Ivison: Quebec shows Scotland how to get everything you want without separating

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Valid commentary:
Canada’s exports extend beyond hockey players and cold fronts, as Pierre Trudeau once said. It turns out we are also traders in world-class constitutional jurisprudence.
The U.K.’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Scottish government cannot hold a second independence referendum without the consent of the British Parliament and based its decision, in part, on Quebec’s past constitutional experiences.

Source: Quebec shows Scotland how to get everything you want without separating

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N.L. immigration minister slams feds over lack of support

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Newfoundland and Labrador’s minister of immigration, population growth and skills is demanding more help — and more money — from his federal counterpart to support immigration and settlement in a province where deaths outstrip births two to one.

While speaking with reporters on Thursday, Gerry Byrne touted Newfoundland and Labrador’s population growth while slamming the federal government for a lack of support.

“There are many issues that need to be resolved with Ottawa,” he said. “Many.”

Byrne’s central frustration is the province’s federally granted immigration allocation, which he said was fulfilled as of Oct. 7.

Now that those spots have been filled, the provincial government won’t be able to nominate any more newcomers for permanent residency until Jan. 1. He said the province will continue to process applications and submit them to the federal government in the new year — but in the meantime, any newcomers who apply will have to wait.

“There is no room left this year,” Byrne said emphatically. “None.”

According to Byrne, the provincial government can nominate 1,140 people for permanent residency under the federal pathway, and 453 people under the Atlantic pathway.

“In previous years, we were lucky if we could fill a third of those spots,” he said.

Byrne said the provincial government is asking the federal government to expand Newfoundland and Labrador’s nomination capacity for the rest of 2022, and double capacity in 2023.

Byrne said he already asked federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser for more capacity this year, but was turned down.

“Now we are seeing the results of this,” he said.

CBC News has asked the federal Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship for comment.

Largest population growth in N.L.

According to Byrne, Newfoundland and Labrador’s population grew by 6,200 people in the past 18 months — the largest increase since 1971 — largely through migration from other provinces and countries. He said 5,600 people have immigrated to Newfoundland and Labrador, while 3,700 people have moved to the province from other parts of Canada.

He said the growth doesn’t include Ukrainians who have moved to the province since March.

Byrne also called for more funding for the Association for New Canadians, an agency that helps resettle immigrants and refugees in Newfoundland and Labrador.

According to the province, the federal government provides the association with less funding per refugee than agencies in the other nine provinces.

“The ANC is the lowest-funded support organization in the country,” he said. “That has to change.”

Byrne’s criticisms come during a rocky week for the relationship between the provincial and federal Liberals. On Tuesday, Environment and Climate Change Minister Bernard Davis panned the federal government’s decision to impose the carbon tax on Newfoundland and Labrador.

Just a few hours after the news conference, Premier Andrew Furey reposted a photo of himself with federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

‘The perfect timing’

Tony Fang, an economics professor at Memorial University, said he’s in “full agreement” with Byrne’s demand for a higher immigration allocation — though he thinks the province should ask for triple, rather than double, the current capacity.

“The federal government certainly should collaborate with the provincial government to take advantage of this large interest in immigration,” he said.

Fang, who leads a research team exploring immigration in Newfoundland and Labrador, said attitudes toward immigrants have improved.

“This is the perfect timing to increase immigration targets,” he said.

Jaclyn Sullivan, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Employers’ Council, said immigration is essential for the province’s economic growth and prosperity, calling the current federal approach “not good enough.”

‘We would like to see much more effort on behalf of the federal government,” she said.

Sullivan said Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have enough people to fill jobs.

“We’re all seeing the impact of this,” she said.

NDP MHA Jordan Brown said he supports Byrne’s request for a higher nomination allocation and more funding for the Association for New Canadians, but he also wants to see more help from the provincial government — particularly regarding health care.

“We’re lacking in support both federally and provincially,” he said.

Source: N.L. immigration minister slams feds over lack of support

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UK: Rishi Sunak mulling curbs on overseas students after immigration rise

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Another related article. Canada could benefit from a greater emphasis on “quality degrees” and institutions given how a large part of the international student population is becoming a source of low skilled and low paid labour:

The government is looking at introducing new restrictions on ‘low quality’ degrees and preventing foreign applicants from bringing family members to the UK with them.

Curbs being considered by Downing Street could see international students barred unless they gain access to a high-ranking university.

The move was briefed after it emerged net immigration hit a new high, 12 years after David Cameron pledged to bring numbers down to the ‘tens of thousands’.

Around 504,000 more people are estimated to have moved to the UK than left in the 12 months to June 2022, up sharply from 173,000 in the year to June 2021.

People arriving on study visas accounted for the largest proportion of long-term immigration of non-EU nationals, at 277,000, or 39% of the total, according to the Office for National Statistics.

There was a significant rise in students coming to the UK after a few years of lower numbers caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ONS said ‘unique’ factors such as visa schemes from Ukrainian and Hong Kong citizens had also contributed to the increase.

In the Autumn Budget published earlier this month, the government said it expected immigration levels to return to pre-pandemic levels once ‘these temporary factors ease over time’.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said he is ‘fully committed’ to reducing immigration and blamed ‘unprecedented and unique circumstances’ for the rise.

They added: ‘We’re considering all options to make sure the immigration system is delivering, and that does include looking at the issue of student dependents and low-quality degrees.’

Home secretary Suella Braverman has previously complained about foreign students ‘bringing in family members who can piggyback onto their student visa’ and ‘propping up, frankly, substandard courses in inadequate institutions’.

The move could potentially meet resistance from within the education department, which would be faced with a funding headache if numbers were restricted.

Overseas students paying higher rates than domestic applicants have become a major funding stream for universities and there is pressure on departmental budgets due to inflation and fiscal tightening from the Treasury.

There could also be friction with the Treasury which will be opposed to any immigration changes which risk stifling growth.

Despite higher levels of migration to the UK since Brexit, the UK is struggling with skills and labour shortages in a number of industries.

Confirmed the UK will enter a recession, chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week insisted that immigration is required to boost growth.

He said: ‘There needs to be a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy.

‘We are recognising that we will need migration for the years ahead – that will be very important for the economy.’

Source: Rishi Sunak mulling curbs on overseas students after immigration rise

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Douglas Todd: Ethnic politics is already a science in the U.S. It’s on the way in Canada

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

It already is well entrenched at the federal and provincial levels and candidate nominations and members of legislatures and electoral strategies indicate. Todd’s points are based on municipal elections, where the general absence of parties and more locally-based and less sophisticated data analysis prevails:

In the U.S. polls are run constantly into the political preferences of voters based on ethnicity, in addition to gender, age, religion and other demographics.

Race-based politics has long been established in multi-ethnic cities like Chicago, New York and Miami. American pundits have also analyzed how religion and ethnicity combine, particularly since 1960 when 80 per cent of Catholics of European descent voted for John F. Kennedy.

With people of Hispanic, Black and Asian origins now accounting for more than 80 million Americans, politicians are not the only ones who find it valuable to keep up with scientific polling.

Polls generally show two thirds of Hispanic Americans vote Democrat, while one third lean Republican. Only one in 10 Black voters are Republican and just 26 per cent of Asian-Americans. About one third of people of European descent cast ballots for Democrats, and just over half go Republican.

Canadians are more shy about how ethnicity connects to politics. We don’t often learn about surveys that probe how minority groups tend to think about political issues.

When I’ve asked Canadian politicians if their party conducts private polling on ethnicity, they all say, of course they do: Race-based strategies are crucial to any campaign. But no party has ever handed me their internal data.

Political scientist Shinder Purewal of Kwantlen Polytechnic University has had a similar experience. “I’ve spoken to a number of pollsters and they’re very reluctant to give ethnic numbers, while they’ll give numbers in general.”

One recent exception to this hands-off Canadian approach was a poll by YouGov, which revealed that Indo Canadians lean liberal-left. More than 38 per cent of respondents said last year they would cast a vote for the Liberals — twice the number that planned to go with the Conservatives.

This fall, a Leger poll for Postmedia detailed how ethnic groups would affect October’s tide-shifting elections in the cities of Vancouver and Surrey.

Understanding the hopes and fears of ethnic groups can be a big political deal. In the city of Vancouver, 44 per of the population is of European descent, 20 per cent is of Chinese descent and 14 per cent are of South Asian descent. Indo Canadians are the largest group in Surrey, at 38 per cent compared to 33 per cent who are of European descent.

The Leger poll found the eventual winner in Vancouver, Ken Sim, who highlighted how he would be the city’s first Chinese Canadian mayor, appealed to 21 per cent of those of European ancestry, 15 per cent of South Asian voters and 35 per cent of those with Chinese roots.

Meanwhile, defeated mayor Kennedy Stewart — who was the last of an amazing streak of seven Vancouver mayors in a row of Scottish ancestry — appealed to 12 per cent of European-descent voters, 21 per cent of Indo Canadians and only five per cent of those of Chinese background.

Surrey was a different scenario. There, the three mayoral candidates who received the most votes are of European ancestry: Brenda Locke, Doug McCallum and Gordie Hogg. McCallum, the incumbent, did best in the districts that are overwhelmingly Punjabi, Purewal said.

“That tells you that people are actually paying attention to what politicians have to say, what they stand for,” Purewal said. “Many don’t care what (ethnic) flock you’re from.”

In Vancouver, what issues drew voters to Sim?

Housing affordability came out the top worry when Leger’s respondents named their top three issues: But that concern ran equally across ethnic lines. 

Property taxes and spending were Vancouver residents’ third biggest issue, particularly since council had sharply increased both under Stewart’s guidance. Sim promised to be fiscally prudent, which would be important to ethnic Chinese voters, 36 per cent of whom cited taxation as a leading issue compared to 26 per cent overall.

Policing, public safety and crime was the fourth big issue. And Sim’s promise to hire 100 more police officers would have also played well with Chinese Canadian voters, 30 per cent of whom worried about crime compared to 25 per cent in general.

Sim also played down themes that Stewart and his council had pushed hardest — such as climate change, and especially social justice, equity and First Nations reconciliation. These were of low concern to all voters, particularly to those of Chinese background.

Such trends suggest to Purewal that, even while Sim often cited the scourge of anti-Asian racism and campaigned strongly through Chinese-language media outlets, he and his ABC party didn’t win simply because he was Chinese Canadian.

“I would say the vast majority voted for him because they agreed with his plan.”

What of Surrey, B.C.’s second largest city? South Asians in Surrey, many of whom are foreign-born, were significantly more likely to rank housing affordability as a top worry, at 56 per compared to 38 per cent of people descended from Europeans. And Indo Canadians were the least likely to zero in on homelessness.

Even though the Leger poll initially suggested Surrey mayoral candidate Sukh Dhaliwal was the favourite of South Asians, the support did not carry the day for him. Locke and McCallum, who came in a close second, were able to draw votes from both South Asians and those of European descent.

A similar lesson about the value of cross-ethnic appeal can be taken from growing Richmond, B.C.’s fourth most-populous city.

Mayor Malcolm Brodie has been winning elections there for 21 years, despite people of European ancestry now being only 20 per cent of the population, down to 40,000 from 68,000 in 2001. Purewal said Brodie has cultivated the loyalty of a solid portion of the 113,000 Richmond residents of Chinese origin.

Sometimes race-based politics can burst into controversy, as it did this fall in Los Angeles, where a national furor erupted after top Latino politicians were caught in a secret recording making crude, racist remarks about Black rivals and voters. Similar things can happen in Canada.

But for the most part, U.S. and Canadian politicians don’t appear to take advantage of ethnic-based data to manufacture wedge issues: They simply see ethnic differences, as well as similarities, as fundamental factors to understand.

Let’s hope most North Americans politicians try to balance their desire to appeal to voters from specific ethnic groups with a larger commitment to social harmony.

Source: Douglas Todd: Ethnic politics is already a science in the U.S. It’s on the way in Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with ,

UK: Rishi Sunak faces Tory backlash over record immigration figures

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Rishi Sunak faces backlash from Conservative MPs after new figures showed net migration to the UK soaring to a record high, with 504,000 more people arriving in the country than departing over the past year.

“Unprecedented” global events including the lifting of Covid lockdowns, war in Ukraine and the Chinese security clampdown in Hong Kong sent immigration figures soaring.

At 1.1 million, the total number of arrivals in the 12 months to June was the highest since statistics were first gathered in 1964 and far outweighed the 560,000 departures, despite the fact that for the first time since 1991 more EU nationals left the UK than arrived.

Even after allowing for humanitarian schemes for Ukrainians and Afghans, the figures gave additional weight to the observation that Brexit has not reduced overall migration, as many supporters of the Leave campaign hoped.

Instead, the figures suggest that the result of EU withdrawal has been to alter patterns of migration to the UK, with departing Europeans replaced by nationals of countries like India, Nigeria and China who dominate the tables of work and study visas.

More than 20 Conservative MPs are believed to have signed a letter to Mr Sunak demanding action to bring overall migration numbers down.

Organised by Sir John Hayes – the chair of the Common Sense Group of traditionalist Tories and a close ally of home secretary Suella Braverman – the letter calls on ministers to get a tighter grip on the system for work and study visas, as well as clamping down on unauthorised Channel crossings by boat.

Home Office figures showed an 87 per cent increase to 381,459 in the number of work visas issued over a 12-month period, while visas to study rose by 38 per cent to 597,827. Both figures were more than double pre-Brexit levels.

Sir John said the influx of migrants was placing pressure on the UK’s environment, housing and infrastructure and “displacing” homegrown workers from jobs and training.

“The home secretary has been very open and honest and straightforward about the need for robust action to take control of our borders in relation to small boats,” he told The Independent. “There is a similar job to be done to retake control of visas, which I think are out of control now.”

The scale of immigration flew in the face of a promise in the 2019 Conservative election manifesto – endorsed by Mr Sunak since his arrival at 10 Downing Street – to get overall numbers down, said Hayes.

Responding to the ONS figures on Thursday, Ms Braverman said the record number of people arriving in the UK was “thanks to the generosity of the British people” towards Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kong holders of BNO (British national overseas) passports.

“The public rightly expect us to control our borders and we remain committed to reducing migration over time in line with our manifesto commitment,” said the home secretary, who in October told the Conservative conference her personal ambition was to reduce net migration below 100,000.

“My priority remains tackling the rise in dangerous and illegal crossings and stopping the abuse of our system.”

Downing Street said Mr Sunak remained committed to reducing net migration but has not set “a specific timeframe” for achieving the goal. The prime minister’s official spokesman blamed “some unprecedented and unique circumstances” for the record figures.

ONS deputy director Jay Lindop said that a significant driver in the figures was migration from non-EU countries by students, who are no longer forced to work remotely by Covid lockdowns.

An estimated 277,000 arrived in the UK over the past year, an increase from 143,000 in the year before.

The numbers also revealed a growing backlog in dealing with asylum claims, with 117,400 awaiting an initial decision, of whom almost 80,000 have been waiting more than six months.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the statistics revealed “serious problems with Conservative mismanagement of the immigration and asylum systems where they have completely failed to get a grip”.

Ministers have failed to tackle the criminal gangs organising Channel crossings and have managed to process the claims of only 2 per cent of the people arriving in small boats over the course of the last year, she said.

“Work visas have also substantially increased as a result of major skills shortages in the UK – yet the Conservatives are not taking any serious action to address skills shortages here at home,” said Ms Cooper.

Maria Stephens, head of campaigns at charity Refugee Action, said that the “snowballing delays in processing asylum claims are destroying lives”.

And Amnesty International called for a “complete overhaul” of the asylum and immigration system, saying that the government should provide safe routes for people seeking to come to Britain.

The organisation’s refugee and migrant rights director, Steve Valdez-Symonds, said: “These figures show the UK’s system for processing asylum claims remains in complete disarray.”

But leading Tory Brexiteer Peter Bone defended the government’s record, telling The Independent: “The fact that we are taking in people from Hong Kong, from Afghanistan and especially from Ukraine is the right thing to do.

“The point is that we are controlling our borders and we are making the decisions, not the EU. Imagine what the figures would have been if we still had free movement of people. That is what Brexit was about – it was never about having no immigration.”

“Student numbers may be rising, but most of them will go back to their home countries. The government’s priority must be stopping the illegal migration by boat across the Channel.”

Source: Rishi Sunak faces Tory backlash over record immigration figures

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Life Expectancy Provides Evidence of How Far Black Americans Have Come

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Really interesting and nuanced study with regional breakdowns:

In August 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedthat over the last two years, Black Americans’ life expectancy declined to about 71 years old, six years lower than their white counterparts. National disparities in life expectancy can represent the permanency of racism, offering little reason for hope.

But in Manassas Park, Va. and Weld County, Colo., the mean-life expectancy for Black residents is 96—a national high among all Black citizens by county. Black people are living in their 80s in larger Democratic jurisdictions like Montgomery County, Maryland and smaller Republican districts like Collier County, Florida.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

My colleague Jonathan Rothwell and I reported hundreds of places that exceed commonly held expectations in Brookings’s recently released Black Progress Index, an interactive tool and report developed in partnership with the NAACP that provides a means to understand the health and well-being of Black people and the conditions that shape their lives. Instead of comparing Black people to white people, we examine life expectancy differences among the Black population in different places. This method reveals the locales where Black people are thriving.

Courtesy of the Brookings Institution.

Researchers often sloppily compare rates of home ownership, educational attainment, income and mortality without attending to past and present discrimination that intended to create disparities. Consequently, broad national averages void of context policy and local contexts camouflage the very real progress that’s occurring across the country.

Still, in places like Jefferson County, Ohio, the average Black person lives 33 fewer years than Manassas Park, Va. and Weld County, Colo. That gap is roughly equivalent to 100 years of progress in living standards, medical science, and public health.

Black people are not a monolith. They have widely different outcomes in very different places. Local contexts matter as Black people do. Lower life expectancy in counties and metro areas across the country suggests that people are losing battles against racism. But geographic areas where Black people are thriving offer more than hope: People’s civic actions are delivering positive change.

What accounts for such vast differences? Life expectancy, a cumulative measure of health and well-being, summarizes both the biological and non-biological influences on our lives. Because race is a sociological construct and not a biological one, we should assume disparities in life expectancy represent differences in non-biological influences on our lives. Our current life expectancy data suggest that people are breaking down specific social conditions that influence longevity, giving real reason for optimism.

Using a common machine-learning algorithm to select variables and rank their importance, the Index identifies 13 social conditions that predict Black life expectancy. Many are those one might expect, such as income, education, housing, and family composition. Others were more surprising, including the top predictor of high Black life expectancy: larger shares of foreign-born Black residents. One standard deviation above the mean in this variable adds one year to predicted life Black expectancy. For instance, Brooklyn, N.Y. is in the 89th percentile of life expectancy at 78.5. The more than 43% of Black residents of King’s County who are immigrants, places it in the 98th percentile among all counties.

The cause for this interpretation is unclear; it may be a pure composition effect, in that foreign-born Black Americans enjoy better health than the native Black population. Though, this data points to a larger question: Is less exposure to U.S. racism good for your health?

On the other end of the spectrum, a surprising predictor of low Black life expectancy is religious membership. Keeping in mind all the social determinants that showed to be significant in our study are correlational, not causal. Revoking a church membership will not automatically add years to a person’s life. The challenge is understanding why religious adherence is associated with lower life expectancy. Church goers are more likely to be obese and, on the surface, asking “Jesus to take the wheel” may negate any agency we have in influencing our health outcome. We also know that place-based bias that comes out of the wash of housing devaluation hurts the families and institutions, including churches, in those locales. More research is needed to uncover the conditions and behaviors underlying all the variables that strongly influence life expectancy.

The fact that we realize progress and stagnation in Black life expectancy in different places makes clear that people have agency. The gains and losses reflect that. When we take an overly optimistic or pessimistic view of the state of Black America and treat Black people as a monolith, we don’t see localized stories of growth, determination, and thriving.

The diversity of places where Black people are thriving suggests that it has something to do with Black people themselves. In places like Montgomery County, Md., individuals, civil rights groups, organizers, and politicians are dismantling the architecture of inequality that takes away years of life.

That said, we still need to examine and throw away the overly optimistic position on race relations—that the country has moved beyond slavery, Jim Crow racism, and the array of discriminatory policies and their long-term effects. People who hold this perspective contend that America is a level playing field and that with effort, Black people can achieve anything a white person can.

But locales that post life expectancies under 70 perform poorly on environment or institutional indicators like the air and school quality, suggesting that life is harder in some places due to systemically racist forces. In Lowndes County, Ala. where Montgomery is the county seat, Black life expectancy is 68.5. In Greenwood, Miss., it’s 67.3. In Salem, Ore., life expectancy is 64.4.

It’s also worth speculating on seemingly obvious reason why some cities, like Jackson, Miss., don’t post higher rates than 72.6. Jackson has higher homeownership rates than most places (94th percentile) and a higher percentage business ownership (59th percentile). But the recent water crises show how local politics of Mississippi play out in lower investments in the city’s water infrastructure, which plays out in other municipal services that impact life expectancy like education.

“Social reforms move slowly,” wrote W.E.B. Du Bois, suggesting that we must learn from our circumstances in ways that reject intemperance and blame. “[W]hen Right is reinforced by calm but persistent Progress we somehow all feel that in the end it must triumph.”

Society is toiling with the same struggles around racism that Du Bois faced at the turn of the 20th century. Nonetheless, we must take the time to recognize empirical signs of progress and not rush toward unsophisticated, untruthful narratives of hopelessness or blind ignorance that remove or dismiss our agency. A path of progress demands that we have a clear view of the social, political, and economic landscape in which we live. Recognizing progress and defeats will have us see the very real capacity for future change. The assumption—backed with data—that Black people in places with higher life expectancy had a hand in their outcomes should inspire us to seek change in places where discrimination is robbing people of years of life

Source: Life Expectancy Provides Evidence of How Far Black Americans Have Come

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Ditchburn: What should be on Canada’s policy radar?

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Good overview on the IRPP discussions on policy challenges. Striking that neither labour challenges nor immigration were raised by the policy and public administration schools consulted, perhaps because the issues are not considered emerging:

Leadership is a series of strategic choices: picking where to focus your attention and finite resources. Now, consider the meteor shower of complex challenges that is raining down on Canada—from an increasingly precarious geopolitical environment, to worsening climate change, to nagging labour shortages. How do governments decide what to prioritize?

To lend a hand to our beleaguered leaders, the Institute for Research on Public Policy marked its 50th anniversary by asking schools of public policy and public administration: “What emerging issue do you think should be on the radar of decision-makers?”  

We visited nine schools in six provinces. Here’s some of what we heard.

Eroding public trust and deepening cleavages

The word “polarization” is tossed around a lot, but that doesn’t quite capture what’s happening. It’s not that Canadians are split into two distinct political or social camps, like our neighbours south of the border. Rather, there are tensions around issues, and a growing antipathy toward or distrust of governments and institutions—think of Hockey Canada, the RCMP, or the passport office.

These cleavages aren’t just between Freedom Convoy supporters and detractors, but are also felt by those who believe themselves estranged from the sites of power and opportunities. This can include racialized and Indigenous people, who see little progress in dismantling the systemic racism that keeps them from access to jobs, health care, and upward income mobility.

Still, regional resentments are a thing. Data collected and analyzed by the IRPP’s co-led Confederation of Tomorrow project suggests that Quebecers feel the rest of the country looks down on them. The project’s “resentment index” noted that people in Saskatchewan and Alberta feel they contribute more than their share to the federation and are most likely to disagree that Quebec does.

Resilient and coherent climate policy

We heard stark messages about how Canadians will need to adapt and become more resilient to storms, droughts, fires, heat events and other calamities. Dealing with these climate disasters requires governments to plan and invest much further into the future. 

A core theme that came up repeatedly was the feeling that there is a lack of a coherent pan-Canadian plan for getting to net zero, one that acknowledges that different regions have different realities and incorporates a wide spectrum of views. Meanwhile, the United States is pouring billions into new technologies and clean manufacturing through its Inflation Reduction Act. 

“Canada has emissions reductions targets, and they’re good, but what we don’t have is the techno-economic policies that are going to help us make those targets happen,” said Maggie Hanna, president of Alberta-based Common Ground Energy. 

Housing

Perhaps some of the most astonishing stories we heard were from a panel convened at Dalhousie University on housing challenges in Nova Scotia.

Lisa Ryan, executive director of the South Shore Open Doors Association, said her organization had recorded 167 people experiencing homelessness in Lunenberg County in September 2022—63 of them children under the age of 16. Families were living in cars and tents, after their long-term rentals suddenly turned into short-term rentals. People move to Halifax in search of housing, only to face long waits and rampant discrimination from landlords.

Housing is a pivotal policy challenge. It can impact economic growth if companies cannot house workers, and it can start a multi-generational spiral of poor health and poor economic outcomes.

Governance and challenges to the federation

The COVID pandemic did much to bring federal, provincial, territorial, and Indigenous governments together. They were able to act fast and decisively and forge strong new personal relationships. There was also incredible creativity—such as the rapid deployment of remote health care services.

But then there’s the ugly truth of the federation’s weaknesses: poor data sharing, overlapping programs and regulations, unequal access to technology and inconsistent channels of communication. As Canada moves forward with trying to create an east-west electricity grid, address labour and supply chain problems, and reform its relationship with Indigenous nations, attention must be paid to the health and mechanics of intergovernmental relationships.

Governments will need to ward against regulatory shortcuts, where the speed of getting things done trumps other core principles such as transparency, coherence, and the respect of Indigenous rights. Collaborating and communicating with Indigenous communities will require a deeper understanding of governance systems.

“A lot of that is happening through women, youth and elders, our knowledge-keepers, where we’re starting to recognize their roles. Those roles were taken away from us, without our consent,” said Danette Starblanket, an executive-in-residence at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina.

Travelling the country, what stands out is just how much core policy challenges overlap with one another. Climate resilience is intimately tied up with housing, as poorer Canadians will be most at risk of displacement. Distrust of institutions grows as existing governance structures fail to include different perspectives and communicate transparently. If the country does not invest in both people and technologies along the path to net zero, the negative economic impacts will also affect our ability to fund aspects of our social safety net. 

What was also abundantly clear in our conversations is how much willingness there is in the country to work across sectors and across geographic boundaries to come up with good policy and ensure that there is a feeling of common cause and inclusion. 

But who will bring Canadians together around these tough questions? This overarching challenge calls for both good governance and strong leadership. The mechanisms that different levels of governments have for connecting with one and other, with experts (including at think tanks and universities) and with the public must be updated and improved if we’re going to address myriad other policy problems. We need leaders who can see the bigger picture of how different systems fit together and do the unglamourous behind-the-scenes work to get us ready for the next challenges that will pop up on the radar.

Jennifer Ditchburn is the president and CEO of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. She’s on Twitter @jenditchburn.   

Source: What should be on Canada’s policy radar? 

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Du «racisme» linguistique

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Of note. Good réplique to some of the Quebec debate on language and immigrants:

S’il est légitime d’exiger du gouvernement fédéral de tenir compte des demandes du Québec en matière de langue, il n’y a par contre aucune légitimité à restreindre, comme le fait Mario Beaulieu dans un texte récemment paru en ces pages (cosigné par onze personnes), la qualité de francophone aux seuls locuteurs de français langue maternelle. Selon lui, il faudra s’attendre à un « effondrement du poids des francophones au Québec, de 81,6 % en 2011 à 73,6 % en 2036 ». Il faut en finir une fois pour toutes avec ce « racisme » linguistique. (Le mot « racisme » est ici entre guillemets pour n’en retenir que la notion de hiérarchie.)

Il est complètement ridicule de croire qu’un francophone est une personne qui a dit « môman » avant l’âge de deux ans. Un francophone, c’est aussi un plurilingue dont le français n’est pas la langue maternelle. On ne naît pas francophone, on le devient.

Au Québec, 85 % de l’augmentation de la population provient de l’immigration. Nul besoin d’être lauréat de la médaille Fields pour comprendre que la proportion du groupe non immigrant (et d’origine non immigrante) va décroître avec le temps. Ce qui n’est pas le cas des francophones, si par francophone on entend toute personne qui a appris le français à la maison, sur les bancs d’école ou sur les lieux de travail (ici ou ailleurs). L’objectif de la loi 101 était de faire du français langue maternelle une langue fraternelle, pour qu’on puisse mettre en commun nos mémoires plurielles, nos parcours et nos rêves afin d’y puiser les ressources et l’audace pour faire du Québec une société prospère, pluraliste et égalitaire, et non pas une société où il y aurait deux classes de citoyens.

Le Québec accueille des immigrants depuis des générations. Beaucoup d’entre eux ont appris le français avant la loi 101. Depuis 1977, cette loi a obligé des dizaines de milliers de jeunes immigrants à fréquenter les écoles françaises pendant onze ans. En outre, bon nombre de nos immigrants sont originaires d’anciennes colonies françaises. Ils se chiffrent eux aussi par dizaines de milliers. Comme très peu d’entre eux déclarent le français comme langue maternelle, ils sont pour la plupart disqualifiés comme francophones, même si parmi eux on compte des professeurs de français, des professionnels qui travaillent en français, des écrivains et tant d’autres citoyens venus d’ailleurs, profondément attachés au Québec, pour qui le terme « Québec français » est un pléonasme.

La hiérarchie ainsi créée, entre le français de langue maternelle et le français de langue seconde, ne doit pas être prise à la légère. Elle crée des catégories de citoyens n’ayant pas la même valeur dans la société, situation propice au racisme. Nous savons comment, dans d’autres lieux, mais encore aujourd’hui, la hiérarchisation des cultures s’est substituée à celle fondée sur la race — lorsque celle-ci est devenue une hérésie scientifique —, avec des conséquences néfastes sur les plans politique et social. Au Québec, où langue et culture sont souvent interchangeables, il est temps de remiser cette aberration avant que des esprits moins inoffensifs que des déclinistes et des comptables ne s’en emparent.

L’État québécois est doté de suffisamment de pouvoirs et de ressources pour assurer la pérennité et l’essor de la culture et de la langue françaises. Qu’il les utilise efficacement et judicieusement sans blâmer ni pénaliser les immigrants. Entre 1971 et 2016, l’utilisation du français dans les écoles (maternelles, primaires et secondaires) est passée de 64 % à 90 %, tandis que la proportion d’immigrants francophones dépasse les 60 %, et pourra facilement augmenter si, comme l’indique le démographe Richard Marcoux, on va puiser dans l’énorme bassin francophone africain.

Le français n’est pas près de disparaître. Au Québec, il n’y a que 6 % de la population qui n’a aucune connaissance du français. La complexité de la situation linguistique exige de ceux qui l’analysent qu’on tienne compte de multiples critères et, surtout, qu’on désethnicise enfin la notion de francophone. Il serait honteux que les « voleurs de jobs » de l’après-guerre deviennent maintenant des « voleurs de langue ».

Selon Machiavel, « celui qui contrôle la peur des gens devient le maître de leurs âmes ». Partout en Occident, populistes et démagogues ont réussi à faire croire que les minorités immigrantes représentent une menace pour les modes de vie et l’identité de la majorité afin de s’emparer du pouvoir. Le Québec ne fait malheureusement pas exception.

Source: Du «racisme» linguistique

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Why Desperate People Are Suing Immigration Canada

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Good article and discussion, with good comments by Kareem El-Assal and Richard Kurland, particularly liked Aurland’s contrasting IRCC lack of status updates and application tracking with CRA’s client service:

From January to the end of February, Alejandro Ginares woke up daily at 6 a.m. in order to grab a spot in the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada phone queue.

He went about the business of his day — preparing breakfast, doing dishes and feeding his cat — until eventually, sometimes after eight hours of being on hold, he’d reach the front of the queue and receive a pre-recorded message: “all our agents are busy, try again later.” He’d hang up. If it was early he’d try again. If it was after 3 p.m., when the offices out east close, he’d make dinner, go to bed and start all over again the next day.

While news articles have been filled with stories of long lineups of Canadians stymied while renewing passports, less has been reported on how the pandemic and its knock-on effects have impacted would-be Canadians, whose immigration applications have been left in a backlog that has only increased since the beginning of the pandemic.

In Ginares’s case, he was desperately trying to track down the status of a permanent residency application he’d submitted 15 months before.

Occasionally he’d reach a human being, only to be told that his application was “not in the system.” He was baffled. He had paid the processing fee and had a Canada Post delivery confirmation in hand, certifying that the application had arrived at IRCC. He knew they’d received it. So why wasn’t he in the system?

Ginares eventually reached an agent who promised to help him. A few days later he got a response confirming for certain that his application had not entered the system.

It was then that he realized that IRCC had most likely lost his application.

“It’s awful to be waiting,” he says. “We don’t know if we’re waiting for a purpose or if we’re waiting for nothing.”

Resubmitting his application was risky. It would mean starting all over again. And it would cost another $1,000. He didn’t know what to do.

A geological engineer in Uruguay, Ginares had left his home and family to join his husband, Wendall Seldura, in Canada. The two had met in a cocktail and music bar in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2017. They’d fallen in love immediately and quickly decided that Canada was the country where they’d spend their future.

Ginares knew that permanent residency processing times can often reach 15 months. But he didn’t think it would take 15 months for the system to even receive his application, or approve a work permit.

Back home, Ginares worked, studied and volunteered. Now he feels like he’s stuck in limbo. “I fight every morning when I wake up to find motivation,” he says.

According to data released by IRCC Oct. 31, 2.2 million people are waiting for approval for temporary residence, permanent residence and Canadian citizenship applications. Like Ginares, 1.2 million have waited beyond the standard time expected for their application.

In permanent residency specifically, there are 603,700 applicants. Only 279,700 of these are being processed within standard times; 54 per cent, or 324,000 applications, are not being processed within the times projected by the agency.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix recently hit headlines when he called on Ottawa to halt the deportation of Claudia Zamorano, a hospital worker whose family is facing deportation because their applications have not yet been processed.

Nathaniel Preston, Ginares’s immigration consultant, says that he is seeing long wait times for all his clients. His colleagues report the same. “You exist but you don’t. You’re technically not supposed to be here. But maybe you could be here, if they approve the visa, or they restore your status,” he says.

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Proportion of women civil service leaders improves internationally – but only one G20 country [Canada] has achieved gender parity in top jobs

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Of note. When I last looked at EX breakdowns a number of years ago, there was, as one would expect, greater representation at more junior levels (directors and DGs EX1-3) than at the ADM level (EX4-5):

Less than one in three senior civil servants across the governments of G20 countries are women, new research from Global Government Forum has found.

The latest Women Leaders Index found that only one G20 country – Canada – has reached gender parity in the top five grades of its public service (at 51.1%), and just four more are within 10 percentage points of doing so.

However, there has been improvement – the G20 mean (29.3%) has increased by 1.6 percentage points since our last Index in 2020 and by 6.0 points since our first 10 years ago.

The long-running Women Leaders Index is a league table ranking G20, EU and OECD countries on the proportion of women in senior roles within their national civil services. As well as tracking progress over time, it includes comparisons with women in government, women politicians, and women on private sector boards, alongside interviews with public service leaders in two of the top performing countries – Canada and South Africa.    

Those leading the G20 pack behind Canada, are Australia and South Africa – which tie in second place – the UK, Brazil, and Mexico and the European Commission, which tie in fifth place. Mexico has increased the representation of women in civil service leadership positions the most of all G20 nations, by a dramatic 24.3 percentage points over the last decade, while South Africa has made the most improvement in the two years since the last Index – a jump of 7.2 points.

Bringing up the G20 rear are Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, China and Turkey, in which representation of women in the senior civil service is between 2.5% and 11.7%.

Countries including Germany, Italy, France and the US reside in the middle of the G20 ranking, with women accounting for between 32.0% and 38.0% of top roles in each.   https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rr33B/4/

EU and OECD countries faring better than those in the G20  

Though the G20 has traditionally been the main ranking in the Women Leaders Index, it also analyses representation of women in the highest grades of national civil services in EU and OECD countries.

The Index found that overall, EU and OECD countries are doing better on representation of women in senior positions in government departments and agencies – for which the mean proportions are 42.7% and 36.2% respectively – than those in the G20*.

The mean across the European Union’s member states has improved by 0.8 percentage points since 2020, and by 7.5 points since 2012, with nine of the EU’s 27 member states having reached gender parity in the top two tiers of their civil services. Bulgaria tops this ranking, with women accounting for 59.5% of those running government departments, followed by Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Finland, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, and Portugal.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GU3A7/4/

Read our Canada perspective from seasoned public service leader Yazmine Laroche, including transferable lessons on how to make progress towards gender parity

Croatia has made the most improvement of all EU nations since 2012 – a rise of 21.1 percentage points, while Bulgaria has made the greatest improvement since the 2020 Index, of 7.8 points.

Latvia, where women account for 56% of the top tiers of its civil service, tops the OECD ranking, while six more – Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand, Greece, Canada and Slovakia – have reached or exceeded gender parity.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wpOb5/2/

Regression in some countries – but public services performing better overall

While most G20, EU and OECD countries have improved the representation of women in the highest grades of their civil services in recent years, some have regressed.

The G20 data shows that in Russia and Argentina there are fewer officials in senior positions now than in 2020, while China, Turkey and South Korea have regressed since 2012.  

Six EU countries – Sweden, Poland, Cyprus, Italy, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg – perform worse in terms of representation of women in the top two tiers of the civil service since 2020, while Hungary is worse off now than 10 years ago.  

However, on a positive note, when looking at the means across the G20, EU and OECD, it is clear that civil services are doing better on representation of women in leadership roles compared with ministerial cabinet appointments, elected politicians and the boards of publicly-listed private sector companies.

Read our South Africa perspective from Zukiswa Mqolomba, deputy chairperson of the country’s Public Service Commission, on why making real and positive change isn’t just a numbers game

“Many governments have made impressive gains on representation of women in leadership positions in recent years as a result of concerted efforts to make change and should be applauded,” said Mia Hunt, author of the Women Leaders Index report and editor of globalgovernmentforum.com. 

“However, while it is widely accepted that civil services with diverse workforces that resemble the populations they serve turn out better policies and better outcomes for citizens, the mean proportion of women in top civil service positions across G20 nations is still less than 30%. Clearly, there is much more work to be done.

“We hope this Index gives the countries that have made progress the recognition they deserve, whilst serving as a wake-up call for those most in need of improvement. Let us see what’s changed when we publish the next in this Women Leaders Index series.”

*Please note that grade definitions vary between the G20, EU and OECD datasets. Caution should be exercised when making comparisons – see methodology here.

Source: Proportion of women civil service leaders improves internationally – but only one G20 country has achieved gender parity in top jobs

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