May/Savoie: Canada needs a royal commission to fix problems with the federal public service

2022/12/08 Leave a comment

There are so many issues where a royal commission would be useful and provide deeper insights and solutions to some of the weaknesses of Canadian government policies and programs:

Canada’s public service needs to be fixed. It’s growing like gangbusters, faces relentless attack, is losing the confidence of politicians, and struggles to keep up in a changing world because it is using decades-old policies and processes, says a leading expert.

Donald Savoie, Canada’s pre-eminent scholar and expert on public administration, is calling for a royal commission into the role of the public service, the first in more than 45 years, to fix its deteriorating relationship with ministers, Parliament and Canadians.

Savoie has written exhaustively about what’s wrong with the public service. But he now believes the non-partisan institution has so irreparably come off its moorings that only an independent royal commission can fix it.

“I reluctantly came around to a royal commission because I see no better option. I’m not a big fan of them. They’re costly and once launched can go off on tangents… But what else can we do?”

He says the time is right because the public service is under “sustained criticism with bureaucrat bashing taking hold everywhere.”

The work and expectations of the public service has changed dramatically over the past 45 years while the rules under which they operate stayed the same. Ministers of all political stripes have hired large staffs for policy advice, whereas they used to rely on getting that from public servants.

All of that is taking its toll on the morale of the public service, frustrating those who work there and discouraging those who may be interested in working in government.

The most worrisome problem is the lack of trust.

Forty years ago, a minister ‘s office had three or four assistants and the main policy adviser was the department’s deputy minister. Today, ministers have several dozen staff headed by chiefs of staff ­— equivalent to assistant deputy ministers — and have their own policy advisers.

“Why is it that 40 years ago there was no such thing as a policy adviser to a minister? It used to be a deputy minister, but now every minister’s office has four or five,” says Savoie. “That tells me ministers are saying: ‘we don’t accept the policy advice that comes from our deputy minister.’ That’s a pretty fundamental question.”

Public servants basked in accolades in the early days of the pandemic for responding quickly and getting benefits out to Canadians. That all turned as the pandemic eased and public servants were lambasted for moving too fast and making mistakes.

Service debacles such as passport and immigration delays fed Canadians’ growing discontent with government, while populist leaders such as Pierre Poilievre and anti-institution protest groups are tapping into that mistrust.

Savoie says it’s now increasingly popular to deride the public service as too big, overpaid, underworked and pampered with pensions and benefits few Canadians enjoy.

“I hear it, I understand it,” he says. “But where does all that bashing take you? We better have a sober second thought. This is a vitally important institution and all we’re doing is belittling it.”

Then, the rapid growth in the size of the public service, which went into overdrive during the pandemic, grabbed the spotlight.

The public service is growing faster than the private sector as the economy recovers from the pandemic. It’s bigger than ever and the Parliamentary Budget Office expects it will hit 409,000 employees within five years – and maybe more.

On top of that, outsourcing work to contractors – the so-called shadow public service – is also soaring. But all that growth isn’t paying off with better services.

Savoie laments that fixing the situation isn’t on anyone’s radar. The public service can’t do it. The prime minister, ministers and even the clerk of the Privy Council, the head of the public service, already have too much on their plate. On top of that, he argues, “nobody knows what to do about it. “

“The public service is an institution that’s been buffeted about for so long…but it can’t speak out,” says Savoie. “They can’t voice what they think is wrong.

“So how do we get to the bottom of these issues? I think we can only do that with a detached body, that’s neither reporting to the public service nor politicians, and can look coldly at how it has evolved and what needs to be done to fix it.”

Reforming the public service has been an enduring challenge for more than 50 years. There’s been debate over the years about who’s best to lead the way on reform – public servants, the government or Parliament.

A royal commission is an independent investigation into matters of national importance. It comes with broad powers to hold public hearings, call witnesses under oath and compel evidence. They make recommendations to the government on what should change.

There have been at least four such royal commissions into the public service over the years. The last ones are the Glassco Commission in the 1960s and the Lambert Commission in the 1970s.

The Glassco commission focused on government organization. Its recommendations can be summed up as “let the managers manage.” The Lambert Commission delved into financial management and accountability. Its work can be summed up as “make the managers manage.”

But Savoie says both commissions, led by businessmen, never considered how management reforms related to Parliament or ministers.

They were followed by a series of reform initiatives led by the public service – Public Service 2000; the 1990s Chretien government Program Review; La Relève of 1998; the Task Force on the Human Resources Services Modernization Initiative of 2015-16, through to Blueprint 2020, which has been updated with Beyond 2020.

Savoie holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the Université de Moncton. His research and achievements are prodigious, and have influenced policy and public management. He has won too many awards to count ­— including being named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2022 — and has published 52 books and is always working on another.

Savoie has warned about eroding trust, the concentration of power and “politicization” of the public service in articles and books ever since he wrote the 1999 book, Governing from the Centre, a must-read in Ottawa circles that made him persona non-grata with then-prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Back in 2003, Savoie wrote Breaking the Bargain, about the unravelling of the traditional bargain underpinning the relationship between politicians and public servants.

Public servants are still nominally bound by that bargain. They are still expected to be anonymous and non-partisan and when meeting with parliamentarians, “have no distinct personality from their ministers” – like bureaucrats 45 years ago, says Savoie.

A recent report, Top of Mind, by two think tanks – the Ottawa-based Institute on Governance and the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis Xavier University – also threw the spotlight on the increasingly troubled relationship after probing public service executives at all levels of government about their biggest challenges.

Stephen Van Dine, who led the project, argues reform is overdue and supports the idea of independent review by a royal commission.

“Recent events have shown a fundamental decline in understanding between the roles of elected and unelected public officials resulting in poor decisions, absence of foresight and planning to anticipate policy needs,” he says. “It means policy options to address climate change, health care reform, and cost of living are likely less robust.”

The Top-of-Mind report found that today’s executives worry about falling public trust in government; the decline in senior bureaucrats giving “fearless advice” to ministers; a hollowing-out of policy capacity; a post-pandemic economic reckoning; conflicts among levels of government; and the need for public service reform.

There is a growing appetite to reform the public service. Politicians, public servants and Canadians don’t feel it is working like it should, but it’s not a groundswell and won’t be a vote-winner for the campaign trail.

The Trudeau government was elected in 2015 as saviours of the public service, with promises of a new “golden age,” but some argue an all-powerful PMO and mistrust has made things worse.

The big worry for those like Savoie who believe the “strength of Canada depends on the strength of the public service” is that with the rise of populism and its push for smaller and less intrusive government it will be fixed by sweeping cuts, downsizing and privatization.

“There has to be a rational way to do this,” said Savoie.

Source: Canada needs a royal commission to fix problems with the federal public service

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USA: A more equitable distribution of the positive fiscal benefits of immigration

2022/12/08 Leave a comment

Interesting suggested approach to compensate states for the associated costs. Unlikely to change the politics, however. Quebec has a case with respect to Roxham Road arrivals but given the lop-sided nature of the Quebec grant, hard to have much sympathy:

The economic benefits of immigration are well documented. Immigrants boost economic activity, promote innovation, and improve the productivity of native-born workers. Increases in immigration raise both tax revenues and fiscal costs. The mix of revenue types and benefits provided across the federal, state, and local levels mean that tax revenues increase the most at the federal level and costs increase the most at the subnational level. The result is a net fiscal benefit to expanded immigration at the federal level and a net fiscal cost at the state and local levels for the average immigrant.

THE CHALLENGE

Immigrants have a direct positive fiscal impact to the extent that they pay taxes and an indirect one if the increase in economic activity they create generates government revenue. The federal government provides a relatively small share of the public services that immigrants receive while accruing much of the revenue. The fiscal costs to immigration are disproportionately paid for by state and local governments, largely owing to the top two state and local expenditure categories: education and health care. Children of immigrants have access to public schools regardless of their own or their parents’ immigration statuses, and schools are mainly financed at the state and local levels. In addition, health-care benefits for immigrants are partially financed by states or localities.

THE PATH FORWARD

To ensure that the local communities affected by federal immigration policy receive more of immigration’s fiscal benefits, the authors propose to redistribute some of the fiscal gains of immigration to defray the immediate net fiscal costs that arise from welcoming newly arrived, less-educated immigrants. This proposal creates a method for determining the communities that qualify for funds, the Immigration Impact Index, and justifies an evidence-based dollar value per immigrant ($2,500) to be remitted to Immigration Impact Index communities by the federal government. These funds would visibly and transparently flow through education- and health-based federal funding channels: namely Impact Aid (education) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (health).

Figure showing PUMAs with Impact Immigration Immigrants Greater than 0.5% of Population

Source: A more equitable distribution of the positive fiscal benefits of immigration

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Macron looks to crack down on illegal immigration with new law

2022/12/08 Leave a comment

The ongoing debates and responding to pressures from the right:

Macron’s centrist government unveiled the outlines of a new draft immigration law on Tuesday that will be debated formally in parliament in early 2023.

It comes just four years after a 2018 law with similar objectives, passed during Macron’s first term in office, which also aimed to take the heat out of an explosive political issue.

“It’s about integrating better and expelling better,” Macron’s hardline interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, told France Info radio on Tuesday of the new proposals.

“We want those people who work, not those who rob.”

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne opened the debate in France’s National Assembly by saying the law would allow France to “say who we want”’ and “who we don’t want” to allow permanent entry into France. “Zero immigration is neither desirable nor possible, and it’s no more realistic than unregulated immigration,” she said.

Darmanin and Macron have linked immigration to delinquency in recent weeks, with both saying that around half of petty crimes committed in Paris are by foreigners.

Speaking to the Parisien newspaper at the weekend, Macron pitched the new legislation as a means of addressing the historic rise of the far-right National Rally, which in June became the biggest opposition party in parliament.

“We need a policy that is firm and humane in line with our values,” the 44-year-old said. “It’s the best antidote to the extremes which feed off anxieties.”

Figures from the interior ministry show that France currently expels around 10 percent of migrants who have been ordered to leave the country and the rate has never been higher than 20 percent.

‘Nothing will change’

The country’s lengthy legal appeals process, procedural delays and a lack of state resources are seen as reasons for the low expulsion rate, which Darmanin has pledged to increase.

Like many European countries, France struggles to persuade countries in North and West Africa to re-admit their citizens once they are subject to an expulsion order.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who scored 41 percent in the second round of April’s presidential election, regularly accuses the government of laxity and “submerging” France with foreigners.

In her third bid for the presidency this year, she proposed changing the constitution via a referendum to set strict immigration targets and ensure French people get priority over foreigners for all state services.

“I don’t expect anything (from the new law),” she said on Tuesday. “They will talk to us again about balancing firmness and humanity. We’ve heard that for decades.

“Nothing will change… immigration in our country is completely out of control.”

A gruesome murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl in Paris in October caused a major political scandal after it emerged that her killer was an Algerian woman who had been ordered to leave the country.

The chaotic management of 234 migrants and asylum seekers who landed in France in November aboard the charity rescue ship Ocean Viking has also embarrassed the government.

Although the interior ministry initially said most of the adults had been refused entry to France, only a handful were detained after they lodged asylum claims and court appeals.

Legal migration route

The new draft legislation, which Darmanin has co-written, would reduce the number of appeals possible for failed asylum seekers from 12 to three and in theory speed up expulsion procedures.

It would also remove safeguards for foreigners who arrived in France as children, making it easier to expel them if they are convicted of crimes — a measure designed to tackle teenage delinquents.

And there will be measures to offer work permits to foreign workers with skills required in particular sectors of the economy, which could include the many employed illegally in the restaurant sector.

Macron’s MPs are a minority in parliament, meaning the bill will need support from the rightwing opposition Republicans party, which has criticised the proposals as too weak.

“There’s a red line in what we know about this bill which is the massive regularisation of illegal workers in short-staffed sectors,” senior MP Pierre-Henri Dumont told reporters.

France has passed 29 different laws on immigration since 1980.

People from 15 different charities and some left-wing MPs demonstrated in front of the national assembly on Tuesday to denounce what they termed the “hostile” attitude of the government to migration.

Nearly eight in 10 French people think Macron’s governments have failed to control immigration, according to a poll by the CSA survey group published by the CNews channel last month.

Around seven in 10 think there are too many foreigners in France, multiple polls this year have shown.

Source: Macron looks to crack down on illegal immigration with new law

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Khan: Soccer is truly the beautiful game, unless you are a French Muslim woman who wears a hijab

2022/12/07 Leave a comment

Good reminder:

Thus far, the FIFA World Cup has not disappointed. Electrifying plays on the field, compelling storylines from Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski, and the festive, colourful fandom in the stands. It’s called the beautiful game for a reason. Soccer has a simple, universal appeal – all you need is a ball, a couple of teammates, and voilà, the dreams are yours to make.

Except if you are a Muslim woman in France who wears a hijab. According to a decree by the French Football Federation (FFF), anyone playing, coaching or officiating on a French football pitch is banned from wearing religious symbols. For all the focus in World Cup media coverage on Qatar’s policies towards migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ community, hardly anyone has made a peep about how a soccer powerhouse – France – bars Muslim women from participating in the sport simply for wearing a hijab.

France has a tortuous history of harmonizing its growing Muslim population and its official policy of secularity, or laicité. Suffice it to say that the hijab has never been welcomed in the land of liberté, égalité et fraternité. After a 2004 ban on wearing “conspicuous religious symbols,” including the hijab, in French public schools came into effect, the niqab was also banned in public spaces in 2010. Curiously, while mask mandates were implemented in France throughout the pandemic, niqabs were still subject to fines.

The FFF’s rule runs contrary to official FIFA policy, which lifted its own hijab ban in 2014. The policy has had a painful impact on many aspiring French Muslim female soccer players, who have faced a choice between the sport they love and their faith. Some have grown up in the same Paris banlieues that produced Kylian Mbappé, Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté. During childhood, some of these young female players faced opposition from their own conservative families, who deemed soccer too masculine. As they thrived at sport-intensive programs and club tryouts, the families gave in – only to have the FFF turn their daughters away from the pitch because of their hijabs.

Yet the FFF could not kill the spirits of these remarkable young women, or their love of the game. In response to being excluded by the FFF, Les Hijabeuses, a collective of French female Muslim soccer players, was formed in 2020 with the aim of ensuring that all women can play the sport they love. Co-president Founé Diawararecalled feeling angry and excluded when being told to leave the pitch for wearing her hijab at the age of 15: “I was trapped between my passion [for football] and something that is a huge part of my identity. It’s like they tried to tell me that I had to choose between the two,” she told The Guardian in 2021.

Les Hijabeuses have used their strong social media following to rally against the FFF’s ban. They’ve launched petitions, gathered support from the broader sports community (including Nike), and organized soccer matches outside the French Senate building as a form of protest. The members and their allies play soccer together, connect with other French teams and provide training sessions to encourage other young Muslim women to get into the sport. It is a refuge, providing a safe space for Muslims to be who they are, while playing the sport they love. They have even lobbied the FFF to overturn the ban, and are now taking them to court. Earlier this year, the French Senate tried, unsuccessfully, to codify the FFF ban into law, arguing that the hijab was a means to spread radical Islam to sports clubs. Senator Stéphane Piednoir, a ban supporter, told The New York Times that he has yet to speak with a hijab-clad athlete, comparing such an encounter to a “firefighter” listening “to pyromaniacs.”

The ban is even more galling given that France is the only European country that excludes hijabis from playing in most competitive domestic sports, while foreign players with hijabs will be allowed to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Why is France denying Olympic opportunities for its own hijab-clad athletes?

More importantly, why has the rest of the world been silent on this issue in recent weeks, especially during coverage of the World Cup? International media should be shining a spotlight on the FFF’s exclusionary policies. National soccer federations (including Canada Soccer) should be mounting a united stand against the FFF’s overt discrimination through boycotts and other measures. FIFA should sanction the FFF for violating official FIFA policy.

I have played soccer almost my entire life. I am an accredited soccer coach. But because I wear a hijab, I can’t play, coach or officiate on a soccer pitch in France. In Qatar, no problem. Let that sink in.

Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman.

Source: Soccer is truly the beautiful game, unless you are a French Muslim woman who wears a hijab

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Permanent residents can now apply to join the Canadian Armed Forces

2022/12/07 Leave a comment

USA has allowed this for years:

Permanent residents can now apply to join the Canadian Armed Forces, regardless of whether they have been trained by a foreign military.

It’s the latest effort by Canada’s military to boost recruitment numbers, which are lagging well behind the target of adding 5,900 new members by March.

Officials have blamed a series of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic and reputational issues stemming from a number of high-profile sexual misconduct cases for the current shortfall of nearly 8,000 soldiers, sailors and aviators.

Until now, permanent residents in Canada could sign up only if they were skilled professionals who were trained by foreign militaries, but the federal government is now broadening the pool of applicants.

The Department of National Defence says joining the military can help permanent residents gain citizenship, in part because their applications are given priority by immigration officials.

On October, chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre ordered an immediate halt to all non-essential activities in favour of boosting military recruitment and retention.

The Armed Forces has also been pushing for greater diversity in its ranks, with targeted recruiting of under-represented groups and efforts to create a more inclusive workplace by doing things like easing dress rules.

Source: Permanent residents can now apply to join the Canadian Armed Forces

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IYMI: Chinese residing in Australia reveal why they are giving up citizenship of their homeland — or why they don’t want to

2022/12/07 Leave a comment

Some signs of similar views among Chinese Canadians:

Xi Jinping securing his third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party was the last straw for Victor Zeng.

Mr Zeng, 26, who grew up in a remote town in Xinjiang province before moving to Melbourne to marry his husband, became an Australian permanent resident about 18 months ago.

With Mr Xi cementing his position as China’s unchallenged leader at the CCP’s National Party Congress in October, he now feels war with Taiwan and a return to a state-run collective economy is imminent.

And he worries that if he goes back to China as a Chinese citizen he may be trapped there, or one day his Australian permanent residency may be unexpectedly revoked.

“I don’t know if this is my paranoia, but I feel uncertain,” he told the ABC.

“So I’m going to discuss it with my family as soon as possible and enter the process of joining Australian citizenship.”

China’s increasing authoritarianism under Mr Xi — typified by the strict COVID-zero policy — is prompting some Chinese residents in Australia to consider taking the next step to officially become Australians.

However, China does not allow dual nationality, so it means forfeiting their Chinese citizenship.

It’s a difficult decision, with practical and emotional considerations.

‘I felt that there is another way of life’

Mr Zeng said he started feeling “conditions were deteriorating” in China from around 2016, as Beijing intensified its crackdown on the Muslim Uyghur community.

In Xinjiang, where Uyghurs are about half the population, many areas were cut off from the surrounding streets by iron gates, and authorities were checking identity cards everywhere.

“After arriving in Australia, I felt that there is another way of life that is not coerced into the grand narratives, that I can say no to the propaganda and political missions,” he said.

Mr Zeng said his biggest concern was for his family members who were still living in Xinjiang.

“If I become an Australian citizen, I don’t know if there will be more restrictions on my [visitor] visa [to China] as Xinjiang is a sensitive region,” he said.

‘We have a stronger sense of urgency than before’

In the 2021-22 financial year, 5,392 people born in China became Australian citizens, according to figures from the Department of Home Affairs.

Fan Yang, a researcher at Deakin University’s Alfred Institute, said individual choices were often connected to structural change at the societal, cultural, political, national, and even international levels.

“Xi’s third term would give people the impression that China is less likely to change,” she said.

“For those who gained significant benefit from their social status in China, it is less likely that they would give up on their Chinese citizenship.

“However, for those who tend to be more politically active, they are more likely to acquire Australian citizenship for the rights of political participation.”

While some Chinese residents in Australia share Mr Zeng’s concerns, those worries may not be enough to push them to give up their Chinese citizenship.

Aaron, who asked not to use his real name, migrated to Australia with his family in 2011.

Mr Xi’s third term and the continuation of the national COVID-zero policy were two “realistic factors” that led him to “seriously consider the choice of citizenship”.

“We have a stronger sense of urgency than before,” he said.

“China’s political and democratic environments have changed dramatically. There is the possibility of going backwards … we have put our citizenship choices as a priority now.

“When the politics is stable and the economic reforms are more stable and China connects with the rest of the world well, we think our citizenship choices don’t matter that much.”

However, because he still operates businesses and has property in China, he is reluctant to follow Mr Zeng’s lead and give up his Chinese citizenship.

He said he was also worried he would lose access to a social security fund he had been putting money into for many years.

“If we join Australian citizenship, we worry that they won’t allow us to draw money from it,” he said.

‘Identity and a choice of loyalty’

Yu Tao, senior lecturer and coordinator of Chinese studies at the University of Western Australia, said for many Chinese migrants, the decision to take Australian citizenship was tied to their “identity and a choice of loyalty”.

Becoming an Australian citizen meant “cutting ties with China” symbolically, he said.

“If China continues to close its door or gets very isolated from the rest of the world [under the COVID-zero policy], then inevitably, lots of people will have to make a choice,” he said.

“If the bilateral relationship is better, some people [will] probably feel they don’t have to make a choice.”

He said in isolation Mr Xi’s third term was unlikely to be the “single and biggest reason” for their citizenship choices.

“Xi’s third term was in a way well expected [from] when he removed the term limits of the president of PRC,” he said.

Dr Tao said the long-term sociopolitical conditions under Mr Xi’s rule, such as the COVID-zero policy and Sino-Australian relations, were likely having a more profound impact.

He said practical, economic issues were also important factors.

“I suppose if, in the long run, COVID is going to touch upon some of these practical material parts of the consideration, that will also have a profound impact on how people negotiate their citizenship,” he said.

Family ties still bind for some

Riki Lee, who came to Australia as an international student and has had permanent residency status since 2014, said taking Australian citizenship was not even a consideration for him.

He said Chinese people, influenced by the Confucian culture, were deeply affected by thoughts of homesickness and nostalgia for loved ones.

“I am an only child and my parents and family are in China,” Mr Lee said.

“If unexpected things happen, such as a war or if the bilateral relationship gets worse, a Chinese passport and a PR (an Australian permanent residency) are the most convenient way to return to China.”

‘I feel like anything could happen if I’m in China’

Dr Yang said Beijing offered incentives for young people — particularly academics — to return to China and contribute to the country, such as research allowances and discounted accommodation.

However, she said she did not believe these sweeteners played into many people’s thinking.

“Those policies are like scratching an itch outside one’s boots due to the harsh academic environment and the lack of academic funding in China,” she said.

“Academics are not well paid in China and there are unwritten rules that disadvantage female academics or LGBTQIA+ academics.”

Jessica Ching, an educational psychology graduate and holder of a Hong Kong passport, grew up in mainland China.

Before the pandemic, Ms Ching spent time in China doing psychology workshops with parents and schools and had intended to live and work in China.

She is now hesitant to continue her plan.

“I think especially in the next three to five years, I don’t see myself going back to China to start a clinic or actually going into schools to speak because there’s an imminent threat that I can’t return back to Australia,” she said.

“I feel like anything could happen if I’m in China.”

Ms Ching has a utilitarian approach to her citizenship.

She said she was holding on to her Hong Kong passport, which enables visa-free travel to many more countries than a Chinese passport, for now but she was worried that in a couple of years’ time it might lose its benefits.

“I will try to keep my Hong Kong passport as long as I can, but if it gets to a point where we have to choose, I think I will choose to be an Australian citizen,” she said.

Source: Chinese residing in Australia reveal why they are giving up citizenship of their homeland — or why they don’t want to

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China operating ‘police’ station out of Vancouver, civil rights group alleges

2022/12/07 Leave a comment

More allegations:

A Spanish civil rights group says it has uncovered two new secret “police” stations being operated in Canada, including one in Vancouver.

Safeguard Defenders has published a report revealing the existence of 48 Chinese “police service stations” being operated overseas, in addition to the 54 stations the group initially reported on in September.

The not-for-profit human rights group has documented a total of 102 stations in 53 countries.

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Gibson: Immigration reform that Republicans can love, or at least vote for

2022/12/07 Leave a comment

We’ll see:

Congress is in the middle of an active lame-duck session. A bipartisan coalition of senators has affirmed marriage equality and 16 Republicans in the upper chamber have signaled they’ll join Democrats in supporting the Electoral Count Reform Act. With the dust settling on the midterm elections and a few retirements around the corner, cooperation is in the air.

Immigration advocates are seizing on this rare burst of bipartisanship to push for legislative possibilities that have been lurking near the finish line for the past two years. While a permanent resolution for Dreamers might grab the most headlines, the pending bill with the potential for broadest bipartisan support is the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

Having passed the House with the support of 30 Republicans and all but one Democrat, it is now before the upper chamber, where Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado and Republican Michael Crapo of Idaho have been negotiating a Senate version that could meet the threshold for a floor vote any day.

The House legislation represents hard-fought compromises. It aims to provide a path for legalization for the millions of undocumented agriculture workers currently in the United States. At the same time, it simplifies and enhances the existing “guest worker,” H-2A visa program for the agricultural sector, making it easier for farmers and ranchers to import foreign labor and making improvements in some working conditions for temporary employees.

Broad Democratic support is a given. The party has long sought to address the precarious status of undocumented farm laborers and to reform aspects of the H-2A guest worker program. Some Democrats would prefer more and faster benefits for immigrant farmworkers, but they still delivered an almost unanimous vote in favor of the compromise act.

There are also compelling reasons why 13 Republicans in the House co-sponsored the bill, and their party colleagues in the Senate should join them in supporting it. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act addresses a multitude of conservative values and concerns.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Consumer Price Index November report, Americans haven’t faced food inflation this high since 1979, with prices rising 11.4% in the last year. Inflation has been front and center for nearly every Republican over the last year and the proposed legislation has the potential to help address rising food costs in a meaningful way.

A September report from the Cato Institute detailed how reforms built into the legislation would reduce agricultural labor costs by about $1 billion in the first year and $1.8 billion in the second, “which would lead to more workers hired, more productivity, and lower prices for consumers.”

Republicans also champion E-Verify, the web-based system that allows employers to confirm that employees are eligible to work in the U.S. This bill makes an E-Verify program mandatory for all agricultural workers 30 days after the executive branch sets the final rules for administering the legislation. It also outlines changes to the verification process, including a photo-matching system, that will likely make it better at identifying unauthorized workers.

Also important to the prevailing Republican position, the legislation underscores that certified agricultural workers remain ineligible for many forms of federally funded public benefits, such as healthcare subsidies, while at the same time, bringing many more agricultural workers into the tax-paying world, increasing revenue for states as well as the federal government.

Finally, it will be rural America, where the GOP thrives, that will benefit most directly from this legislation. In addition to increasing tax revenue in some deeply red states, the legislation will stimulate rental and real estate markets throughout rural communities with 10 years’ worth of farmworker housing vouchers and grants, as well as funding for new housing developments.

Here’s how the legislation passed by the House would work:

Longtime, law-abiding undocumented agricultural workers will be able to apply for certified agricultural worker status, which means they could come out of the shadows and work legally.

CAW candidates would not be subject to deportation while their applications are considered and employers would not be sanctioned for having previously hired them.

Certification would grant 5½ years of legal residency (including for workers’ dependents), with the possibility of an extension. Certified agricultural workers who meet further residency and work history requirements could apply to become permanent legal U.S. residents, and after that, they could apply for citizenship.

Those who don’t qualify for CAW status would be given access to H-2A visas, like newly hired foreign workers. Those already here would not be required to return to their home country to apply for the H-2As, as they are today. This common-sense change would cut down on labor supply disruptions.

The legislation also streamlines the H-2A process for employers, sets wage standards for agricultural workers, and establishes the rate at which those wages can grow — all tools for stabilizing labor costs — in the long term.

Under the new law, H2-A agricultural workers are guaranteed minimum hours, implementation of “heat illness protection” plans to avoid serious injuries while working, and the freedom to leave one employer to work for another — something they’re currently prohibited from doing, which suppresses wages for all workers. Not only is housing addressed for farmworkers, but so is transportation in and out of the fields.

Republicans often emphasize that immigrants should have to “get in line and wait their turn.” The Farm Workforce Modernization Act honors that idea but also acknowledges the crucial undocumented workforce that is already here. Through the proposed CAW program and changes in H-2A visa rules, the legislation establishes serious residency and work requirements before immigrants can gain a safe and stable place in society.

This legislation is an opportunity to address an important piece of our broken immigration system, to fill farm labor gaps and meet priorities for both parties. Because the bill has already passed the House, it creates a special opportunity during the lame-duck session for the Senate. If the upper house does not act, the opportunity dies when the session ends.

DW Gibson is the research director at Ideaspace.com and the author of “14 Miles: Building the Border Wall.”

Source: Op-Ed: Immigration reform that Republicans can love, or at least vote for

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Usher: A First Look At 2021 Education Census Data

2022/12/06 Leave a comment

Good analysis of census data by HESA:

Figure 1 shows the attainment rates of the population aged 25-64, by visible minority status and Indigenous identity.    What it shows is that there are some quite fascinating differences in attainment rates across different segments of the population.   Individuals who self-declare as visible minorities are somewhat less likely than other Canadian to have a PSE credential below the bachelor’s level but substantially more likely to have a degree at the bachelor’s level or above.  Those reporting Indigenous identity, meanwhile, have college credentials at higher levels similar to those of non-visible minority/non-Indigenous Canadians, but university attainment rates substantially  lower than those of other Canadians.  White Canadians have higher college attainment rates than visible minorities, but substantially lower university attainment rates. 

Figure 1: Post-Secondary Education Attainment by Level, Visible Minority Status and Indigenous Identity, Canadians Aged 25-64, Census 2021

Stacked bars showing that visible minorities have the highest rate of bachelor degree or above attainment.

This is, by the way, quite different from the situation in basically any other developed country except perhaps Australia and New Zealand; in most other countries with large scale immigration, visible minority populations tend to have much lower levels of education that the mainstream population.

One of the interesting things about this census is that it permits analysis not just by level of education but also by field of study.  Figure 2 runs the same analysis as figure 1, only examining the distribution of undergraduate degrees.  Again, we see some interesting distributions by visible minority/Indigenous identity.  The proportions of Canadians of various backgrounds who are in the fields of health and business are relatively consistent, but there are huge differences in the areas of education, social sciences/humanities and STEM.  For those with Indigenous identities, 45% of all degrees are in education, humanities and social sciences, while only 14% of all degrees are in STEM; among visible minorities (who, recall, are more than 3 times as likely to have a degree as those with Indigenous identity), it is 25% in education, humanities and social sciences and 35% in STEM.

Figure 2: Distribution of Degrees by Broad Field, Visible Minority Status and Indigenous Identity, Canadians Aged 25-64, Census 2021

Stacked bar charts showing percentage of people with education, humanities, SETM, management, health, or Other degrees

We can run the same kind of analyses by immigration status.  In figures 3 and 4, we repeat the analysis in figures 1 and 2, only by immigration status.  Statistics Canada divides Canadians into “first generation” (basically, individuals born outside Canada), “second generation” (at least one parent born outside Canada) and “third generation or more” (both parents born in Canada).  That second category is – if you ask me – a heck of a hodge-podge, so focus on the difference between first and third generations. 

Figure 3: Post-Secondary Education Attainment by Level and Immigration Generation, Canadians Aged 25-64, Census 2021

Stacked bars showing that "Third generation" people have the lowest percentage of bachelor attainments.

Figure 4: Distribution of Degrees by Broad Field and by Immigration Generation, Canadians Aged 25-64 Census 2021

Stacked bars showing that "Third generation" people have more humanities and social science degrees and "first generation" people have more STEM degrees.

There’s an old (American) cliche about how the first generation of immigrant families works hard in menial jobs to make sure their kids get ahead, the second generation works hard to get into professional schools and attract great wealth while the third generation goes to art school.  By the looks of it, Canada’s points-based immigration system allows us to skip that first generation thus bringing immigrants into humanities and arts programs that much faster.

Source: A First Look At 2021 Education Census Data

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Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find

2022/12/06 Leave a comment

Of note. Likely to get worse:

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.

Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.

And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.

These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms — provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October. While the numbers are relatively small, researchers said the increases were atypically high.

The shift in speech is just the tip of a set of changes on the service under Mr. Musk. Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.

These changes are alarming, researchers said, adding that they had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform.

“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They have reacted accordingly.”

Mr. Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment, has been vocal about being a “free speech absolutist” who believes in unfettered discussions online. He has moved swiftly to overhaul Twitter’s practices, allowing former President Donald J. Trump — who was barred for tweets that could incite violence — to return. Last week, Mr. Musk proposed a widespread amnesty for accounts that Twitter’s previous leadership had suspended. And on Tuesday, he ended enforcement of a policy against Covid misinformation.

But Mr. Musk has denied claims that hate speech has increased on Twitter under his watch. Last month, he tweeted a downward-trending graph that he said showed that “hate speech impressions” had dropped by a third since he took over. He did not provide underlying numbers or details of how he was measuring hate speech.

On Thursday, Mr. Musk said the account of Kanye West, which was restricted for a spell in October because of an antisemitic tweet, would be suspended indefinitely after the rapper, known as Ye, tweeted an image of a swastika inside the Star of David. On Friday, Mr. Musk said Twitter would publish “hate speech impressions” every week and agreed with a tweet that said hate speech spiked last week because of Ye’s antisemitic posts.

Changes in Twitter’s content not only have societal implications but also affect the company’s bottom line. Advertisers, which provide about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue, have reduced their spending on the platform as they wait to see how it will fare under Mr. Musk. Some have said they are concerned that the quality of discussions on the platform will suffer.

On Wednesday, Twitter sought to reassure advertisers about its commitment to online safety. “Brand safety is only possible when human safety is the top priority,” the company wrote in a blog post. “All of this remains true today.”

The appeal to advertisers coincided with a meeting between Mr. Musk and Thierry Breton, the digital chief of the European Union, in which they discussed content moderation and regulation, according to an E.U. spokesman. Mr. Breton has pressed Mr. Musk to comply with the Digital Services Act, a European law that requires social platforms to reduce online harm or face fines and other penalties.

Mr. Breton plans to visit Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters early next year to perform a “stress test” of its ability to moderate content and combat disinformation, the spokesman said.

On Twitter itself, researchers said the increase in hate speech, antisemitic posts and other troubling content had begun before Mr. Musk loosened the service’s content rules. That suggested that a further surge could be coming, they said.

If that happens, it’s unclear whether Mr. Musk will have policies in place to deal with problematic speech or, even if he does, whether Twitter has the employees to keep up with moderation. Mr. Musk laid off, fired or accepted the resignations of more than half the company’s staff last month, including those who worked to remove harassment, foreign interference and disinformation from the service. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust of safety, was among those who quit.

The Anti-Defamation League, which files regular reports of antisemitic tweets to Twitter and keeps track of which posts are removed, said the company had gone from taking action on 60 percent of the tweets it reported to only 30 percent.

“We have advised Musk that Twitter should not just keep the policies it has had in place for years, it should dedicate resources to those policies,” said Yael Eisenstat, a vice president at the Anti-Defamation League, who met with Mr. Musk last month. She said he did not appear interested in taking the advice of civil rights groups and other organizations.

“His actions to date show that he is not committed to a transparent process where he incorporates the best practices we have learned from civil society groups,” Ms. Eisenstat said. “Instead he has emboldened racists, homophobes and antisemites.”

The lack of action extends to new accounts affiliated with terror groups and others that Twitter previously banned. In the first 12 days after Mr. Musk assumed control, 450 accounts associated with ISIS were created, up 69 percent from the previous 12 days, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online platforms.

Other social media companies are also increasingly concerned about how content is being moderated on Twitter.

When Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, found accounts associated with Russian and Chinese state-backed influence campaigns on its platforms last month, it tried to alert Twitter, said two members of Meta’s security team, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The two companies often communicated on these issues, since foreign influence campaigns typically linked fake accounts on Facebook to Twitter.

But this time was different. The emails to their counterparts at Twitter bounced or went unanswered, the Meta employees said, in a sign that those workers may have been fired.

Source: Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find

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