McWhorter: Why Racial Discussions Should Also Focus on Progress

2023/03/14 Leave a comment

Agree:

I have argued recently that a useful and inspiring history of modern Black America need not be dominated by discussions of white racism. And having done so, it seems reasonable for me to explain, to at least a limited degree, what I would envision as a potentially better approach.

Specifically, I wrote about a draft curriculum of the College Board’s Advanced Placement course in African American studies. So what other topics might it have included, to counterbalance topics — clearly worthy, yet incomplete — such as reparations, Amiri Baraka and the Black Lives Matter movement?

Let’s try, for one, the notion of Black power. The good word would seem to be that we never really have any. But that isn’t true, and any valid chronicle of the history of what’s been happening to Black Americans since the 1960s must not pretend otherwise.

We have now had a two-term Black president, two Black secretaries of state, one Black (and South Asian) vice president and a Black secretary of defense. These were all borderline unimaginable goals a generation ago.

Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., was elevated in 2020 to become the Catholic Church’s first Black cardinal. He was the first Black president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as far back as the early 2000s — a time at which Dennis Archer was also the first Black president of the American Bar Association.

Lowe’s and Walgreens, two of the nation’s largest retailers, are run by Black chief executives. The reason you probably didn’t know that is because there are now enough Black chief executives to bypass the notion of firsts. This contrasts with 2000, when there were only two prominent Black chief executives of Fortune 500 companies — Franklin Raines at Fannie Mae and Lloyd Ward at Maytag — although that, too, was awesome progress over what had come before.

Successes of this kind should be held up front and center, not dismissed as footnotes or all but buried in equal coverage of remaining disparities — although those should of course be covered elsewhere in a curriculum. The question is how people like this achieved as much as they did despite the obstacles, largely but not exclusively racial, they all faced. We might ask why there isn’t more focus on that question.

I often sense that we are supposed to think of people like this with a certain formulaic admiration. They are what are sometimes called “Blacks in wax” (after, presumably, the museum in Baltimore): nice to know about but ultimately fluky superstars irrelevant to what some might say Blackness is really about. Is the idea that, because they have not usually dedicated themselves to political protest in deed or gesture, it somehow makes them less impressive or less important? That itself would be a radical proposition.

Something else: A modern history of Black America should include how Black English has become, to a considerable extent, a youth lingua franca since at least the 1990s. It is absolutely a fact that attitudes toward Black English can be influenced by racism. However, this is neither the most important nor even the most interesting thing about the dialect. Beyond its awesome grammatical structures, it is fascinating that such a dialect primarily confined to Black usage just 50 years ago now decorates the speech of countless Americans who are not Black at all. And that is because how Black people talk has become an integral part of how America talks.

In Black English, “I’m going to” can be rendered as the marvelously terse “Ima,” as in, “Ima go downstairs.” Thirty years ago, I overheard a white undergraduate woman use this phrase with Black male friends. Then, white people using it were generally ones especially identified with and situated within Black culture — i.e., with a substantially Black friend group. Today I hear white and Asian young people use “Ima” all the time; it is no longer interesting. A student of South Asian heritage wrote a paper for me recently chronicling how his texting with friends, most of whom are not Black, was couched considerably in Black English, as a default medium with no performance or ridicule entailed.

And dismissing this as cultural appropriation won’t do. It’d be like Jewish people complaining that non-Jewish people say “klutz,” “schmooze” and “shtick.” Black English’s transformation of mainstream English has likewise been inevitable, harmless and cool. It’s something great that has happened since the 1960s.

A true and healthy history of Black America should also cover, with the same ardor that it does the L.A. riots of 1992, the efflorescence of Black film starting in the 1980s and continuing into the 2000s. After the Blaxploitation film flame burned out rather quickly in the 1970s, Black movies came out here and there. But starting with the electrically odd, goofy, plangent and true “She’s Gotta Have It” by Spike Lee in 1986, and Lee’s titanic oeuvre of films in its wake, it started to get hard to see every Black film that was released. (I had to give up around 1999.)

The comedies were often of a kind that both taught and amused (“Barbershop”); the romances gave Black women especially equivalents to movies like “When Harry Met Sally” (“Love Jones”); the dramas gave us our forms of movies like “Terms of Endearment” (“Soul Food”); and the gangster pictures finally gave us our James Cagneys and Lee Marvins (“New Jack City”).

A line one often used to hear in response to the idea of progress in Black film was that there existed no Black producer who could greenlight a movie alone. But that’s no longer true, now that Tyler Perry rules his own filmic empire. Some think Perry does not really count because most of his films appeal more to the gut than to the intellect. But then the vast majority of films always have, and I for one have never seen a film of Perry’s without at least one immortal performance of some kind, including, frequently, his own. And they are indeed often damnably funny.

That Black movies are now ordinary is something our historiography should chart and celebrate, much as it should a two-term Black president. The prospect of a film like “Black Panther” even getting made on such a lavish budget, much less being an international sensation, would have sounded like science fiction as recently as the 1990s. The prospect of a high-budget sequel with a mostly Black cast being made even after the star of the original had died? It beggars imagination.

One last example: From the Florida A.P. draft, one might suppose that the thing most interesting about hip-hop is its usage as protest music, given that in the draft music is so dominatingly associated with social and political purposes, advocacy and empowerment. Certainly, protest is part of what the music is; its confrontational cadence is fundamental to the genre. But as to the idea of a hip-hop revolution whereby the music was always supposedly about to unite Black America into some kind of radical political consciousness: How has that panned out?

Hip-hop has been a glorious revolution, indeed — in music, period. Be it party music, protest music, political music, obscene music or Dr. Octagon, a genre that started as street fun in the Bronx has transformed the musical fabric and sensibility of America — as well as that of the whole world. (I once watched a teen rap in Indonesian in New Guinea.) No one denies this, of course. But it is this basic triumph that should center its coverage in a course and be offered as a topic of engagement to curious young people.

I suspect that the idea that a Black historiography would not just wave at but stare at positive developments will rub some the wrong way. But the idea that our history must elevate protest as the most interesting thing about us is peculiar.

It’s worth noting that not that very long ago, Black American movers and shakers were of a similar mind in celebrating the victories more than the — very real — obstacles. In 1901, an issue of the Black newspaper The Indianapolis Recorder listed all of the city’s businesses owned by Black people and crowed, “If after reading the facts and figures as succinctly presented an inspiration comes to any who may be considering embarking in some business enterprise or renews hope in those who are now struggling to attain success we shall feel gratified.”

If a Black man could write that in the era of Plessy v. Ferguson, surely today our curriculums on Black history can recognize more clearly what Black people have accomplished, continue to accomplish and accomplish more with each passing decade. Just because time moves more slowly than we wish it did doesn’t mean we should not recognize its motion. Relaxing the impulse to hold the spotlight on what white people are doing — or not doing, or should have done — can be, among other things, a way to recognize what Black people have accomplished in a nation that brought them across an ocean as slaves.

The protest-focused perspective is rooted, it seems to me, in a take on being Black that was memorably articulated by the writer Ellis Cose in the 1990s in “The Rage of a Privileged Class,” his widely discussed book about middle-class Black people’s sense of alienation: “Hurtful and seemingly trivial encounters of daily existence are in the end what most of life is,” Cose attested, in what he described as the story of what it’s like to be Black in modern America.

Cose’s Weltanschauung is one especially prevalent among academics, artists and journalists. But most people — and most Black people — are none of those three things. I have lost count of how many Black people told me back in the day that they did not share Cose’s take on what we now call “microaggressions” as the very fabric of our existence. Many do share it, to be sure, but their positions share space with those of the other millions of Black Americans who feel closer to the way I do.

The story of Black people in America is much more than the story of what’s wrong with white people. To pretend that this isn’t true, to downplay or ignore decades of progress and accomplishment and to portray political activism — however important and necessary, and it is both — as Black Americans’ main form of accomplishment, is to suggest that white people have already won.

Source: Why Racial Discussions Should Also Focus on Progress

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

U.S. border app has host of issues, including recognizing Black skin tones, migrants say

2023/03/14 Leave a comment

USA also having problems with apps and automation:

When the U.S. government rolled out the CBP One app in January, it was touted as a way to stem the flow of migrants at the country’s southern border while still giving them the opportunity to make refugee claims.

Instead of showing up at a border crossing – or crossing illegally and waiting to be arrested – asylum seekers file their information through the app and receive an appointment with Customs and Border Protection.

But Haitian migrants at the border and their advocates are reporting a host of problems with the app. Many say it is full of glitches and frequently crashes, denying them the ability to submit their information. Others say it has tried to split up families, offering appointments to cross the border to parents but not their children or vice-versa.

It also frequently rejects the photographs it requires asylum seekers to submit: CBP One appears to have particular trouble recognizing Black skin tones, they say, making it harder for Haitians to use.

“It’s a long wait to get an appointment, and that’s if you’re lucky,” said Ricot Picot, 42, as he stood in the courtyard of a migrant shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, watching his seven-year-old daughter and one-year-old son play nearby.

Mr. Picot said he was assigned a time slot last month to make his claim. When he got to the appointment, he learned that only he would be allowed across, while his wife and children would have to wait. So he turned back, opting to wait until all four of them could get an appointment together.

Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, who runs the Sidewalk School, a group that provides classes for migrant children waiting at the Mexican border, recounted many similar situations. In some cases, children and their parents had opted to take the separate appointments, she said. Once in the U.S., it could be a lengthy process for parents to find their children in the system and reunite with them.

She said it was common for CBP One to fail to recognize photos of Black asylum seekers, meaning many could not even complete the application. In addition, the app was originally available only in English and Spanish before a recent update translated it into Haitian Creole.

“If you’re a Black asylum seeker, CBP One was not meant for you. There are constantly errors,” said Ms. Rangel-Samponaro. “If you’re Haitian, you’ve probably been out here since October. If you’re Latino, you’ve been here since December. If you’re white, you’ve been waiting two weeks.”

A lack of reliable internet and low-quality phones in the encampments where many migrants live are also problems. Some U.S. lawyers, meanwhile, are trying to charge up to US$7,000 for help using the app, she said. It has all meant that asylum seekers with more resources have a leg up in filing claims.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not reply to The Globe and Mail’s questions about the problems with its app.

“You have to choose whether to eat today or spend the day doing the application,” said Alexis Wilson, 38, laying out the stark calculus facing migrants relying on pay-as-you-go data plans to access CBP One. He was standing amid several dozen tents pitched on a concrete pad at the edge of the city centre.

Marileidi Bazil, 16, said her family was turned back by U.S. border guards on the bridge from Reynosa to Hidalgo, Tex. Born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents, her family went first to Brazil when she was 11 before leaving there last year after work opportunities dried up.

“I’ll just keep trying with that stupid app. It’s worse every time I use it,” Ms. Bazil said as she sat in 34-degree sunshine, the Weeknd’s Blinding Lights playing on her phone. “But I’ll be patient.”

David Xavier, 53, has the added problem of suffering from cataracts. All of his possessions were stolen in Colombia and he’s had run-ins with organized crime in Mexico. “The app doesn’t work. I can’t upload photos and I have problems writing because of my eyesight,” he said. “I just want to get out of here.”

Pastor Hector Silva, who runs two migrant shelters, said that when the app started in January, it took about three weeks for migrants to get appointments. Now, waiting times are stretching to three months. The app also assigns appointments at any border crossing, so some migrants who file in Reynosa are told to travel 2,400 kilometres to Tijuana to make their claim.

“They want everyone registered on CBP One, but it’s been very hard for people. It’s not letting them in,” he said.

For Mr. Picot, there isn’t much choice but to keep pressing forward.

By the time he left Haiti, he said, it was impossible to go downtown in Port-au-Prince without risking getting robbed or shot. Children couldn’t attend school. Kidnappings for ransom were becoming so pervasive that parishioners were getting snatched out of church pews during Sunday services.

Mr. Picot, a teacher by profession, initially tried to settle in Brazil, where he took a job in a slaughterhouse. His income wasn’t steady enough to support his family, so they left last September.

The hardest part of the journey came while trying to ford a raging river in the Darien jungle between Columbia and Panama, he recounted. The water was so swift that other migrants were swept to their deaths. First, Mr. Picot swam across alone to gauge the difficulty. Then he came back and, one by one, guided across his wife and two children.

Wherever they go from here, he insists, no one is getting left behind.

“I follow the rules,” he said. “I pray for the chance that I can cross and bring my family.”

Source: U.S. border app has host of issues, including recognizing Black skin tones, migrants say

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Ottawa utilise l’intersectionnalité comme «arme» contre le Québec, dit Blanchet

2023/03/14 Leave a comment

Hard to imagine this becoming an issue. While I dislike the jargon, the substance of intersectionality provides insights into the differences within and between groups:

Aux yeux du chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, le féminisme intersectionnel n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une « arme » brandie par le Canada contre le Québec.

C’est ce qu’il a évoqué samedi, dans un discours devant les partisans péquistes au congrès ordinaire du parti, à Sherbrooke. Cette vision du féminisme avait récemment fait les manchettes à l’Assemblée nationale, en marge de la Journée internationale des droits des femmes.

« Les mêmes qui ont le courage de dénoncer qu’on fasse des mots “racisme systémique” une arme contre le Québec doivent se dresser, a lancé M. Blanchet lors de son allocution. Les mêmes qui ont le courage de dénoncer qu’on pervertisse l’idée – peut-être valable scientifiquement, quelque part – d’intersectionnalité pour en faire une arme contre le Québec doivent se dresser. »

Le leader bloquiste reproche au gouvernement fédéral de Justin Trudeau d’imposer une idéologie « woke » aux Québécois et de « pervertir la science » au détriment des valeurs du Québec. « Le Canada essaie d’effacer le Québec de la scène mondiale », a-t-il dit samedi.

À la fin du mois de février, le gouvernement de la Coalition avenir Québec s’est opposé à une motion de Québec solidaire — cosignée par le Parti libéral du Québec et le Parti québécois — qui encourageait « l’analyse différenciée selon les sexes dans une perspective intersectionnelle ».

Né dans les années 1980, le concept d’« intersectionnalité » vise à reconnaître que les différents types de discriminations — basées sur le sexe, la couleur de la peau, le statut socioéconomique — peuvent s’entrecroiser.

« Ce n’est pas notre vision du féminisme », avait affirmé le gouvernement de François Legault lorsqu’appelé à s’expliquer sur son rejet de la motion solidaire. Le Parti québécois, qui avait pourtant donné son aval à la motion, se dit, lui, pour un féminisme « universaliste », pas « intersectionnel ».

Interrogé samedi sur ses propos vis-à-vis de l’intersectionnalité, Yves-François Blanchet a affirmé que l’intersectionnalité, comme concept américain, avait été transposée de manière « assez incertaine » au Québec. « Je ne dis pas que la notion même n’est pas pertinente. Je dis que son instrumentalisation pour s’en prendre ultimement à des valeurs québécoises […] n’est pas acceptable », a-t-il dit.

Source: Ottawa utilise l’intersectionnalité comme «arme» contre le Québec, dit Blanchet

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Nelson: Gaining Canadian citizenship is more than just about ticking the box

2023/03/14 Leave a comment

From rural Alberta, another voice opposing the change. Too much anti-Trudeau vitriol but fundamentals on oath administration sound:

The greatest gift any country can confer is citizenship.

So why is it any surprise, given the ongoing ineptitude involving virtually every branch of our federal administration, that Canada is considering turning such a remarkable moment into something akin to tying your laces?

In fact, if a proposal by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration is accepted, becoming a citizen will take even less time than needed to actually fasten your shoes. All it would entail is ticking an online box on a federal website.

No longer would you swear a solemn oath before a judge alongside other assembled proud recent immigrants from across the globe. Nope, you can get it done during a commercial break while watching a hockey game on TV. Won’t that feel oh-so special?

Maybe that’s how our current government sees this country. After all, Justin Trudeau’s administration has spent years apologizing for all sorts of perceived wrongs committed by Canada over the past century. It might therefore reckon becoming an actual citizen of such a dubious land shouldn’t be cause for public celebration.

Well, they’re wrong. So wrong they should hang their collective heads in shame.

Becoming a Canadian citizen, 38 years ago, remains a major highlight in my life: the poignancy of that day in Edmonton, following the required three years as a landed immigrant, remains a proud memory. It’s doubtful I’m alone in that sentiment.

Of course, given the recent track record of our federal government, this sad ‘tick-the-box-and-become-a-Canuck’ plan arises from yet another virtue-signalling boondoggle – one guaranteed to end in confusion and disarray once exposed to the light of day.

OK, according to the latest government figures, there are 358,000 citizenship applications outstanding, with some of those folk waiting more than two years for a ceremony.

Why such a backlog? Well, in his usual preening manner, our prime minister announced immigration levels to Canada would be boosted to such an extent that by 2025 we’ll accept 500,000 newcomers a year.

No doubt Trudeau gets some figurative gold star from the UN for this: yet the fact we can’t process such huge numbers remains an unmentionable and inconvenient truth.

Therefore, is it any wonder fewer and fewer immigrants even bother becoming citizens at all? According to Statistics Canada: in 2021, about 45 per cent of permanent residents in Canada for less than 10 years hadn’t taken citizenship. In 2001, it stood at a much lower 25 per cent.

So, why are more newcomers unwilling to commit to Canada? After all, they picked up sticks and came here in the first place – a huge, life-altering choice to make.

Is Canada becoming simply a country of expediency? Or are those continuing assaults upon our good name and once-stellar reputation, from those supposedly representing us, eroding our national brand?

Add in the organizational chaos facing enthusiastic would-be Canadians resulting in years of delay and it becomes a toxic mix of disengagement.

The official response is promoting a ‘tick-the-online box’ solution.

Such crass make-do is shameful. This is the best country on the planet, populated by a diverse bunch of Homo sapiens, somehow finding joy under sunny skies, even if it’s -20 C outside.

This remains, as always, next year country: the horizon beckons and the past is exactly that: the past. Leave it at the entrance door.

It’s time the federal government realized becoming a Canadian citizen isn’t akin to finding some loose change down the sofa. It’s a remarkable gift to bestow and one that should be suitably celebrated.

Source: COLUMN: Gaining Canadian citizenship is more than just about ticking the box

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On important economic metrics, Canada is getting Ds and Fs – we can do better

2023/03/13 Leave a comment

The Coalition is interesting to watch as it focusses more on productivity and GDP per capita while the Century Initiative, while noting these issues, is less focused on this long standing challenge.

But the scorecards of present economic indicators with an overall negative view:

Open a news site these days and you’ll feel adrift in a sea of worries: cost of living, health care, climate change. Add geopolitical risk to that list and you might not sleep at night. I’m worried, too.

What is reassuring, though, is that there’s a growing community of Canadians who are pulling together. I sit on the advisory council of the Coalition for a Better Future, which is building a community from many walks of life across Canada. It includes youth, business leaders, Indigenous groups, social policy advocates, environmental groups and some plain-old concerned citizens.

One of the projects the coalition has done is develop a scorecard to track how Canada stacks up on a set of long-term objectives that are ultimately tied to our quality of life. The scorecard reflects what coalition members care about: growing sustainably, living better and winning globally.

So how did we do? Well, I’d say we’ve earned some Ds and even an F or two on some important fronts. GDP per person is still below where we were prepandemic, and its growth rate over the past decade was less than half of what the U.S. achieved. Canada ranked only 15th (among 167 countries) on a reputable prosperity index, down four places in the past decade. Wages, particularly of lower-income workers, have not been keeping up with inflation or productivity growth.

Don’t get me wrong, Canada has a lot going for it. We have a well-educated and talented work force, abundant resources, world-class institutions and some amazing businesses, big and small. And we have a history of pulling together, especially when the going gets tough.

So it’s not surprising that we’ve earned some As and Bs in other areas. The share of Canadians living in poverty has fallen to the lowest level in decades thanks to the support from the federal government during the pandemic. Indigenous people are playing a growing role in the labour market, with their participation rate last year surpassing the non-Indigenous rate. Carbon dioxide emissions are down as a share of GDP.

We’ll need to raise our GPA by building on our country’s strengths given the challenges that Canada, and all other countries, will face.

One core reason for some of the Ds and Fs is slow productivity growth. To see why, you just need to look at our lacklustre business investment in research and development, intellectual property and even machinery and equipment, which has been disappointing for years.

Yes, other countries are struggling with the same problem. Yet Canada is at the back of the class, particularly next to our largest trading partner. If we can’t compete in the United States and in other markets, we’ll be poorer – it’s that simple.

Policies that boost demand did help us in the darkest hours of the pandemic, but they won’t fix this problem. In the current context, they’ll only add to inflation.

The sooner we recognize that we have entered an era of supply-constrained economics, the better. It’s being driven by the aging of the population, climate change, digitalization and the structural trend away from globalization driven by troubling geopolitics. These challenges are only heightened by a sense that our country is ill-prepared to face them.

What we need now are policies that will increase Canada’s capacity to grow sustainably so we have the wherewithal to face these challenges. That means renewed emphasis on capital formation, in all its forms – physical, intellectual property and human. Needed are policies to induce companies to spend on capital, promote the adoption of technology and the commercialization of research, build infrastructure and help train workers. It’s not always about spending more money or reducing taxes. Sometimes governments just need to remove barriers when they’re getting in the way of responsible investment. Sometimes it’s as simple as recognizing professional qualifications when someone arrives from another country or moves to another province.

The discussions about Canada’s challenges can get pretty animated, yet our group, the Coalition for a Better Future, is united in the belief that economic growth that is also sustainable and shared is a necessary first step to a better quality of life.

Canada may not be making the grade today, but it can do better with the right public policies and private sector engagement. The good news for the federal government as it prepares to release its 2023 budget in the coming weeks is that Canadians are paying attention.

Carolyn Wilkins is a senior research scholar at Princeton University’s Griswold Centre for Economic Policy. She was senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada from May, 2014, to December, 2020.

Source: On important economic metrics, Canada is getting Ds and Fs – we can do better

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US Visa Hurdles Push More Companies to Relocate Foreign Talent

2023/03/13 Leave a comment

Note Canadian angle:

US employers are increasingly relocating employees abroad to hold onto key talent in the face of restrictive quotas on high-skilled foreign workers. 

Ninety-three percent of companies that responded to a survey of workplace immigration trends say they expect this year to turn to offshoring or nearshoring talent—transferring employees overseas or to a nearby country—because of a combination of immigration restrictions and labor demands. 

Canada is the top destination to relocate foreign workers, with 62% of responding companies sending workers there, according to the survey produced by immigration services firm Envoy Global Inc. It was followed by Mexico and the United Kingdom (48%) and Germany (31%). 

In most cases, the move is the result of challenges securing a work visa. More than eight out of 10 employers lost a foreign employee in the past year because they were unable to secure an H-1B or other employment-based visa. 

“There’s a continued frustration with the finite viability and challenge of securing a visa,” said Envoy Global President and CEO Dick Burke. “They’re pursuing the next best alternative, which is overseas.” 

The online registration period for H-1B specialty occupation visas opened last week, a preliminary step before US Citizenship and Immigration Services holds a lottery for the 85,000 visas available for fiscal year 2024. 

Demand for foreign workers with skills in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering has continued to grow across the economy, far outstripping that annual cap. 

At the same time, many companies are becoming more comfortable with hybrid and remote work to keep top talent. 

“The confluence of those factors”—immigration difficulties and the rise of telework—drove the increase in offshoring plans, Burke said.

O Canada

Recent international graduates with STEM degrees from US colleges and universities can work for up to three years on F-1 student visas under a program called Optional Practical Training. The program allows those graduates to remain and work in the US while trying their hands at getting an H-1B.

When an early-career worker has run out of immigration options after multiple attempts at the H-1B visa lottery, relocating them to Canada has become a top fallback option for employers, said Jennifer Behm, an attorney at Berardi Immigration Law.

Such nearshoring was already a “no brainer” for large, multinational corporations, but it’s drawing increasing interest from smaller and midsize firms as well. 

“When we’ve seen new interest, it has been the medium size firms, not the enormous conglomerates or multinationals,” Behm said. “We’ve successfully made it work for companies who only have US operations.” 

Canada is attractive because of its close proximity and similar time zones. It also offers a more worker-friendly immigration system, including immediate work permits for spouses and a quicker pathway to permanent residency, she said.

Relocation Services Industry

There hasn’t been a massive shift toward relocating workers abroad, but companies that do so are finding it easier, said Davis Bae, co-chair of the immigration practice group at Fisher & Phillips LLP. 

“Are people more interested in it now? Only because there are more resources,” he said. 

Smaller companies without operations abroad have been turning to professional employer organizations (PEOs) for human resource and compliance services when they face losing a skilled foreign worker. The PEO serves as the employer of record in a country like Canada so companies don’t have to establish their own offices outside of the US. 

Under this arrangement, paying to relocate a worker to Toronto or Vancouver costs a fraction of what it would cost to replace them with a new employee, said Marc Pavlopoulos, the founder and CEO of PEO Syndesus Canada Inc.

The company employs about 200 workers for US companies in Canada, roughly 90% of whom relocated after losing out on the H-1B lottery. Pavlopoulos works with smaller US-based tech companies that are seeking to grow, while also working toward a Canadian goal of adding 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025. 

“The Canadian Dream is a good one,” he said. “You get to keep your cool job and you’re on your way to getting a Canadian passport.”

Source: US Visa Hurdles Push More Companies to Relocate Foreign Talent

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Un projet pilote pour aider des bureaux de député à régler des dossiers d’Immigration

2023/03/13 Leave a comment

Believe a majority or significant minority of constituent requests for MP help involve immigration and related issues in most ridings:

Des députés du Bloc québécois lancent un projet pilote inédit pour délester leurs bureaux de circonscription, qui croulent sous les dossiers d’immigration. Portée par le député de Lac-Saint-Jean, Alexis Duceppe-Brunelle, la proposition permettra l’embauche à temps plein d’une personne qui s’occupera des cas plus complexes afin de porter secours à sept bureaux bloquistes qui font face à un afflux accru de demandes d’aide.

« Dans un comté comme le mien, 35 à 45 % des dossiers sont des cas d’immigration, mais ils accaparent 60 à 65 % du temps travaillé », explique M. Duceppe-Brunelle. Autant de temps consacré à des cas d’immigration de plus en plus complexes qui n’est pas utilisé pour aider d’autres citoyens aux prises avec des problèmes moins graves ou qui ne relèvent pas de l’immigration, comme l’assurance-emploi.

Le député, qui travaille sur sa proposition depuis l’automne avec la collaboration du ministre Sean Fraser, se félicite d’avoir réussi à faire accepter un assouplissement de certaines règles de la Chambre des communes, assouplissement qui permet de revoir la structure des budgets de circonscription afin de financer un tel poste.

« Cette personne-là va s’occuper sur les cas les plus complexes d’immigration dans [certains] bureaux de député et va finir par prendre énormément d’expérience, soutient-il. Ça va désengorger le travail de nos bureaux. »

Les adjoints de circonscription n’ont pas tous l’habitude de traiter un tel volume de dossiers d’immigration et n’ont pas toujours l’expertise nécessaire. « Les gens sont compétents, mais si quelqu’un qui va normalement s’occuper d’un cas de pension de vieillesse doit mettre le double du temps sur un dossier d’immigration… Ça rend son travail plus difficile à faire. »

Hausse du nombre de dossiers

Dans un sondage interne auquel ont répondu une vingtaine de députés bloquistes sur 32, 85 % ont dit avoir vu le volume de dossiers d’immigration augmenter au cours des trois dernières années, souligne M. Duceppe-Brunelle.

Une récente étude de l’Université Laval s’est intéressée au rôle joué par les adjoints de circonscription dans les dossiers d’immigration : la pile, en effet, n’a pas cessé de grossir, surtout pendant la pandémie. Réalisée par l’équipe de Danièle Bélanger, titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada sur les dynamiques migratoires mondiales, l’enquête a révélé que la COVID-19 a entraîné une réorganisation des services. L’augmentation du volume des demandes (64 %) était d’ailleurs la conséquence la plus fréquemment rapportée.

Et, parallèlement, les outils dont disposent les adjoints de circonscription et les députés, soit une ligne téléphonique privilégiée leur permettant de parler directement à des agents d’immigration, ont été réduits ou passablement transformés dans les deux dernières années.

L’équipe du Centre ministériel pour les députés et sénateurs est d’ailleurs devenue squelettique en raison des crises en Afghanistan et en Ukraine. Depuis l’automne, à la suite d’une réorganisation des services, les bureaux de député doivent désormais prendre rendez-vous avec un agent par le biais d’une plateforme en ligne pour tenter d’avoir de l’information et régler des dossiers.

Autrefois, pour certains cas très urgents, le député pouvait lui-même faire l’appel. « Quand il faut sortir quelqu’un de l’avion, il faut agir vite des fois, soutient Alexis Duceppe-Brunelle. Je l’utilisais avec parcimonie, mais quand même, j’étais un de ceux qui l’utilisaient le plus. Et là, on n’a plus accès à cette ligne. »

Le « bateau » IRCC

Disant ne pas vouloir « faire de politique » sur ce dossier, le député bloquiste constate néanmoins un problème structurel à Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC), notamment en ce qui concerne les délais de traitement, qui ne cessent de s’allonger.

« Le ministre a mis de l’argent, a engagé plus de monde, et je vais donner la chance au coureur. Si ça fonctionne, je vais être le premier à applaudir, mais pour l’instant, il y a de sérieux écueils, a-t-il dit. Je dirais que ce n’est pas le capitaine, le problème, c’est plus le bateau. »

Par ailleurs, en dehors des outils dont dispose le bureau du député, le centre d’appels d’IRCC demeure le seul point de contact pour le grand public depuis la fermeture de tous les bureaux de services en personne. Au printemps 2019, un rapport du Bureau du vérificateur général du Canada avait noté les graves lacunes de ce centre d’appels, qui, lors des années 2017-2018, n’avait répondu qu’à 22 % des 1,7 million d’appels reçus.

Le Bloc québécois réclame depuis 2020 la création d’un poste d’ombudsman au ministère de l’Immigration, une recommandation qui figure aussi dans un rapport du Comité permanent de la citoyenneté et de l’immigration.

Source: Un projet pilote pour aider des bureaux de député à régler des dossiers d’Immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Buruma: In the U.S., the left has fallen into the populist right’s culture-war trap

2023/03/13 Leave a comment

Of note:

The United States is in the midst of a book-banning frenzy. According to PEN America, 1,648 books were prohibited in public schools across the country between July, 2021, and June, 2022. That number is expected to increase this year as conservative politicians and organizations in Republican-controlled states such as Florida and Utah step up efforts to censor works dealing with gender, sexual and racial issues.

Today’s book bans are largely driven by right-wing populist politicians and parent groups claiming to protect wholesome, family-oriented Christian communities from the decadence of urban America. As such, a children’s book featuring LGBTQ+ characters apparently falls under their definition of pornography.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a likely presidential contender, is arguably the leading advocate of state censorship and modern-day book bans. Last month, Mr. DeSantis and his allies in the state’s House of Representatives introduced a new bill that would prohibit universities and colleges from supporting campus activities that “espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or critical race theory rhetoric.” The bill also seeks to remove critical race theory, gender studies, and intersectionality, as well as any “derivative major or minor of these belief systems,” from academic curricula.

But even though there are fewer calls from left-wing progressives to ban books, they, too, can be intolerant of literature that offends them. Such classics as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been removed from some school reading lists because they contain racial slurs and might “marginalize” certain readers.

To be sure, the right-wing crackdown on academic freedom is more dangerous than the left’s literary allergies. What is interesting, however, is how much left-wing and right-wing intolerance have in common. Right-wing populists like Mr. DeSantis tend to mimic progressive rhetoric about “inclusivity” and “sensitivity” in the classroom. White students, they claim, must be shielded from learning about slavery or the role of white supremacy in American history because it might upset them and make them feel guilty.

Progressives who want to stop teaching Huckleberry Finn in schools or demand that words like “fat” be taken out of Roald Dahl’s children’s books follow the same logic. They, too, do not want children to feel offended or “unwelcome,” even if it means they don’t learn how to absorb information and think for themselves.

Right-wing mimicry of left-wing jargon can be viewed as a form of bad-faith payback. After all, the driving force behind conservative puritanism in the U.S. has always been fundamentalism, not inclusion. But religious dogmatism is intimately linked to the fear of being offended. The controversy that followed the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988 is a case in point. In addition to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for the author’s death, Christian conservatives condemned Mr. Rushdie for mocking religion. Some on the left, though they did not belong to any religion, still criticized Mr. Rushdie for offending millions of Muslims.

Christian puritans do not oppose books about gay topics just because the Bible forbids homosexuality, but also (and perhaps primarily) because it violates what they believe to be the natural order. This is not so different from the sentiments of thousands of people who recently signed a letter protesting the coverage of transgender issues in the New York Times. Signatories were upset by the fact that some articles assumed that the question of gender might not be scientifically settled. The next day, another by the columnist Pamela Paul defending J.K. Rowling caused more offence; Ms. Rowling does not believe that being a woman, or a man, is simply a matter of choice.

Progressives who call for the banning of Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potterbooks (which are also denounced by right-wing zealots for promoting witchcraft) do not on the whole do so for religious reasons. Again, they talk about unwelcoming workplaces, marginalization, insensitivity, and so on. But they are often as dogmatic as religious believers; to doubt their conviction about trans identity, as Ms. Rowling does, violates their view of nature.

This is not to suggest that threats from the left to students’ access to books are as serious as those coming from the far right. Unlike extreme right-wing parties, including today’s Republican Party, left-of-centre politicians do not generally call for state-enforced legal bans. Nevertheless, some progressive rhetoric is playing into the hands of the populist right.

Bereft of a coherent economic platform, the Republicans have gone all in on the U.S. culture wars. But given that appeals by religious and social conservatives tend to gain more purchase with voters than dogmatic positions on racial and sexual identities, this is not a war the left is likely to win. Democrats, and other progressive parties in the Western world, would be well advised to concentrate less on hurt feelings and more on voters’ economic and political interests.

Source: In the U.S., the left has fallen into the populist right’s culture-war trap

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Citizenship Oath on a Click: My Submission

2023/03/13 Leave a comment

My submission in response to Canada Gazette, Part I, Volume 157, Number 8: Regulations Amending the Citizenship Regulations (Oath of Citizenship)

General 

The planned change risks weakening the meaningfulness of Canadian citizenship by allowing the oath to be administered by a “non-authorized person” and thus citizenship ceremonies to be reduced if not eliminated in number.

The notice is lacking in any serious analysis apart from some generalities around potential cost and time savings. 

Given that the proposal focuses on cost savings due to a reduced number of ceremonies, one would expect, at a minimum, estimates of the number of applicants who would avail themselves of “ceremonies on a click” and the consequent number of reduced ceremonies. 

There is no analysis on the impact on the sense of belonging and attachment that moving to “ceremonies on a click” will have on new Canadians, nor is their any consideration of the historical context or the will of Parliament. It appears that no public opinion research was conducted regarding this proposed change as none is mentioned in the notice. 

This proposal has been widely criticized in commentary by myself and Senator Omidvar, former Governor General Clarkson, former Immigration Minister Marchi among others. These public commentaries, and the comments they have generated, need to be included along with formal comments like this one.

Issues

While IRCC has correctly focussed on modernization of the process such as e-applications, e-tests and an on-line application tracker in order to facilitate the process for applicants, in other areas it has weakened the meaningfulness, integration and sense belonging of becoming a citizen. The move to virtual citizenship ceremonies, needed during the pandemic, has less power and significance than in-person ceremonies, as anyone who has attended both can attest.

The proposed change would further weaken the act of becoming a citizen by eliminating or at least reducing the need for citizenship ceremonies, an objective explicitly stated in the “benefits and costs” section.

It is also against the wishes of Parliament, expressed as early as the first reading of the original Citizenship Act on October 22, 1945, when the then Secretary of State, Paul Martin Sr. spoke of the importance of citizenship ceremonies, stating that the legislation would:

“by appropriate ceremonies, impress upon applicants the responsibilities and privileges of Canadian citizenship” (House of Commons Debates, October 25, 1945, p. 1337 and s.38, Citizenship Act, 1946.)

Mr. Martin went on to state that new Canadians must:

“be made to feel that they, like the rest of us, are Canadians, citizens of a great country, guardians of proud traditions and trustees of all that is best in life for generations of Canadians yet to be … [and] have a consciousness of a common purpose and common interest as Canadians; that all of us be able to say with pride and say with meaning: “I am a Canadian.”” (House of Commons Debates, October 25, 1945, p. 1337)

At second reading, Mr. Martin reiterated that where ceremonies were taking place for Canadian ‘naturalization’ (which occurred prior to 1947), these ceremonies “have made a deep impression upon every new Canadian who has obtained Canadian naturalization.” He added that is was the Government’s “determination under the statutory provisions of this bill to frame regulations that will make these ceremonies more than ordinary procedure, and one of a memorable character.” (House of Commons Debates, April 2, 1946, p. 505)

Mr. Martin understood the importance of a ceremony to welcome new Canadians into the Canadian family and our practice of public ceremonies has been emulated by other countries who emulate the benefits of what we have been doing. It would be a betrayal of those who preceded us to do away with citizenship ceremonies.

Background

The section focusses on the oath and ceremony as meeting the formal legal requirement and is silent on the broader implications on welcoming and belonging that citizenship ceremonies provide. There is no mention of public opinion research on attitudes towards citizenship ceremonies. 

Internal research and evaluations are similarly not mentioned. The 2013 IRCC Evaluation of the Citizenship Awareness Program noted: 

“Although newcomers have various reasons for getting their Canadian citizenship, the evaluation found that practical reasons, such as getting passports, ranked below more intangible reasons linked to their social integration, highlighting a role that promotion can have in creating a sense of belonging and permanency for newcomers to further encourage uptake.”

The 2020 Evaluation of the Citizenship Program also indicated that the “evidence suggested that wanting to feel fully Canadian and to make Canada their permanent home are primary motivators,” along with the need to “implement a new approach for the knowledge requirement, which could include a revised study guide and additional tools.” 

Public commentary in the media and social media indicate significant attachment to public ceremonies, whether in-person or virtual.  Again, there is no reference to the original will of Parliament that ceremonies take place and that:

“Since the passage of the Citizenship Act in 1947, Canadian citizenship policy has embodied two distinct objectives: i) to encourage and facilitate naturalization by permanent residents; and ii) to enhance the meaning of citizenship as a unifying bond for Canadians.” (2013 Evaluation)

Description

IRCC is essentially arguing that becoming a citizen in front of an authorized person along with other to be Canadians is not worth a few hours of their time? Seriously? 

The experience that I and others have while attending citizenship ceremonies is that the ceremony is a very significant moment in the immigration and citizenship journey for them, their families and friends. This more than compensates for a few more months of processing time.

Again, the lack of public opinion research on this proposed change is telling, as this is one of the few public moments in the immigration, integration and citizenship journey, and one of the few positive experiences with the process.

Regulatory analysis—Benefits and costs

The aim is clearly cost reduction through the holding of fewer citizenship ceremonies:

“Consequently, it is expected that participation in ceremonies would be lower than it is currently, and there would likely be fewer ceremonies overall. Therefore, the Government of Canada would save costs, as the proposal would likely reduce the number of ceremonies the Department would be required to arrange.”

Tellingly, there is no data on the recent average costs of holding citizenship ceremonies, both in-person and virtual. And there are no estimated numbers of the reduction of citizenship ceremonies that would be needed to cover the ongoing costs of $5 million over 10 years. This amount is negligible in relation to the overall budget of the Citizenship Program.

Similarly, there are no  estimates on the number of persons who would likely choose this option and the consequently reduced number of ceremonies. This information, and the underlying assumptions, should be stated in the notice (the government of the day did so with respect to the 2014-15 increase in citizenship fees).

But more than the financial benefits and costs, this change fundamentally diminishes the symbolic and celebratory aspects of citizenship by eliminating the most significant part of the process of becoming a citizen, being among others from around the world who are taking the next step in their immigration and integration journey.  As Paul Martin Sr. said in 1946, we need ceremonies and they must be these “more than ordinary procedure, and one of a memorable character.”

There is no discussion on this most fundamental aspect of this change, nor acknowledgement of how this shift will affect applicants and their sense of participation and belonging. Citizenship is not a drivers license or health card; it is the means of having a secure home, of have the right to vote and participate in decisions regarding the present and future of Canada. 

Trying to justify these changes on inclusion grounds, given processing and ceremony time savings, misses the most important and fundamental inclusion which is the ceremony itself, with all its rituals and symbolism and welcome it provides.

With no public opinion research or consultations cited in the notice, likely that none was carried out, yet we know from commentary to date that this change is highly controversial.

Implementation, compliance and enforcement, and service standards

Will IRCC report on the expected up to three months processing time separately? Unlikely, so we will never know whether these savings were realized.

Will IRCC publicly report on the number of persons self-administering the oath and those in ceremonies on an annual basis as part of the department’s annual departmental plan and results report? Given the weakness of IRCC’s current reporting on the citizenship, and given no commitment is made in the Gazette, unlikely. 

Recommendation

IRCC should abandon these proposals and maintain Canada’s proud tradition of meaningful public citizenship ceremonies.

However, should IRCC proceed in this ill-advised change, several commitments need to be made:

  1. IRCC needs to include breakdowns between the number of new Canadians self-administering the oath and those participating in public ceremonies in its annual departmental plans and result reports;
  2. IRCC needs to share publicly any internal targets in terms of ceremony reductions in order to assess the impact of the change; and,
  3. IRCC needs to commit to public opinion research on the experience of new Canadians who self-administer the oath and those who participate in ceremonies, an interim public report two-years after the change comes into effect (June 2025) and a further public report five-years later (June 2028)

Finally, as it was Parliament that originally directed formal ceremonies to take place, Parliament ought to review any actions by IRCC that undermine the will of Parliament.

Please consider providing your views to the Government through the Gazette process: https://canadagazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2023/2023-02-25/html/reg1-eng.html

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

2023/03/10 Leave a comment

Of note and a cautionary tale of simplistic slogans vs complex realities:

“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.

To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate.

A succession of Australian prime ministers have led the rhetorical charge against asylum seekers, insisting that their arrival is an issue of “national security” and “border protection”. They are “illegals”, “queue jumpers” and “terrorists”, Australians have been told, while people-smugglers are the “scum of the earth”.

That hostile and militarised language has held a potent place in the Australian political debate for 20 years. And the language is the fundamental basis of the policies that flow from it: of deterrence and forcible turnbacks, of “offshoring” and indefinite detention.

The rhetoric not only allows governments to create for asylum seekers a “hostile environment”, it compels it from them. This too has been copied in the UK straight from the Australian playbook.

Even many of the characters are the same. Alexander Downer, Australia’s former high commissioner to the UK, argued in the Daily Mail on Tuesday in support of immediate deportation and a lifetime ban from Britain for “anyone caught trying to enter Britain by a dangerous ‘irregular route’, such as a Channel crossing in a small boat”.

Downer was a foreign minister in the conservative government of John Howard that first implemented the “Pacific solution” of warehousing refugees on foreign islands.

The Tory strategist Sir Lynton Crosby was the federal director of Howard’s conservative Liberal party, overseeing his four successful election campaigns.

And Crosby’s protege Isaac Levido, later an adviser to Boris Johnson, was deputy campaign director for the Liberal party’s 2019 election campaign, bolstering the premiership of Scott Morrison, who came to prominence as the architect of the adamantine Operation Sovereign Borders, and who famously adorned his prime ministerial office with a trophy of a boat engraved “I stopped these”.

Source: ‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

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