As NH expands surveillance along the Canadian border, immigration and civil liberties activists push back

2023/10/25 Leave a comment

Of note. Would be helpful to have some numbers but a reminder of two way traffic across the border. Interesting no mention of expansion of the STCA to the entire border. As the article notes, seems more political than substantive:

New Hampshire’s plan to increase patrols and surveillance along its border with Canada is drawing praise from Republican politicians. But civil liberties and immigrants rights activists are raising alarm that an expansion of police powers comes despite a lack of data supporting claims there are migrants flowing across the state’s international boundary.

Gov. Chris Sununu and Attorney General John Formella released details of the Northern Border Alliance Task Force last week. The $1.4 million effort includes the purchase of unspecified equipment and increased police patrols within 25 miles of the border. State officials are also granting new powers to local and state police to temporarily detain suspected migrants who crossed the border without proper paperwork.

The move comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say they’ve seen a surge in crossings in the region, though neither federal nor state officials have shared hard numbers about the rate of crossings along New Hampshire’s portion of the international border.

Sebastian Fuentes, with the advocacy group Rights and Democracy, called the new initiative little more than “performative politics” in advance of next year’s election.

“Nobody has been able to show any numbers, or any kind of data, to validate those comments,” said Fuentes, who lives in Thornton.

The ACLU of New Hampshire is in an ongoing legal battle with Border Patrol over the release of state-level statistics on illegal crossings. On Friday, the civil liberties group also criticized the governor’s office and the New Hampshire Department of Safety for leaning into this new enforcement effort without showing hard evidence for why it’s needed.

Frank Knaack, the group’s policy director, characterized it as part of an effort to “to expand police power and surveillance within the Granite State under the guise of a ‘crisis’ on our border.”

The new task force was funded in the latest two-year state budget. The money, according to Formella, will cover the cost of an additional 10,000 hours of patrols by local and state police near the international border.

The Department of Justice is also laying out new rules to allow those officers to “cooperate with federal law enforcement officers in preventing and detecting crime and apprehending criminals, including those who have committed federal immigration-related crimes.” In practice, this could allow officers to temporarily detain suspected migrants who entered the country illegally and hand those people over to Border Patrol officials.

While state and federal officials haven’t specified how many border crossings are happening in New Hampshire, the Border Patrol has released statistics documenting a surge in interactions with suspected migrants across the region encompassing New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Border agents have reported nearly 7,000 interactions in the region in the past 12 months, up from 1,095 encounters with suspected migrants during the 12 months prior, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Federal authorities have announced two suspected cases of human smuggling along the New Hampshire border in 2023. In one instance this July,10 people were detained in Pittsburg — nine people who allegedly entered the country illegally, and one man accused of facilitating their crossing. In September, four more people accused of illegal entry were arrested in Stewartstown, inside a vehicle that was first spotted in Vermont, according to court paperwork.

At a press conference announcing the new task force, Sununu criticized the Biden Administration and the state’s congressional delegation — all Democrats — for a lack of action on border security.

“We can’t stand by, and we won’t,” Sununu said. “We’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that we’re providing the necessary resources and security for our citizens.”

The northern border has become a regular stop for Republican politicians seeking elected office in recent months, including presidential and gubernatorial hopefuls. Earlier this summer, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen also met with local law enforcement during a trip to Pittsburg.

In a statement, Shaheen’s spokesperson rejected Sununu’s claims of inaction by Democrats, noting that she has been advocating for the issue dating back to her time as governor and has backed more funding for border patrol as a U.S. Senator.

Source: As NH expands surveillance along the Canadian border … – Maine Public

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Feds announce new panel to help address discrimination in the public service

2023/10/25 Leave a comment

We’ll see what they come up with:
The federal government has announced the assembly of a new panel that will support the design and creation of a new “restorative engagement program” to address discrimination, violence and harassment in the federal public service.President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand announced the creation of the panel of experts at a press conference Monday.

“We are working to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone can be their true self,” Anand said in a statement. “This panel of experts will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to help shape the new restorative engagement program. Their insights and contributions will be instrumental in shaping recommendations that support truth, healing, and respect.”

The panel comprises four recognized experts in clinical psychology, mediation, dispute resolution and restorative justice.They include Jude Mary Cénat, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Psychology and chair of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Black Health, and Director of the Vulnerability, Trauma, Resilience & Culture; Linda Crockett, founder of the Canadian Institute of Workplace Bullying Resources and the Canadian Institute of Workplace Harassment and Violence; Gayle Desmeules, founder and CEO of True Dialogue Inc., which provides customized training, facilitation, mediation and consulting services; and Robert Neron, a senior arbitrator and workplace investigator and former adjudicator for the Independent Assessment Process of the Indian Residential School Secretariat.

The announcement comes less than a week after a report by the auditor general of Canada, Karen Hogan, criticized federal departments and agencies for not doing enough to measure inequalities and improve the experiences of racialized employees in the workplace.

Analyzing six government departments and agencies between 2018 and 2022, Hogan’s office found that, while many initiatives have been launched to address inequities in the workplace, none have resulted in the “full removal of barriers and in the achievement of equity.” It highlighted that organizations have failed to effectively report on progress, identify barriers faced by staff and, at the manager level, take accountability for behavioural and cultural change.Among the organizations analyzed in the report, a higher percentage of visible minority respondents than non-visible minority respondents indicated that they were a victim of workplace discrimination. However, the surveys showed that racialized respondents were more likely to feel they couldn’t speak about racism in the workplace without fear of reprisal.

Joining the conference virtually, Crockett said the panel “cannot not” deal with the issues raised by the report, adding that employees’ fear of retaliation and reprisal is a critically important issue to address. At this stage, however, panelist Neron said it’s “premature” to determine the recommendations that will be made as engagement has not yet taken place.

The restorative engagement program is part of a broader government-wide strategy to identify, address and prevent harassment, discrimination and violence in the workplace, according to a news release shared by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS).“The goal of a restorative engagement program is to identify, through open dialogue, ways to address harm and promote healing for employees who have reported experiencing harassment, discrimination and violence in the workplace,” the release stated. “By placing individuals at the centre of the process and focusing on understanding the connections, root causes, circumstances, and impacts related to harm, the restorative engagement program will help drive cultural and systemic change within the public service.”

TBS said similar programs are being used “increasingly” across Canada, including by the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.

Anand said the announcement of the program is not just an exercise in public relations. As a racialized person herself, she said it’s crucial the government continue to address discrimination in the public service.

While she is not a member of the panel, Anand said she believes the work happening across the government to develop programs supporting the better treatment of minorities and women who have been subject to sexual harassment can serve as valuable examples for the team.Participating online, Desmeules said Monday that an interdepartmental advisory working group had been established to support the program’s engagement process, made up of public servants from departments and locations across Canada who have experience in diversity, inclusion, harassment, discrimination, conflict management, labor relations, disability management and restorative justice, with the Canadian Armed Forces “sitting at that table.”

“We’re just capturing collective wisdom here,” Desmeules said.

In its 2023 budget, the federal government committed $6.9 million over two years to TBS to advance a restorative engagement program to “empower employees who have suffered harassment and discrimination, and to drive cultural change in the public service.” It said the program would allow employees to have a safe, confidential space to share experiences of harassment, discrimination and violence.

“According to the 2020 Public Service Employee Survey, certain federal public servants are more likely to experience harassment, racism, and discrimination in the workplace,” the budget stated. Those public servants include those identifying as Black, racialized, women, Indigenous, persons with disabilities or 2SLGBTQI+.

The budget outlined that $1.7 million would be sourced from existing departmental resources, with funding to also support a review of “the processes for addressing current and historical complaints of harassment, violence and discrimination.”

TBS said the panel’s work will come with a price tag of about $550,000.

The panel is expected to write a public report on its findings in early 2024, with recommendations on the design of the program to be submitted to the government in the spring.

Source: Feds announce new panel to help address discrimination in the public service

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Fraser: François Legault et les universités anglophones

2023/10/25 Leave a comment

Good column by former official languages commission Fraser:

Dans l’approche du gouvernement du Québec envers des institutions de la communauté anglophone, c’est difficile d’éviter l’impression qu’il y a une ignorance, et une méfiance, derrière ses gestes. L’attitude du premier ministre François Legault envers la communauté anglophone est un secret de polichinelle ; dans son mémoire, il a raconté ses batailles de rue avec les jeunes anglophones de l’Ouest-de-l’Île, et, dans son premier discours politique de candidat, il a rassuré les membres de l’association de comté du Parti québécois de sa hantise pour les Anglais.

M. egault a déjà parlé de la Coalition avenir Québec comme d’une version moderne de l’Union nationale de Maurice Duplessis, et les points de comparaison ne manquent pas. Comme Duplessis, il a créé son parti en regroupant nationalistes et conservateurs. Comme Duplessis, il accepte mal la critique, dénonçant le journaliste Aaron Derfel, de The Gazette, quand il a découvert les conditions invivables dans le CHSLD Herron.

Son caucus n’a que deux députés de l’île de Montréal, et un seul anglophone ; un miroir, 70 ans plus tard, de l’emprise électorale de Duplessis. (En fait, en 1954, Duplessis a gagné six sièges sur l’île de Montréal, trois fois plus que Legault en 2022.)

Cette hantise est parfois marquée par la peur. Dans sa campagne électorale de 2018, il a dit qu’il « s’est réconcilié avec le Canada », mais a exprimé la crainte que « nos petits-enfants ne parlent plus français » à cause de l’immigration. Pendant la même campagne, il a avoué qu’il croyait qu’un immigrant puisse devenir citoyen canadien en quelques mois, tandis que ça prend trois ans.

Comme réconciliation avec le Canada, on a déjà vu mieux. De toute évidence, les Canadiens sont perçus comme des étrangers. Des étrangers riches, par contre, qui peuvent financer les universités québécoises en payant presque six fois plus que les étudiants québécois pour s’inscrire aux universités québécoises, à McGill, à Concordia ou à Bishop’s. (Les étudiants arrivant de la France vont continuer de payer les mêmes frais de scolarité que les jeunes Québécois.)

Ce geste fait suite à d’autres qui révèlent une attitude négative envers la communauté anglophone, comme si cette communauté n’avait pas le droit de gérer ses propres institutions qet u’il n’existait que grâce à la bienveillance de la majorité francophone. Donc, le gouvernement a déjà annulé le financement pour l’expansion de Dawson College, a limité l’inscription dans les cégeps anglophones d’étudiants qui n’ont pas étudié en anglais et a imposé une exigence de trois cours en français pour les étudiants anglophones au cégep — ce qui chambarde la planification de crédits et l’organisation du personnel enseignant.

Mais tout cela n’était que des hors-d’oeuvre. Le plat principal a été annoncé la semaine passée. Au lieu de considérer les universités anglophones comme un actif pour le Québec, elles sont perçues par ce gouvernement comme un passif, comme une menace à la santé culturelle et linguistique de la majorité.

Au contraire, McGill est l’une des universités les plus respectées en Amérique du Nord et la seule université canadienne qui est bien connue aux États-Unis. Concordia est un peu le pendant anglophone de l’UQAM : c’est souvent l’université de la première génération qui poursuit des études postsecondaires. Et Bishop’s joue un rôle particulier comme petite université avec une culture innovatrice et intime.

On se plaît souvent à dire au Québec que la minorité anglophone est la mieux traitée au Canada. Mais il n’y a aucune province, sauf le Québec, qui a fait un effort systématique au cours des dernières décennies pour affaiblir les institutions de la minorité. En Ontario, on est en train de bâtir une nouvelle université francophone, l’Université de l’Ontario français, qui a accueilli sa première cohorte en septembre 2021. Au Manitoba, le collège St. Boniface est devenu l’Université Saint-Boniface. Au Nouveau-Brunswick, l’Université de Moncton a célébré cette année son 60e anniversaire.

Historiquement, le mécénat ne faisait pas partie de la tradition francophone au Québec. Dans son mémoire Mes grandes bibliothèques. Mes archives, mes mémoires le bibliothécaire et archiviste Guy Berthiaume raconte comment il a travaillé pour faire sa marque dans le domaine de campagnes de finance3ment pour les universités francophones québécoises. « La collecte de fonds professionnelle, systématique et assumée était, jusqu’au début des années 1980, absente des universités francophones et elle faisait l’objet d’encore de beaucoup de préjugés dans les milieux intellectuels », écrit-il.

Par contre les universités anglophones y travaillent depuis le début de leur existence. Il y a, et il y a toujours eu, un effort soutenu pour créer un sentiment d’appartenance et de communauté chez leurs diplômés.

Maintenant, elles paient le prix de leur succès. Au lieu d’être valorisées et respectées comme des pôles d’attraction nationaux et internationaux, elles sont traitées avec mépris, comme des vaches à lait pour le réseau universitaire. Quelle honte !

Source: François Legault et les universités anglophones

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Black feminists in defence of Sarah Jama and Palestinian human rights

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

Remarkable demonstration of willful blindness and ideological blinkers. Not a word about the Israelis slaughtered by Hamas. And how can self-styled feminists be supportive of the Islamist and anti-feminist Hamas?

Most other commentary criticizing the Israeli government’s response to the Hamas attacks acknowledges the brutality of the Hamas killings and kidnappings.

Even the equally biased message from TMU law students (since taken down), “condemned Hamas’ recent war crimes killing 1300 Israelis” but then reverts to form by stating “Israel is therefore responsible for all loss of life in Palestine.”

That three academics at UofT failed to do so acknowledge Hamas’s brutality, will legitimately be used as an example of the “rot” in academia.

Sad:

We are Black women scholars writing with the strongest concern for the possible censure of MPP Sarah Jama at Queen’s Park. As Black women, we live with the enduring legacies of slavery and colonialism. We feel a responsibility, like many Black women before us, to oppose all forms of racist dehumanization.

We are outraged that Sarah Jama, a Black woman and Hamilton Centre MPP, may be silenced — unable to speak in the provincial Legislature — for the duration of her elected term. Jama has been targeted by Premier Doug Ford, and reprimanded by her own party leadership, in response to a statement in which she called for a de-escalation of violence.

The attack on Jama comes amidst deepening government repression of those who speak out in defence of Palestinian life.

Jill Dunlop, minister of Colleges and Universities, has named and condemned university students and faculty who authored or signed statements, even those who have defended Palestinian human rights on social media, calling for them to be disciplined for “supporting the atrocities that have been committed against innocent civilians.”

Are Palestinian civilians not also “innocent?”

We mourn the loss of all civilian life and we also stand with those who speak out in support of Palestinian human rights and against government efforts to intimidate and silence dissenting voices.

The siege on Gaza is a humanitarian disaster, described by UN experts as “collective punishment” and “ethnic cleansing”. Since Oct. 7 and of writing this article on Friday, the Israeli army has dropped over 6,000 bombs in Gaza, killing 3,478 people, with one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. Israel has launched 136 attacks on health-care services across Palestine, killing 28 medical staff. Over a million Palestinians have been displaced, with corridors for humanitarian aid closed. Human Rights Watch has documented the use of white phosphorus, a chemical that “burns at temperatures hot enough to melt metal.”

On Oct. 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel,” saying, “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” In a since-deleted tweet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the siege on Gaza as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” These statements justify the ongoing attack on Gaza, constituting what Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal deems “an intent to commit genocide.”

Black people too have often been likened to animals and relegated to the realm of darkness and “the jungle.” Sarah Jama’s words emerge from a long tradition of Black women standing in support of Palestinian human rights and against apartheid, from Toni Morrison to Audre Lorde, Angela Y. Davis, June Jordan and Dionne Brand.

On our campus and in our movements, we work from Indigenous lands and across geographic and socially erected borders, with scholars of all backgrounds — including Palestinian, Indigenous and Jewish — to stand for justice and against dehumanization. Black feminists have not only the right, but the duty, to take a stand against genocide, militarism, and occupation, and to challenge the Canadian government’s complicity in it, whether in the current attack on Gaza, its initial failure to condemn South African apartheid or its leading role in the destabilization of Haiti.

Nobody should be censored or disciplined for condemning what the UN and Amnesty International have documented for decades: that Palestinians have been subjected to Israeli military occupation and apartheid and that Gaza has been under siege since 2007.

We cannot allow Sarah Jama to be silenced and we will not be silent or complicit with genocide. Our voices echo a global majority that supports an immediate ceasefire, as well as an end to the conditions that have been at the devastating heart of this issue: an end to apartheid and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Robyn Maynard, Nisrin Elamin and Alissa Trotz are professors at the University of Toronto.

Source: Black feminists in defence of Sarah Jama and Palestinian human rights

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Asylum claims jump at Canadian airports after Ottawa eases some visitor visa requirements

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

“Fix” one problem by creating another! Waiving the sufficient funds requirements and the demonstration of intent to leave requirement may have appeared a good idea at the time but did nobody at the official or political level not expect an increase in claimants?

Canada is experiencing a surge of asylum claims being made at domestic airports after a contentious move by the federal government to waive certain requirements for thousands of visitor visa applicants.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has processed more than 26,000 asylum claimants at airports through September this year, an increase of 54 per cent from last year’s total, according to figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). While the numbers have been rising since 2022, the trend accelerated in the spring.

In March, the federal government closed Roxham Road, a popular route into Quebec for those seeking asylum in Canada. The closure has forced would-be claimants to find new entry points.

But there was another, less-publicized move, that likely contributed to the trend. Earlier this year, Ottawa waived some eligibility requirements for visitor visa applicants – in particular, those individuals no longer have to prove they have sufficient funds to stay in Canada or demonstrate they will leave the country when their visas expire. The policy went into effect on Feb. 28 and lasts through the end of 2023.

The Globe and Mail reported in January that IRCC was considering such a move, after the newspaper leaked a government document that outlined ways to reduce a significant volume of visa applications.

The memo said that not all applicants for temporary resident visas, or TRVs, would be “genuine visitors,” and that in waiving eligibility requirements for those individuals, it could lead to an additional 8,600 asylum claims.

Still, Ottawa pressed ahead with the plan – although it didn’t disclose anything publicly until June, four months after the policy took effect. Radio-Canada was first to report on the change.

“The percentage of people coming to Canada on a TRV and claiming asylum remains low compared to the overall volume of TRVs the department typically issues each year,” IRCC spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater said in a statement. “In the current reality of increasing global migration, Canada, like many other countries, is experiencing a rise in the number of people claiming asylum.”

Many people connected to the immigration system, including lawyers and government employees, have criticized Ottawa’s approach to expediting the processing of applications. They say the immigration department is not performing its due diligence in screening all visitors, while also putting stress on the refugee system, which was already struggling to accommodate a rush of people seeking protection in Canada.

The change “makes our immigration system seem unreliable,” said Zeynab Ziaie Moayyed, an immigration lawyer in Toronto. It’s “a short-sighted way to reduce that backlog, but creates all kinds of other problems.”

At times last year, there were more than 2.6 million applications in IRCC’s inventories, including for visitor visas, work and study permits and permanent residency. As of Aug. 31, there were 2.2 million applications in the queue.

The IRCC memo, which dates to December, said waiving eligibility requirements would apply to roughly 450,000 TRV applications in the system.

The document said the stockpile of applications was “eroding the public’s trust” in the department and its ability to manage migration. Hopeful immigrants and visitors often complain that it can take years for the government to render a decision on their files.

“The accumulated visitor visa inventory is limiting Canada’s attractiveness for tourists and business persons, in addition to keeping families separated,” the government said on a webpage that announced the policy change. “Facilitating the processing of applications currently in the inventory by streamlining eligibility requirements will position Canada for a clean start and a return to pre-pandemic processing times, thereby ensuring our international competitiveness moving forward.”

The measure applies to visitor visa applications that were in the system by Jan. 16, coinciding with the date of The Globe’s story on the policies under consideration.

The government also waived a requirement – the need for foreign nationals to establish that they will leave the country by the end of their authorized stays – for those seeking “super visas,” which allow parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens or permanent residents to visit the country for five years at a time.

Despite the exemptions, prospective visitors are still subject to other screening procedures, such as those ensuring they aren’t a known threat to national security.

In a statement, the CBSA said it has seen an increase in the number of asylum claimants in recent weeks at airports, including Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and Toronto Pearson International Airport. The agency said the claimants were mainly from Mexico, India, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Uganda.

Federal data show that a majority of asylum claims made at airports occur in Quebec. Eric Forest, a spokesperson for Trudeau International Airport, said it is “not suited to receive a large number of asylum seekers daily nor should it be its mandate.”

The IRCC memo outlined the pros and cons of using “aggressive measures” to reduce its inventory of visa applications, which it described as a crisis situation. Among the drawbacks, there would be “increased pressure” on the asylum system, including for the CBSA, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, hotels and airlines.

As of June 30, there were more than 103,000 refugee protection claims pending at the IRB, an increase of 47 per cent over six months.

Ms. Ziaie Moayyed questioned why IRCC would waive some requirements when it already has methods to process applications in bulk.

“They could have used the technology tools they have to process those applications,” she said. “It wouldn’t have created this really bad precedent that Canada will, at some point, if pushed, allow a large number of applications to go through without any eligibility assessment.”

Source: Asylum claims jump at Canadian airports after Ottawa eases some visitor visa requirements

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Ottawa prepares for evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon; could be largest civilian evacuation in its history

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

Likely repeat of the 2006 evacuation, which revealed that many evacuees had minimal to no current connections to Canada, with many returning to Lebanon once the crisis was over. Like that evacuation, the sense of entitlement among evacuees prompted questions about “Canadians of convenience” and resulted in the government changing the Citizenship Act retention provisions to a first generation cut-off.

Hopefully, the government will apply the same approach as with Israel, military flights to Cyprus, with evacuees responsible for any flights back to Canada.

Former Ambassador to Lebanon at the time, Louis de Lorimier, makes the sensible point: “If the prior notice to leave is given sufficiently before the actual problem occurs, then government should not pay for that.”

Have attached Australian analysis of their evacuation, showing a reasonable breakdown of those only entitled to travel to Cyprus, given lack of recent Australian residency, and those with recent Australian residency:

Canada is preparing for what could prove to be the biggest civilian evacuation in its history, one that is raising questions about the country’s obligations to its overseas passport holders before it has even begun.

Tens of thousands of Canadian citizens live in Lebanon, where fear of a looming war between the powerful militant group Hezbollah and Israel – in the wake of its war with Hamas – has driven airlines to cancel flights and some embassies to begin evacuating staff and diplomats.

The Canadian government, like others, has issued increasingly strong warnings against travel to Lebanon, and has urged those already in the country to leave while commercial travel is available.

At the same time, Canada’s military and diplomats have begun intensive preparation for an evacuation whose necessity has yet to be determined – but which could become its largest in history, a title currently held by the last Lebanon evacuation, in 2006. More than 14,500 Canadians in Lebanon have registered with the government, although the total number of Canadians in the country is believed to be several times that.

The Canadian Armed Forces has now stationed dozens of people in the eastern Mediterranean, including at a command and control centre in Cyprus, according to a person with knowledge of the planning operation. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the individual because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

The Forces did not immediately respond to a Globe request for comment Saturday.

Canada and other countries have spent 15 years attending exercises in Cyprus to prepare for a new crisis in the eastern Mediterranean.

Ottawa is already using a CC-150 Polaris aircraft in the region. It seats roughly 150 and has been used to fly more than 1,500 Canadians from Tel Aviv to Athens. It could be redirected to Lebanon, if airports there remain open, the person said.

If war does break out in Lebanon, it’s not clear that an airlift will be possible. The Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport is situated in a Hezbollah-controlled area of the city. In 2006, it was among the first Israeli targets during a 34-day war that prompted the Canadian evacuation of 14,370 people taken by sea from Lebanon.

Similar plans are under way today, with Ottawa examining options for passenger vessels, including cruise ships, that could be chartered for evacuation. Capacity on those ships could be shared with other Western countries, the source said, emphasizing that Canada’s preparations are precautionary, and no decision has been taken to begin an evacuation.

While skirmishes between Lebanese militants and the Israeli military have grown more intense in the past two weeks, they remain contained to the border area.

The number of Canadian citizens in Lebanon today is believed to be roughly equal to what it was in 2006, when 39,100 registered as present in the country.

Then, the Canadian government chartered 61 flights to bring evacuees to Canada, in addition to four military flights. (Even the prime minister’s aircraft was put into service, bringing back evacuees after a visit by Stephen Harper to Paris).

That evacuation cost Canada $94-million. It’s not clear who would pay if an evacuation becomes necessary this year.

Ottawa has received quotes of at least $1,000 per person for sea transport alone from Lebanon to Cyprus, according to a person who has been involved in those discussions. The Globe is not identifying that person because they are not authorized to discuss commercial details.

From there it is not clear how evacuees would return to Canada; Air Canada does not maintain scheduled service to Cyprus. The airline did not respond to a request for comment.

The question of who should pay, however, is likely to prove controversial. In 2006, at least nine in 10 evacuees were dual-nationals, some of whom “never lived in Canada, they never paid taxes,” said Louis de Lorimier, who was ambassador to Lebanon from 2005 to 2008.

Canada’s engagement in an evacuation is extensive, Mr. de Lorimier said. In 2006, members of Canada’s elite special forces, Joint Task Force 2, “were driving around the country trying to find Canadians,” he said.

This time, the Canadian government has offered clear advance warning. The latest travel advice says “consular services during an active conflict, including evacuation of citizens, may be limited,” and counsels: “you should consider leaving by commercial means if you can do so safely.”

Mr. de Lorimier questions whether it’s reasonable for taxpayers to bail out those who fail to heed such advice.

“If the prior notice to leave is given sufficiently before the actual problem occurs, then government should not pay for that,” Mr. de Lorimier said.

Canadians living in Lebanon have already begun to argue the opposite – not merely that Canada should pay for an evacuation, but that it should give financial assistance to people once they arrive.

At a meeting in the Lebanese city of Tripoli this week, the most pressing question was “will the Canadian government help us? Because we can’t help ourselves if we were to leave,” said Tarek Kamali, whose father is a warden, an informal Canadian consular representative.

Lebanon remains in the grip of a lengthy financial and economic crisis. Most people have lost their life savings in collapsed banks. They simply don’t have the means to survive in Canada, Mr. Kamali said. He suggested a program of resettlement assistance for six months that could be repaid in time.

“As a Canadian citizen, I feel that it’s owed to me,” he said.

Failing government help, Canadians may take their chances staying in Lebanon, he said.

Ottawa already came under heavy criticism for the chaotic 2006 exodus that was overseen by an insufficient number of government officials posted abroad. That evacuation prompted a review by a Senate committee, which delivered its report in 2007.

“Contingency planning and overall preparation of Canadian missions abroad, logistical or otherwise must be strengthened,” the report said.

“I think we’ve learned a lot in the ensuing years,” said Peter Boehm, who was a senior Global Affairs Canada civil servant involved in that earlier evacuation.

Mr. Boehm, who was appointed to the Senate in 2018, said in an interview this week that Canada cannot rely on military assets the way larger countries such as the United States can.

That means Ottawa must co-operate with other middle powers instead of trying to outbid them for vessels, he said. “We found ourselves in 2006 competing for ships and boats out of north Cyprus,” he said. “We were trying to ink contracts with ships that could pick up our citizens.”

Mr. Boehm said that the Canadian Armed Forces has since acquired huge Globemaster cargo planes that give the military a better capacity to ferry goods and people around the world. Global Affairs has also created a flying squad of diplomats to bolster capacity in times of crisis.

But he added that no amount of preplanning can ensure that an evacuation effort will go as smoothly as everyone involved would like. “You can’t turn aircraft inventory around on a dime,” he said.

Source: Ottawa prepares for evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon; could be largest civilian evacuation in its history

Lessons from Australia: The Lebanon experience

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Federal court rules Canadian study permit refusal based on prior poor academic performance is unreasonable

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

Correct in terms of the academic assessment more the role of the education institution than immigration officers. Blind of course to the reality that many institutions like Niagara grant acceptance more on the basis of financial interests than academic performance. More “visa mills” than anything else:

The Federal Court of Canada has found that an applicant’s study permitrefusal based on past poor academic performance and “inconsistent” academic goals was unjustified, and therefore the application was entitled to judicial review.

In 2021, the applicant, a citizen of India, received a letter of acceptance to enter a full-time graduate program studying International Business Management at Niagara College in Toronto. With his letter of acceptance, the applicant submitted a study permit and temporary residence permit application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

A few months later, the applicant received a letter notifying him that his study permit was refused. The officer stated that the two grounds for refusal were low previous academic performance and inconsistent educational goals.

In particular, the officer found that the applicant had low average grades in his core subjects of 40% to 59% from his transcripts from the University of Mumbai. Based on this information, the officer was not satisfied that the applicant had demonstrated the academic proficiency required to successfully complete the study program in Canada.

With respect to the “inconsistency” of the applicants’ educational goals, the officer noted that the applicant initially applied to Data Analytics for Business and was refused, and now applied to an International Business Management. The officer claimed that these educational goals in Canada were not consistent from one application to another and the applicant provided no explanation for this inconsistency.

The court held that the officer’s findings with respect to his previous academic performance lacked justification and transparency. In particular, the officer failed to connect the dots between the applicant’s previous academic history and the likelihood of success in his intended program of study. The court is not in the position to assume that low grades in one area of study means that the applicant cannot excel in or complete a program in another area of study.

The court cited a similar case, Patel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), in which the judge remarked: “one can complete a program successfully without necessarily excelling in it. And many of the factors that can determine academic success are dynamic, not static”.

Further, Niagara College was clearly satisfied that the applicant had the necessary qualification to complete the program and to make “an important contribution” to the college.

Regarding the consistency of the applicant’s educational goals, the immigration officer failed to provide sufficient details concerning how a previous application to study Data Analytics for Business, meant that the Applicant’s educational goals were “inconsistent”. The applicant provided a letter explaining his rationale for choosing the International Business program. In this context, especially without further justification from the officer, it is unclear how the officer decided that the two applications demonstrated “inconsistent” educational goals.

The implication of this case is that poor academic performance in a prior academic program does not dictate an applicant’s ability to successfully complete another program, nor should it preclude an applicant from obtaining a study permit. In addition, an applicant may seek to pursue different study programs in Canada, as long as they provide rationale or an explanation for their choice.

Source: Federal court rules Canadian study permit refusal based on prior poor academic performance is unreasonable

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Palestinians in the GTA appeal to federal government to help loved ones flee Gaza

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

As always, the response will be judged in relation to other groups fleeing violence like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and others. Also as always, there will be degrees of inconsistency, and, security concerns regarding possible Hamas supporters.

Largely academic for the moment until there is a corridor for civilians to flee, which likely will be a secondary priority compared to Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents:

A group of Palestinians living in the GTA are appealing to the federal government to bring family members living in Gaza to Canada faster than standard immigration policies allow.

Milton local and permanent resident Abdallah Alhamadni says they’re hoping Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will create a humanitarian pathway for Palestinians fleeing from the Israel-Hamas war, similar to those implemented for people escaping violence in places like Syria and Ukraine.

“I have a great hope, it’s not impossible to do that,” said Alhamadni, adding Canada has a reputation for helping people around the world find safe haven in the country during times of crises.

Source: Palestinians in the GTA appeal to federal government to help loved ones flee Gaza – CBC.ca

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The French far right’s ‘outdated’ definition of identity

2023/10/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

The question of French identity sat at the heart of a play rehearsed at a theater in Sartrouville, a northwestern suburb of Paris, on a recent Tuesday afternoon.

Half a dozen actors sat or stood on the planks of a cross-section of a wooden ship.

“On crée la sous-France — des Fatimas, des Mohameds,” (they are creating the under-France, of the Fatimas and the Mohameds) one female actor shouted out loud. “Sous-France” is a pun on the word “souffrance”, which means suffering.

The play “Kaldûn” tells the story of how insurgents were taken to the French territory of New Caledonia, located in the South Pacific, after the government cracked down on uprisings in Paris and French-ruled Algeria in the 19th century. Algeria gained independence in 1962 after it won an eight-year armed conflict against France, which had ruled the country for over a century by the end of the war.

Director Abdelwaheb Sefsaf’s parents moved from French Algeria to the southern city of Saint-Etienne just after World War II.

‘Repairing our collective memory’

The 53-year-old director, who has both French and Algerian nationality, says remembering largely forgotten parts of the country’s history is crucial to getting to the bottom of French identity — and his own.

“Telling these stories helps repair our collective memory as we suffer from the traumas of the parts of our history which we have forgotten,” Sefsaf told DW. “I am 100% French. But I also need to own my personal history. As the son of immigrants, I am proud of this legacy and the culture I have inherited.”

France’s far-right National Rally party (RN), however, seems to prefer to ignore such aspects of the country’s identity. Its 2022 presidential election manifesto featured a proposal to ban bi-nationals — like theater director Sefsaf — from jobs in the civil service.

Marine Le Pen, the RN candidate in the past two presidential elections, reached the decisive run-off vote for the presidency for the second time in a row last year.

She lost against now re-elected centrist President Emmanuel Macron, but the portion of the French population who voted for her rose more than five percentage points from her previous run at the presidency — from just under 34% in 2017 to over 41%.

Back on the campaign trail for next June’s European Parliament elections, the party is once again championing its idea of French identity.

“I’ll defend the original France, its identity and borders,” RN president and lead candidate Jordan Bardella said at the party’s first EU campaign meeting in the southern town of Beaucaire in September.

The party did not reply to requests for an interview.

One-third of French people have foreign origins

But is the party’s version of French identity too simplistic? A recent study by France’s National Institute for Statistics found that at least a third of French people have foreign origins. That figure will likely increase in the coming years.

At a recent conference at the anthropology museum Musée de l’Homme in western Paris, researchers discussed how French history has been marked by immigration and colonization, emphasizing that many in France, especially the far right, adhere to a bygone definition of the country’s identity.

Historian Naima Huber-Yahi, who specializes in colonial history, told DW that a number of far-right French politicians promote this outdated vision.

“They pretend being French only includes white people … This narrative stems from the 19th century and has not been updated since. It does not take into account other aspects such as our history of slavery, colonization or migration, nor does it include people of color such as many French living in overseas territories,” she said. “It just doesn’t correspond to today’s reality.”

Ahmed Boubeker, a sociology professor at the University of Saint-Etienne, spoke at the conference of a “hegemony of far-right ideas” in France.

“There’s a whole group of reactionary intellectuals who believe that the France of the past was better than today’s France and reject multiculturalism,” he told DW.

“But these people seem to forget that the country was founded based on a political project. Everybody who concurs with it has the right to become French — we need to stop retreating into nationalist ideas,” Boubeker added.

Some French experience racism in daily life

Ghislaine Gadjard, an 87-year-old conference attendee, told DW she immigrated to mainland France from French overseas territory Guadeloupe in 1949.

“When I arrived at the age of 12, we were seen as French despite our black skin, but that’s no longer the case — I’m now subjected to racist treatment almost every day,” she said.

“France no longer sticks to its founding principles of liberty, equality and fraternity — I am scared that our civil rights will be taken away from us if the far right came to power,” she added.

Lobna Mestaoui, another attendee of the conference, was more optimistic. The 45-year-old immigrated to France from Tunisia 22 years ago to study French. She is now a French citizen and teaches at a school in an ethnically diverse area just outside of Paris.

“I know it’s not easy to integrate into French society as an immigrant — especially with far-right ideas gaining momentum,” she told DW. “But I’m living proof that a black immigrant can find her place in France and trying to set a good example for my pupils.”

What ‘being French’ means in New Caledonia

Back at the rehearsal, one actor represented yet another angle of French identity.

Simanë Wenethem belongs to New Caledonia’s Kanak indigenous people. New Caledonia is still a French overseas territory. In the play, he portrays rebel chief Ataï, who leads a revolt against French colonial rule.

Nowadays, he said, being New Caledonian — and thus being French — means many things.

“I am French – that’s just the way it is. But in our part of the country, we wonder about our identity as New Caledonians. What does it actually mean?” he told DW. “Many communities form a part of our people — Indonesians, Vietnamese etc. They are well integrated into our society and we see them as brothers.”

Trying to bridge rifts

Theater director Sefsaf said France needs a new, more inclusive narrative of identity. He said he believes that cultural initiatives like his play represent one way to further that narrative.

“France is our country. We need to construct it together — and participate in defining its identity without denying our own. A shared identity is so much richer, as it includes parts of each one of us,” he said.

Sefsaf’s play will soon be shown in Sartrouville, Paris and other parts of France. The director told DW he’s already working on his next, in hopes of bridging some of the rifts the far right is trying to deepen.

Source: The French far right’s ‘outdated’ definition of identity – DW (English)

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Israel-Hamas War Has Scrambled ‘Cancel Culture’ Tribes – The Daily Beast

2023/10/23 Leave a comment

Consistency is hard in practice…

After the tragedy, the farce.

While Israelis and Palestinians are burying their dead, pundits and activists in America are busy contradicting their principles to further their political claims.

Take America’s self-styled free speech warriors on the Right and the so-called intellectual dark web—you know, the ones who rail against cancel culture and woke censorship, making millions of dollars while complaining that they’ve been shut out of the institutions of journalism.

All of a sudden, now that it’s far-left voices being canceled, the response has been… mixed.

Meanwhile, the tactics and rhetoric of the left have contradicted everything progressives say they stand for in terms of solidarity and safety, at times spilling over into overt antisemitism.

Case in point: Harvard University, where a bunch of left-wing students issued (to my mind) an outrageous, shortsighted, and offensive statementholding Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ massacre of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians, including the elderly, babies, and, as it happens, numerous peace activists as well.

There is much about this statement that is repellant: conflating legitimate resistance with kidnapping toddlers and grandmothers, denying moral agency to Hamas (after all, they can’t be expected to engage in moral reasoning), and not even mentioning the slaughtering innocent civilians part.

But even if the statement is wrong-headed, offensive, and even, in its gross insensitivity to the mass slaughter of Jews, borderline antisemitic, it is political speech, after all.

Yet in response, students have had job offers withdrawn, been doxxed by hard-right trolls (which has exposed them to death threats and harassment), and have faced calls from CEOs to have them blacklisted.

Meanwhile, Harvard, for the sin of not condemning the students (the president of Harvard did condemn the attacks and rightly noted that student organizations do not speak for the university), has itself been widely condemned, with donors and at least one Jewish foundation withdrawing their support. (Remarkably, in my online cohort of mostly liberal American Jews, there has been widespread support for this BDS-in-reverse decision.)

This is cancel culture writ large: unpopular political opinions being met with reprisals, firings, harassment, and worse. And it’s not just Harvard—similar controversies are also brewing at Columbia, Penn, and elsewhere.

And yet, “classical liberal” YouTube host Dave Rubin has called for pro-Palestine protesters to be deported, retweeting an asinine post analogizing the Jewish Voice for Peace protest this week at the Capitol to the Jan. 6 insurrection. (Another supposed free speech absolutist, Ben Shapiro, retweeted Rubin’s remark.) Newsweek senior editor-at-large Josh Hammertweeted a video of a protest outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., with the text, “Every single person here who is seen supporting Hamas and who is not a U.S. citizen should be deported posthaste.” (Meghan McCain gave it a retweet.)

To be fair, there have also been voices applying free speech principles even to objectionable speech acts. “Let the Activists Have Their Loathsome Rallies,” advised Thomas Chatterton Williams in The Atlantic. FIRE, the civil libertarian, heavily-Koch-funded free speech organization, has defended the right to free speech for pro-Palestinian voices and “recommended a pause” to the businesses seeking to punish students for exercising their free speech rights.

And Bari Weiss’ Free Press site ran a piece by Nadine Strossen (formerly of the ACLU) and Pamela Paresky entitled, “Even Antisemites Deserve Free Speech.” (Weiss herself seized on the latest extreme remark by Columbia professor Joseph Massad to continue her 20-year-long feud with him, and does not appear to have condemned the widespread canceling of left-wing voices.)

And because irony is truly not dead, the Center/Right has even tried to take a rhetorical trope from the Left, complaining that pro-Palestinian professors create a hostile, “unsafe” environment for Jewish students.

To be sure, this is sometimes true, as when a Stanford University instructor reportedly made Jewish students stand in a corner, alleging that this is what Israel does to Palestinians. Meanwhile, leftist students, who last month were focused on making sure every campus is a safe space for all, have harassed and targeted Jewish students in hideous ways. So much for “your opinions make me feel unsafe.”

It’s also true that some statements are not mere political speech, but are (potentially criminal) incitements to violence. For example, one UC Davis professor called for harassment or violence against “zionist journalists,” saying “they have houses w addresses, kids in school. They can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” That is chilling, and well outside the bounds of civil discourse.

But it is not the case that a professor’s support of Palestine is ipso facto hostile to Jewish students, who are depicted as snowflakes that melt at any exposure to anti-Israel opinions. Part of the problem is the efforts by some Jewish organizations (often catering to their right-wing donors) to define any speech that “demonizes” or “delegitimizes” Israel as antisemitic. But that is simply not true, no matter how often it is repeated.

Jewish Voice for Peace is an anti-Zionist Jewish organization. Are they all self-haters, trapped in some neurosis of internalized antisemitism? Or are they, in fact, sincere Jewish people with a hard-left political opinion?

To repeat, I found the Harvard student letter not only wrong-headed but personally painful to read, especially as it came out as I was doomscrolling through videos of murder and kidnapping at a festival site I attended a few years ago. But should all those students be canceled? Doxxed? Pilloried?

And conversely, is it not possible for left-wing activists to express solidarity with Palestine without equating all Jews with right-wing Zionists, harassing us, and taunting us while we are still reeling from the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? The Left has done more to alienate progressive Jews in the last two weeks than in the last 20 years.

To be sure, neither left-wing activists nor American Jews are the real victims here. The victims are thousands of dead, kidnapped, orphaned, or traumatized Palestinians and Israelis who are caught between two extremist governments who reject the very notion of coexistence, and do everything to undermine it.

Seems like a lot of Americans are acting the same way.

Source: Israel-Hamas War Has Scrambled ‘Cancel Culture’ Tribes – The Daily Beast

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