Yakabuski: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Of note:

….Truth be told, the term “museum” is a misnomer in this case. To go by his own descriptions, what the Premier seems to have in mind is a pantheon of Québécois heroes, from hockey greats Maurice Richard and Mario Lemieux to artists such as Céline Dion and Ginette Reno – all francophone Québécois, though he did allow that Leonard Cohen might also make the list. How big of him.

Source: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

Filed under Other Tagged with , ,

Douglas: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Indeed, a nuanced and balanced account of the issues and responsibilities, along with the honesty to state no easy answers:

“We will have to be nuanced in our response.” I wrote to my Board of Directors, as a follow up to their discussion on the almost daily announcements of changes to the International Students Program from the federal Minister of Immigration. But after hitting send, I wondered how do you nuance the lives of individuals that are being impacted by these changes? 

In the last year or so, Canada’s housing crisis has unfairly landed on the shoulders of International Students, here in Ontario and across the country. In some quarters, the increasing cost of living, the damped down wages and rising youth unemployment numbers, all laid at their blameless feet. Some ‘charities’ in the Greater Toronto Area has even gone as far as barring them from accessing food to feed their hungry stomachs. 

Students – young people courageous enough to cross oceans in search of education and yes, hopefully an opportunity to stay here in this land of plenty (for some) where they can build a life for themselves and those who sacrificed to afford them this opportunity. We know their stories. During the recent health pandemic, they were praised (along with migrant workers) for filling the labour gaps of food delivery, cleaners, drivers, shelf-stockers and cashiers in our grocery stores and other jobs that employers were only too glad to fill with their underpaid labour. 

But now, as rental housing prices soar in cities and towns and grocery barons are allowed to gouge us as consumers with impunity, we lay the blame at their feet. We do not ask, why were universities and especially community colleges (including the private ones) allowed to significantly increased enrollment of international students without providing affordable dormitories or other housing for them? Why didn’t provinces, who bankrolled the costs of post-secondary education on the backs of international students, ensure that enough affordable rental units were being built to accommodate the growth in population? What about the federal government who exponentially increased the number of student visas issued each year- tripling the number in the last decade or so – did they stop to think about infrastructure as they responded to provinces and educational institutions insatiable appetite for international student dollars? 

The vitriol in the comments sections of newspaper covering the Immigration Minister’s announcement is unbelievable at times- the xenophobia, the racism, the misinformation, all forming a perfect storm of hate towards this very heterogenous group of people. 

But there are issues here that must be addressed, I remind myself. Are the changes the Minister has made, all wrong? Of course not. Students are here to study, but must also work to support their daily needs. The change back to twenty-four hours (three eight hour shifts per week) during the school year and uncapped number of hours during vacation or school break seems reasonable to me. The increase in funds they must have available on annual basis was more than doubled. Some increase surely was required, but more than doubling? On top of the astronomical tuition fees? Maybe not so reasonable. 

The significant reduction in the number of visas issued per province and the Ontario government’s decision to ensure that the vast majority of these visas go to publicly funded (and not private colleges) tertiary education institutions- absolutely the right decision. 

And what about the unintended consequences? Who or what else is impacted by these changes? During our regional meetings with member agencies last month, we heard about the negative fall out for smaller and rural communities. Especially northern Ontario. International students are an important bread and butter line for those communities. There will be much negative fall out there. 

On the other hand, we are hoping that these drastic changes would mean a lessening of exploitation of students not yet here – from unscrupulous recruiters peddling false dreams. Landlords who invested in housing, driving up housing costs and fleecing these unfortunate students, who at times were reduced to renting time in a bed- so crowded were some of these spaces. Or the employers who steal the labour of students refusing to pay them for the actual time they have worked. 

There are no easy answers here. I still remember the stories from our community health centres who speak of the pain of having to inform families of the suicide of their child (at least 91 international students from India reportedly died in Canada in the past five years). 

For the students already here and who are navigating these changes, we call for their institutions to step up to ensure that they have adequate shelter and access to basic needs. We call on the federal government to leverage their existing funded settlement services programs so that these students have the supports they require to make their way through their studies and eventual success as permanent residents of our communities. 

A nuanced response? Maybe not. But certainly, the reality at this moment. More to come on this. 

Source: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Rioux | La nazification d’Israël

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Useful reminder of past and present naïveté:

L’humour peut-il être ignoble et drôle tout à la fois ? Je l’avoue, il est arrivé que des humoristes qui flirtaient avec l’abject me fassent rire. Comme il m’est arrivé de m’ennuyer avec d’autres trop bien intentionnés. C’est tout le mystère de l’humour. Et c’est toute l’ambiguïté de cette blague qui, cette semaine, a coûté son poste au comique de France Inter Guillaume Meurice, qui avait qualifié le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Nétanyahou, d’une « sorte de nazi mais sans prépuce ».

Peut-on en rire sans pour autant adhérer à cette infamie sans nom qui consiste à nazifier le peuple de la Shoah ? L’idée n’est pas nouvelle. Quelle jouissance de démasquer le loup déguisé en mère-grand et de dire à la victime qu’elle est devenue semblable à son bourreau. Comme le disait le philosophe Michel Eltchaninoff, rien de tel que de peindre les Israéliens en nazis pour « se libérer de la culpabilité d’une des plus grandes tragédies de l’histoire récente : le génocide des Juifs d’Europe » qui, à de très rares exceptions, n’a jamais été reconnu dans le monde arabo-musulman.

Ce n’est évidemment pas parce qu’on appartient à une droite dure, comme Nétanyahou, et qu’on s’est allié par pur opportunisme politique à des partis extrémistes qui sont la honte d’Israël qu’on est un nazi et qu’on prépare un génocide. Génocide dont on attend encore la preuve sonnante et trébuchante. Les deux millions de citoyens d’origine arabe qui vivent librement en Israël étant la preuve éclatante du contraire.

Les slogans entendus ces jours-ci sur les campus américains, français et canadiens n’en finissent pourtant pas de nazifier Israël, quand ils n’expriment pas parfois un antisémitisme flagrant. Ainsi en est-il du mantra « from the river to the sea » (« du fleuve à la mer »), dont l’origine n’évoque rien de moins qu’une Palestine où Israël aurait été rayé de la carte. Faudrait-il, pour soutenir le peuple palestinien — qui mérite toute notre compassion, répétons-le —, aller jusqu’à qualifier le pogrom du 7 octobre d’acte de résistance ? Ou en taire l’horreur absolue, ce qui revient au même ?

On peut certes comprendre le désir d’une génération élevée en banlieue, dans un moralisme souvent étouffant, de se rejouer la grande épopée de l’opposition à la guerre du Vietnam. « En 67 tout était beau, c’était l’année de l’amour », disait la chanson.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, la mythologie a pourtant pris quelques rides. Si la libération du Vietnam méritait le soutien de tous, il n’en allait pas de même des Viêt-Cong et de leurs alliés communistes, dont le véritable visage nous a été révélé quelques années plus tard par les multiples vagues de boat people et le génocide des Khmers rouges au Cambodge. Un vrai, celui-là, puisqu’il fit 1,7 million de morts.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, malgré l’émotion légitime, c’est pourtant la même naïveté béate qui s’exprime à l’égard du Hamas, dont l’objectif avoué n’est pas de créer un État palestinien, mais de rétablir le califat en Palestine. Et pour cela, d’en finir avec l’État d’Israël.

Serait-ce trahir « la cause » ou « faire le jeu de l’ennemi » que de rappeler à ces militants LGBTQ+ et autres « Queers for Palestine » le destin que leur réserverait la charia advenant une victoire du Hamas ? Quant à celles qui hurlent leur colère souvent légitime contre Israël, savent-elles le sort qu’on réserve aux femmes dans ces théocraties ?

C’est Raymond Aron qui disait que « les hommes font l’histoire, mais ils ne savent pas l’histoire qu’ils font ». Cette naïveté criminelle fait étrangement penser à celle de cette gauche française qui, derrière Jean-Paul Sartre et Michel Foucault, n’avait dans les années 1970 que des mots doux à l’égard de l’ayatollah Khomeini, réfugié dans le petit village de Neauphle-le-Château. Parlez-en à cette jeunesse d’extrême gauche très active à l’époque dans les universités iraniennes, et qui sera littéralement exterminée après la révolution de 1979.

Si on a raison de dénoncer le cul-de-sac politique que représente Nétanyahou, l’émotion légitime que suscitent les souffrances des Palestiniens ne saurait justifier la moindre concession à une organisation qui, en islamisant la cause des Palestiniens au profit d’un pur délire religieux, signe pour ces derniers la plus terrible des défaites. « Ce que cherchait le Hamas, écrit l’ancien ambassadeur de France à Tel-Aviv Gérard Araud, c’est de commettre des atrocités qui rendent tout compromis inacceptable. Je crains qu’il n’ait réussi… »

Source: Chronique | La nazification d’Israël

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Nicolas | Racisme anti-palestinien

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

As mentioned earlier, I think the existing forms of racism, anti-Arab for both Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and anti-Muslim for Muslim Palestinians, cover the essential. The substantive examples raised by Nicolas can be addressed under both:

On apprenait mercredi dans le Toronto Star que la nouvelle version de la Stratégie canadienne de lutte contre le racisme, qui devrait être rendue publique sous peu, n’inclura pas de définition du racisme anti-palestinien.

Cette stratégie, publiée pour la première fois en 2019, « est conçue pour jeter les bases de la lutte contre le racisme systémique par des actions immédiates à l’échelle du gouvernement du Canada ». Plusieurs groupes ont fait pression sur la ministre de la Diversité, de l’Inclusion et des Personnes en situation de handicap, Kamal Khera, pour que le racisme anti-palestinien soit désormais défini et donc reconnu par le gouvernemental fédéral, au même titre que l’islamophobie et l’antisémitisme, le racisme anti-noir ou le racisme anti-asiatique, par exemple. Ça aura été en vain.

Pour l’instant, on continue donc officiellement à dénoncer l’islamophobie, du moins sur papier, laissant de son côté le racisme anti-palestinien se déployer au Canada. Ce n’est pas suffisant. Voici pourquoi.

D’abord, tous les Palestiniens ne sont pas musulmans. De larges pans du mouvement nationaliste palestinien ont toujours cherché à se rassembler autour d’une identité culturelle et d’une situation politique — et non d’une religion. Le keffieh, par exemple, est un symbole à la fois culturel et politique, selon le contexte, mais pas un symbole religieux. Le foulard blanc et noir a pris la signification qu’il a aujourd’hui après avoir été porté durant des décennies par le leader palestinien Yasser Arafat.

Lorsque le parlement provincial ontarien prend la décision de bannir le keffieh de sa chambre législative, comme il l’a fait le mois passé, on empêche l’expression culturelle et politique du peuple palestinien dans son enceinte. Parler vaguement d’« islamophobie », ce serait ici très mal nommer les choses.

En fait, pour bien comprendre le racisme anti-palestinien, il faut savoir qu’il se déploie notamment comme une forme de racisme anti-autochtone. Et ici, je fais très attention à mes mots et aux explications que j’en donne.

Être autochtone est une catégorie politique, et non pas seulement ethnique. Ce n’est pas simplement un terme qui réfère à « qui était là avant ». Il est important de le comprendre si on veut éviter de remonter aux temps bibliques. Le mot « autochtone », dans nos instances internationales, réfère notamment à une catégorie de personnes qui se retrouvent sans État qui parle en leur nom dans le système des Nations unies, parce qu’un État s’est construit « par-dessus » leur territoire ancestral, en quelque sorte. Si le mot référait seulement à de vieilles racines dans une terre, tous les Français chez qui on décèle une forme d’ADN gaulois pourraient participer au Forum des peuples autochtones des Nations unies, pour donner un exemple grossier. Le terme « autochtone » prend une grande partie de son sens à l’intersection de l’« ancienneté » et de la dépossession. C’est en ce sens que je m’exprime.

Lorsqu’un État assied sa souveraineté sur un territoire en dépossédant un autre peuple de ce même territoire, il doit déployer un récit national et un appareil idéologique qui normalise cette dépossession. L’âge d’or du colonialisme correspond avec l’invention de l’idée de terra nullius, par exemple, qui veut que lorsqu’un territoire n’est pas occupé — et par occupé, on veut dire occupé à l’européenne, sujet à des activités économiques « productives » dans une perspective européenne —, il est considéré comme vacant et donc disponible pour la prise de possession coloniale.

C’est aussi en pleine expansion coloniale que Friedrich Hegel et plusieurs autres penseurs européens ont développé leurs idées sur la téléologie de l’Histoire. D’abord, on a tracé une ligne arbitraire entre la « préhistoire » et l’« Histoire », puis on a posé l’État-nation comme l’aboutissement de l’« Histoire » et ainsi hiérarchisé les peuples selon leur « stade de développement ». On a, en quelque sorte, inventé la catégorie de « primitif » — une autre manière de naturaliser qui a le droit d’exercer sa souveraineté sur des terres, et qui peut en être légitimement dépossédé.

Ces idées continuent d’être mobilisées jusqu’à aujourd’hui un peu partout en Occident. Elles permettent notamment à certaines voix pro-israéliennes plus radicales de nier jusqu’à l’existence même de la Palestine, puisque le peuple palestinien ne disposait pas d’un État-nation indépendant avant la fondation d’Israël.

Ces notions nous permettent aussi de mieux comprendre, par exemple, les commentaires de Selina Robinson, qui était ministre de l’Éducation postsecondaire en Colombie-Britannique, lorsqu’elle a affirmé, en janvier, que la Palestine était un « morceau de terre merdique » (crappy piece of land) sur lequel « il n’y avait rien » avant la fondation d’Israël. Ses propos n’étaient pas « islamophobes ». Ils étaient un parfait exemple du racisme anti-palestinien ordinaire, appuyés sur une forme d’actualisation de la doctrine de la terra nullius. Finalement, Selina Robinson s’est excusée, a perdu son poste de ministre, puis a quitté le caucus du Nouveau Parti démocratique provincial.

Le maire de Hampstead, Jeremy Levi, nous a offert un autre exemple de dérapage anti-palestinien. La semaine dernière, il a encore déclaré sur X que le gouvernement canadien devrait « reconsidérer son plan d’immigration pour les Gazaouis », puisque « leurs valeurs semblent incompatibles avec les nôtres ». Il faut savoir que l’idée des « valeurs incompatibles » a été mobilisée durant l’histoire coloniale pour justifier le statut subalterne, « non intégrable » de certaines populations. Le discours est encore souvent employé à l’égard des Palestiniens, notamment dans les espaces médiatiques israélien et américain, pour justifier certaines inégalités ou violences structurelles.

La liste d’exemples pourrait être encore longue. Pour repérer le racisme anti-palestinien dans l’espace public, encore faut-il le comprendre. Pour le comprendre, il faut d’abord le nommer clairement.

Source: Chronique | Racisme anti-palestinien

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Of note. What struck me the most was the speed of the government response, focussing on the essential, rather than process. But like in Canada, it took media interest to provoke a response:

Sometimes wonder Last month the 55-year-old was informed by Home Affairs that he had no Australian citizenship or visa, due to a law that was repealed more than 20 years ago.

When the father-of-two told his employer about the situation, he was initially stood down from work without pay.

“I’m no longer Australian and apparently I haven’t been for the last 33 years,” Mr Keogh told Raf Epstein on ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings.

“It’s not a situation I expected to find myself in. I’m mid-50s, I’ve paid my taxes … I’m very grateful to be Australian.”

Applying for Irish citizenship had unintended consequences

Mr Keogh’s grandparents were Irish and, proud of his ancestry, he decided to register his heritage with the Irish government when he was 22.

He didn’t understand that would automatically be treated as an application for Irish citizenship or, crucially, that he would immediately lose Australian citizenship as a result.

Mr Keogh received Irish citizenship and a passport, which he held alongside Australian identity documents which technically were not valid.

It was never flagged as a problem until he came forward late last year.

When Mr Keogh shared his story on ABC Radio Melbourne today, the office of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, said they were looking into Mr Keogh’s case.

Three hours later his citizenship was restored.

He said he was “absolutely elated” to have his citizenship restored after going to the media, but the problem was not solved.

Source: Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with

Elite Colleges Walked Into the Israel Divestment Trap

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

Valid contrast:

…But there’s a key difference between avoiding fossil fuels and shunning Israel. The institutions that divested from oil and gas made sure to describe it as financially prudent, albeit sometimes with shallow investment logic. This time, Israel’s social license is the only thing that is on the table. And if Israel is on the table, what other countries should lose their social license? How many years must pass since what some believe to be a country’s settler colonialist period or messy wars that kill innocent civilians to make it investable?

And if divestment against Israel is carried out, when should it end? Oil and gas divesting is meant never to end; oil and gas consumption is meant to end. Divestment from South Africa ended with apartheid. So university leaders will be forced to ask an often heterogeneous group of students what would earn Israel its social license back. A cease-fire? A new Israeli government? A two-state solution? The end of Israel as a Jewish state?

The effort to identify every investment with ties to Israel is also fraught. Columbia activists could find information only on pocket-change-size ownership of certain companies, such as $69,000 of Microsoft stock. So protesters are also demanding that colleges disclose all their investments, presumably so students can research the morality of each one. However, some firms that manage parts of an endowment’s money, particularly hedge funds, don’t report individual holdings to investors: asking them for it is like asking for the secret recipe for Coke.

But even if an endowment could provide a list of every underlying investment, it would likely then be inundated for more calls to divest, for more discovered connections — however small — to Israel, and for reasons related to other offenses discoverable with an online search. Why would there not be a Taiwanese student group demanding divestment from China, to dissuade an invasion? Other students demanding divestment from Big Tech, citing students’ mental health? Others demanding divestment from all of it, the hedge funds and private equity funds whose asset managers are not exactly healing American income inequality?

The answer, of course, is that endowments can’t be in the moral adjudication business — and they should never have headed this way. This does not mean that investing should be a returns-at-any-cost exercise. But it does mean that the real world does not always provide objective answers to how to balance benefits and consequences of companies providing products and services: Carbon emissions are bad, but energy consumption is necessary. Microsoft software for the Israeli government may displease you, but Microsoft saying it won’t sell software to Israel would displease others — and probably get itself banned from working with New York State agencies.

Listen to the protesters on divestment. They will not stop. They will not rest.

But neither will the markets. They open every morning, Monday through Friday, and university budgets’ demands on endowments never go away. Tuitions are rising. Costs always go up. Colleges should debate deep moral issues and discuss the hard compromises to solve the world’s ills. But we should move those efforts to the lecture halls, away from the investment offices. Divesting is an easy chant. Investing is hard enough as it is…

Source: Elite Colleges Walked Into the Israel Divestment Trap

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

House passes bill to add citizenship question to U.S. Census

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

While a citizenship question, like we have in Canada, makes sense,  the blatant politicisation and political purpose of the initiative does not given how it would further reinforce the political weight of rural states compared to more urban ones:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would add a citizenship question to the next U.S. Census in 2030, preventing non-citizens or illegal immigrants from being counted toward the allocation of representatives and federal electors in each state.

The Equal Representation Act passed the House by a vote of 206 to 202, along party lines. It now moves to the Senate.

Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who introduced the bill in January, called it “commonsense” that only U.S. citizens be counted when it comes to representation. Currently, anyone who participates in the census every 10 years — including non-citizens and undocumented immigrants — is counted for redistricting.

“One of the lesser acknowledged, but equally alarming, side effects of this administration’s failure to secure the southern border is the illegal immigrant population’s influence in America’s electoral process,” Edwards said on the House floor Wednesday.

“Though commonsense dictates that only citizens should be counted for apportionment purposes, illegal aliens have nonetheless recently been counted toward the final tallies that determine how many House seats each state is allocated and the number of electoral votes it will wield in presidential elections,” Edwards added.

The White House has been “strongly opposed” to putting a citizenship question on the census, saying it would be too costly.

“The bill would increase the cost of conducting the census and make it more difficult to obtain accurate data,” the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said in a statement this week.

“It would also violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the number of seats in the House of Representatives ‘be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,'” the White House added.

“It is unconscionable that illegal immigrants and non-citizens are counted toward congressional district apportionment and our electoral map,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.

“While people continue to flee Democrat-run cities, desperate Democrats are back-filling the mass exodus with illegal immigrants so that they do not lose their seats in Congress or their electoral votes for the presidency, hence artificially boosting their political power and in turn diluting the power of Americans’ votes.”

Before Wednesday’s vote, Democrats blasted the effort as unconstitutional and a waste of time given its prospects in the Senate.

“This bill is an affront to the great radical Republicans who wrote the original Constitution and the 14the Amendment, which has always made persons, not voters, the basis for reapportionment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “This bill would destroy the accuracy of the census, which may have something to do with its real legislative motivation.”

Source: House passes bill to add citizenship question to U.S. Census

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Minister said ‘hundreds’ of Canadians might use Gaza visa. More than 7,500 applied.

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

Not an easy environment in which to make accurate estimates but still striking:

More than 7,500 Canadians signed up in the first three months of the year to get family out of Gaza through a federal visa pathway that lawyers have described as onerous, chaotic and nearly impossible to complete….

…The data show Canadians filed 7,549 initial applications, or statutory declarations, to obtain temporary visas for their family members from the day the program opened on Jan. 9 through April 1.

When Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced his department’s plans to launch the family reunification program in December, he told a news conference he expected the number of people who might benefit would be “in the hundreds.”

From those 7,549 declarations filed, just 179 visas had been issued as of April 29, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada….

Source: Minister said ‘hundreds’ of Canadians might use Gaza visa. More than 7,500 applied.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Clark: Results? That’s not Ottawa’s business

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, outputs trump outcomes, the latter being harder to measure yet being more meaningful:

…In Mr. Trudeau’s early days in power, he called in former British prime minister Tony Blair’s results guru Sir Michael Barber, the author of a book called Deliverology 101, in what was widely seen as a faddish attempt to teach the old bureaucracy new tricks.

A lot of what Sir Michael emphasized was actually pretty straightforward stuff, and it is pretty easy to see why Mr. Trudeau’s government abandoned it.

Sir Michael wanted the government to clearly identify what the success of an initiative would be – not the announcement, but the outcome – and tell people. He suggested the government measure progress, with data. And to change things when they weren’t going as planned.

The zeal for all that drifted away. It’s politically risky. Measuring progress with data – or audits, for that matter – asks questions you might not want answered. Acknowledging mistakes means – heaven forbid – acknowledging mistakes. None of that makes good marketing.

Source: Results? That’s not Ottawa’s business

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

MIREMS: Diaspora and the Representation of Home Conflicts in Canada’s Ethnic Media

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

Detailed analysis of the major diaspora issues and how they play out in ethnic media in contrast with mainstream and home country media. Some groups have greater diversity of opinions and coverage than others. Overview below:

This discussion paper delves into the reactions of ethnic media in Canada to four distinct conflicts: the alleged Chinese interference in Canadian elections, the assassination of a Sikh leader in Canada, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. By comparing and contrasting the coverage of these events in Chinese, South Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern Canadian media outlets, the paper aims to shed light on the critical role that ethnic media plays in shaping the mindset of Canadian citizens.


The paper argues that ignoring grassroots community media can have significant consequences on the mindset of Canadian citizens, as evidenced by the reactions to these conflicts in ethnic media outlets. This assertion is grounded in several well-established theories in the field of media and social communications analysis, including agenda-setting theory, framing theory, uses and gratifications theory, and cultivation theory.


The case studies presented in the paper provide compelling evidence for the application of these theories in the context of ethnic media in Canada. The chapter on Chinese media’s reaction to alleged election interference reveals how these outlets frame the issue in ways that prioritize the concerns and perspectives of the Chinese Canadian community, potentially influencing their political engagement and attitudes towards the Canadian government.


Similarly, the chapter on South Asian media’s response to the assassination of a Sikh leader highlights the role of these outlets in shaping the community’s understanding of the event and its implications for Canada-India relations. The analysis of Eastern European media’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates how these outlets serve the specific informational and cultural needs of their audiences, providing perspectives and narratives that may differ from those found in mainstream Canadian media.
Finally, the chapter on Middle Eastern media’s reaction to the Israel-Palestine conflict underscores the power of these outlets in cultivating distinct worldviews and shaping public discourse within their communities.


In conclusion, the paper serves as a call to action for greater attention to and engagement with ethnic media outlets in Canada. By recognizing the power of these grassroots community media in shaping the mindset of Canadian citizens, we can work towards a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of how global conflicts and events are impacting our diverse nation. Future research should continue to explore the role of ethnic media in shaping public opinion, while policymakers must consider the perspectives and concerns expressed in these outlets when crafting inclusive and responsive policies.

Source: Diaspora and the Representation of Home Conflicts in Canada’s Ethnic Media

And Douglas Todd’s article on the report:

Canada’s ethnic media is “the canary in the coal mine,” offering warnings about everything from foreign interference to psychological stresses on newcomers, whether from Iran, China, Russia, India, South Korea, the Middle East or beyond, says Andrés Machalski, president of Multilingual International Media Research (MIREMS).

But governments aren’t taking advantage of the fertile resource. Their lack of understanding of the powerful role played by ethnic media has “enabled Chinese and Indian agents to (impact) public opinion … and provided an open door to homeland subversion of Canadian democracy,” says Machalski.

MIREMS’ 54-page report maintains the media outlets are invaluable for understanding what is going on in scores of diaspora communities.

The report goes so far as to suggest many newcomers suffer from anxiety and depression associated with “complex PTSD” as they try to navigate news and views from their homelands with their new lives in Canada.

Although many of the views expressed in ethnic media are predictable, there is some range of opinion, says the report by MIREMS, which tracks more than 800 media outlets in 30 languages in Canada and worldwide….

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada’s ethnic media reveal tough realities

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →