As the Canadian population passes 40 million, fast-growing provinces gain relatively fewer seats in Ottawa 

2023/06/27 Leave a comment

Will accentuate regional tensions over time:

When Canada’s population hit 40 million last week, it was a reminder that representation in the House of Commons will have to keep pace with the growing country. But although the number of MPs from Alberta and Ontario could grow over the next 20 years, those provinces risk becoming even more underrepresented as special clauses protect other provinces, such as Quebec.

Last month, the Journal de Montréal published a series of articles claiming Quebec will eventually become “trapped” by Ottawa and lose political power as immigration rates increase in the rest of the country.

“Quebec will find itself drowned in a sea of 100 million Canadians by the end of the century, if the massive immigration targets announced by the Trudeau government last fall materialize,” it said, referring to Ottawa’s plan to welcome as many as 500,000 immigrants a year in 2025. Premier François Legault said this was a threat to Quebec and the French language.

Even though the 100-million figure came from the Century Initiative advocacy group, not the federal government, Canada is well on its way to this kind of growth and could exceed 50 million people within the next 20 years.

Demographic growth, already overwhelmingly dependent on immigration, will be even more so as the population ages and birth rates remain low across all provinces, explained Marc Termote, an associate professor of demography at the University of Montreal.

Because Quebec’s share of immigration is and will likely remain much lower than its share of the Canadian population – the province is considering increasing its immigration target to 60,000 a year, about half of what it needs to keep up with the rest of the country – “Quebec will continue to lose demographic weight, and therefore political weight,” Prof. Termote said.

The Constitution requires that the number of seats in the House of Commons be recalculated every 10 years to reflect changes in Canada’s population according to the representation formula, which takes into account demographic growth and special clauses.

Under current law, provinces don’t lose seats – even when their share of the population falls. At the same time, the number of MPs is restricted by the formula, so fast-growing provinces gain relatively few seats.

“Quebec is ever so slightly overrepresented at the moment, but that’s going to become a flashpoint over the coming years if Quebec doesn’t grow faster than it has been,” said Richard Johnston, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s department of political science.

In late 1997, as Canada was about to reach 30 million people, Ontario had 11.3 million residents while Quebec had 7.3 million, British Columbia had almost four million, Alberta had 2.8 million and Nova Scotia stood at fewer than a million.

During that year’s federal elections, Canadians voted in 301 electoral districts, carrying Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal Party to a second majority government. At the time, Ontario had 103 seats, Quebec 75, B.C. 34, Alberta 26 and Nova Scotia 11.

That meant Ontario, even though it had the highest number of seats of any province as the country’s most populous, was underrepresented in Parliament. The same was true of B.C. and Alberta, while Quebec was slightly overrepresented and Nova Scotia more so.

Seats added in 2013 to Ontario, B.C. and Alberta as a result of the last decennial revision did not match their fast population growth, as Atlantic provinces, along with Manitoba and Saskatchewan, remain overrepresented in today’s 338-seat Parliament.

This dynamic will continue when Parliament grows to 343 seats, following the 2021 census, which should come into force in September.

Quebec, initially set to lose one riding with the revision, will keep 78 seats. Mr. Legault pushed back against the planned reduction at the time, saying that “the nation of Quebec deserves a certain level of representation in the House of Commons, regardless of the evolution of the number of inhabitants in each province.”

The federal government obliged and passed a bill amending the Constitution Act last year. It provided that no province can have fewer MPs than it had in 2019, which could lead to severe distortions in the decades to come.

According to Statistics Canada, the country’s population could hit the 50-million mark by 2043 if current immigration levels stay in place. In projections released last year, a high-growth scenario put it at 52.5 million people 20 years from now.

Under that scenario, Ontario (projected to reach 21.1 million), Alberta (7.2 million) and B.C. (7.4 million) would continue to outpace other provinces, while Quebec (10.2 million) would be left behind, like Atlantic Canada.

The number of MPs for the fastest-growing provinces would go up, but that would be unlikely to cause a fundamental shift in Ottawa under the current rules, UBC’s Prof. Johnston said, because of the embedded protections in the representation formula. “In fact, the underrepresentation of Ontario, Alberta and B.C. is probably going to get worse,” he said, even as their numbers of MPs grow. “The critical question is whether the rules are politically sustainable.”

Using today’s rules to compute what this would mean for the 2040s’ Parliament, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces would keep their current numbers of MPs even as their demographic weight continues to decrease and more ridings are added to other provinces, for a total of 362.

It would mean that Alberta, set to reach 13.6 per cent of the population in 2043 under a high-growth scenario, would claim 44 seats (or 12.2 per cent of the ridings), while Quebec – whose population growth alone would warrant a diminished number of seats if not for the fact that it is protected, like other overrepresented provinces, by special clauses – will keep 78 seats (21.5 per cent) for 19.4 per cent of the country’s population. Ontario would claim 131 seats (36.2 per cent) for 40.3 per cent of the population.

The representation formula, however, is not immutable, and changes could induce faster growth in ridings during the next two revisions, as happened after the 2011 census under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in an attempt to “compensate for what was a systematic drag on the representation of the fastest-growing provinces,” Prof. Johnston said.

But demographic changes not only influence the number of seats in Parliament but many other resources as well. “Federal transfers – related to equalization, health care, postsecondary education, social assistance, child care – depend directly on the number of each province’s inhabitants,” Prof. Termote said. “As Quebec’s share in the total Canadian population will continue to decline, Quebec’s share in the total federal transfers will necessarily also decline.”

Source: As the Canadian population passes 40 million, fast-growing provinces gain relatively fewer seats in Ottawa

Filed under Government, Politics Tagged with ,

Blood-Quantum Laws Are Splintering My Tribe

2023/06/27 Leave a comment

US example but parallels in Canada:

Even though I am a citizen of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, because of my blood I may also be the last tribal member in my family line.

My tribe requires that members be at least one-eighth Jamestown S’Klallam by blood. Because I am exactly one-eighth, unless I have kids with another citizen, my kids will be ineligible to join. Regulations like this, known as blood-quantum laws, are used by many tribal nations to determine citizenship. They do this in the name of preservation, fearing that diluting the bloodline could mean diluting the culture. However, by enforcing these laws, tribal governments not only exclude some active members of their communities, but also may be creating a future in which fewer and fewer people will be eligible for citizenship. Watching enrollment in my tribe dwindle, I’ve started to wonder: What if there were another way to think about the preservation of a community?

Blood-quantum laws were originally created by white settlers in the 18th century. They were used to prohibit interracial marriages, and to keep people deemed Native American out of public offices or on reservations—essentially to determine who would (and wouldn’t) benefit from the privileges of whiteness. By the time of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, tribal governments had begun implementing these laws themselves. In theory, the act was designed to preserve Native American identity. In addition to restoring Indigenous people’s fishing and hunting rights, it also offered funds and land to people who volunteered to move to reservations. This system cemented the importance of blood-quantum laws because many tribes that had previously relied on kinship and relationships to determine citizenship now used blood to determine who was allowed to settle on reservations

The act also split my own tribe, the S’Klallam, into three. The federal government paid tribal members to move to two new parcels of land in Washington State and start new tribes; they became the Port Gamble S’Klallam and Lower Elwha. Those who stayed in place on the Strait de Juan de Fuca, on the northern coast of the state, had to pool their money together to buy our ancestral land even though they lived on it already; they became the Jamestown S’Klallam. Now, because of the federal government’s requirements when it offered the land, legally we are separate tribes, even though we all share the same ancestors. Someone can be enrolled in only one of the three. Cousins of mine who have a grandfather in one tribe and a grandmother in another must choose to commit to only half of their family tree and leave behind part of their heritage. Even though they are one-quarter S’Klallam, they are only one-eighth Jamestown S’Klallam—and, unless they have children with another tribal citizen, their kids will be ineligible for citizenship, just like mine could be.

Despite these laws, the three tribes continue to gather to drum and sing together, and to host potlatches—feasts with giveaways that celebrate abundance—to welcome in canoes from other local tribes during their annual journey along the Washington coastline, a cultural tradition. Still, we have been splintered. We stand side by side at gatherings, but when we introduce ourselves, we separate ourselves by saying our family name, what tribe we are connected with, and, often, whether we are an official tribal citizen. I wish we would hold together the community the U.S. tried to splinter; instead, in moments like these, we break it apart.

Tribal citizenship is more than symbolic. It determines eligibility for educational assistance, medical care, and other social benefits. Plus, only members can attend citizen meetings and vote in tribal elections. If my future children don’t meet the blood requirements for my tribe, they could still participate in events, cultivate plants in the traditional-foods garden, and take Klallam-language courses. But no matter how much they served the community in love and time, they would be deemed a “descendant” and marked as separate.

Watching others in this situation now, I’ve come to realize that a community that doesn’t serve all of its members risks falling apart. I know young people who aren’t eligible for citizenship who believe they aren’t valued. They have begun to lose their drive, pulling back from attending events and helping with programs. In prioritizing blood purity, tribes lose out on another type of preservation that comes from being involved in and learning about the tribe. They lose out on opportunities for descendants to create new memories that could eventually become stories told to future generations—a more powerful, active form of preservation than blood.

We are facing cultural extinction if blood-quantum laws stay in place. The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has fewer than 600 members. A future in which no one will have enough Native blood to qualify for citizenship is not only possible, but imminent. Though descendants may continue to honor the memories of those who came before, and continue teaching lessons, they will be denied the hunting and fishing rights that past generations fought hard to keep. If there are no more citizens, tribes may even lose ownership of the land that their buildings sit on. Community is so much more than laws can ever capture, but without official recognition, we could lose the foundation we have built on. It’s hard for a community to hold itself together when, legally, people are slowly being cut out of it. Though memory and cultural practices can fan the flames of heritage, only a change in the laws defining citizenship can keep the fire bright for generations to come. Otherwise all that will be left is smoke.

If tribal communities came together instead of focusing on separation, we could help our culture to flourish. We might have to cast aside the old rules governing heritage, but we could do something more important: hold on to our identity and one another as the world changes around us. One way to do this would be to discard blood-quantum regulations and instead grant citizenship to anyone who could trace their lineage back to a full-blooded member. Such a policy would keep the thread of family kinship within the enrollment guidelines, but would not exclude the children of current tribal citizens. Providing benefits to more members might be more expensive for the tribe, but those costs would be outweighed by the longevity we’d gain; our tribe would still be around for members to engage in, rather than learn about from history books. Future generations could participate as much or as little as they would like, but all descendants would be engaging as equals.

In the meantime, I will do as I have always done to preserve memories of our community while also currently living in it. I will collect photographs, researching the names of the faces they show and noting them where I can. I will tell our stories to anyone who will listen and write them down to create a record for the future. If I have children, I will teach them everything I know about our culture so that they can keep the memory alive. I will tell our stories to anyone who will listen. Even if no one is left to claim citizenship, I want there to be a way to remember the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

Leah Myers is a writer based in Alabama and the author of Thinning Blood.

Source: Blood-Quantum Laws Are Splintering My Tribe

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Cappe and Mitchell: Fixing Canada’s access to information regime will require more than just people power

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Starts with changing the default to being open, as open data illustrates. But the reality that politicians tend to support more open government when in opposition and be “less enthusiastic” when in government is likely the fundamental obstacle. But modernizing the process and digitizing holdings should be doable:

The Globe and Mail has done Canadians a service by exposing the serious shortcomings in federal and provincial freedom of information (FOI) regimes. The reporting done as part of the Secret Canada project has shown that Canadians cannot get timely access to the information held by governments that they need, and to which they are legally entitled. Either the governments are egregiously slow in responding to access requests or, in far too many cases, they simply fail to provide the information requested. These delays are not simply frustrating; in far too many cases, they affect the material interests of Canadians who need to know what the government knows about them.

This problem is an important challenge to democratic governance in this country. But the solutions may not be obvious.

For example, simply adding more people, working millions more hours, to beleaguered access/FOI units in the federal and provincial governments will not solve the problem. Moreover, our Westminster system of government differs in fundamental ways from the municipal-government-style model with which most Canadians are familiar: Westminster government is cabinet government, where there is a fundamental requirement for secrecy to enable frank discussion among ministers and collective responsibility before the legislature, while municipal councils do their business in the open, as they should. But the obligations of openness differ in important ways between these two forms of government, and this can cause confusion.

To figure out solutions, we must understand the source of our access/FOI problem – and that lies with two fundamental features of the current regimes operated by both the federal and provincial governments.

First, the system we have is governed by the assumption that documents belong to government and are protected unless they can be allowed to be released. The result is that officials are obliged to spend an enormous amount of expensive time examining and redacting documents to protect information that, frankly, has no need of protection. Instead, governments should accept that the information they hold is inherently public, unless it falls within a limited set of exceptions to that rule, and make this information easy to access for citizens.

The second and more fundamental problem is that the laws were written, and governments are operating, in an analog world of paper and paper-based processes, while the needs and expectations of citizens reflect their experiences in a 21st-century digital world.

Today, people expect that information will be available instantly online. The notion that the information that someone is seeking from government is sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere in a remote government building seems laughable – but sadly, it is accurate. The fact is that today, a request for information is, in most cases, actually a request for a paper document that must be located then examined by a government official, then perhaps redacted in some way or other, and then physically transmitted to the person who made the access request. That process takes a huge amount of time and effort, and what’s more, it’s expensive: A recent Treasury Board study revealed that the estimated per-page cost of a document released under the federal access to information program is $11.40, and pegs the total cost to administer the program at $195-million a year. Pro-active disclosure, by contrast, would cost a federal department or agency only $64,000 a year on average.

To solve the problem, we should first recognize a clear distinction between information that should be accessible – namely, almost all of it – and information that, for good reason, should be protected.

We should also recognize that different kinds of information require different forms of protection. Tax data require privacy protection, for instance; this is an essential obligation of government to citizens and is fundamental to our “self-reporting” system of tax collection. Discussions in cabinet and advice to ministers need protection to enable the giving of frank advice and to allow for candour around the cabinet table. National security and intelligence records need protection to protect the security of the country; commercial negotiations, as well as federal-provincial and international negotiations, require protection so as to protect individual and national interests.

All these protections should be pretty much absolute. After that, one can apply a harm test to protect the information, if that is necessary. Otherwise, the default position should be that the information held by governments is readily accessible.

Furthermore, in our digital world, not every digital artifact in government should be deemed a “record” for the purposes of access to information. For example, every e-mail and every telephone call inside government is currently regarded, in principle, as a digital record. These should not be considered a record, for the purposes of the Act. Why not? Well, not every request for access is benign; some requests are motivated, quite legitimately, by a political or journalistic interest in simply embarrassing the government or finding information on a competitor. And if all exchanges among public servants were made public, then people simply would not communicate digitally any more. If casual exchanges among public servants are to be accessible then fear of embarrassing the government or themselves would be a chill on frank exchanges.

So how can we best reform the access/FOI regime at the federal or provincial level to better respect the rights and expectations of citizens, while still protecting the legitimate interests of individuals, governments and the country?

Firstly, as noted, start by recognizing the principles of confidentiality of ministerial discussions that underpin Westminster parliamentary democracy.

Secondly, change the default position for access/FOI from one of protecting secrecy to that of making records releasable unless this would violate clearly defined principles of secrecy or privacy. In cases of doubt, apply a clearly defined justiciable harm test for disclosure.

Thirdly, set out well-defined categories of protected documents (e.g., cabinet confidences, national security and intelligence information, and tax information and other records protected by privacy concerns) in the law.

And finally – and perhaps most importantly – begin the essential task of changing the information holdings of government from analog to digital, and amend search and disclosure processes in the same manner. Emphasize the creation of searchable databases which allow for low compliance costs in government and what is equally important, low private search costs. Recognize the social and public costs of compliance in government (high) vs. the private costs of private search of public records (low).

The Globe is right – the system is broken. Canadians are not being well-served. But we can’t fix the system by simply opening it up. We must understand why it’s broken and what it should look like in future if the interests of Canadians are to be protected.

Mel Cappe is a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and a former clerk of the Privy Council. James Mitchell is an adjunct professor at Carleton University and a former assistant secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government.

Source: Fixing Canada’s access to information regime will require more than just people power

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Sen. Victor Oh says Chinese Canadians need to fundraise to sue ‘messy reporters’

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Odd and disturbing:

A Canadian senator said he wants Chinese Canadians to set up a national foundation that would focus on raising money to fund lawsuits against “messy reporters” and politicians who “try to smear” the community.

A video of Conservative Sen. Victor Oh making the remarks was uploaded to the social media platform WeChat on June 5, showing him addressing a group at what was described as the Montreal Chinese Community United Centre.

The Canadian Press obtained the video, which showed Oh saying in Mandarin that “we need to raise money to cover costs for (people affected) by all of these unreasonable reporters who try to smear Chinese and discredit Chinese.”

The senator said “we need to take legal action to deal with the messy reporters, newspapers and politicians” and that a national foundation would also help support young people to get involved in politics, including through scholarships.

The comments were first reported in English by Found In Translation on Substack.

Oh was not made available to answer questions at an event he attended in Ottawa on Friday that marked the 100th Anniversary of the introduction of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

“I hope, I wish we can set up a nationwide Chinese Canadians foundation. We will draft it to see how can build a national foundation. Why do we need a national foundation? We must have donations, we must have (a) certain amount of energy and financial resources,” Oh said in Mandarin in the video.

“Because you all know these journalists, these newspapers suppress us every day. One wave after another. They will smear you by reporting a little bit of the facts about you, right?”

In the video, Oh said journalists have not accepted the findings in an initial report from former governor general David Johnston, whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed to investigate allegations of foreign interference in the past two federal elections.

Johnston’s report found that some media reporting around allegations that China meddled in the 2019 and 2021 elections lacked context.

It also acknowledged that some intelligence confirmed attempts by Chinese officials to gather information about Canadian parliamentarians. But Johnston said the intelligence he reviewed cannot not be shared publicly.

He announced earlier this month he would resign as special rapporteur, citing a politically charged atmosphere around his work. Johnston is set to release his final report this month.

“Long story short, they don’t believe governor (general)’s finding (about foreign interference) is transparent, (that) there are no Chinese spies in Canada in this case. They just don’t believe that,” Oh said in the video.

He suggested that “if a judge rules someone is not guilty,” then reporters would think: “It’s impossible and he must be guilty!”

He said the foundation would be “very important.”

“If it will be set up in the near future, first we will train young people to discuss and get involved in politics, give scholarships to the young generation and encourage them to study.”

He said such a foundation would also need to raise money to cover the costs affected by “unreasonable reporters” who try to smear Chinese people.

“If we don’t stand up this time, they will always suppress us just like what they did to the Black people. Now the Black people stand up and voice their opinions, now the Black people’s lives matter. Right? So, we must show solidarity and work together to protect our own interests and our next generation,” Oh said in the video.

“We are already here. We can’t be uprooted. We can’t return back to home anymore, not to mention our children.”

Oh, who emigrated from Singapore 45 years ago, was appointed to the Senate in 2013 by former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Source: Sen. Victor Oh says Chinese Canadians need to fundraise to sue ‘messy reporters’

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Le français comme condition d’immigration : la nouvelle réforme de la CAQ

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Useful overview (English below):

Le gouvernement québécois a récemment présenté ses nouvelles orientations en matière d’immigration. Le message est clair : la langue devient une condition sine qua non pour s’installer de façon permanente au Québec.

Ce resserrement des règles aura des impacts importants sur les futurs immigrants, mais aussi sur ceux vivant déjà au Québec. Il marque aussi la consolidation de l’approche prônée par la CAQ en matière d’immigration permanente : d’abord assurer la protection du français, avant la croissance démographique ou économique liée à l’immigration. D’ailleurs, si le Québec devait accueillir plus d’immigrants, ce sera uniquement en raison de la croissance du nombre d’immigrants économiques francophones.

La nouvelle approche inclut une réforme du programme de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés, une refonte du Programme de l’expérience Québécoise (PEQ), des changements aux conditions du programme de regroupement familial, à celui des investisseurs et à celui des travailleurs autonomes.

De plus grandes exigences pour les immigrants économiques

Bien que la connaissance de la langue ait toujours été centrale dans les orientations du Québec en matière d’immigration (qui furent mises en œuvre par le biais des pouvoirs dévolus à la province dans le cadre de l’Accord Canada-Québec de 1991), l’approche prônée par la CAQ augmente les exigences linguistiques pour tous les programmes d’immigration économique.

Un nouveau Programme de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés (PSTQ) sera mis en place. Alors que dans le programme actuel, la connaissance du français pouvait augmenter les scores globaux des candidats à l’immigration dans grille de sélection, le PSTQ fait de la connaissance du français une condition nécessaire à l’immigration.

Pour les volets 1 à 3 du programme, la connaissance minimale exigée sera modulée en fonction du niveau de qualification requise. Les travailleurs visant un poste de gestion ou qui demande généralement une formation postsecondaire devront posséder une compétence en français de niveau 7 (intermédiaire avancé) à l’oral et 5 à l’écrit, sur une échelle qui en compte 12. Les autres emplois seront soumis à un niveau 5 à l’oral, soit le début de l’échelle intermédiaire. Le gouvernement s’est donné une petite marge de manœuvre pour le volet 4 « talents d’exception ». Pour cette petite partie du programme qui vise des compétences « exceptionnelles », aucune connaissance du français n’est exigée pour l’instant.

Le PSTQ crée aussi une obligation linguistique pour les conjoints des demandeurs principaux à l’immigration au Québec, soit un niveau minimum de 4 à l’oral, le dernier échelon pour une compétence de base. La vaste majorité des candidats à l’immigration permanente devront donc avoir une connaissance intermédiaire du français.

Un nouveau PEQ

En parallèle, le PEQ (Programme de l’expérience québécoise) renaît de ses cendres. Le PEQ est une passerelle vers la résidence permanente pour les immigrants temporaires, à travers deux volets : les diplômés du Québec et les travailleurs étrangers temporaires. En 2020, le gouvernement de la CAQ avait limité dans la controverse l’accès à ce programme très populaire auprès des étudiants internationaux ayant acquis un diplôme d’une institution québécoise et une expérience de travail conséquente dans la province.

Dans la nouvelle mouture du PEQ, l’exigence d’emploi disparaît du volet des diplômés, mais la langue devient centrale : seuls les programmes d’études en français seront admissibles. Le programme reste ouvert aux travailleurs temporaires et devient accessible à de nouvelles professions, autrefois exclues du PEQ, par exemple les camionneurs ou les préposés aux bénéficiaires. Pour les deux volets (diplômés et travailleurs temporaires), un niveau 7 ou plus est exigé à l’oral. Les conjoints, eux, devront encore avoir un français oral de niveau 4, comme c’était le cas depuis juillet 2021.

La version 2023 du PEQ est donc, dans les faits, limitée aux personnes avec des connaissances avancées du français et ayant interagi fortement avec des institutions francophones dans le cadre de leur expérience préalable au Québec.

Les gens d’affaires et les regroupements familiaux

Une même tendance est annoncée pour les gens d’affaires : les programmes dédiés aux investisseurs et aux travailleurs autonomes exigeront dorénavant un français oral de niveau 7.

Les nouvelles orientations affectent aussi le parrainage dans le cadre des regroupements familiaux. Cela reflète les revendications du gouvernement actuel, qui a exigé le transfert de pouvoirs d’Ottawa afin de pouvoir soumettre les réunifications familiales à des critères linguistiques. À défaut de ces pouvoirs supplémentaires, la réforme ajoute une composante linguistique aux exigences des personnes garantes – les parrains –, en plus des conditions financières. Le gouvernement souhaite maintenant qu’un plan d’accueil et d’intégration soit soumis au ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration par la personne garante, dans lequel elle « s’engagera notamment à soutenir l’apprentissage du français par les personnes parrainées ».

Vers une nouvelle ère en immigration au Québec ?

Bien que ces changements restent encore à être mis en œuvre, le message envoyé par la CAQ, alors que Québec s’apprête à revoir ses seuils d’immigration, est clair : il faut parler français pour immigrer de façon permanente au Québec. À cet égard, il convient d’apporter une nuance importante. Depuis 1991, la province met en place des programmes d’immigration visant à s’assurer qu’une part importante des immigrants connaissent et utilisent le français au moment d’être reçus. À titre indicatif, la proportion de personnes immigrantes déclarant connaître le français au moment de leur admission se situait à près de 70 %en 2021.

Les nouvelles orientations intensifient donc l’approche historique du Québec en plus de renforcer les privilèges accordés aux francophones et francotropes dans la sélection. Elles créent aussi des exigences administratives supplémentaires pour les candidats à l’immigration et ceux qui les soutiennent.

Ces changements auront des conséquences marquées sur l’origine des immigrants que le Québec va accueillir, en donnant des avantages encore plus importants aux bassins de la francophonie, tels que la France, la Belgique, le Maroc, la Tunisie, le Sénégal ou le Bénin. Pour les personnes déjà installées au Québec dans le cadre d’un processus d’immigration temporaire pour des études ou pour le travail – et souvent issus de pays non-francophones, comme la Chine, l’Inde, les Philippines, ou l’Iran – la réforme envoie aussi le signal que l’accès à la résidence permanente ne pourra se faire que par un apprentissage soutenu du français.

Ces nouvelles réalités pourraient donc non seulement changer le visage de l’immigration permanente, mais aussi celui de l’immigration temporaire.

Source: Le français comme condition d’immigration : la nouvelle réforme de la CAQ

French as a condition of immigration: the CAQ’s new reform

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Ottawa to rectify issue with massively revised temporary foreign workers data

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Good quick response. And kudos to the Globe for uncovering the change. Hopefully the lesson learned is that any significant change must be openly and transparently communicated, preferably with advance consultations:

The federal government says it will publish a full accounting of temporary foreign work permit holders in Canada after The Globe and Mail discovered that more than two decades of data had been altered without explanation.

More than one million people held work permits through the International Mobility Program at the end of last year, according to figures that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada published in February.

However, the federal immigration department recently made significant downward revisions to those numbers, indicating there are now around 675,000 permit holders. The figures for all previous years, dating back to 2000, had also been reduced.

Several immigration researchers told The Globe that IRCC removed work permit holders whose primary reason for being in Canada may not be related to the labour market, such as students and refugee claimants.

The department said the revised numbers were not properly labelled. “When this new data set was published, the incorrect title/description was mistakenly published to accompany it,” spokesperson Matthew Krupovich said in a statement.

IRCC said it intends to publish figures on both the narrower and broader groups of work permit holders, but did not indicate when that will happen.

Some economists were frustrated with how IRCC handled the data revision and expressed concern that lowering the numbers would obscure how many temporary foreign workers are in the country.

“The data is just a mess,” said Mikal Skuterud, a professor of labour economics at the University of Waterloo.

By not counting international students with work permits, for example, “one would understate the growth of the IMP,” Feng Hou, principal researcher at Statistics Canada, said by e-mail.

The International Mobility Program accounts for a large share of temporary foreign workers in the country. Within the program are several categories of permit holders, including postgraduate workers and spouses of skilled workers.

Canada’s population is growing rapidly, in large part because of the influx of temporary residents, including workers and students. Many of those people are accruing postsecondary degrees and Canadian work experience in hopes of getting permanent residency.

The use of temporary foreign labour by Canadian employers has soared in recent years. The trend has been criticized by many economists for helping companies minimize their labour costs, among other reasons.

Source: Ottawa to rectify issue with massively revised temporary foreign workers data

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Canada’s public service is stuck in ‘analog’ and the world ‘has moved on’: Former clerk

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

All too true but she was understandably more cautious when DM at ESDC and the initial vision of Service Canada was to move to digital and give greater priority to service delivery considerations and simplification centred around citizens, not programs:

The public service is not keeping pace with Canadians’ needs in a digital world, says the woman who used to lead it.

“The public service is still working in what I would describe as kind of analog ways and the world has moved on,” former clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette, told Rosemary Barton Live in an interview airing Sunday.

“You can make a dinner reservation, you can book a cruise, you can move money in and out of your bank account, transfer between the two of us — it’s remarkable the things you can do in a digital world and the public service, and our service delivery infrastructure has not kept up with that.”

It’s a gap that Charette said was on display when the public service couldn’t deliver services such as passports once COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.

“In all humility, we know we have to do a better job there,” she said.

Proud of initial pandemic response

Charette, who refers to her job as being “steward of one of the most important institutions in our democracy,” retired Friday after nearly 40 years in the service, including stints as clerk for prime ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau.

Reflecting on her tenure, Charette said she’s proud of the way the public service jumped into action during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, spending billions to support people and businesses.

“One of the things I completely believe about public service is that in a crisis we can be magnificent,” she said.

“Decisions had to move quickly, benefits had to move quickly … and the challenge is, how do you maintain that going forward?”

As the lockdowns lifted, services lagged and frustrations grew.

The government was put on the defensive last year when passport offices were overwhelmed by a surge of applications.

The immigration department was also caught on its back foot by demand. At one point last year more than 2.4 million applications were stuck waiting for processing.

“I think in the public service maybe we underestimated how quickly people were going to want to return to their lives, how quickly they were gonna want to travel and have their passports, and how quickly we were gonna start the immigration system, how much people were going to want to move,” Charette said.

“This was not the best of times for the public service because we underestimated that ramp-up.”

Charette defends outside contracts

Another issue for her successor, John Hannaford, will be how to handle procuring outside consultations.

The auditor general is reviewing the millions of dollars worth of contracts the federal government awarded to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company following news reports.

Charette said she believes there are times when it makes sense to bring in outside experts.

“The public service is not and never should be seen as a source of all knowledge,” she said.

“There are many cases where, whether it’s something which is a temporary need or a specialized kind of need, that we don’t want to build it inside the public service. It’s actually more economical and more efficient and maybe better for the public that we actually go out and get external expertise.”

Besides being the head of the public service, the clerk acts as the deputy minister to the prime minister and secretary to the cabinet.

“I have had the honour of sitting in the cabinet room for some of the most fascinating conversations about issues that really matter to Canadians,” Charette told Barton.

That would have included the tense discussions in February 2022 around whether or not the government should invoke the Emergencies Act.

Didn’t want to be ‘intimidated’ by Emergencies Act decision

As clerk, Charette recommended the government use the never-before-used law to clear anti-public health measure protests that had gridlocked downtown Ottawa for nearly a month.

That decision thrust her into the spotlight when she was later called to testify at the Public Order Emergency Commission last fall and defended her rationale.

While Commissioner Paul Rouleau ultimately ruled that the federal government met the threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act, the government’s decision remains polarizing for many across the country.

Charette said she couldn’t let the unprecedented use of the act scare her and other decision-makers away from using it if it was needed.

“I remember very much thinking we have never used this piece of legislation, so implicit in that is you’re going to make history, but you also don’t want to be intimidated by that either,” she said.

“The public service is known for being risk-averse. You don’t want to bring a bias, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s such a big thing. Oh, maybe we shouldn’t do it.’ Is it the right instrument at the right time with all the right protections around it?”

Charette said many protesters had “totally legitimate questions.”

“There’s only so long you can kind of hold people back. Then there’s like, OK, well, what about me? What about my interest in my family’s interest?” she said.

“The concern for me was this other element that we saw creeping into it and it almost felt like there some taking advantage of what was a widespread protest, a widespread debate going on, by people who had a different point to make.”

Source: Canada’s public service is stuck in ‘analog’ and the world ‘has moved on’: Former clerk

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We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Good question:

The political right’s exhausting and cruel war on “wokeness” is now aligning with the efforts of some Muslim Americans to attack the L.G.B.T.Q. community under the guise of protecting religious freedoms and parental rights.

After enduring a gantlet of scapegoating after 9/11, you’d think we Muslims would have learned.

As a practicing Muslim American raising three children, I don’t find it in conflict with my faith to recognize that in a pluralistic, democratic society, all our communities must be able to live with security, dignity and freedom, even when there are profound differences on certain issues.

Last month a group of Muslim scholars and preachers published a joint statement titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam.” In the name of helping families, the statement reiterates what is considered by many scholars to be traditional Islamic views on homosexuality but trades compassion, political foresight and pastoral care in favor of fear, panic and legalistic double talk.

It says that “there is an increasing push to promote L.G.B.T.Q.-centric values among children through legislation and regulations, disregarding parental consent and denying both parents and children the opportunity to express conscientious objection.” It appears to uncritically accept the zero-sum notion, pushed by right-wing politicians, that acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community comes at the expense of giving up religious freedoms. It seems oblivious to the reality that if you replaced “L.G.B.T.Q.-centric” with “Shariah,” it would mimic the sentiments that have often been directed at devout Muslims in our country.

It’s also remarkable that so many religious leaders came together to speak with one voice on this particular issue, which one could falsely assume from the current political hysteria is the leading threat facing children. But as anyone who’s been part of recent debates within broader Muslim American communities knows, you’d probably never get this kind of concerted public statement from Muslim leaders on the issue of gun violence — the leading cause of death for American children — or climate change, which ultimately threatens all life. Somehow, though, this issue has managed to rally an array of Muslim scholars.

In Montgomery County, Md., outside Washington, D.C., the group Moms for Liberty, which has been designated an extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has united with some Muslim parents who are protesting that the public school system no longer allows their children to opt out of reading books with L.G.B.T.Q. stories. “It’s not bigoted to want a safe space for all children, nor is it bigoted to provide reasonable accommodations to those with sincerely held religious beliefs,” says Raef Haggag, a Montgomery County public school parent and former high school teacher. When we exchanged emails, he told me that Muslim parents in Montgomery County had never called for a book ban, but that he believed an opt-out option would reflect parental rights and also be a reflection of “genuine tolerance, inclusivity and religious freedom.”

But is it truly inclusive and tolerant to signal to L.G.B.T.Q. kids or L.G.B.T.Q. parents that simply reading a book or learning about their existence might be so threatening and offensive that it requires an opt-out option in schools? How would Muslim parents feel if this was applied to children’s books about Ramadan or hajj?

Kareem Monib, a Muslim parent and a founder of the opt-out group Coalition of Virtue, recently appeared on Fox News and bonded with the host Laura Ingraham over what they saw as their fight for religious freedoms, apparently forgiving Ingraham for her past anti-Muslim bigotry: “Five years ago, Laura was saying we shouldn’t have Muslims in this country,” Mr. Monib told Semafor, “Now she’s saying: Thank God, the Muslims are here!” He seems to be referring to comments Ms. Ingraham made eight years ago, but either way, the irony is lost on him.

Muslims have also joined this campaign in Hamtramck, Mich., which has an all-Muslim City Council. Last week the council voted unanimously to bar Pride flags from being displayed on city properties — apparently forgetting that their Muslim immigrant forebears faced discrimination when they arrived in the city.

The increasing political demonization of L.G.B.T.Q. Americans is following the same script that has been used to marginalize Muslims and drum up fears about the supposed dangers of Shariah finding its way into the American legal system, all to pander to a constituency that is terrified of pluralism.

Let’s take a DeLorean back to the post-9/11 years, during which Islam, especially the specter of Shariah, was frequently made the villain.

Much like the recent deliberate efforts to mischaracterize critical race theory, Shariah was deliberately misdefined as a legal-political-military doctrine and the pre-eminent totalitarian threat of our time. Thanks to a well-funded right-wing machine, Shariah became a litmus test for Muslim American citizens to prove their moderation and loyalty.

In 2011 the presidential aspirant Herman Cain said he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his potential administration or the federal courts because he feared they would “force their Shariah law onto the rest of us.” In 2015, Ben Carson echoed those talking points, saying he wouldn’t support a Muslim American for president unless he or she renounced Shariah. Ultimately, Donald Trump ran on a Muslim ban and put in place a modified travel ban with the help of the Supreme Court. By 2017, according to one report, over 200 anti-Shariah bills had popped up in 43 states over nearly a decade, based on trumped-up claims that Islamic law was infiltrating the U.S. judicial system.

Compare all that with now: Before the 2024 elections, the L.G.B.T.Q. community has emerged as the boogeyman du jour. Right-wing media and G.O.P. elected officials are routinely accusing liberals of being groomers. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently said that transgender people are “sexual predators,” and the Texas G.O.P.’s new platform explicitly rejects trans identity and refers to homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice.” In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his “Don’t Say Gay” law by saying his critics support “sexualizing kids in kindergarten.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, who remains the Republican front-runner for 2024, said that providing gender-affirming care to minors was equal to “child abuse.” As a result of this ginned-up hate, there are over 520 anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bills that have been introduced in state legislatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Now that queer Americans are being singled out, why are some Muslims so willing to go along?

We often forget that there are people whose lives are directly affected by these hateful words, statements and policies. I reached out to several L.G.B.T.Q. Muslims to ask them if they had any words for fellow Muslims who are supporting the right wing’s political attacks on L.G.B.T.Q. literature, rights and identities. “Don’t let Islamophobes and evangelical Christians vying for political power dictate the contours of your Islam,” Ramish Nadeem and Hanan Jabril, young Muslim activists, wrote in an emailed statement. “Is learning about L.G.B.T.Q.+ people, who do exist in the world we live in and even in our Muslim traditions, really gonna harm your kids’ faith? Is your Islam really that fragile that it must lead with exclusion, isolation and hate instead of mercy, openness and community?”

As Muslims in America, we have the capacity to be true to our faith and to embrace our neighbors — including members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community who may not share all our beliefs. And as citizens aware of how we’ve been treated, we should have better recognition of how the scapegoating of people for their sexual orientation or gender identity is a play from an old divide-and-conquer playbook. As the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote, “Nothing drives conservatives to reach out to groups they once feared as much as another group that they fear even more.”

As a Muslim parent, I understand how difficult it is to raise our children in a political environment that still views them as perpetual suspects because of their religion and, in many cases, their skin color. However, we still have religious freedoms in this country that allow us to live our lives according to our values, even if they aren’t shared by the majority.

Ultimately, living in a pluralistic society requires reciprocity and respect, even if we occasionally make one another uncomfortable. It’s hypocritical, shortsighted and cruel for Muslims to align with hateful forces targeting vulnerable communities that, like us, are still fighting against bigotry and for acceptance. The way forward is to opt into a country where all our kids have a chance to be the heroes of their own stories.

Source: We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

Filed under LGBTQ, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Common Issues With Citizenship By Investment Program

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Interesting that this appeared in CEOWorld with other articles providing general advice on how to apply:

You don’t have to be an expert to realize the fundamental problems with citizenship through investment programs or ‘golden visas.’ A standard golden visa scheme or citizenship by investment program provides for permanent residence and, ultimately, citizenship in consideration of investments in the economy. These schemes provide for a fast-track application process and quicker resolution of issues. These schemes were uncommon during the 1980s when they were first introduced but are presently an attractive way to draw in investors.

However, as they say, all glitters are not gold. Such is also the case with these programs. These programs have been formally structured and are monitored under the necessary rules and regulations. Yet, they have attracted a lot of problems that are making it difficult for countries to back them up. The substantive operation (even procedural at times) of these programs remains in question, and we will explore what they are in today’s discussion. Let us see what problems these programs commonly face.

Is it ethical?

The most common allegations thrown in the way of these programs concern their ultimate outcome: they grant citizenship in exchange for money. If I were to argue from the side of the opponents, you are basically telling people that they can show their true allegiance to the country simply upon investing. Many hardened arguments come from those with very strong, conventional notions of citizenship and its role in maintaining and encouraging national pride and integrity. To them, these programs sell citizenship. Hence, there are many ethical concerns about these programs.

Poorly undertaken due diligence

Generally, these programs do not restrict applications from any foreign national. A country may place a few oversight measures on those coming from select countries. However, these restrictions are limited to very few countries. Even so, due diligence is nevertheless in place. That is, of course, not the problem. The problem lies in the way due diligence is carried out. High-risk profiles need to be filtered out, but many countries fail to do so. While documentary proofs have been mandated, they are not assessed as a standard procedure. To gain as much investment as possible, countries maintain opaque due diligence systems to bypass regular procedural requirements.

Encouraging corrupt activities

Approving high-risk profiles, providing channels to launder money across the globe, and encouraging corruption are major negative impacts of these programs. If we keep aside the arguments on the ‘sale of citizenship’, these programs can operate smoothly and properly, provided their implementation is done right.

For example, Hungary suspended its Golden Visa program after allegations that certain dubious companies were granted the right to sell residence bonds without a transparent procurement process. These companies reportedly amassed over $600 million during the course of 4 years. Why does this happen? There can be several reasons. For instance, lack of verification of the source of funds or limited information on how the investments are contributing to the economy.

Too lax requirements

Many Caribbean countries operate some of the world’s easy-to-access citizenship by investment. Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Antigua and Barbuda, for example, do not impose minimum residence requirements, require very low levels of investment, and offer ultra-fast processing time. While the idea behind these programs is indeed to grant citizenship through a faster and easier route of investment, these requirements invite more suspicion than approval. Why? The answer is obvious: these programs offer safe havens to criminals who run away to these countries to evade the criminal justice system. The evasion of tax is another example.

Source: Common Issues With Citizenship By Investment Program

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with

Civil society team heading to Syria, but Ottawa won’t support repatriation efforts

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Bit naive to assert that “if any of the Canadians being held in Syria pose a security concern, those issues can be dealt with through the justice system” given the difficulty in obtaining evidence and the like.

And of course hard to find any sympathy for these men or “to see what human rights concerns they may be facing” after they were part of a group that violated all or virtually all human rights:

The federal government has rebuffed an offer from a civil society delegation to travel to northeastern Syria on Ottawa’s behalf to repatriate detained Canadians.

Instead, a scaled-down group, including Sen. Kim Pate, intends to head to the region in late August to gather information about Canadians held in squalid camps and prisons.

The delegation is also to include Alex Neve, former secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, and Scott Heatherington, a former Canadian diplomat.

Participants plan to discuss details of the initiative at a news conference in Ottawa this morning.

Late last month, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned a judge’s declaration that four Canadian men being held in Syrian camps are entitled to Ottawa’s help to return home.

The May ruling set aside a January decision by Federal Court Justice Henry Brown, who directed Ottawa to request repatriation of the men as soon as reasonably possible and provide them with passports or emergency travel documents.

The Canadians are among the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps and jails run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the strife-torn region from the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

On April 19, Sally Lane — mother of Jack Letts, one of the four Canadian men — wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly requesting that she promptly authorize a seven-member delegation to Syria in late May.

“I am convinced that in the current circumstances, authorizing this delegation is essential to saving Jack’s life and protecting the rights of all Canadian detainees,” Lane wrote. “As such, I will be a member of this delegation.”

In an interview, Lane said the government declined to provide support to the delegation. “They didn’t actually give a reason. All they said was that repatriation will be done by government members only.”

Given that the revamped mission set for August will be more of a fact-finding trip, Lane does not plan to go.

“It’s not actually going to be a repatriation trip,” she said. “I mean, it’s going to be preparatory to repatriation, but there won’t actually be any people coming back. And I just thought, I can’t face the idea of seeing Jack and leaving him there. I just think it would kind of break me, and I believe it would break him. So I’m not going on this trip.”

Asked why the government would not support the proposed delegation, Global Affairs Canada spokesman Jean-Pierre Godbout said Ottawa advises against all travel to Syria.

“Due to privacy and operational security considerations, we cannot comment on specific cases or potential future actions,” he added.

The identities and circumstances of the other three Canadian men are not publicly known.

Amid the court proceedings, lawyer Lawrence Greenspon reached an agreement with the federal government earlier this year to bring home six Canadian women and 13 children from Syria who had initially been part of the legal action.

Neve said in an interview that the government’s “seemingly implacable refusal” to assist the return of the men to Canada “is in our view, frankly, disgraceful.”

The three-member delegation plans to fly to Mosul, in northern Iraq, then travel overland to northeastern Syria.

The members hope to speak with as many of the Canadians — men, women and children — in the camps and detention centres as possible, said Neve, a senior fellow with the graduate school of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa.

“We want to see about their welfare, we want to see what human rights concerns they may be facing,” he said. “So from that side of things, it’s a welfare and humanitarian mission, really.”

But the delegation also wants to meet with local officials to see if steps can be taken to help facilitate release of Canadians, Neve added.

Canadian government officials should be playing that role, as they have with some of the women and children brought home from Syria, he said.

“Many other countries have much more actively been involved in facilitating and carrying out the repatriation of their nationals, so Canada continues to very notably be a laggard in the international community,” Neve said.

“And I think that’s disappointing, especially for a country like Canada that that proudly asserts that we believe in human rights.”

Neve said if any of the Canadians being held in Syria pose a security concern, those issues can be dealt with through the justice system. But leaving citizens to languish overseas for years on end “is simply not acceptable.”

Source: Civil society team heading to Syria, but Ottawa won’t support repatriation efforts

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