Canadian military sees rise in applications from new immigrants

2023/04/25 Leave a comment

Long standing challenge among general recruitment challenge:

More than 6,000 new immigrants have applied to join Canada’s Armed Forces (CAF) over the past two months after the military dropped citizenship requirements to bolster its ranks, according to the latest data provided to New Canadian Media.

“We have seen a huge interest from new Canadians since we’ve opened the door to permanent residents,” Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, the military’s Chief of Professional Conduct and Culture told NCM in an interview during her recent visit to Vancouver.

“The number of folks from different backgrounds…new Canadians has increased from 23 per cent to over 30 per cent of applicants,” she said. “This is very, very good news.”

NCM reported on Nov 11 that Canada’s military would be opening its doors wider to attract new immigrants into its ranks after the CAF recruitment site was updated to reflect policy change. Before the change, only Canadian citizens were eligible to apply for employment within the country’s military. Permanent resident status — except in certain categories — did not qualify.

Permanent residents who join the military now will not be subject to the minimum residency requirements — to keep permanent resident status, a new immigrant must be living in Canada for at least 730 days in the last five years — and will be allowed to leave the country for overseas postings or personal reasons. 

The CAF is now recruiting for more than 100 positions, including radiologists and marine technicians.  As of July 2022, the regular force had approximately 63,500 members — about 8,000 short of its mandated strength. The CAF had a target to bring in at least 5,900 new members through its recruiting centres by March 2023. 

Top down, bottom up changes

LGen Carignan, who leads the command team for the military group tasked with leading the Canadian Armed Forces’ cultural transformation, said the recruitment uptick bodes well with her unit’s efforts to modernize the institution.

The mother of four and the first woman in the Canadian Armed Forces to lead a combat unit said her central mission now is to unify and consolidate culture change within the various departments in the CAF and the Department of National Defence (DND).

“This is a whole defence undertaking – bottom up, top down, and horizontally across the CAF,” she said. 

“We need to move towards a space where people can be themselves, be authentic and at the same time, contribute to the common mission.

Within LGen Carignan’s organization, there are these five advisory groups that represent visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, the LGBTQA+ community, people with disabilities, and women’s rights advocates.

“We gather their feedback every time we build a new policy… every time we go out and implement various initiatives,” LGen Carignan said. “And they do inform our strategies, our processes and our policies.”

“We are bringing our game up in terms of inclusive behavior,” she said.

The sweeping changes being imposed under LGen Carignan include everything from a new gender inclusive dress code to other aspects of appearance, including the length of one’s hair, and establishing a restorative engagement process, which she expects will guide culture change strategies and resolve personnel conflicts.

There will also be a restructuring of the defence department’s complaints management system and an overhaul to improve the training and promotion of managers.

“I expect a performance measurement framework that will provide quantitative and qualitative data on whether CAF is progressing in terms of creating a healthy culture, to be ready soon,” she said.

LGen Carignan said NATO members are also looking at what the CAF is doing in terms of enabling culture change within its leadership and ranks.

“Recently, I sat down with 25 of our allies within NATO who are very very interested in what we are doing,” she said.

Backlash

LGen Carignan said while most of the military family is very supportive of the required culture changes, she acknowledged that there are some within the military and media who feel otherwise.

Among the critics are Retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Maisonneuve who got a standing ovation from serving senior military officers after a dinner speech last November in Ottawa where he slammed the changes to military dress regulations, reported the Ottawa Citizen.

Thomas Juneau, a former National Defence analyst wrote on Twitter that Maisonneuve’s speech “was an embarrassment and a good illustration of the culture of entitlement that has led to the systematic abuses of power in the senior ranks of the military,” the paper said.

Others like National Post columnist Jamie Sarkonak have suggested that the military’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion is getting in the way of training for war. 

“It’s hard to see why any of this would be relevant to the Armed Forces, which should be focused on defending all Canadians equally,” Sarkonak wrote.

LGen Carignan said building lasting, positive culture change in the military will ensure Canada’s effectiveness in responding to growing threats at home and around the world.

“This has never been a distraction… your teams are not conducive to be the best that they can be if its members do not feel protected and respected when they wear a uniform,” she said.

“What resulted in success in the past will not be what makes us successful in the future. We are at a time where a shift is required in how’ we conduct ourselves, how’ we exercise leadership, and how we understand power and authority,” LGen Carignan responded in an update about her unit.

“We at CPCC are inspired by the changes and evolution we have seen over the past months and are convinced of our capacity to continue to improve together.”

Source: Canadian military sees rise in applications from new immigrants

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Faine: I’m getting intolerant of tolerance

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Good commentary from Australia’s Jon Faine:

It is time to retire the T word from the vocabulary of multiculturalism. I do not want anyone to say that they “tolerate” me. It is patronising and condescending.

Tolerance denotes a reluctant acceptance, a begrudging recognition of something unpleasant that will not go away. Why be so negative about one of the greatest assets we have – our diversity?

Smilingly encouraging “tolerance” for those who used to be described as “New Australians” is actually a backhander, a well-meaning but confused commentary on our almost universally shared commitment to social cohesion.

It is usually invoked by established figures comfortable about their place in our nation, but uttered rarely by anyone insecure or struggling.

I flinch when I hear it, whether from the lips of a government minister, a faith leader or various commentators who regularly pepper it through their offerings.

We live in one of the most socially cohesive, peaceful, multicultural societies on the globe. Although we can and must do better, let us be frank about our successes.

We speak nearly 300 different languages, according to Victorian Multicultural Commission data, and claim almost every known ancestry and every imaginable variation on the human race. More than 25 per cent of Australians are born overseas, and about 50 per cent of us have at least one of our parents born overseas.

Schools, workplaces, marriages, friendships and public and private enterprises are more diverse than ever before. Belatedly, we are beginning to validate and celebrate the unique culture of our First Nations communities and at last have adopted militancy in tackling the entrenched racism to which they have and continue to be exposed.

Australia without generations of migrants and their cultural contribution is unimaginable. But it is also a historical truth that many migrant communities, once established and settled, express reservations about the next wave.

Instead of feeling affinity or empathy, they question their legitimacy — dubbed the “drawbridge” phenomenon. Once a new arrival becomes established and secure, the “drawbridge” is lifted to prevent others from enjoying the same benefits.

It would be nonsense to try to argue that contemporary Australia is the mythical fairytale melting pot, that we all sit around together harmonising Kumbaya. It is equally wrong to portray Australia as a hotbed of racial or ethnic strife.

Last month, a handful of neo-Nazis performed on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House, scoring the attention they craved along with their goal of saturation media coverage.

Reassuringly, their parade was swiftly condemned by almost all community leaders. Zero tolerance was confirmed at nearly every level. This is how standards are set.

Choosing to turn a blind eye or to stay silent about overt racism is in effect to support it. Saying nothing signifies everything. Not condemning is assisting – the nod, a sly wink, a slight hint of approval is oxygen to racists and assists their recruiting.

The annual monitor from the authoritative Scanlon Foundation, which researches social cohesion and helps migrants transition to Australia, notes a recent change in the value we place on migration. Since the foundation began more than 20 years ago, it has measured and tracked consistent support for immigration as a source of strength for our culture and economy.

That steady support over many years has stalled during the pandemic. Suddenly, our sense of national belonging has declined, according to the foundation, although local belonging has improved. Lockdown and isolation achieved something.

At the same time – and surely, related – fewer Australians think we are still a land of equal opportunity, both economic and social.

It ought not surprise that in times of financial stress, multiculturalism is vulnerable. Growing economic inequality exacerbates social inequality which puts stress on social cohesion.

Fear of “the other” is driving repression and racial tension all over the world, as it has throughout history. Although we have a continent to ourselves, with no land borders to spark friction, we are not immune.

For many years, I was honoured and humbled to be an Australia Day ambassador and to assist at citizenship ceremonies across the state. There are few more moving moments in public life than to witness first-hand the emotion, excitement and sincerity with which new citizens pledge allegiance to their adopted home. I recommend it as a tonic for even the most hardened of hearts and jaded of souls.

Many of us take for granted what for others is a profound privilege, the priceless reward for unimaginable hardship and struggle.

Immigration and diversity add strength to our society and counter the ossification and stagnation that impacts many countries that turn their back on the fresh ideas and energy that comes with welcoming new arrivals.

We must repel the efforts of those who try to exploit and inflame community tensions instead of resolving them, who see an opportunity for power or profit by poking a stick into an ants’ nest, and then wondering aloud why the ants have become so agitated.

Jon Faine is a regular columnist and former ABC Radio Melbourne broadcaster. He is a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Source: I’m getting intolerant of tolerance

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Irwin Cotler: The lessons of the Holocaust remain sadly relevant today

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Good piece, connecting the Holocaust to other genocides, war crimes and human rights violations, both historic and contemporary:

This year’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day was a particularly poignant historical moment of remembrance and reminder, of bearing witness, of learning and acting upon the universal lessons of history and the Holocaust.

I write in the aftermath of the 90th anniversary of the establishment in 1933 by Nazi Germany of the infamous Dachau concentration camp — where thousands were deported to during Kristallnacht — reminding us that antisemitism is toxic to democracy, an assault on our common humanity, and as we’ve learned only too painfully and too well, while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews.

I write also in the aftermath of the 81st anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, convened by the Nazi leadership to address “The final solution to the Jewish question” — the blueprint for the annihilation of European Jewry — which was met with indifference and inaction by the international community.

I write also on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the most heroic Jewish and civilian uprising during the Holocaust, which was preceded by the deportation of 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. There is a straight line between Wannsee and Warsaw; between the indifference of one and the courage of the other.

I write also amidst the international drumbeat of evil, reflected and represented in the unprovoked and criminal Russian invasion of Ukraine, underpinned by war crimes, crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide; the increasing assaults by China on the rules-based international order, including mass atrocities targeting the Uyghurs; the Iranian regime’s brutal and massive repression of the “women, life, freedom” protests; the mass atrocities targeting the Rohingya, Afghans and Ethiopians; and the increasing imprisonment of human rights defenders like Russian patriot and human rights hero Vladimir Kara-Murza — the embodiment of the struggle for freedom and a critic of the invasion of Ukraine — sentenced this week to 25 years in prison for telling the truth, a re-enactment of the Stalinist dictum of “give us the person and we will find the crime.”

And I write amidst an unprecedented global resurgence of antisemitic acts, incitement, and terror — of antisemitism as the oldest, longest, most enduring, and most dangerous of hatreds, a virus that mutates and metastasizes over time, but which is grounded in one foundational, historical, generic, conspiratorial trope: namely, that Jews, the Jewish people, and Israel are the enemy of all that is good and the embodiment of all that is evil.

And so at this important historical juncture, we should ask ourselves what we have learned over the past 80 years and what lessons we must act on, including the following:

• The danger of forgetting the Holocaust and the imperative of remembrance — as Nobel laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel put it, “a war against the Jews in which not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were targeted victims” — of horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened.

• The demonization and dehumanization of the Jew as prologue and justification for their mass murder.

• The mass murder of six million Jews — 1.5 million of whom were children — and of millions of non-Jews, remembering them not as abstract statistics, but as individuals who each had a name.

• The danger of antisemitism — the oldest, longest, most enduring of hatreds — and most lethal. If the Holocaust is a paradigm for radical evil, antisemitism is a paradigm for radical hate that must be combatted.

• The dangers of Holocaust denial and distortion — of assaults on truth and memory, and the whitewashing of the worst crimes in history.

• The danger of state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide. The Holocaust, as the Supreme Court of Canada put it, “did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words.”

• The danger of silence in the face of evil — where silence incentivizes the oppressor, never helping the victim — and our responsibility always to protest against injustice.

• The dangers of indifference and inaction in the face of mass atrocity and genocide. What makes the Holocaust and the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda so horrific are not only the horrors themselves. What makes them so horrific is that they were preventable. Nobody could say we did not know. Just as today, with regard to mass atrocities being perpetrated against the Uyghurs, the Rohingya, and the Ukrainians — nobody can say we do not know. We know and we must act.

• The Trahison des Clercs — the betrayal of the elites — doctors and scientists, judges and lawyers, religious leaders and educators, engineers and architects. Nuremberg crimes were the crimes of Nuremberg elites. Our responsibility, therefore, is always to speak truth to power.

• The danger of cultures of impunity, and the corresponding responsibility to bring war criminals to justice. There must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, no immunity for these enemies of humankind.

• The danger of the vulnerability of the powerless and the powerlessness of the vulnerable. The responsibility to give voice to the voiceless and to empower the powerless. In a word, the test of a just society is how it treats its most vulnerable.

And so, the abiding and enduring lesson: We are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny. May this day be not only an act of remembrance, which it is, but a remembrance to act, which it must be — on behalf of our common humanity.

National Post

Irwin Cotler is Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He is Canada’s first Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.

Source: Irwin Cotler: The lessons of the Holocaust remain sadly relevant today

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Immigration Surges Past One Million — Canada Needs a Real Count and Real Plans

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Annual levels plan needs to include temporary workers and international students rather than these being solely demand-driven. And better and more disaggregated data would be welcome although we have enough to understand the general trends:

Canada revved up its immigration machine last year to make up for the pandemic slowdown and recorded a new high of 437,500 new permanent resident arrivals. And the federal government plans to keep going, increasing permanent immigration targets to half a million by 2025 – 75 percent higher than the 2017 target level.

While public opinion remains broadly supportive of greater immigration, the impact on housing, health care, and broader community capacity has entered the debate. And to fully assess the effects, especially on housing, we need to look beyond headline immigration numbers. International arrivals for permanent and temporary visa holders not already in Canada need to be added to the equation. Precisely counting these groups is not an easy task due to data gaps and inconsistencies, but for 2022, we estimate the real total of arrivals last year was more than one million people.

The expansion of two-step immigration selection that prioritizes applicants with Canadian work experience and post-secondary education, allowed many applicants, such as temporary foreign workers and students, to receive approvals from within Canada. However, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) does not publish the data on their country of residence, making it difficult to understand the role of approvals for those already residing in Canada. According to IRCC data, this trend of applications from within Canada spiked during COVID. They made up fully 75 percent of 406,045 permanent residency approvals in 2021, but only 45 percent last year. This means the number of permanent residency approvals for people outside Canada – who create incremental housing demand – more than doubled between 2021 and 2022 to about 241,500.

Among those new arrivals are non-permanent residents. This category is growing rapidly, faster than new permanent residents, and is the most volatile element in population estimates. Non-permanent residents need to hold a valid permit to live in Canada and include temporary foreign workers, international students, refugee claimants and now a surging number of Ukrainians under a new authorization for emergency travel program.

In total, there were 1.3 million new temporary visas issued (excluding extensions and tourists) in 2022, a 45-percent increase from 2021. According to country of residence data, the number of new permit holders (e.g. temporary foreign workers and international students) whose place of residence was outside Canada grew by 83 percent from 2021 to more than 855,000 in 2022.

Combining permanent and temporary entry from outside Canada in 2022, the estimated total arrivals was more than one million (see Figure).

A new element of the temporary resident increase was the policy response to the invasion of Ukraine. Eligible Ukrainians can come to Canada for up to three years under the emergency authorization, and Ukrainians already in Canada can extend their visas. There is also a surge in Ukrainians arriving through other programs.  In 2022, only 29 percent (140,094 individuals) of the 478,357 approved applications arrived (another 66,000 have landed so far in 2023 through April 2). The continuing flow will substantially increase international arrival and non-permanent resident numbers in 2023 as Canada keeps receiving and processing applications.

Although some residents may leave Canada and some new arrivals are absorbed into existing extended family households, the available data points to an overall net increase in the number of arrivals as well as in demand for housing: the latest CMHC Rental Market Survey shows the national vacancy rate fell from 3.1 percent to 1.9 percent from October 2021 to October 2022.

Current trends indicate a larger influx of international arrivals (far outpacing temporary visa departures) in 2023 and further increases in housing demand. This would push the rental vacancy rate to near zero and worsen housing supply shortages.

Even if the Ukraine War ends swiftly and the labour market starts to cool down, requiring fewer temporary foreign workers, Canada still needs to address its housing crunch in both the short- and long-term.

In the short-term, prefabrication and modular construction, like those that non-profits have constructed for veterans may be needed.

Meanwhile, another concern is Canada’s data quality. Complex, confusing and even conflicting published data due to over- and under-estimates of temporary immigration figures hampers accurate and timely population and housing forecasts. First, one individual can have more than one visa in a calendar year, and leave prior to the visa expiry. As well, in another COVID response, the immigration department has allowed non-permanent residents with expired visas to remain in Canada while their application for visa renewal or permanent residency is under review. To obtain population estimates, however, Statistics Canada still assumes non-permanent resident visa holders left the country the month following visa expiry. Accurate data is needed for accurate analysis of resources and capacity planning to serve new arrivals. And evidence shows that there have been long term data gaps in tracking temporary residents.

COVID shutdowns and the Ukraine war illustrate how dramatic changes in the number of new arrivals can occur with lasting economic and demographic consequence. Using the correct metric in a timely manner is, therefore, critical. We need disaggregated data on permit issuances and arrivals by country of residence as well as data on the total unique count of temporary residents to make sure we know how many people are here.

Henry Lotin is an economist and principal of Integrative Trade and Economics and a retired Canadian diplomat, and Parisa Mahboubi is a Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.

Source: Immigration Surges Past One Million — Canada Needs a Real Count and Real Plans

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Proudfoot: The Trudeau government was supposed to be ‘open by default.’ Open at all, ever, would be a nice start

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Hard not to agree:

In its youth, the Trudeau government was very good at branding and grand mission statements. It was a skill that was slightly hypnotizing for its novelty at the time. If the Harper government’s instinct was to turn the hose on any kids it found playing on its lawn, then the Trudeau government promised to fling open the front door and offer a rap session over a nice cool glass of lemonade.

In an open letter to Canadians on the day his first cabinet was sworn in, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to “set a higher bar for openness and transparency” in Ottawa. “Government and its information must be open by default,” he wrote. “Simply put, it is time to shine more light on government to make sure it remains focused on the people it was created to serve – you.”

You could practically hear the “Open by default” banners fluttering nobly atop the Peace Tower.

The problem with having a flair for gleaming manifestoes is that they tend to stick in the mind. And then they follow you around like a hapless tuba soundtrack, reminding everyone of what you once proudly advertised, what you now are and the distance between the two.

At this point, the Liberals’ open-by-default declarations register as cruel farce. They didn’t start the practice of iron-fisted information control in government, but they sure haven’t ended it. And they’re the ones who made that a central feature of who they would be.

There are big-picture obfuscations that deserve correspondingly large derision, like refusing to say how much public money they spent wooing Volkswagen to make car batteries in Canada (a lot, as it turns out) or the government’s obstinance on Beijing poking its fingers into Canadian life.

But it’s the smaller, daily roadblocks that are perhaps more insulting and corrosive, because they seem so unnecessary and because they send the constant message that public information is meted out on a need-to-know basis, and the public needs to know a lot less than it thinks it does.

If journalists, being annoying and nosy on behalf of citizens, have a question for a federal government department, talking to a live human being who knows things about the thing you want to know is an adorable fantasy most of the time. This will usually be conveyed by the delicate euphemism that an interview request “cannot be accommodated.” This sounds like parenting books that advise you to tell a recalcitrant toddler “It’s time to get ready for bed now” because it’s harder to argue with something decreed by the universe than with a person who tells you they’ve made a decision.

Once the absurd idea of an interview is waved off, you are asked to submit questions for response by e-mail, and to state your deadline. This is where the whole thing devolves into play acting.

If you get responses by deadline, they will generally be “answers” to what you asked only in the geographical sense that they will be located below each of your questions. They will otherwise bear, at best, a one-night-stand relationship to the original queries or to anything resembling a clear thought or fact. They will be so obviously, transparently workshopped to death by an unseen army of staffers and bureaucrats that you will practically be able to see the sweaty, nervous fingerprints still steaming on them.

But sometimes – seemingly increasingly – you will not get even an overcooked pablum of words by the stated deadline. At least one federal department now responds to deadline requests by asserting that it has “a two-day service standard,” which is as good as refusing to answer. Others have taken to blowing through a deadline, then asking that a story that has already been published be “updated” or reprinted to include their day-late-and-a-dollar-short response. (No, but that is an impressive level of chutzpah you have there.)

It’s important to note that not every department or minister’s office does this. It’s also important to acknowledge that in terms of populations whining about their working conditions, journalists rank somewhere between scary birthday clowns and subway rats on most people’s scale of who’s worth tuning up the tiny violin for.

But the real problem that underlies all of this is the concept of who owns the information. It’s not the government’s to hoard, or for bureaucratic bouncers to jealously guard. It doesn’t even belong to the journalists asking a bunch of rude questions. The information is owned by the Canadian public, and owed to them as the ones who foot the bill and who will conduct the job interview next time there’s an election call.

That’s the principled argument, but if that’s too sanctimonious for you, there’s a much more mercenary one to be made for the government explaining itself on the regular: it’s self-defeatingly dumb not to.

The logic of withholding public information might be risk aversion or issues management or the peevish certainty that everything is torqued to death and no one gives a fair benefit of the doubt. None of those problems is improved by a refusal to explain yourself, and pretty much all of them are exacerbated by refusing to do so.

When you write an exam, sometimes you arrive at the wrong answer to the big question at the end of the paper. But everyone knows you only get partial credit for trying if you show your work.

Source: The Trudeau government was supposed to be ‘open by default.’ Open at all, ever, would be a nice start

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Australia unveils direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Of note (longstanding issue):

Australia announced on Saturday a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders living in the country, reversing controversial visa rules a day before a visit by New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.

Hipkins, set to visit Queensland state’s capital Brisbane on Sunday, hailed the move as “the biggest improvement in the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia in a generation”.

The changes, effective from July, meant New Zealand citizens living in Australia for four years or more could apply for citizenship without having to become permanent residents first, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.

“We know that many New Zealanders are here on a Special Category Visa while raising families, working and building their lives in Australia. So I am proud to offer the benefits that citizenship provides,” Albanese added.

New Zealand has long campaigned for changes since visa rules were altered in 2001, making it tougher for Kiwis in Australia to get citizenship.

The reform would bring New Zealanders’ rights more into line with those of Australian expats living in New Zealand, Australia’s Labor government said.

“Kiwis taking up Australian citizenship will still retain their New Zealand citizenship. These dual citizens are not lost to New Zealand – but draw us closer together,” Hipkins said in a statement.

The changes also meant children born in Australia since July to an Australia-based New Zealand parent would be automatically entitled to Australian citizenship, he said.

“This will make critical services available to them,” he said, adding the changes delivered on an Albanese promise that no New Zealander be left “permanently temporary” in Australia.

Around 670,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia, while there are around 70,000 Australians in New Zealand, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil ruled out the changes being extended to other migrant groups, saying it was a “special arrangement with New Zealand”.

The reform was about ensuring the “strong friendship we have is reflected properly in law”, she told ABC television.

Source: Australia unveils direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with ,

Only path to citizenship for ‘lost’ Canadians can take years and may involve mistakes, court hears

2023/04/22 1 Comment

Useful account of the court proceedings and Justice Akbarali comments and questions. The definition of “lost Canadians” keeps on getting stretched. Agree, of course, on the need for better data, not just relying on personal stories and individual cases:

Government lawyers were challenged in court to justify the options for “lost Canadians” to be granted citizenship and the undue hardship endured by families affected by a rule that limits the passage of citizenship rights by descent for those born abroad.

At a hearing in Toronto on Thursday, federal government counsel argued there’s no charter right to citizenship and alternative pathways are available for children born overseas to foreign-born Canadians who can’t inherit citizenship under the second-generation cut-off rule.

“There’s simply one rule for passing on citizenship for the first generation born abroad, and that’s having a child born in Canada to continue the connection to Canada,” Hillary Adams, one of three lawyers for the government, told the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

“Or they can have their children born outside of Canada and confirm the connection to Canada by establishing permanent residence here and apply for citizenship, like most immigrants to Canada … The end result is the same. Your child gets Canadian citizenship.”

The lawsuit was brought by 23 individuals from seven families that have been negatively affected by the cut-off rule, arguing the law discriminates against them based on their place of birth, violates their mobility and liberty rights, and disproportionately puts women at a disadvantage when they have to give birth outside of Canada due to circumstances beyond their control.

Government co-counsel David Tyndale said people make personal choices as to where to look for jobs, where to start a family or whether to pursue a career abroad, and the choices have “intersecting effects” on one another.

“They may be difficult. They may involve serious consequences in some area or others of the person’s life. But the fact that life imposes choices on people as to where they live and where they have children isn’t necessarily a breach of the charter,” Tyndale argued.

The government contended that there’s no “blanket prohibition” for the second-generation born abroad to restore their Canadian citizenship through a discretionary grant by the immigration minister or indirectly first as a permanent resident through a family sponsorship before they turn 22 years old. Refused applicants can appeal to the Federal Court.

Noting that these processes could take months if not years, Justice Jasmine Akbarali raised concerns over mix-ups and mistakes in some of those decisions.

“They have to first become permanent residents and we know that hasn’t always been easy to obtain,” Akbarali said. “There’s children who applied for and did not get PR status. There’s no evidence to tell me how often that happens, that children of Canadian citizens obtain PR status on application or not.”

Government counsel Kevin Spykerman responded that there’s no evidence in the submissions but referred to some of the litigants who were granted citizenship by the immigration minister or successfully obtained permanent residence.

“In many of these applications, we see a much shorter processing time. And of course the 27 month processing time is not always 27 months,” said Spykerman. “We see success through this provision.”

But at what cost, the judge wondered.

“The courts are full of self-represented people who can’t afford lawyers. If you need a representative to find someone who knows somebody inside (immigration) to assist you in getting this exceptional grant to citizenship … then what about people who can’t afford it?” asked Justice Akbarali.

“Is it enough that they’re viable if they are incredibly difficult? If they cause hardship?”

Adams said the Federal Court is a better place to hear immigration and citizenship cases because of its expertise and experience in dealing with the relevant law and provincial courts generally defer jurisdiction to the higher court.

“Am I being asked to assume jurisdiction over immigration matters or am I being asked to apply the charter to federal law,” the judge interjected.

“You are being asked to apply the charter to federal law, which, again, you have jurisdiction to do. We’re not debating that,” Adams replied.

The government argued that none of the litigants’ mobility and liberty rights were infringed because at no point were the first-generation Canadians born abroad refused entry or exit from Canada. In addition, their foreign-born children were issued visitor visas to come to Canada.

“The applicants have been able to make fundamental personal choices free from state interference by moving overseas and having children overseas and by returning to Canada,” noted Adams, adding that the law is meant to ensure citizenship by descent is not passed from generation to generation to people without a connection to Canada.

The 23 litigants from multi-generational families, including grandparents and parents, have established ties to Canada before moving abroad and having children overseas.

The court questioned if those ties matter when the pejoratively known “birth tourists” with no connection to this country are able to obtain citizenship for their children by travelling to Canada and giving birth here.

“They have the choice as a birth tourist does to have child in Canada and reap the benefits of citizenship,” Adams answered. “There’s a choice where to have your children.

The litigants are seeking an order to declare the second-generation citizenship cut-off unconstitutional and grant citizenship to the four children in the lawsuit whose citizenship is still pending.

Source: Only path to citizenship for ‘lost’ Canadians can take years and may involve mistakes, court hears

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Adam: Racial minorities have more concerns than cash as PSAC strikes

2023/04/22 Leave a comment

TBS desegregated visible minority and gender data for the last six years portrays increasing diversity, with net hirings (hirings less separations) and promotions significantly greater for visible minorities than not visible minorities. Highlights the danger of over-emphasizing personal stories rather than analyzing the data more closely:

Massive disruptions to government services were expected across the country as thousands of public servants went on strike this week in a dispute over wages and working conditions. The walkout affects 155,000 workers, but about 47,000, who are classified as essential workers, will remain on the job. That leaves some 100,000 for the picket lines.

The strike comes at a time when Canadians are struggling with the high cost of living, and many small businesses still have yet to fully recover from the effects of the pandemic. The public service union however, says its members have been affected by inflation, and is demanding a 4.5 per cent annual raise. At the time the strike was called, the federal government had offered three per cent, which the union rejected. The striking workers must walk a fine line to ensure public support because Canadians may be in no mood to tolerate a long walkout.

Significant as it is, the strike should not overshadow what, for many Black and other minority public servants, is an existential crisis: the lack of advancement that has confined them to low-paying entry-level jobs, and undermined their dignity and self-worth. Imagine working in the same job for 20 or 30 years and never getting a promotion. The shame of it is that this is what’s happening to Black and other minority employees of our federal government.

In the Citizen last week, Sandra Griffith-Bonaparte revealed how she never got a promotion in 22 years as a public servant at the Department of National Defence. It’s not because she lacks ambition. She worked hard to acquire two undergraduate degrees from Carleton University, as well as a master of arts and public ethics at St. Paul’s University and the University of Ottawa. She applied for numerous promotions but was rejected by her employer, watching as others climbed the job ladder and left her behind.

It was as if her employer was telling her she is not wanted; she doesn’t belong there. “Time and again, I’m either blocked, overlooked, ostracized, and this has me questioning: Why?” she said. “My story is not unique, this is happening all over in the Canadian government, in the public service in the city, in provincial workplaces.”

Indeed. Her case is a reflection of the discrimination many Black and minority people face in the public service: qualified people trapped in the same job for decades without any hope of progress or advancement, simply because of the colour of their skin.

It shows in a 2021-22 Treasury Board employment equity report, which lays out how Indigenous people, Blacks and other members of so-called visible minorities continue to languish in the lowest salary ranks in the public service, while fewer and fewer of them are found in the higher levels.

It is this kind of discrimination that prompted a group of public servants to launch a lawsuit against the federal government seeking redress and compensation. The lawsuit highlights stories of others like Griffith-Bonaparte — people who have been toiling at the lower echelons of the public service for decades.

There is Carol Sip, a former Canada Border Services Agency employee whose supervisor constantly made derogatory remarks to her without management doing anything about it. She worked 26 years without promotion. Then there is Jennifer Phillips, who worked for the Canada Revenue Agency for 30 years and was promoted only once. Time and again, she watched as people she trained get promoted.

None of the claims in the class action lawsuit has been proven in court, but the sad thing is that these people were not looking to fill quotas or get preferential treatment. All they wanted was the same opportunity given to others to compete and advance on merit.

Responding to the equity report, Treasury Board president Mona Fortier promised the government would do better to build a more “inclusive and diverse” public service. When confronted with problems, politicians have a habit of offering comforting words without any real action. Federal workers are on strike for more money, but for racial minorities, there’s much more than cash at stake.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator. Reach him at nylamiles48@gmail.com

Source: Adam: Racial minorities have more concerns than cash as PSAC strikes

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

With falling births, pensions will suffer, taxes will rise – but the alternative is worse

2023/04/22 Leave a comment

Of note:

Birth rates are falling throughout the world. Some countries are losing population now, and the global population is projected to decline some time later in the century.

Many people are alarmed by this: people in China, Russia, Western Europe and even Canada, where the population growth rate would be close to zero were it not for substantial immigration. They want to reverse the trend, to raise birth rates.

They are wrong. Low birth rates and falling populations do, to be sure, create significant problems that we must face. Retirement, health care and other end-of-life costs will soar. The French government is proposing an increase in the retirement age, an unpopular decision that will likely spread to other countries. We will also likely need higher tax rates.

But the alternative – high birth rates and growing populations – would be much worse. We should welcome the falling birth rates. Here is why.

If the human race is to survive – indeed, if any species is to survive – its growth rate will be zero. Why? Because if the growth rate is positive, eventually there will be standing room only, an obvious impossibility unless we venture into the science fiction realm of space colonies. How long until we get to that point? It depends on the rate of growth, but with any positive rate we will eventually get there. In 1964, demographer Ansley Coale estimated that with an annual human growth rate of 2 per cent, standing room only would occur in just 650 years.

On the other hand, if the growth rate is negative, eventually the population will disappear.

Therefore, in the long run, if our species is to survive, our growth rate will be zero. Not zero every year, or even every century, but over the long haul. Any positive rates will have to be balanced by negative rates.

How to get to zero population growth? Easy. The birth rate has to equal the death rate.

Given that we want long, healthy lives for ourselves and for those we love, we must have low birth rates to balance that out.

With high birth rates, we will not be able to maintain low death rates. The proponents of higher birth rates don’t mean to put it this way, but they are actually prescribing an early death sentence for us.

What about the problems created by low birth rates?

The essence of the age-distribution problem is that we will have fewer working people to support more retired people. With falling populations, the incentive for investment will likely also fall. It will be harder to bring new technologies to market, and it will be harder to maintain a full-employment level of overall production.

We will thus need to find ways that working people can be more productive, that they can create more goods, services and income, so that they can provide more adequately for their own old age, and also afford higher tax rates to provide the funds for health care and other services for the elderly.

Many measures facing stiff resistance, such as the French government’s raising of the retirement age, will have to be part of the response – all of these changes are difficult and some of them are deeply unpopular. But they will turn out to be less unpopular than the early death needed to balance out high birth rates.

There is reason to be optimistic about this, however. Over the decades we have seen remarkable increases in productivity, and governments have a lot of tools to encourage this to continue. We will face many problems that public policy must address and mitigate, if not completely avoid.

In any case, the current population puts so much pressure on our limited natural resources and on our ecology that the geological, biological and chemical basis of our civilization may collapse. We could deal with these issues more effectively if there were fewer of us. That births in many countries are below replacement level means that we may be moving naturally to a more sustainable size.

What the optimum population size should be is debatable. What is not debatable, at least in my opinion, is that we very much want low birth rates.

John Isbister is a professor of economics at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Source: With falling births, pensions will suffer, taxes will rise – but the alternative is worse

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: Canadian Indigenous spirituality anything but monolithic 

2023/04/22 Leave a comment

Another good reminder:

“All First Nations believed their values and traditions were gifts from the Creator. One of the most important and common teachings was that people should live in harmony with the natural world and all it contained.”

That’s what the Canadian government’s educational resource for young people says every Indigenous person believed before settlers arrived. And today many continue to believe there is uniformity in contemporary Indigenous spiritual practice.

But the recent Canadian census reveals that Canada’s 1.8 million Indigenous people are anything but monolithic in regard to religion and spiritual practice. The range is extraordinary.

To begin with, the census, which every decade asks about religion, found a fast-rising number of Indigenous people, about 47 per cent, are checking off the box: “No religion, and secular perspectives.” That compares to only 20 per cent in 2011.

At the other end of the spectrum, a declining number of Indigenous people, also about 47 per cent, says they’re Christians.

And only four per cent of Canadian Indigenous people put themselves in the category of “traditional (North American Indigenous) spirituality.” This small group would be closest to the historic form of spirituality described in Ottawa’s educational resource for young people.

Indigenous religious diversity stretches surprisingly wide in 2023, flowing into unfamiliar streams.

The census, for instance, found 1,840 Indigenous Canadians who say they’re Muslim, while another 1,615 Canadians are Jewish.

I reached out to some Indigenous, Muslim and Jewish organizations to interview a First Nations, Inuit or Metis who is Jewish or Muslim, whereupon the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs introduced me to Cheyenne Neszo.

A status member of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation based in and around Prince George, Neszo is deep into the process of converting to Judaism, the proud religion of her fiancé, Zach Berinstein.

Neszo, a 32-year-old lawyer, grew up in North Delta, where her extended family occasionally attended church and had in many ways lost touch with their Indigenous roots. That changed in recent years, as Neszo, her mother and grandmother applied for First Nations status and reconnected to those cultural origins.

Now, Neszo is three years into studying Judaism with Rabbi Dan Moscovitz at Vancouver’s Temple Sholom, where she and Berinstein will be married in September. “It’s just one of the most welcoming places I’ve come across,” said Neszo, who specializes in Indigenous law. Their wedding will be Jewish, with Lheidli T’enneh elements.

To understand the evolution in Indigenous religiosity over the years, I have frequently interviewed First Nations, Metis and Inuit elders and others who are Christians, who belong to one of the three denominations that ran Canada’s defunct federally funded residential schools.

Although the proportion of Indigenous people who belong to those denominations is declining, it remains that 485,000 Indigenous people today (27 per cent) still say they’re Catholic, 110,000 affiliate with the Anglicans and 42,000 are United Church members.

In addition, 28,000 Indigenous people belong to the Pentecostal Church, which did not operate a residential school. And what of the 6,515 who are Jehovah’s Witnesses and 5,035 who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)?

Although he was not available for an interview, John Borrows, who is of Anishinaabe heritage and a committed Latter-day Saint, was recently profiled by Cardus, a Canadian think tank. Borrows is a professor specializing in Indigenous law, as well as head of the Victoria Multifaith Society.

Like other Anishinaabe people, Borrows went on a Vision Quest as a young man, fasting and being alone in the forest. Although he joined the Latter Day Saints when he was 19, he believes those experiences of encountering God’s presence in nature still inform his faith.

Ray Aldred, a member of the Cree Nation who directs the Indigenous studies program at Vancouver School of Theology, is not surprised more Canadian First Nations are classifying themselves under “no religion, and secular perspectives.”

They are essentially saying, Alder believes, that they don’t want to be associated with “one of those,” by which he means the Christians who are increasingly being condemned for their role in operating about 125 residential schools, which were almost all closed by the 1970s.

There was “no such thing as secular” in traditional Indigenous culture, said Aldred. “The category didn’t exist in the Indigenous mindset.”

He said Indigenous people are picking up the concept from attending college and university, where faculty tend to vilify Christianity and academic papers about the faith seem to only get published if the author can show they hate the religion.

“All that has an impact.”

At the same time, Aldred said many Indigenous people don’t see a contradiction between Christianity and their peoples’ ancient spiritual ways. “Their families have been part of the church for a couple of hundred years.”

For his part, Aldred, who is an Anglican priest, said he believes settler culture and religion has brought both positives and negatives.

Rather than Indigenous people zeroing in on their specific religious or non-religious identities, Aldred suggests they “try to focus on a communal identity,” which connects them to the land and to each other.

He talked about how Metis people, as well as the Nisga’a of northern B.C., follow many different denominations and religious traditions without fighting about it. He admires the Nisga’a creed: “One nation, one heart.”

And in an era when social media incites groups to feel contempt for the other, Aldred rightly encourages people of different faiths and no faith to engage in authentic dialogue.

“The important thing is people learn to speak heart to heart, so we hear one another.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Canadian Indigenous spirituality anything but monolithic 

Filed under Aboriginal, Religion Tagged with , ,

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