcité is exerting precisely that kind of discriminatory pressure on already disadvantaged minorities, denying them the chance to live their full identity in their own country.

Amid the tension, there’s broad agreement that polarization is skyrocketing, as crackdowns and challenges mount for this French approach to religion and integration.

While open confrontations are still numbered in the dozens among millions of students, it has become common to see girls put their headscarves back on the moment they exit through a public school’s doors.

“Laws on laïcité protect and allow for coexistence — which is less and less easy,” said Isabelle Tretola, principal of the public primary school whose front gate faces the door to Ibn Khaldoun’s small mosque.

She addresses challenges to secularism every day — like children in choir class who put their hands on their ears “because their families told them singing variety songs isn’t good.”

“You can’t force them to sing, but teachers tell them they can’t cover their ears out of respect for the instructor and classmates,” Tretola said. “In school, you come to learn the values of the republic.”

Secularism is one of four fundamental values enshrined in France’s constitution. The state explicitly charges public schools with instilling those values in children, while allowing private schools to offer religious instruction as long as they also teach the general curriculum that the government establishes.

Unlike the United States, where fights over what values schools teach cleave along partisan lines, support for laïcité is almost universal in France’s political establishment, though some on the right criticize it as anti-religion and on the left as a vestige of colonialism….

Source: France is proud of its secularism. But struggles grow in this approach to faith, school, integration

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Ottawa veut étendre la citoyenneté aux enfants nés à l’étranger de Canadiens, Chris Selley: Finally, an easy fix to the Citizenship Act, 18 years in the making

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Limited commentary to date:

…Professeur en droit de l’immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté à l’Université d’Ottawa, Yves Le Bouthillier accueille favorablement le nouveau projet de loi, affirmant que les nouveaux changements pourront encourager la mobilité internationale des Canadiens.

« Pour les femmes, si elles voulaient vraiment préserver le droit de leurs enfants de transmettre leur citoyenneté, il fallait rester au Canada pour accoucher », donne-t-il comme exemple.

Les parents nés à l’extérieur du pays devront avoir passé au moins 1095 jours cumulatifs (trois ans) au Canada avant la naissance ou l’adoption de leur enfant pour lui transmettre leur citoyenneté canadienne.

« Je pense que c’est une limite raisonnable à ce qui constitue un lien substantiel avec le Canada », a expliqué le ministre.

Le professeur Le Bouthillier indique que le seuil de 1095 jours est assez souple comparativement aux critères d’autres pays. Aux États-Unis, par exemple, un parent doit être un citoyen américain et avoir passé au moins cinq ans physiquement aux États-Unis avant la naissance de l’enfant pour lui transmettre la citoyenneté. Au moins deux ans de cette présence physique doivent être après le 14e anniversaire du parent.

Le projet de loi canadien favorise ainsi la rétention et l’acquisition de la citoyenneté à travers le parent, analyse le professeur.

Un nouveau test pour les enfants nés après l’entrée en vigueur de la réforme sera aussi mis en oeuvre pour « évaluer les liens manifestes » avec le Canada….

Source: Ottawa veut étendre la citoyenneté aux enfants nés à l’étranger de Canadiens

Chris Selley in the NP has a valid point regarding exercising ministerial discretion, rather than arguably broader measures than needed to address particular cases:

….If citizenship ministers had been willing to exercise their broad discretion and grant citizenship to people like the infant Burgess son, it might not have been a problem. There aren’t thousands of these cases, though there are more than a few. I know two Canadian children who (as it stands) won’t be able to pass on Canadian citizenship to their children, should their children be born abroad. One of them has a brother who will be able to pass on Canadian citizenship to his children, should they be born abroad, because he happened to be born after his parents moved back to Canada.

This is not coherent. Bill C-71 offers the promise of coherency.

Source: Chris Selley: Finally, an easy fix to the Citizenship Act, 18 years in the making

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The Liberals strike a blow for government secrecy

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Sigh, but so endemic of all governments in undermining ATIP:

…A system predicated on the notion that everything but the most classified government documents and data ought to be public has become a tool for Canadians governments to do what they instinctively do best: hoard information.

Let’s be blunt about why they do this: to keep information out of the hands of citizens, because an informed citizenry is an empowered citizenry. Governments aren’t so much jealously squirreling away information as they are sucking the lifeblood out of the democratic system.

Mr. Trudeau came to power vowing to set a sunny example by making information open by default to all Canadians. Then he discovered what every new prime minister discovers: that the default preference in Canada’s halls of power is to keep voters in the dark.

He could still restore his reputation on this issue. He should allow the independent review of the system and restore the Commissioner’s funding. It’s not too late for the Prime Minister to live up to what are still very good ideals.

Source: The Liberals strike a blow for government secrecy

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Canada to extend citizenship to children born abroad, restoring rights of ‘lost Canadians’

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

As largely expected following the Court decision and the government’s decision not to appeal, the residency requirement has emerged as the least objectionable and easiest connection test to manage among the available options. However, it is strange that Bill C-71 isn’t fully consistent with the standard physical residency requirement for new Canadians: “must have been physically in Canada for at least 1,095 days (3 years) during the 5 years before the date you sign your application.” This means a weaker connection test than warranted IMO and curious to see how the government justifies this difference and assesses the impact on the number of people affected.

At least the government is following the normal legislative process in making the change rather than the backdoor shortcut of S-245, to allow for proper committee consideration and debate. It remains to be seen how the Conservatives react on the substance given their legitimate opposition to the S-245 approach.

The number of persons potentially affected is large. Out of the estimated 4 million Canadian expatriates, about half are by descent (i.e., born abroad). Two-thirds of expatriates are living in the USA, with another 15 percent in UK, Australia France and Italy (2017). The number living in other countries has increased from 14 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2017.

As we have seen in previous efforts to respond to “Lost Canadians,” the actual number of those who request citizenship proofs is relatively small: an average of 1,500 per year, 2009-22. So while the impact is potentially large, the actual numbers are likely smaller given that for second and subsequent generation expatriates in the USA and EU, largely integrated into their country of residence, Canadian citizenship may not be a priority. On the other hand, it is likely a higher priority for those in other countries with less secure conditions, with Hong Kong being a prime example, and where we see growth in expatriates.

Of course, all of these expatriates will have voting rights, another reversal by this government of the previous government’s five year cut-off. However, despite the talk about the right to vote, actual interest in voting in Canadian elections is minimal among expatriates.

It will be interesting to see what analysis, if any, IRCC provides on the potential impact on its citizenship operations.

Having become a grandparent to a child born abroad, I look at how our the change affects our grandson. Under the current first-generation cut-off, he would not be able to transmit his Canadian citizenship to any future child. Under C-71, he would have to 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada. So the obvious and easiest strategy for him would be to attend university in Canada and thus start the clock again. Personally, the first generation cut-off did not concern us as we accept that family trajectories and trees evolve and change.

It would be helpful for the government and CIMM to look at my and other scenarios to understand the potential impact of the lack of a timeframe for the physical residency requirement, particularly for temporary workers (TFWP and IMP) which are less straightforward that the situation of my grandson.

Following a court order, the federal government has introduced new legislation to restore the citizenship rights of “lost Canadians” born outside Canada and ensure it doesn’t happen to others in the future.

This legislation would automatically confer Canadian citizenship to persons born abroad to a Canadian parent who is also born abroad beyond the first generation if the parents can pass a “substantial connection test.”

“It will be the first time that the Citizenship Act is actually charter compliant,” said Don Chapman, a staunched advocate for lost Canadians, after Bill C-71 was tabled in Parliament on Thursday. ”It’s monumental. And it has huge ramifications.”

As a result of the first-generation limit, Canadian citizens who were born outside Canada cannot pass on citizenship to their child born outside Canada; neither can they apply for a direct grant of citizenship for a child born outside Canada and adopted, creating generations of so-called “lost Canadians.”

“We want our citizenship to be fair, accessible, with clear and transparent rules. Not everyone is entitled to it, but for those who are, it needs to be fair,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters.

“We wanted to take this opportunity to continue to minimize differential outcomes as much as possible for children born abroad…compared to children born to Canadians (in Canada).”

According to the proposed amendment to the citizenship law, parents born abroad who have or adopt children also born outside Canada will need to have spent at least 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada prior to the birth or adoption of their child to pass on citizenship.

Lost Canadians and their families launched a constitutional challenge in court last year of the two-generation citizenship cutoff rules. Click here to post your thoughts

In December, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that it’s unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to children born abroad because their parents also happened to be born abroad. It gave the federal government six months, until June 19, to repeal what’s known as the “second-generation cut-off” rule and amend the Citizenship Act.

With the looming court-stipulated June 19 deadline to roll out the new scheme, Miller said the government is unlikely to receive royal assent to the bill in time and will have to go before the judge to ask for an extension, which will cause further delays for affected children and grandchildren of Canadians to acquire citizenship and join families in Canada.

“We are still looking at a number of options. We don’t want an extension ad nauseum because there are people that are being prejudiced by this,” Miller explained.

“I have a very uncomfortable role in the interim at applying a test that really should be legislative. But it’s something that will have to speak to the court about. Again, we hope that this can be passed at all stages.”

In 2009, the then-Conservative government changed the citizenship law and imposed the second-generation cut-off on Canadians born abroad, after Ottawa had faced a massive effort to evacuate 15,000 Lebanese Canadians stranded in Beirut during Israel’s month-long war in Lebanon in 2006.

The $85-million price tag of the evacuation effort sparked a debate over “Canadians of convenience” — referring to individuals with Canadian citizenship who live permanently outside of Canada without “substantive ties” to Canada, but who were nonetheless part of the government’s liability.

As a result, the government abolished the then existing “substantial connection” regime and adopted a blanket rule that denies the first generation born abroad the right to pass on citizenship by descent outside Canada to the second generation born abroad.

In January, Ottawa decided not to challenge the court decision, but instead would repeal the existing law and put forward a new bill that’s compliant with the Canadian constitution.

Source: Canada to extend citizenship to children born abroad, restoring rights of ‘lost Canadians’

The press backgrounder:

Bill C-71: An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024)

From: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

The Citizenship Act contains a first-generation limit to citizenship by descent, which means that a Canadian citizen parent can pass on citizenship to a child born outside Canada if the parent was either born in Canada or naturalized before the birth of the child. Canadians born or naturalized in Canada before adopting a child born abroad can apply for a direct grant of citizenship for the adopted child.

As a result of the first-generation limit, Canadian citizens who were born outside Canada cannot pass on citizenship to their child born outside Canada, and cannot apply for a direct grant of citizenship for a child born outside Canada and adopted.

On December 19, 2023, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared that the first-generation limit for those born abroad is unconstitutional. The Government of Canada did not appeal the ruling because we agree that the law has unacceptable consequences for Canadians whose children were born outside the country.

The government is introducing legislation to make the citizenship process as fair and transparent as possible. Bill C-71 would

  • automatically remedy the status of any person already born who would have been a citizen were it not for the first-generation limit
  • establish a new framework for citizenship by descent going forward that would allow for access to citizenship beyond the first generation based on a substantial connection to Canada

Substantial connection test

Bill C-71 would allow a Canadian parent born abroad who has a substantial connection to Canada to pass on citizenship to their child born abroad beyond the first generation. It would also provide them with access to the direct grant of citizenship for their child born abroad and adopted beyond the first generation.

To demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada, a Canadian parent who was born abroad would need to have a cumulative 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child.

Lost Canadians

The term “Lost Canadians” has generally been used to describe those who lost or never acquired citizenship due to certain outdated provisions of former citizenship legislation.

Most cases were remedied by changes to the law in 2009 and 2015. These changes allowed people to gain Canadian citizenship or get back the citizenship they lost. Despite this, additional amendments are needed to include other categories of Lost Canadians and their  descendants who did not benefit from the 2009 and 2015 changes.

Bill C-71 will restore citizenship to any remaining “Lost Canadians,” their descendants and anyone who was born abroad to a Canadian parent in the second or subsequent generations before the legislation comes into force. This includes people who lost their citizenship as a result of requirements under the former section 8 of the Citizenship Act.

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Globe editorial: Sorry, Ottawa, but magical thinking won’t fix the economy [on immigration]

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Ottawa has made the choice to select lower-scoring immigrants who fit into specialized niches in the economy rather than those who, according to Canada’s own immigration system, have a better chance of long-term success.

… But it would be a serious policy blunder to carve out even more exceptions and further squeeze the general pool of permanent resident spots. Such an action would cement the trend toward a low-wage economy largely populated by immigrants.

A better, if tougher, approach would be to allow temporary migrants to compete for a spot in the general pool. Some will undoubtedly qualify, and will help to build Canada in the coming decades. Others won’t and will have to leave.

The Liberals need to keep in mind two imperatives in sorting out economic migration policy: the needs of Canadians come first – and magical thinking won’t get the country’s economy back on track.

Source: Sorry, Ottawa, but magical thinking won’t fix the economy

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Paul: What Does Hollywood Owe Its Jewish Founders?

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Jews who founded Hollywood — and make no mistake, the big studio heads were overwhelmingly Jewish — shared several things: ambition, creative vision and killer business instincts.

But more than anything else, the men who were the driving forces behind Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shared a very 20th-century sense of being Jewish in America. They were assimilationists who considered themselves American above all else and who molded Hollywood to reflect and shape their American ideals.

“Above all things, they wanted to be regarded as Americans, not Jews,” Neal Gabler wrote in his definitive 1988 history, “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood.” Louis B. Mayer, a co-founder of MGM, went so far as to claim that his birth papers had been lost during immigration and to declare his birthday henceforth as the Fourth of July.

It was troubling, then, that when the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened in 2021, it neglected to integrate Jews into its portrayal of Hollywood’s early days and later successes despite obvious attentiveness to other ethnic and racial groups. Beyond a few brief mentions, including Billy Wilder fleeing Nazi Germany, a photo of the MGM mogul and academy founder Louis B. Mayer looming over Judy Garland, and a few scoundrels in an exhibit on #MeToo, Jews were absent. Jewish studio heads, business leaders and actors were almost entirely shut out, an oversight that led to much outcry.

“It’s sort of like building a museum dedicated to Renaissance painting and ignoring the Italians,” the Hollywood historian and Brandeis University professor Thomas Doherty told Rolling Stoneat the time.

When I asked the museum’s former director and president Bill Kramer, now the C.E.O. of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, what he made of the omission, he did not acknowledge the error but said museum officials took the criticism seriously. “It was clear that this was something that certain stakeholders were expecting,” he said. “That in some visitors’ minds this was an omission that needed to be corrected.” Did he think the criticism was valid? “It was how people felt. And those feelings were real and feelings are valid.”

The museum has compensated for its neglect by creating what it calls its first permanent exhibit, “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,” which opened on Sunday.

The exhibit has three components. The first provides a panoramic view of how the city of Los Angeles evolved to accommodate an influx of immigrants, including Jews, the development of the film industry and the needs of its diverse population, from the Oglala Lakota people to Chinese immigrants, reflected in archival footage and an interactive table map. The second part tracks the history of the city’s studios, and the third screens an original documentary, “From the Shtetl to the Studio: The Jewish Story of Hollywood.” The space is intimate but expansive in its vision and is well executed.

So how were Jews left out in the first place? Some sources told Rolling Stone after the opening that those who might have applied more pressure earlier, chose to lay low during the museum’s development. Some of this reticence surely emerged from the tenor of the moment, with its focus on racial representation and what Kramer referred to as “pro-social” causes — gay rights, women’s equality, the labor movement — which the museum details in a dedicated section and weaves in throughout.

It may also be attributable to an uneasy tension among Jews around their place in America — eager to be integrated, included and successful, while at the same time wary of possible exclusion or alternately, too much notice, inciting a backlash and reanimating underlying antisemitism. The recent outburst of antisemitism that we’ve witnessed on college campuses and in protests against Israel had long been stewing within academia and across culturalinstitutions.

Throughout the Academy Museum’s development, much of which occurred after the rise of campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite, officials made clear that it would emphasize diversity and inclusivity. The museum highlights nonwhite and other marginalized contributors to the industry to help remedy the industry’s long record of exclusion.

“I don’t think you open a cultural institution at this historical moment and not be reflective of a diversity of histories and perspectives,” Jacqueline Stewart, the museum’s current director and president, told me when I asked about the museum’s focus on representation. She pushed back on the criticism. “There werereferences to Jewish filmmakers from the very beginning,” she said, mentioning a clip of a Steven Spielberg Oscar acceptance speech. “That seems to get lost.”

But in bending over backward to highlight various identity groups at every point, the museum unintentionally leaves out part of what makes the movies such a unifying and essentially popular medium: the ability to transcend those differences. In a pluralistic, immigrant nation, Hollywood helped create a uniquely American culture that speaks to a broad audience. That’s part of what we call the magic of movies.

If nothing else, Hollywood is relentlessly evolving, perhaps now more than ever under the threat of A.I., increased economic pressures and consolidation. The Academy Museum, too, continues to change. Much of what I saw in the museum — which must be said is a marvel and a must-see for any film lover — had been switched out for new material since I first visited in June 2022. Elements in the core exhibit are in constant rotation, in part due to fragility of its artifacts, like costumes; in part to reflect the immensity of its collection; and in other cases, in a then overt effort to hit all the bases among competing interests.

If this flux is indicative of the Academy Museum’s stated intent to represent the changing priorities of American audiences, then it also holds the potential to move beyond this current moment, with its intentional and unintended divisiveness.

Source: What Does Hollywood Owe Its Jewish Founders?

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

New report sheds light on housing issues, wage gaps, employment numbers in Black, African Nova Scotian communities

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

Of note but not terribly surprising with considerable similarities elsewhere in Canada:

A “first-of-its-kind” report released Wednesday is presenting statistical data on Black communities in Nova Scotia.

The report focused on six key areas, including: population, labour, income, education, housing and well-being.

The African Nova Scotian Prosperity and Well-being Index report(opens in a new tab) represents a crucial step towards understanding and addressing economic disparities Black and African Nova Scotian communities face.

Council members with the Road to Economic Prosperity(opens in a new tab) says the data collected reflects the experience of African Nova Scotians, including historical challenges like anti-Black racism.

Housing statistics

According to the report, compared to the overall Nova Scotian population, the Black Nova Scotian community has higher shares of households living in unaffordable housing, inadequate housing that doesn’t fit the number of people living in them, and unsuitable housing, meaning homes that require “major repairs.”

While 7.3 per cent of Nova Scotian households live in core housing need, the share almost doubles to 13.2 per cent for Black Nova Scotians.

The report found that less than half of Black households in Nova Scotia — 45.8 per cent — owned their own homes.

Wage gap statistics

On average, the index report found a Black Nova Scotian will earn only 85 cents in income for every dollar earned by a non-visible minority in the province.

The average Black Nova Scotian with a bachelor’s degree or higher made only 79.2 per cent of the income of the average Nova Scotian with the same education levels in 2020, according to the report’s findings.

Employment statistics

The age-adjusted unemployment rate for Black Nova Scotians remains above the figure for the overall population: 4.7 per cent higher in 2016, and 1.3 per cent higher in 2021, according to the report.

Nova Scotia’s Black population

Census data included in the index also shows that between 2016 and 2021, the Black population in Nova Scotia grew more quickly than Nova Scotia’s population overall, a trend that was led by international migration, primarily from Nigeria.

In all, 28,220 Nova Scotians self-identified as Black, representing three per cent of the provincial population. The fastest-growing groups were Black men and women between the ages of 20 and 44.

The report makes a 14 recommendations, including that the province’s Black community expand its data sources by co-operating with universities, community groups and governments.

Another recommendation calls on all orders of government to recognize descendants of Nova Scotia’s historic 52 Black communities as a “distinct people.”

Although the information gathered in the report may not come as a surprise to members of the Black community, the council says it’s important to share the findings with other community political leaders to help push for change.

“When you review the data, the circumstances for Black Nova Scotians is not ideal. Education, we are showing improvements around education but we are still very much over-represented in core housing needs and over-represented in those needing adequate housing. I would just say it doesn’t paint a pretty picture but it does show the reality,” said Shaekara Grant, co-chair of Road to Economic Prosperity youth council.

The group hopes to continue their research and present data every three years.

“The index is a measuring tool. You know the old adages, ‘What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get changed.’ So, this is a tool that we are hoping advocacy groups and community groups can use in those areas, which they are working to bring about some positive change,” said Irvine Carvery, co-chair of Road to Economic Prosperity advisory council.

The council says they are working with Statistics Canada to come up with better ways to gather data that reflect the African Nova Scotian experience in their census work.

The Road to Economic Prosperity Plan is a five-year economic development strategy developed and owned by the African Nova Scotian community to address systemic issues and improve economic and quality of life outcomes for African Nova Scotians.

The plan is led by leaders from African Nova Scotian communities and implemented in collaboration with public, private, post-secondary and community partners.

More statistics from the African Nova Scotian Prosperity and Well-being Index report(opens in a new tab) can be found online.

Source: New report sheds light on housing issues, wage gaps, employment numbers in Black, African Nova Scotian communities

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Pathways of Black, Latin American and other population groups in bachelor’s degree programs

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

Of interest and another demonstration of the value of disaggregated data between visible minority groups with of course the “why” questions harder to answer:

This article fills this gap by documenting various aspects of the postsecondary experience of different population groups with regard to bachelor’s degree programs. The findings suggest that different population groups registered very dissimilar experiences.

For example, Chinese students ranked near the top in bachelor’s degree enrolment rates; graduation rates; enrolment in math-intensive science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs; and (among students who initially enrolled in STEM) STEMgraduation rates. By contrast, Black students consistently ranked near the bottom and trailed Chinese students by a considerable margin on all of these measures. Latin American students also ranked fairly low in most measures.

Meanwhile, other groups had varied experiences depending on the outcome. While White students ranked low in terms of bachelor’s degree enrolment rates, they ranked high in terms of graduation rates. White students also ranked low in math-intensive STEMenrolment rates, but among students who initially enrolled in STEM, their STEM graduation rates were among the highest. By contrast, Korean students were among the most likely to enrol in a bachelor’s degree program, but once in these programs, their graduation rates and math-intensive STEM enrolment rates were about average.

These results are important as they point to specific stages in the pursuit of higher education where choices and outcomes diverge across population groups, which could contribute to understanding the differences in labour market outcomes that exist across population groups. Understanding why certain population groups are less likely to graduate from a bachelor’s degree program would require information on the reasons for dropping out or switching programs. These may include academic difficulties, financial constraints or even favourable labour market opportunities. …

Source: Pathways of Black, Latin American and other population groups in bachelor’s degree programs

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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