Jen Gerson: The Conservative case for the CBC

2024/05/02 Leave a comment

Comments on immigrant communities and their media consumption from country of origin sources as a reason to revitalize the CBC. Her reform suggestions have merit:

It was at the recent Canada Strong and Free Network conference — formerly known by the much less awkward title the “Manning Centre” conference — in which I overheard one of those conversations that is so often considered taboo in tête-à-têtes that are more Liberal or NDP-adjacent. It was a discussion on immigration, and specifically, on the obstacles to cultural integration that rapid immigration can sometimes entail. 

The speaker noted with some dismay the number of satellite TV dishes affixed to the balconies of apartments in urban areas that tend to become the first homes of new arrivals to the country. With the advent of affordable global satellite television, those who had relocated to Canada could keep abreast of news at home, in the languages they were most comfortable with. This influx included not only the plethora of private television networks, but also their public counterparts: RT, IRA, CCTV — virtually every country in the world invests in some content offering, and makes that offering widely available both domestically and abroad. 

In liberal democracies, public broadcasting tends to value at least a degree of journalistic independence. In authoritarian nations, well, not so much. But they broadcast just the same. 

Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with seeking news and entertainment from one’s homeland. Nothing could be more natural than the desire to seek out the familiar, especially while adapting to a new culture and a new home. My fellow conversationalist was not unsympathetic to that desire, yet those satellite dishes concerned him, nonetheless. Canada is welcoming a nearly unprecedented number of new immigrants at the same moment in which its sense of itself as a nation has, arguably, never been weaker. Or, as Justin Trudeau himself once put it “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” 

If that’s so, how do we expect this influx of new Canadians to cohere to the vacant identity of their adopted homeland? Is the move to Canada a thing that exists in the body only; the spirit to remain entrenched in the values, language, news and entertainment of the citizen’s soul? His homeland? How does a nation as widely dispersed and malleable as ours, one that welcomes people from around the world, create some kind of pan-Canadian values and identity? How the hell do we actually work together?  

I don’t have an easy answer to that question, but I did note at the time that this individual had unwittingly articulated the best Conservative case for the CBC. 

And he had done it in a place where promises to “defund the CBC” generated unabashed whoops of glee. 

“Perhaps don’t defund the CBC” is a contrarian position in my circles, of late. Conservatives hate this institution — and I don’t use the word “hate” lightly. It may be too late to make an appeal for reform, caution or reason. Blood is high. 

They are angry that the CBC sued the Conservative party — and only the Conservative party — for a fair use of news material in political advertising. They are angry at an organization that seems to be ideologically driven to, and hell bent on, closing the Overton window on a range of policy positions and values that many of them care about. They resent being forced to pay for a public broadcaster that they feel has alienated them. 

While I think some of these positions are clouded by the poor judgment that inevitably accompanies anger, many of these grievances are valid. And, privately, I know at least some employees in the CBC will admit to it. The CBC is not what it ought to have been in recent years, and calls for it to be defunded are a predictable and inevitable consequence of adopting a set of cultural values that are openly at odds with a plurality of the taxpayers that fund it. 

The organization still does necessary work, and employs many hundreds of diligent and grounded journalists. However, at least some sections of the organization do come off as high handed and patronizing, as if the outlet sees its role as imposing a set of Canadian Values onto a benighted populace eager for the Call On High of the Annex, rather than as an institution whose fundamental role is to serve those very masses. 

Take the carbon tax, MAID, government spending, contentious protests, gender identity, sex work, safe supply, diversity and inclusion, homelessness, and crime — these are some of the most pressing and contentious issues facing Canadians today. These are complicated issues, often morally fraught, and offer rich opportunities for real debate, reporting, and investigation. I don’t think that’s what we’re getting from the CBC right now. That is a problem, and an abrogation of the CBC’s duty to inform and serve a geographically and ideologically diverse public. Hence the anger. 

However, I cannot pin this failure solely on the CBC. 

If our public broadcaster is not producing the kind of journalism that we want, need and expect, then the negligence lies also within ourselves. We taxpayers, political leaders, and citizens have failed to communicate to the CBC what we expect. And weak management, poorly guided by a vague mandate, has been unable to establish a clear vision of what the outlet needs to prioritize — and, more crucially, what it must deprioritize. 

What I see when I look at the CBC is a Byzantine hall, ruled by competing fiefdoms, and dug five stories deep into the forbidding earth. What I see is mandate creep.

Is there anyone in senior management who can seriously blank-face defend CBC Gem? Or CBC Comedy? Why is the CBC replicating widely available language learning apps with their own version, Mauril? Or how about its vertical devoted to first-person opinion pieces? In an era of Substack and Medium and X, is there market failure that a public broadcaster really needs to address, here? A real lack of opportunity to write articles like: After coming out as trans, my return to sex work has been unexpectedly rewarding.

I could go on, but you get the point. Is there anyone, anywhere, within the CBC hierarchy who can say: “No”? 

All of these efforts reek of a senior management that so lacks a sense of self direction that it instead tries to be everything to everybody, and then blames its lack of adequate funding when it fails to do anything particularly well. And that’s before we get into the management bonuses, and last minute budget top ups. This isn’t sustainable. And it’s why I don’t find arguments for increasing funding right now compelling — absent a clear mandate and strong internal management, the government could double or even triple the CBC’s funding and not create anything better; all we’d get is an even more sprawling bureaucracy trying to churn out more #content in categories that are already amply if not ably served by the private sector. 

So, yeah, I understand the emotion, here. I understand how gratifying it is for Conservatives who squeal with delight when Pierre Poilievre screams “defund the CBC.” Whatever that means. 

All I’d ask is for such people to consider that this is, indeed, an emotional response generated by feelings of grievance and alienation. It’s not a rational policy position. Shut down the CBC tomorrow, and Canada is not suddenly going to host 1,000 ideologically grounded private media organizations. That’s a fantasy, totally detached from a solid understanding of the modern media market. The only problem defunding the CBC solves is the continued public funding of the CBC. 

Local news — real reporting that involves sending actual people to write about quotidian court cases and city hall meetings week after week — is a very hard business case in an environment that generates revenue by virality and clicks. There are going to be some successes in this sphere, but not enough to replicate a tenth of even the current skeletal coverage. 

Privatizing the CBC will do nothing other than to create another failing private media outlet. And defunding or shuttering it outright is only going to eliminate what’s left of an already battered local news system at the very moment that the private media sector is heading into its senescence. This is going to contribute to already expansive news deserts, with citizens turning to things like Facebook groups and closed group chats in order to share local knowledge. 

Some of these quasi-outlets will be fine, and even useful. Ordinary journalism doesn’t require special training or a credential. 

But it does mean that more Canadians over time are going to grow increasingly reliant on sources of information that may or may not have any attachment to how the world around them actually functions. Not only is this going to have an impact on our concepts of a shared national identity, but in some cases, even consensus reality. 

We don’t have to peer too deep into the darkness of our hearts to get a sense of where this is going. Travel just a little ways outside a major city and you’ll quickly run into news deserts where a significant subsection of the population already believes that the Canadian government is controlled by Klaus Schwab for the benefit of Satanic, adrenochrome-swilling pedophiles. 

To put it more bluntly: Conservatives, it’s one thing to burn CBC’s downtown Toronto HQ. By all means, paint your bodies in the ashes and scream at the moon until she hears your victory. Revel in it. But then you’re actually going to have to govern people. How long do you think the current crop of “hang the elites” stand by you when you’re the elite

The CBC in its current state is not sustainable. It needs a radical overhaul that includes an extensive mandate review that sets clear expectations for content, tone, and objective outcomes. Personally, I’d cleave everything related to entertainment and leave that to die. The CBC ought to be an exclusively journalistic organization, with a particular focus on local news, beat reporting, and investigations. I’d take the CBC’s mandate out of the Broadcasting Act and create a standalone statute that enshrines objective journalistic standards and practices in law so internal committees can’t dick around with journalistic fads. (I have no objection to “activist” journalism, or concepts like “moral clarity” in private business, or even grant-supported niche outlets; but a national public broadcaster ought to adopt broadly unobjectionable and historically grounded journalistic standards when serving an audience that cannot escape footing the bill.)

I’d demand the CBC create a functional, independent newsroom in every city over 100,000 people in this country. I’d assign specific beats like health, upper courts, legislatures and the like, and I’d write those expectations straight into the mandate. 

Most importantly, I’d have both the CBC and its critics understand that it is one of the most important repositories of institutional knowledge in this country — it is not only a reservoir of Canada’s culture and history, but also an irreplaceable living resource for the craft and practice of journalism itself. I wish the CBC considered itself not as a competitor to private journalistic enterprise, but more like a public service, akin to a library. An institution whose role is to help foster regional journalistic talent — perhaps through workshops, internships, or even equipment or facility rentals. 

If a local journalism student wants to start a podcast in, say, Medicine Hat, the local CBC outlet ought to be a resource to help her make that project a success. The local CBC outlet ought to be her champion. 

In this lurid dream vision, I would make all the CBC’s written and audio-visual materials freely available to any Canadian media outlet. Further, the CBC should be allergic to private advertising. 

I would also put some serious thought into the CBC’s role as a guardian of this country’s digital and physical news archives. If much private media is about to collapse, we risk losing an extraordinary amount of our shared cultural heritage, unless some entity is willing to take on the care, organization, and access of historic documents and material. 

All the above is a napkin sketch for a sustainable CBC mandate. One that fosters an innovative private media sector while ensuring that Canadians will be reasonably well served by a grounded and objective information environment. If Canadians want to wander into QAnon conspiracy land, that’s not for me, or for any government, to restrict. However, in the face of market failure — and objective news reporting is one such imminent failure — there is room for the public sector to act. We should ensure that Canadians have real choices. 

Funnily, when I spelled out that vision of a CBC, most of the Conservatives I spoke to at the conference in Ottawa could get behind it, or some version of it. And that didn’t surprise me. Most Conservatives in this country are not libertarians or even, frankly, true populists. Most, I think, grant that there is some role for a federal government to play in the promotion of a Canadian culture and identity, particularly where the preservation of history and institutions are concerned. I am aligned to the role of a free market in media, as in anything else (like and subscribe!), but I would remind everybody that the media industry doesn’t exist in a pure free market in the Platonic world of ideal forms, and never has. There are bad ways to intervene in it (ahem, the Online News Act) and there are good ways — ways grounded in historic success, both here and in other countries. Public broadcasting is tried and true, which is why almost every country has some version of it in accordance with its national values, needs, and insecurities. 

Ironically, the cultural conditions that prompted the creation of the CBC in 1936 are more prevalent now than at any time previous in living memory. There is more need now for a shared sense of Canadian identity. We need a revitalized social understanding about how to mediate access to information and power in a democracy. I would remind Conservatives of this, and I would ask: if you destroy the CBC, would you have to replace it with something else? I would ask you to put a pin in the anger, and consider how Canada and her people will be best served after the impending collapse of traditional media infrastructure. Lastly, I would remind you of all those satellites on all those apartment blocks and ask: if the CBC, or something like it, isn’t going to fill the gap, who will? 

Source: Jen Gerson: The Conservative case for the CBC

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Ottawa to propose new asylum rules to allow for faster deportations

2024/05/02 Leave a comment

Of note. This has been a longstanding issue for many governments, the excessive multiple processes that clog the system. Predictable and not entirely illegitimate fears by immigration lawyers but current system is neither sustainable nor fair:

The Liberal government is proposing to make changes to Canada’s asylum claim system which could speed up the deportation process for rejected applicants from the country.

The proposed amendments were quietly announced two weeks ago in the 2024 federal budget and come as Canada deals with a record number of asylum seekers.

“Budget 2024 also proposes to introduce changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to simplify and streamline the claims process in support of faster decisions and quicker removals,” it reads.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s office would not provide additional information to Global News, with his press secretary Bahoz Dara Aziz citing “parliamentary privilege.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) did not provide clarity either, instead issuing a statement that closely resembled what was in the budget.

IRCC says the new measures will “improve the efficiency of the asylum system without compromising fairness or compassion for those in need of protection

“Whenever lawyers hear the government say the word ‘streamline’ or make things more efficient, we always know that people’s rights are about to get sacrificed on the altar of administrative efficiency,” said immigration and refugee lawyer Chantal Desloges in an interview with Global News.

“The government is being very tight lipped about what they’re planning to actually change, which also makes me a little bit nervous,” Desloges added.

Since March of this year, 46,736 people have applied for asylum in Canada, according to the IRB. That is a 62 per cent increase from the same period in 2023, while the backlog stands at 186,000, according to the agency.

An increase in temporary immigration has also been linked in part to Canada’s housing crisis. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned the situation needs to be brought “under control,” saying temporary immigration has “grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”

As the numbers of applicants surge, so have wait times for asylum seekers.

It can take years for cases to be heard by the IRB.

How hard is it to remove people?

The Canada Border Services Agency has struggled to remove applicants whose claims have been rejected or withdrawn.

As of this February, the CBSA issued more than 28,000 “active warrants” to “failed refugee claimants.”

“We as a country need to invest in the refugee determination process so that they get a fair opportunity to have their case [and] their fear understood and a decision made,” said immigration and refugee lawyer Warren Creates.

“The ones who fail, whose cases are rejected, should be removed. I think justice requires that.”

Ottawa has pledged $743.5 million over five years to the CBSA, IRCC and the IRB to try to deal with the backlog of 186,000 asylum claims. More than 141,000 were filed last year alone.

“The IRB is resourced to handle 50,000 intaking claims a year,” Creates said. “They’re not resourced for the 140,000 that came last year. … To tread water, they need to triple their budgets and their adjudication.”

The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are part of a series of new measures announced by Ottawa.

The immigration minister has reinstated the visa requirement for Mexican nationals, introduced a cap on international students, and more recently reduced the amount they can work to 24 hours per week.

Up to now, Miller has ruled out changing the asylum criteria which could make it more difficult for claimants to remain in Canada.

Source: Ottawa to propose new asylum rules to allow for faster deportations

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Conestoga is a foreign student mecca. Is its climb to riches leading it off a cliff?

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

The poster child for the abuse of the international student program reflecting complicity of the federal government, Ontario government, and educational institutions. Good in-depth reporting:

The smell of South Asian spices wafts from the “Blends and Curries” food counter.

Conversations in Hindi and Gujurati flood the bustling hallways, which quickly get packed as students pour in and out of classes.

Cliques of Indian youth, who appear to make up a majority of the student population, take full advantage of common areas to study, lounge around or wait for class to begin.

Everywhere you look at the main campus of Conestoga College, there’s ample proof of an explosion of international students.

The school has become a poster child for aggressive international student recruitment.

Its efforts have brought in a flood of new money — a stark contrast to the financial pressures students themselves face — but also raised questions within the institution about the sustainability of that growth, and the motivations behind it.

And as the federal government seeks to stem international student flows with a two-year cap on study permits, even the immigration minister has singled the college out.

The southwestern Ontario college had 37,000 study permits approved and extended in 2023 — the most in Canada — which marks a 31-per-cent increase from the previous year.Click here to post your thoughts

Its student population has more than doubled in four years to about 45,000, and international students now vastly outnumber domestic ones. The main campus in Kitchener, Ont., alone is now home to more than 20,000 students.

Faculty and students seem to agree things have gone too far.

“No organization can grow at that pace, and do it right, that quickly,” said Leopold Koff, a union leader representing faculty, counsellors and librarians at Conestoga.

Faculty members have turned into nomads with no fixed desks, a change the union says was prompted by the college’s desire to build more classrooms to accommodate a larger student population. The college says the change reflects a post-pandemic hybrid working model.

At the student union office, more than a hundred students come in and out within an hour to grab a free snack — one of many programs Conestoga Students Inc. offers to help a growing number of food-insecure students.

Instructors are complaining that many students lack fundamental skills, which in turn makes their jobs more difficult, said Koff.

“They don’t have the basic three Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic,” he said.

Making matters worse, Koff said students have been too busy working to focus on their studies. He singled out Ottawa’s decision during the pandemic to temporarily allow international students to work more than 20 hours a week.

“That is opening up a huge catastrophe for the students,” he said. “They will take advantage of that. … They need the money.”

Vikki Poirier, another union leader who represents support staff, conceded the college has hired more people to keep up with the school’s growth.

But she said new hires need time to get up to speed, and in the meantime, staff are facing massive workloads as they process more students.

Both union leaders said they have raised concerns with the school’s administration — but they don’t feel heard.

“Our perception of administration of the college these days … is that it’s a river of money. And if you get in the way of that river of money, you’re going to be plowed over,” Koff said.

Conestoga’s finances have been generously padded by international student tuition fees, which can sometimes be three times more than those for Canadian students.

Financial statements show the public college had a $106-million surplus for the 2022-23 year. That’s up from just $2.5 million in 2014-2015.

Conestoga declined a request to interview its administration.

In a statement, the college defended its recruitment levels.

“Colleges and universities across the country have been welcoming international students as part of their financial viability strategy given the flatlining of public funding in recent years,” the statement said.

“Students who come to Conestoga from other countries have enabled us to reinvest our surplus in new buildings and in-demand programs, both of which drive economic growth. Domestic and international students now enjoy best-in-class facilities funded by the surplus.”

Conestoga also touted the contribution its students make to the regional economy and the role they play in filling labour shortages. It also defended its admissions standards, noting its requirements are “similar to, or higher, than other colleges.”

The individual stories of international students at Conestoga suggest many of them are experiencing hardship, at the same time as the college amasses a fortune.

While some students are lucky enough that their parents can afford to pay for their tuition and living expenses, others must take out loans and rely on employment to pay their bills.

Bijith Powathu and Fredin Benny both took out educational loans in India to pay for their first-year tuition.

Now, they’re working full-time jobs at a factory and warehouse, respectively, to pay for their second-year fees.

The young men said balancing work and school means sleep often goes to the wayside.

When Powathu is scheduled for a night shift at his factory job in Mount Forest, Ont., he drives 85 kilometres directly to class in the morning.

“Straight from work I have to come here to manage. Sometimes sleepless nights,” Powathu said.

Many Indian students describe how challenging it is to find work back home, where youth unemployment is sky-high. According to the Centre for Indian Economy, the unemployment rate for youth aged 20 to 24 in India was 44 per cent between October and December 2023.

But jobs are becoming harder to find for young people in Canada, too.

Nelson Chukwuma, president of Conestoga Students Inc. said that’s top of mind for students right now.

“Our students are having a hard time finding jobs,” he said.

Some Conestoga scholars attribute the scarcity to the increase of students in the region.

“A couple years ago, the condition was different. But now it is entirely changed. Mainly the job market,” Powathu said, describing the plight of his unemployed peers.

“So based on that, they just want to go back (home).”

Several students with anxious faces described handing out resumes on a consistent basis since arriving to Canada last September, with no success. They said there’s significant guilt in relying on their parents for support.

Chukwuma used to be an international student himself, and he has watched the campus change over time — and that change has been dramatic over the past five years amid unprecedented growth.

“We don’t think it’s sustainable,” he said.

Although his organization has financially benefited from the higher enrolments, Chukwuma said it is constantly playing catch-up when it comes to meeting students’ needs.

“I think the college needs to definitely re-evaluate their strategy because (of) the flack that we’ve gotten, not just from the professors (and) staff, but also just from the community,” Chukwuma said.

He noted that local governments didn’t have the housing and transit infrastructure to accommodate the influx.

Conestoga said it invested in eight new properties last year to address housing needs.

Many at the college also lay blame at the feet of long-term provincial underfunding coupled with few federal limits on the international student population.

For decades, a cost-of-living financial requirement tied to student permits sat at $10,000 — an amount that significantly underestimates the amount students spend on basic housing and food.

As part of a broader effort to rein in the number of temporary residents in Canada — a political liability for the Liberal government because of its impact on housing affordability — Immigration Minister Marc Miller has more than doubled the amount to $20,635.

Miller also announced that work permits for international students’ spouses would only be available for those in master’s or doctoral programs.

And in January, Miller announced that Canada would impose a two-year cap on study permits, reducing the number of new study visas by 35 per cent.

At Conestoga, this will mean a massive reduction. The Ontario government has allocated the public college just 15,000 permits out of its national share — less than half of what was approved the previous year.

While many international students have applauded the changes, the shifting goalposts are also causing anger.

One 29-year-old Nigerian student said the spousal work visa change means his wife and two daughters can’t join him in Canada as he expected.

“I’m so angry,” said the student, who did not want to be named because of concerns he could face repercussions.

“You brought me here and told me I can bring them. Now I’m here and you’re telling me I can’t bring them.”

Another federal rule change could have a significant impact on those who are working full time.

Miller announced on Monday that the temporary waiver to the limit on work hours would expire as scheduled on Tuesday. In the fall, the federal government plans to implement a new cap of 24 hours a week.

“To be clear, the purpose of the international student program is to study and not to work,” Miller said.

The immigration minister said the new cap reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of international students work more than 20 hours a week. At the same time, it keeps students from prioritizing work over school, he said.

“We know from studies as well that when you start working in and around 30-hour levels, there is a material impact on the quality of your studies,” Miller said.

For international students such as Powathu and Benny, it’s going to mean working about 16 hours less every week — a significant financial impact.

Prior to the announcement, Powathu and Benny both said a return to 20 hours would be untenable.

Asked if they’d survive, both said: “No.”

Source: Conestoga is a foreign student mecca. Is its climb to riches leading it off a cliff?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada needs to do more to prepare for an aging, and more diverse population

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Good analysis and prescription:

….Since 2018, Andrew Pinto and his team at Upstream Lab at the University of Toronto have been working on a tool called SPARK, a list of standardized questions designed for primary caregivers to collect information from patients, including race and ethnicity. Dr. Pinto hopes the questionnaire becomes standard in healthcare settings across the country.

It also includes socioeconomic questions – about income, education, disability status, housing, food security – recognizing that race and ethnicity are just part of the many factors that influence a person’s health outcomes.

“We all come from different cultures, with different ways of relating to health providers, and have different needs,” Dr. Pinto said.

“By asking these questions, we can get a better understanding of what people need.”

Source: Canada needs to do more to prepare for an aging, and more diverse population

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Canada urgently needs an equitable immigration system

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

The activist view, with little awareness of the practicalities:

…It is time to embrace a new vision of immigration. Rather than viewing it as a strategy to meet short-term labour market or demographic needs, we must recognize its key role in building a more equitable world, grounded in shared well-being. The 2021 mandate letter on regularization offers a stepping stone to develop a progressive immigration system. 

Canada has implemented regularization and permanent residency fast-tracking programs a number of times in the past. However, these have been limited in scope with many conditions. The success of broad regularization programs in Italy, Spain, and Germany highlight that inclusive large-scale regularization—including at a scale of 500,000 people or more—is not just feasible, but offers long-term benefits to migrant families and the host countries. Canada needs to expand on this success.  

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) led by the United Nations Network on Migration can serve as a guidepost for an inclusive human rights-based immigration framework. The GCM calls on member states to ensure the “protection and fulfillment of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status, across all stages of the migration cycle.” It also emphasizes the need to expand pathways for safe and regular migration, especially for vulnerable migrants. In 2020, Canada signed on to become a “champion” country to implement the GCM. 

We urge the Canadian government to honour the GCM commitment and its mandate on regularization. We call on the immigration minister to urgently enact comprehensive regularization so that no undocumented person is left behind. It is important that we prioritize and support undocumented people from marginalized backgrounds through the regularization process instead of excluding them with unfair requirements that they are barred from engaging in. At the same time, we need to build accessible pathways to permanent residency for temporary migrants; and irrespective of whether they apply for permanent residency or not, it is crucial that all temporary migrants are supported with equitable rights, protections, and services. 

This is what migrant justice organizations, settlement agencies, labour unions, and advocates across Canada have been calling for. This is the necessary path that Canada needs to take to become a global champion for legislating an equitable and just immigration system. 

Yogendra Shakya is a research and policy analyst focused on immigrant issues. Axelle Janczur is the executive director of Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services. 

Source: Canada urgently needs an equitable immigration system

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Better than the 30 hours floated, not as good as returning to 20 hours. Likely compromise to manage competing views:

International students will be able to work off-campus for up to 24 hours per week starting in September, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Monday.

The Liberals temporarily waived the 20-hour cap on work hours for international students during the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to ease labour shortages.

That waiver expires Tuesday.

“Looking at best practices and policies in other like-minded countries, most of them limit the number of working hours for international students. Canada’s rules need to be aligned or we will find our programs attracting more and more applicants whose primary intent is to work and not study,” Miller said.

“To be clear, the purpose of the international student program is to study and not to work.”

The new work limit comes as the federal government clamps down on a surge in international student enrolments across the country.

Critics have warned that allowing international students to work full-time could turn a study permit into an unofficial work visa, which would undermine its purpose.

However, the federal government is also hearing from international students who say they need to work more to pay for their studies.

Miller said his government is setting the cap at 24 hours because that seems “reasonable,” and would allow students to work three full eight-hour shifts a week.

He also noted that internal work by the department shows more than 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week.

The work hours limit will return to 20 hours per week until September, when the government can implement a permanent change to make it 24 hours.

There are no limits on the number of hours international students can work when they’re not actively enrolled in class, such as during the summer.

The Canadian Press reported earlier this year that officials in Miller’s department warned the government in 2022 that the temporary waiver could distract students from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs.

Miller previously floated the idea of setting the cap permanently at 30 hours a week. However, on Monday, the immigration minister said that would be too close to full-time hours.

“We know from studies as well that when you start working in and around 30-hour levels, there is a material impact on the quality of your studies,” he said.

Miller extended the waiver on work hours in December because he didn’t want the change to affect students during the school year itself.

Source: International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Indonesia May Offer Dual Citizenship to Attract Overseas Workers, Minister Says

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Of interest (Indonesia permits dual nationality for its emigrants):

Indonesia may offer dual citizenship to people of Indonesian descent to entice more skilled workers into the country, a senior cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

Indonesia does not recognise dual citizenship for adults, according to Indonesian law, as a child with two passports must choose one and renounce the other when they turn 18.

Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said the government plans to give dual citizenship to former Indonesian citizens living overseas, without offering details.

Luhut was speaking ahead of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who pledged a $1.7 billion investment in Indonesia.

“We also invite diaspora Indonesia and we give them also, soon, dual citizen,” he said. “Which I think will … bring very skilful Indonesians back to Indonesia.”

Nearly 4,000 Indonesians became Singaporean citizens between 2019 to 2022, according to data from the Directorate General of Immigration.

The immigration agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the plans to allow for dual citizenship.

The issue of dual citizenship caused some controversy in 2016 when Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo removed Arcandra Tahar as energy and mining minister after less than a month on the job following reports he held U.S. and Indonesian passports.

Source: Indonesia May Offer Dual Citizenship to Attract Overseas Workers, Minister Says

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with

Paul: PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

Agreed. Money quote: “I prefer to stand by PEN America and by all its members, though perhaps quite now, who would wish to see PEN’s mission upheld and strengthened rather than dismantled. Who does it really serve to keep tearing things down?”

All strong institutions stand to benefit from internal dissent and external pressures. But too often, recent efforts to reform institutions have meant reconstituting them in ways that distort or fundamentally undermine their core mission.

Nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, university departments and cultural institutions have ousted leaders and sent their staffs into turmoil in pursuit of progressive political goals. In the wake of the 2016 election and the 2020 murder of George Floyd and in a rush to apply sweeping “In this house we believe” standards unilaterally, organizations have risked overt politicization, mission drift, irrelevance and even dissolution. And now the war in Gaza is ripping its way across American universities.

The latest target is PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression by journalists and authors. Last week, after an increasingly aggressive boycott campaign by some of its members, PEN canceled its annual World Voices Festival, which was conceived by Salman Rushdie and was to mark its 20th anniversary in May. This followed a refusal by several writers to have their work considered for PEN’s annual literary awards. The ceremony awarding those prizes was also canceled.

An open letter sent to PEN America’s board and trustees and republished on Literary Hub, now the de facto clearinghouse for pro-Palestinian literary-world sentiment, accused the organization of “implicit support of the Israeli occupation” and of “aiding and abetting genocide.” It demanded the resignation of PEN’s longtime C.E.O., Suzanne Nossel, and current president, Jennifer Finney Boylan. According to its 21 signatories, mostly up-and-coming authors, “among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”

In response and in keeping with its mission of independence and free expression, PEN America accepted the writers’ willingness to voice their conscience. It has also made clear that there is room for more than one point of view on what constitutes genocide and on the current conflict in Gaza.

“As an organization open to all writers, we see no alternative but to remain home to this diversity of opinions and perspectives, even if, for some, that very openness becomes reason to exit,” PEN America stated in an open letter to its community.

That doesn’t mean PEN’s critics are without a point. I have also heard dissent from inside PEN that the organization has not been as strong in its advocacy for Palestinian writers since Oct. 7 as it has been for Ukrainian writers since the Russian invasion. I have seen internal letters describing this disparity in detail. Those grievances may well be legitimate, and PEN should respond appropriately, advocating on behalf of all writers caught up in conflict, repression and censorship, regardless of geopolitical circumstance.

But for those advocating that PEN America reform itself in the service of a single political agenda, the organization’s efforts to accommodate a range of views count against the organization. “Neutrality,” the authors of the most recent letter contend, “is a betrayal of justice.” Nothing short of total capitulation will serve their purpose. And they are conducting an intimidation campaign among other members and authors to join their ranks or shut up about it. According to PEN leaders, writers have expressed fear in openly supporting the organization in the onslaught of this latest campaign.

Since 2006, I’ve been one of PEN America’s 4,500-plus members, which includes writers, journalists, activists and professionals involved in the world of letters. I joined well before I joined The Times, after the publication of my second book, a liberal critique of the effects of online pornography, which met with a certain amount of pushback. As a freelance journalist and author who covered politically sensitive topics, I appreciated the protection PEN America offered. PEN takes a firm stand, for example, against online abuse, something every working journalist today experiences to one extent or another. PEN is also firmly committed to fighting book bans in schools, libraries and prisons, something that grew increasingly relevant to me when I became the editor of The New York Times Book Review.

Of course, these conflicts are minor compared with a war in which lives are at stake. But whatever my personal views on the Middle East, I don’t expect or even want all its members to conform to my brand of politics.

PEN brooked dissent before. In 2015 it honored the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after its members were brutally attacked and in spite of opposition from some of its members. I appreciate that the organization has named a prominent transgender writer and activist as its president even if I do not share all her views when it comes to gender politics. I don’t have to agree with everything PEN does; in fact, I prefer that I don’t agree, because that opens me up to protection in kind from members who may not agree with me on all issues.

Even if we’ve grown inured to organizations losing their way under political pressure, we shouldn’t be indifferent to the potential consequences. Especially now that there are so few truly independent organizations left.

According to its charter, PEN “stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community to which they belong, as well as throughout the world wherever this is possible.” I prefer to stand by PEN America and by all its members, though perhaps quiet now, who would wish to see PEN’s mission upheld and strengthened rather than dismantled. Who does it really serve to keep tearing things down?

Source: PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Anita Anand first aimed to transform Canada’s military culture. The public service is next

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

A bit of a puff piece. And equating the military with the public service is misleading, as the public service is miles ahead of the military in improving representation at all levels for all groups.

Corporate boardrooms. Military barracks. Federal government offices.

They’re not locales with a reputation for fostering diversity.

Anita Anand has been trying to change that.

Ensuring people of all backgrounds feel accepted and heard no matter the venue is a mission that has followed her at every stage in her life and career, she said in a recent interview.

“This is a very personal issue for me,” said Anand, who is the first person of colour to hold the federal government’s purse strings as Treasury Board president.

“I still walk into rooms and look at tables that are not diverse.”

Case in point: in February, Anand walked into a briefing regarding mental-health counselling for Black public-service workers.

There were no Black employees in the room, she said.

“I said to the individuals briefing me: ’Why aren’t there any Black individuals facing me?’ This is not acceptable.”

Part of her mandate is to dismantle systemic barriers in the federal public service that allow workplace harassment, bullying, racism and other forms of discrimination and violence to fester.

It needs to happen at all levels, she said.

“We actually want to ensure we see diversity in briefing rooms for the minister, at the deputy minister level, at the assistant deputy minister level.”

Anand is no stranger to what racial discrimination can feel like.

Before she became the member of Parliament for Oakville, Ont., in 2019, she worked as a lawyer and law professor.

At one workplace, she said, people would often ask if she was in the accounting department.

“That struck me because there were more South Asians in the accounting department than there were in the school of lawyers,” she said.

“Often I would get confused with other Indian women that were working in the same work environment that I was.”

Rather than focusing on such events, she said she has put far more energy toward understanding how to improve the situation.

That included working at the United Nations, writing a thesis on racial discrimination in Canada, and researching the number of racialized individuals on boards of directors when she was a professor.

“At every stage of my life, I have tried to incorporate my views about diversity and inclusivity in everything I am doing,” Anand said.

“It’s not that I have to try to do it. It is a natural part of the way I think.”

Anand said it’s difficult to pick out a point in time when she became aware of her own racial identity.

“I’ll just say that was very stark for me growing up.”

Her Indian parents met in Ireland in the 1950s as physicians, got married in England, then lived in India and Nigeria before immigrating to Canada.

“They raised their three daughters in a predominantly white province with very few South Asians when they moved,” she said.

“We had a wonderful upbringing in Kentville, Nova Scotia, but the fact that I was racialized never left my consciousness. There weren’t very many people who looked like me and my sisters at my school.”

Part of her goal now is to make sure racialized children can see themselves in all manner of jobs, including in high-ranking government and military roles.

As defence minister, Anand said she told her team that cultural change was a file that “should not leave the centre of my desk.”

In the months before she took the file in fall 2021, a string of senior military leaders were accused of sexual misconduct.

And just over half a year into her tenure, Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour released the results of an external review, saying the culture within the Canadian Armed Forces was “deeply deficient.”

Anand accepted Arbour’s recommendations for change, admitting in a statement upon its anniversary in May 2023 that “change does not happen overnight, and it will not continue without effort.”

She was assigned to oversee the public service last July.

About 80,000 people are in the Canadian Forces, Anand said, but the number is closer to 275,000 for the entire public service.

The problems of that larger group seem to have flown under the radar, Anand said.

“Maybe it’s the (sexual misconduct) cases, maybe that it’s more stark because of the hierarchy that is so evident in uniforms and badges in the Canadian Armed Forces, compared to the public service, where we’re not wearing uniforms,” she said.

“But the issues are palpable.”

A panel of experts the Treasury Board tapped to help with workplace culture has recommended major changes, including instituting mandatory racism, discrimination and harassment training.

The panel also said employees must have mental-health counselling supports, and managers need to be trained in trauma-informed leadership.

As she reviews the recommendations, Anand said she will develop a path forward, with an action plan ready to go before the summer.

It won’t leave the centre of her desk, she said.

“This is not something that I have to worry about whether I will remember,” Anand said.

“It is as a function of who I am.”

Source: Anita Anand first aimed to transform Canada’s military culture. The public service is next

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: Clever film brings home exploitation of foreign students in Canada

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

Of note, timely:

Vancouver filmmaker Shubham Chhabra throws a lot into his short movie Cash Cows about international students from India stressing to make a go of it in Canada.

There’s the student, Rohit Sharma, whose boss in Canada doesn’t intend to pay him because he thinks he’s doing him a favour. There are the five male international students sharing one small basement suite in Surrey because rents are extreme. There is confusion about handing over up to $45,000 to dubious immigration consultants, but still needing jobs as security guards and pizza-makers.

Being a foreign student while working in well-off Canada, en route to obtaining prized status as a permanent resident, isn’t exactly “living the dream,” even though one character in the film claims that it is.

Cash Cows is fictional but based on the experiences of Chhabra, who came to B.C. in 2015, as well as his closest friends from India, source of Canada’s largest cohort of international students.

The film sets its dramatic-comedy tone from the get-go, with opening images of unsuspecting cows being ground down and devoured as juicy hamburger or steaks.

While international students face multiple stresses in Canada, including extreme tuition fees and often shoddy educations, Cash Cows highlight the way they’re exploited by employers. It’s a problem that has been spreading since the federal Liberal government increased the number of international students in Canada to 1.3 million from 225,000 over the last decade.

The pivotal scene in Cash Cows, which has been shown at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and won an award for best screenplay, features a foul-mouthed boss, Jaspreet Singh, excoriating Rohit for daring to expect to actually be paid for working more than six months as a night security guard at his car dealership, called Brown Brothers.

‘I’m doing you a favour. Why the f–k do you expect everything for free?” shouts the boss, who has agreed to sponsor Rohit for permanent resident status. The employer warns the student that if he asks too many questions he could have him deported. No longer naïve, Rohit realizes he has to endure indentured labour.

Cash Cows is fundamentally about how some employers, and in some ways politicians and educational institutions, are treating foreign students and other temporary residents as “commodities rather than as a sustainable human resource,” Chhabra said.

While the filmmaker personally feels it’s a “privilege” to have studied at Langara College and now be working as an assistant director for the TV series Family Law, he wants his short film, and a longer documentary scheduled for release this spring, to help viewers understand the spectrum of experiences of international students.

He’s aware an untold number of employers are taking advantage of foreign students, whose families back home, like his, will often sacrifice a great deal so their offspring can gain a foothold in Canada.

In India, the vision of getting into Canada on a study visa “is super-idealized in movies, TV shows and music videos,” Chhabra said. While unpleasant truths are sometimes mentioned in India’s media, most young people fly to Canada with incredible optimism.

Reality can be shocking for many, Chhabra says, “despite Canada being one of the best countries in the world.” Exploitive employers in Canada have many schemes, including not paying student employees at all, or expecting them to repay some of their salary.

“One of my friends was stuck in a seven-year-employment scam, where he was paying back almost 30 per cent of his paycheque.” He did so, Chhabra said, because the boss had promised to sponsor him as an immigrant.

“It’s 100 per cent illegal,” said Chhabra. When the friend obtained permanent residency, “he quit the job the first day he could. He got his trucker’s licence, which is what he wanted to do, and he’s now super-happy, making real money, working hard.”

Chhabra’s own story inspired the key conflict depicted in Cash Cows. The manager at a fast-food outlet he was working for in Vancouver was finding convoluted excuses to underpay him, alleging he was in training. Chhabra challenged him.

“He gave me this long spiel about how grateful I should be. And I went back to work,” Chhabra said.

Another moment in Cash Cows is based on the experience that one of his friends had as a security guard. The student, already unpaid, was forced by his boss to come up with the money to compensate for a vandal smashing an automobile window with a rock while he was on night duty.

In addition to the scams featured in Cash Cows, reports are arising of many others in Canada. They include employers taking secret kickbacks from foreign students and other non-permanent residents to create jobs for them, some of which don’t really exist. Another controversy emerged this week, with news of a 650 per cent increase in five years in the number of foreign students applying for refugee status.

In the midst of all the schemes and conflicts, which are dividing opinion among Canada’s South Asian population, Chhabra said he hopes Cash Cows helps viewers understand the different ways young people on study visas are trying to survive and prosper in a new land.

He intended to do so while avoiding heavy-handedness: “I wanted to make something light-hearted, yet grounded in reality, with a little message.”

One way the film has a bit of fun is by bringing alive the way many foreign students end up crammed together in tiny basement suites.

That is exactly what Chhabra and his friends had to do. For a long time Chhabra and two male friends shared the same double bed, sleeping in shifts and sometimes at the same time. While Chhabra’s Canadian girlfriend has described the practice as “so weird,”  he says it’s considered fine in Indian culture.

More seriously, in the past year Chhabra worries the national discussion of migration in Canada has hit a “tipping point,” where non-permanant residents such as foreign students are now being seen in a more pessimistic light, particularly in regard to contributing to pressure on housing and rental prices.

And while Chhabra wants to fight against the negativity, in some ways he can understand why in January Immigration Minister Marc Miller imposed a two-year cap on study permits.

“We see all the negatives, like everyone else,” said Chhabra. “And we want to work together to make it better.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Clever film brings home exploitation of foreign students in Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →