Health care researchers need to ask, ‘Who is Black?’ University of Ottawa professor says

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Why not just use Statistics Canada definitions, both visible minority and ethnic ancestry? Are the various terminologies used really that different or significant?

The real challenge lies more with respect to integrating this data with health card information, to allow this king of analysis and treatment, which of course will likely raise privacy issues.

For immigrants, I understand there is work underway to integrate immigration and health data but anonymized to allow for this kind of analysis in relation to health outcomes, information that could then hopefully be available through CIHI:

The inability to find a common term to describe Black people in Canadian health research can perpetuate inequities, a University of Ottawa professor says.

We need precise, accurate language because research informs public health policies, training for health-care workers and culturally appropriate and antiracist health-care practices, says Dr. Jude Mary Cénat, an associate professor of psychology and the director of University of Ottawa’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Black Health, Canada’s first academic research centre dedicated to studying the biological, social and cultural determinants of health for Black communities.

In Canadian health-care research, the definition of “who is Black” can vary widely. Terms such as “African-Canadian,” “Caribbean” and “African” are inconsistent and make it difficult to compare studies, he says.

The terms may include people who do not identify as Black, such as those who are from North Africa, and people from Caribbean nations including Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, who consider themselves to be Latin American.

From a health research point of view, that can be a problem, Cénat says. One example: A 2019 review of breast and cervical cancer among “Black Canadian” women included 23 studies, but only seven had unambiguously Black participants. Some studies considered “Africa” as a single block and included participants from North Africa, who may self-identify as Arab.

“Most people from Africa are Black. But you can’t assume they are Black,” Cénat says. “You can’t say Elon Musk (who was born in South Africa) is Black.”

Meanwhile, studies rarely differentiate between Black people whose ancestors have lived in Canada for centuries and those who are recent immigrants, he says. The 2016 census found that the 10th most commonly listed country of origin for people in Canada self-identifying as Black was the United States.

Getting a more precise answer may be as simple as asking people “What is your skin colour?” says Cénat, whose commentary was published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Researchers have to ask multiple questions, but the first one is how the subject identifies themselves, he says.

Cénat suggests asking research subjects the basic question: What is your skin colour? From there, it can lead to unraveling other questions about origins and ancestry. It’s also important to give research participants the opportunity to give more than one answer so that multiracial people can self-identify.

Asking questions related to race, ethnicity and region of origin may make some people uncomfortable. “We avoid that question. We ask people about their origin, not their skin colour,” Cénat says.

But health researchers can preface their questions by explaining why the questions are being asked and saying that the answers may help to improve health care for Black people in Canada.

“Researchers don’t have to be afraid of it,” he says.

If Black health research continues to be based on data that are unclear or inaccurate, there’s a risk that policies and programs will not meet the real needs of Black communities, Cénat warns.

Asking the right questions can also tease out more nuanced answers. For example, while the prevalence of diabetes is higher in Black communities than in the general population, some Black communities in Canada may be at more or less risk than others.

Cénat points out that, in Ottawa, racial minorities represent more than 30 per cent of the population.

“We need this because our population is a diverse population. We need to know more about the risk factors and the protective factors,” says Cénat, who studies the role that cultural factors play in vulnerability, trauma and resilience.

“We need to work with racial data that is precise. We need to say 10, 20, 30 years in the future that we have done something for these communities.”

Source: Health care researchers need to ask, ‘Who is Black?’ University of Ottawa professor says

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How a Canadian lawyer is helping the growing number of ultra-rich looking to exit China

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Interesting profile of Canadian immigration lawyer David Lesperance who specializes in business immigration.
Remain unconvinced that governments can design investor immigration or citizenship programs for the ultra-rich that provide meaningful benefits to Canada and Canadians as both the previous federal program, Quebec’s current program and programs of other countries largely demonstrate:
When a Chinese-Canadian billionaire faced a closed-door trial last month, four years after being snatched from Hong Kong, the event did not go unnoticed among China’s wealthy entrepreneurs.
It was the latest sign that they could be next as Beijing pushes down on the country’s most affluent business people, says a Canadian lawyer whose unique practice focuses on building back-up plans for “ultra-high-net-worth” individuals.
That nervousness is fueling a growing and urgent interest in leaving mainland China or Hong Kong, says David Lesperance.

The number of very-rich business people based in the region contacting him for help in getting out has tripled in the last couple of years, he says, as President Xi Jinping consolidates power, eliminates opponents and tightens his grip on once-free-wheeling Hong Kong.

And they tend to be wealthier, often worth billions, people who had been entrenched where they were until recently.

“These are clients who realize the chances of getting caught have increased dramatically — to not a will but a when question,” said Lesperance. “That group has now for the first time really contemplated ‘I’m going to have to leave some day. There is definitely a wildfire.’”

“We’ve been very busy since the beginning of the year.”

The resulting flight of “golden geese” could be an economic boon for the countries where they land. Canada is definitely among the mix of possible destinations but governments here should do more to attract the rich fleeing China — and their fortunes, said the lawyer

But luring such migrants is not without controversy. Ottawa’s investor immigrant program was actually cancelled in 2014 because of what the then-Conservative government said were an array of problems. Those immigrants had to fork out a relatively tiny investment, paid less taxes here, on average, than nannies, spent little time in Canada, and often learned neither English or French, critics said.

So far, China has not seen a major exodus of its richest citizens. It’s still home to 626 billionaires, second only to the United States’ 724, according to Forbes.

But Lesperance is not the only advisor noticing a growing trend among China’s wealthy to move at least their money out of the country.

Increasing numbers are parking assets in Singapore via the city state’s “family office” system, according to a survey in March by CNBC. Jenga, one of the firms that handles such transfers, told the news outlet it had seen demand double in just the previous 12 months.

Lesperance seems to come by the work honestly, having been raised in an almost borderless environment himself. A native of Windsor, Ont., his father worked in the auto industry across the river in Detroit and two of his siblings were born in a hospital there, giving them instant dual citizenship

He says his practice — which combines immigration and taxation advice — is divided about equally between clients in China/Hong Kong, the Middle East and the United States. He’s now based in Poland, where he can fit clients from multiple time zones into his daily schedule.

Many of Saudi Arabia’s wealthy are worried about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rising to the throne when his father, the king, dies. In the U.S., clients looking to decamp are divided between those who fear Democrats will boost taxes on the wealthy, and others who worry about a sharp shift to the right if the Republicans regain power nationally.

But the case of China highlights the dramatic changes Xi has wrought since coming to power in 2012, and the shifting role of business tycoons in the nominally Communist country.

Anxieties began with the 2019 proposal of an extradition treaty from Hong Kong to China, said Lesperance. It has increased as Beijing tightened the screws on Hong Kong, introducing a widely criticized National Security Law, imprisoning dissidents including media mogul Jimmy Lai and curbing the limited amount of democracy in the city’s government.

And there have been further scares on the mainland. Beijing recently quashed the thriving private-education industry and applied new pressure on the high-tech sector. Jack Ma, billionaire head of the Alibaba technology conglomerate, disappeared for months in 2020 and 2021 after he publicly criticized Chinese regulators, as an IPO for his Ant Group was suddenly axed.

Other moguls have also disappeared mysteriously. Xi’s announcement of a “common prosperity” program to more evenly spread wealth across the Chinese population has further put the very rich under pressure. Many China experts speculate that such campaigns are also about eliminating rivals to the Party’s — and Xi’s — power and control.

And then there is Xiao Jianhua, the Chinese born-and-bred Canadian citizen who was taken from his home in a Hong Kong hotel in 2017, surfacing just recently for a hasty, secretly held trial in China on unclear charges. His family in Toronto is still waiting to hear the verdict.

The case is “often cited” by clients who fear they could similarly run afoul of the government, said Lesperance. His bottom-line advice is that they prepare in advance for just that happening, rather than wait and see if things turn bad.

“You want to prevent the problem and avoid the wildfire, as opposed to trying to put it out after your house is on fire.”

Lesperance tells clients they must focus on moving both “ass and assets” — finding a place for their money and themselves and their family. That means deciding on a new home that works both “at the board table and the breakfast table,” somewhere the children can get a good education and the entrepreneur can keep running his or her business.

Popular destinations include Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. and this country.

To get into Canada, those wealthy migrants can set up a subsidiary of their business here and obtain work permits as corporate transfers. Provincial “nominee” programs provide a pathway to permanent residence but they’re a “dog’s breakfast,” said Lesperance.

He recommends Ottawa revive the investor immigrant class, with reforms to address past issues. That could include requiring the person to provide a clear financial benefit to Canada, a system to weed out money launderers and other “undesirables,” strict application of tax laws, and imposing a large fee to cover the cost of processing those and other applications, the lawyer said. With all of it done in a clear, timely way.

“The thing to remember is that Canada is in competition for these Golden Geese and must present an opportunity which is competitive with all the other countries which are also trying to get this group.”

Source: How a Canadian lawyer is helping the growing number of ultra-rich looking to exit China

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Nepal’s Parliament endorses bill to amend Citizenship Act

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Long time coming:

Nepal’s Parliament has endorsed the bill to amend its much-awaited Citizenship Act, 2006 through a majority vote, a decisive step that will help grant citizenship to the thousands of children born to naturalised Nepalese citizens.

Various provisions regarding granting status to foreign women married to Nepali men and children born in Nepal or from a Nepali mother were discussed by lawmakers before it was endorsed. The bill was endorsed in the House through a simple majority.

It will now move to the National Assembly before the president enacts this to become a part of the citizenship law. Once it passes the National Assembly, it will pave the way for thousands of children of parents who got citizenship by birth to acquire citizenship by descent.

All eligible Nepalis born before September 20, 2015, the day when the Constitution of Nepal was promulgated, were granted naturalised citizenship, according to media reports.

However, their children haven’t got citizenship in the absence of a law as the Constitution said the provision to grant them citizenship would be guided by federal law, it said. The federal law hasn’t been prepared even seven years after the promulgation of the statute, the report added.

The proposed amendment which takes the form of law and comes into effect, those who have not been able to get their citizenship through their mother will also be given citizenship by descent if he/she is living in Nepal.

The bill has been under discussion in the House of Representatives since 2020, but it failed to be endorsed due to differences among the political parties over various provisions. In 2018, the then KP Sharma Oli government registered the bill at the Parliament Secretariat.

Source: Nepal’s Parliament endorses bill to amend Citizenship Act

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ICYMI – Khan: Every community has a responsibility to address intimate partner violence

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Good column and reminnder:

Forty years ago, NDP MP Margaret Mitchell rose in Parliament to address the issue of domestic violence during question period, based on her experience hearing from battered women as a member of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. But her opening remarks, in which she recounted that one in 10 husbands regularly beat their wives, were met with derisive laughter and heckling from a number of fellow MPs. “I don’t think this is very much of a laughing matter,” she was forced to respond.

Around the same time, in the early 1980s, budding journalist Anna Maria Tremonti was experiencing the very trauma recounted in the committee hearings. Like so many women, she carefully hid all signs of intimate partner violence (IPV) from the outside world, and she went on to become a high-profile reporter, hosting The Current on CBC for many years. However, the emotional scars never really healed. Now – in a tremendous act of public service – she has courageously shared details of the pain and shame that she has carried privately for decades, in the podcast Welcome to Paradise.

Canada has come a long way in recognizing the issue of IPV, but it remains damaging on many levels. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner every six days, and children who witness violence in the home have twice the rate of psychiatric disorders as children from non-violent homes. Domestic violence also threatens a woman’s path to economic independence: roughly 40 per cent of victims found it difficult to return to work, while about 8.5 per cent said that they lost their jobs because of it.

As Nova Scotia’s inquiry into the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history examines the role of intimate partner violence, a recent U.S. studyfound that more than two-thirds of mass shootings from 2014 to 2019 stemmed from violence toward partners or family members, or are perpetrated by shooters with a history of domestic violence toward their intimates.

While Canada may not have the prevalence of mass shootings as the United States, we are certainly not immune to the type of incidents described in that study. In 2015, Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam were murdered by a mutual ex-partner in Ontario. After hearing testimony into the triple femicide last month, an inquest jury made 86 recommendations in response to the murders, including a recognition of femicide as a distinct crime and manner of death. It also called on Ontario to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.

Indeed, researchers have described the potential rise of IPV incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic as a “shadow pandemic”. Lockdowns increased the risk factors for IPV, owing to enhanced financial stressors, lack of space for women to leave the home, isolation from support systems and lack of privacy to call for help.

IPV occurs across faiths, cultures, and income groups. However, immigrant women may be more vulnerable to domestic violence owing to economic dependence on male partners, language barriers and a lack of knowledge about resources.

Within Muslim communities, there are a number of issues that exacerbate the potential for domestic violence. In some circles, there is tacit religious approval of beating one’s wife as a means of control and discipline. I still remember wandering into a bookshop on Toronto’s Gerrard Street while shopping for a wedding dress some 25 years ago, and reading a tract by an imam who counselled men to beat their wife on the wedding night. There needs to be unequivocal, repeated condemnation of all forms of domestic violence by imams when addressing their congregants.

Another issue is the concept of “sitr,” or concealment. Muslims are advised not to publicize the faults and mistakes of others. However, when the fault results in harm to another individual, there is a duty to report such behaviour to stop the harm. Unfortunately, some take “sitr” to an extreme, deeming spousal abuse as a “private matter,” without any consideration given to the harm inflicted. The limits of “sitr,” seen through the lens of harm prevention, need to be reconsidered.

In recent years, however, denial has given way to acknowledgement and efforts to remedy the problem. Sakeenah Homes, founded in 2018, has provided culturally appropriate services to women, children and families facing homelessness, violence and poverty. And since 2015, Nisa Homes has opened nine shelters across Canada, providing refuge and care to more than 1,000 women and children. These spaces can empower and give hope to the vulnerable, allowing the broken to be rebuilt.

The scourge of IPV will not disappear anytime soon. We must address it with resolve to protect the most vulnerable – and never lose sight of the inherent dignity, resilience and strength of each and every woman forced to traverse this most difficult path.

Source: Every community has a responsibility to address intimate partner violence

Filed under Honour Killings, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Tories, advocates call on Ottawa to remove bureaucratic hurdles to resettling Afghans

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

Needed:

Opposition Conservatives are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to extend a special immigration program it set up to bring Afghans trying to flee the Taliban to Canada.

Tory MP Jasraj Singh Hallan says Ottawa has failed in its moral obligation to help people who assisted Canada with its military mission in Afghanistan and now face reprisals from the Taliban, which seized control of Kabul last year.

Trudeau’s government had announced plans to resettle 40,000 Afghans and put in place several programs through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to help meet the goal.

Among those was a special immigration program to which Afghan nationals could apply if they had assisted members of the Canadian Armed Forces as interpreters or worked at Canada’s embassy.

Ottawa made room for 18,000 Afghans to come to Canada through this program.

According to the federal government’s website, it has received around 15,000 applications, 10,730 of which have been approved.

It reports that 7,205 Afghans have actually arrived through the program.

“It took the government a year to process less than half of the Afghans who applied through these measures,” Hallan said at a news conference Thursday.

He said a recent decision by the Ottawa to wind down the program because nearly all of the application spots are full is “shameful.”

Hallan also questioned why caps were placed on these programs in the first place, including the government’s overall commitment of taking 40,000 Afghans, when there are thousands more in danger.

Speaking in Nova Scotia on Thursday, Trudeau didn’t directly address whether Ottawa would expand the special measures program, but said one of the challenges is that there are hundreds of thousands of Afghans who would like to leave.

Hallan was joined at his news conference by two Afghans who managed to leave and make it to Canada.

Saeeq Shajjan, a lawyer, said colleagues have spent 11 months waiting to hear back from the federal immigration department, a delay he says is unacceptable.

He pointed out the situation is nothing like routine family reunification where a relative is waiting safely in another country to come to Canada.

“You’re talking about people who are at risk right now just because of the services they provided to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and it really needs to change now.”

Rahima Paiman, who was among those evacuated to Canada last year, said some Afghans are hiding in third countries, adding that women face particular risk under Taliban rule.

“Those women who did their best in Afghanistan are now in danger. Their very lives are at risk. I’m requesting you to please not stop supporting women in Afghanistan.”

Source: Tories, advocates call on Ottawa to remove bureaucratic hurdles to resettling Afghans

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B.C. ending immigration detention arrangement with CBSA, citing human rights

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

Will be interesting too see if Quebec and Nova Scotia follow suit:

British Columbia is ending an agreement with Canada Border Services Agency to hold immigration detainees in provincial correctional centres, saying the arrangement doesn’t align with its stance on human rights.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said in a statement Thursday the province conducted a review that analyzed its contract with the agency, including public safety, and consulted with advocacy groups.

“The review brought to light that aspects of the arrangement do not align with our government’s commitment to upholding human rights standards or our dedication to pursuing social justice and equity for everyone,” he said.

The report said the number of immigration detainees in provincial custody is declining but provincial jails are used to holding “high risk detainees.” It also noted that while CBSA compensates BC Corrections to hold detainees, it does not cover the total cost.

“This is a trend that is likely to continue given the overall reduction in the number of detainees in provincial custody. If the arrangement ended, these are resources that could be used to support BC Corrections’ clients, including individuals in custody with complex needs and behaviours,” it said.

The move comes following calls from the groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for B.C. to terminate its immigration detention contract with the federal government.

The groups released a report in June 2021 saying immigrants with no criminal charges against them are detained in holding centres, federal prisons or provincial jails for “indeterminate amounts of time.” They launched a campaign calling on B.C. to end its contract last October, and later expanded their push to Quebec and Nova Scotia.

“Canada is among the few countries in the global north with no legal limit on the duration of immigration detention, meaning people can be detained for months or years with no end in sight,” the groups said in a joint news release following the announcement. “British Columbia’s decision is a major milestone on the path to ending immigration detention in provincial jails in Canada.”

Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, said in the statement that she commends B.C. on being the first province to make the decision, calling ita “momentous step.”

“This is a true human rights victory, one which upholds the dignity and rights of people who come to Canada in search of safety or a better life,” she said.

Farnworth said BC Corrections will be providing CBSA with 12 months’ notice as is required under its current contract.

The human rights groups said BC Corrections has told them the province will give the agency official written notice to terminate the contract next week.

Source: B.C. ending immigration detention arrangement with CBSA, citing human rights

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Canada’s immigration backlog has never been worse

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

The ever increasing backlogs understandably continue to attract attention. However, apart from CILA and a few individuals, haven’t seen any call for a pause in applications or heaven forbid, reduced levels, to address the backlogs:

In tandem with the increasing backlog has also been a precipitous rise in Federal Court cases from frustrated applicants demanding a reply from the IRCC.

They’re called “mandamus cases,” and it’s essentially an application for the court to order a response from IRCC. Before the pandemic there were only a few dozen mandamus cases per year. Last year, there were more than 400.

In prior statements, the federal government has largely attributed the crushing IRCC delays to the COVID-19 pandemic and the avalanche of refugee applications from Afghanistan and Ukraine. Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the formation of a special committee to figure out how to reduce wait times.

Amid history-making line-ups at Canadian airports and passport offices, an absolutely crushing backlog at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is putting them all to shame.

According to numbers obtained from the IRCC by the immigration-focused publication CIC News, there are now 2.7 million people waiting for Ottawa to process their immigration application.

The backlog encompasses every application filed to IRCC, from citizenship to visas to requests for permanent residency. The backlog of citizenship applications alone stands at 444,792, while most of the list (1.7 million) is applications for temporary residence.

Not only is it the worst immigration backlog of all time, but it is growing exponentially with each passing week. This time last year, the backlog was just 1.5 million names, according to CIC News. In just the last 30 days, the list has grown by 300,000 — an increase of roughly 1,000 new applicants per day.

All told, there are now more people awaiting a reply from the IRCC than there are residents of Atlantic Canada. As of press time, the population of all four Atlantic provinces (including Newfoundland and Labrador) is roughly 2.5 million.

If the backlog continues to grow at the current rate, it will only be another four months until the number of applicants awaiting processing by the IRCC is equivalent to 10 per cent of the Canadian population of 38 million.

This has thrown immigration wait times into complete disarray at the precise time that Canada is touting itself as a haven for refugees, most notably from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Many of those 2.7 million represent foreign nationals dwelling in a kind of awkward limbo as they spend years awaiting updates from the IRCC.

Last month, Pakistani man Kazim Ali told CTV he applied for Canada’s Express Entry program in 2020, when the estimated wait for a reply was six months. Two years later, he hasn’t heard a thing, bringing the life of he and his wife “to a screeching halt” as they delay career choices and even children until they can hear back.

An increasingly overwhelmed IRCC is also making it difficult to reliably schedule any event in Canada that involves foreign nationals. Last month, both a Montreal AIDS symposium and a major Toronto tech conference saw dozens of invitees unable to attend because of difficulties in obtaining Canadian visas.

In a recent report by the Business Council of Canada, Canadian employers cited “processing delays” as the top barrier to recruiting international talent.

“Frustrated by application processing delays, complex rules, and the cost of navigating the system, fewer than a quarter (of survey respondents) say the immigration system currently serves their business needs well,” it read.

In tandem with the increasing backlog has also been a precipitous rise in Federal Court cases from frustrated applicants demanding a reply from the IRCC.

They’re called “mandamus cases,” and it’s essentially an application for the court to order a response from IRCC. Before the pandemic there were only a few dozen mandamus cases per year. Last year, there were more than 400.

In prior statements, the federal government has largely attributed the crushing IRCC delays to the COVID-19 pandemic and the avalanche of refugee applications from Afghanistan and Ukraine. Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the formation of a special committee to figure out how to reduce wait times.

Source: Canada’s immigration backlog has never been worse 

Brian Lilley on Roxham Road (usual hyperbole about Trudeau’s tweet):

In the first six months of this year, more people crossed illegally into Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec than in all of 2019. The asylum seekers fast-track route may have all but shut down for much of the pandemic, but now it’s back in business with gusto.

According to the latest federal figures, 16,319 people entered Canada at “irregular” border crossings in Quebec between Jan. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2022. That includes 3,449 in May and 3,066 in June.

Those are the second- and third-highest months on record, surpassed only by August 2017.

By comparison, in 2019 a total of 16,136 people crossed at Roxham Road, and there were 18,518 illegal crossers in 2018 and 18,836 in 2017. The advent of COVID-19 saw the flow of asylum seekers at the Quebec-New York border slow to a trickle with just over 3,000 in 2020 and just over 4,000 in 2021, with most of them coming in December of that year.

This whole thing started when Justin Trudeau put out a tweet welcoming the world to Canada as then newly elected president Donald Trump threatened to deport people back to Haiti from the United States. What was lost on most is that Trump was ending a program that allowed people to stay in the U.S. if they were displaced by the earthquake or at risk following Haiti’s 2004 coup. Canada had ended a similar program years earlier under the Harper government and Trudeau had kept the policy in place and was removing people even as he criticized Trump.

With Trump threatening to do what Canada had already done, many looked north, and Trudeau welcomed them with open arms.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada” Trudeau tweeted on January 28, 2017.

Days later, embassy staff from Mexico were writing to officials at Global Affairs seeking advice on how to handle people looking to declare refugee status in Canada.

“We are receiving an increasing number of enquiries from the public about requesting refugee status in Canada, and a number clearly having links with our Prime Minister’s tweet this weekend,” one email read.

It wasn’t just staff in Mexico. Word spread that Canada would take anyone as a refugee and many decided to use the illegal border crossing to skip dealing with the system.

Since then, more than 77,000 people — that’s more than the population of Belleville, Ont. or Chateauguay, Que. — have crossed at Roxham alone. The government has built special processing facilities there, establishing posts for immigration and RCMP officers to process people.

This is nothing short of the Liberals attempting to import another American political issue into Canada to wedge the Conservatives. In Canada, Conservatives support high numbers for legal immigration, something we saw throughout the Harper years.

What Conservatives don’t support is people who break the law.

This is where we get into word games. The Liberals claim no one is breaking the law, that these are asylum seekers and under Canadian — and international — law it is legal for them to seek asylum. The reality is, the government has giant signs warning people that it is illegal to cross at Roxham and the RCMP give verbal warnings that anyone doing so will be arrested for breaking the law.

They only claim asylum once arrested.

Nigeria is the biggest source of people crossing at Roxham and just 30% of the more than 16,000 who crossed there between February 2017 and March 2022 were accepted as valid refugees. For the more than 10,000 Haitians who crossed — the second-largest source country, just 23% were accepted.

Roxham Road has become a way for those looking to skip the long delays in legal, economic migration to get into Canada.

This isn’t how a properly functioning immigration and refugee system should work, but very little of what the Trudeau government is doing these days is working properly.

Source: LILLEY: Trudeau continues immigration games as Roxham Road sees record numbers

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May: Top bureaucrat urges summer test drive of hybrid public service workforce

2022/07/22 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how this works out and how departments develop and implement guidelines and requirements:

Canada’s top bureaucrat wants public servants back in the office part-time this summer to test drive running federal departments with a hybrid workforce.

Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette recently wrote to deputy ministers calling on them to use the summer to experiment with hybrid work so their departments are ready for a full implementation by the fall.

“My expectation is that departments are actively testing hybrid work models,” Charette wrote.

“Encouraging broad employee participation in experimentation, particularly with onsite presence, is key to working through the challenges and making the most of the opportunities to shift toward a new way of working.”

The clerk is the top boss, but can’t issue directives to the public service. That authority rests with Treasury Board as the employer. However, the clerk’s power over deputy ministers, who serve at the pleasure of the prime minister, comes from her recommendations on the hiring, firing and performance pay of deputy ministers.

Treasury Board approved the move to a hybrid workforce, but took a hands-off approach and left it up to departments to decide how to make the shift and how to bring workers back to the office. This sparked complaints about inconsistency and indecision that fed the notion among public servants that they can work anywhere.

Many office workers – about half of the public service – don’t want to  come back to the office as they did before COVID. Surveys show 85 per cent want a hybrid approach, working at home and at the office. The rest – from border and prison guards to nurses, scientists and spies – are not able to work from home.

After more than two years working from home, many public servants feel successfully delivered the government’s pandemic response.

They’ve adapted their lives but now a new more contagious Omicron subvariant is making public servants even more resistant to spending time in the office or riding transit. High gasoline prices make it even more difficult to convince people to commute.

Several senior bureaucrats who are not authorized to speak publicly said hybrid work is a new ballgame that departments haven’t figured out yet – partly because they can’t get enough people in the office to test it. They hope Charette’s letter will help bring more structure or guidelines on how to do it.

“What was happening is that everybody thought ‘yippee’ we can do whatever,” said one senior bureaucrat. “People’s idea of flexibility is that every single day they can work from home; not show up at the office or work from anywhere in the country or the world.”

“We can’t be driven by people’s emotions, preferences and opinions. Let’s be driven by experimentation and get the facts and data on what works and what doesn’t.”

Another said something had to give “because we seemed to be the only employer in the country that thinks it’s outrageous to ask people back to work.”

The move to hybrid is a massive shift for the public service. It will change everything about work and how it’s done. The need for security, technology, bandwidth, office space and design will change, as will labour agreements and the way services are delivered and policies are executed.

Meredith Thatcher, co-founder and workplace strategist at Agile Work Evolutions,  said the current version of hybrid is not the same as it was working in an emergency during the pandemic when rules and processes were streamlined, bent or even discarded.

“It’s going to be new. Sometimes you just have to live it in order to figure out how to make it work, and they haven’t had the opportunity to live it. So that’s what the clerk is saying is, ‘Please let’s start living this because we can learn only if we start living it.’”

In her letter, Charette said the “one-size fits all approach” has limits for an organization as large and complex as government, but employees deserve “coherence in how hybrid approaches are applied across the enterprise.”

She reminded deputy ministers they have two responsibilities – the management of their departments and being stewards of the public service as an institution.

“You are collectively responsible for the development of the federal public service of today and tomorrow. I urge you to keep in mind this dual responsibility as you test new ways of working,” she told deputies.

Many say departments dragged their feet because they didn’t have central direction; or were scared of setting guidelines that might not work or backfire; or waited to see what others did. A big worry now, for example, is that workers will pick up and move to the departments that offer the most flexibility to work remotely.

Thatcher said another problem is understanding what people do, when and how they perform the tasks of the job. That’s more than figuring out what tasks need to be done in the office.

A public servant could do all the tasks of their jobs at home, but what about the benefits of working in the presence of others? Departments have to figure out how, when and where to do that. In-person meetings – whether for camaraderie or collaboration – leads to brainstorming that generates new ideas or innovations.

That’s all part of what Charette wants deputy ministers to figure out.

“Now is the time for us to test new models with a view to full implementation in the fall, subject to public health conditions,” she wrote.

But Charette noted this call back to the office is not signalling a return of the old ways of working pre-pandemic. Working from home offers employees flexibility and a way for managers to recruit a more diverse workforce outside of Ottawa and across the country.

She said bringing people together in the office means opportunities for “enhanced idea generation and knowledge transfer, and building a strong public service culture.”  She said the hybrid workplace should “blend” the best of the traditional and new ways of working.

For unions, the ideal is finding the balance between where employees prefer to work and the operational requirements of the jobs.

Dany Richard, co-chair of the joint union and management National Joint Council, said the clerk’s letter is a “gamechanger” which is reverberating across departments. He said the big takeaway is no one can “predominantly work remotely.”

Richard, who is also head of the Association of Canadian Financial Officers, said members who previously had the go-ahead to mostly work remotely are now being told they may have to come into the office for a day or two every week.

“Before that letter, no one was in a rush. Everyone was saying, ‘Okay, let’s work out our plans, our office designs, let’s get ready, and then slowly start bringing people back.’”

Jennifer Carr, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said Treasury Boards guidelines were too wishy-washy and never really defined hybrid work.

This left departments all over the map, she said.  Some allowed remote work while others arbitrarily demanded workers return to the office – one, two or three days a week.

She said employees are already shopping for jobs, looking to move to departments that offer the most flexibility. Public servants have created Facebook pages to advertise remote jobs and some unions are ranking which departments are the most open to remote work.

Source: Top bureaucrat urges summer test drive of hybrid public service workforce

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New evidence disputes Trump administration’s citizenship question rationale

2022/07/22 Leave a comment

No suprise:

Previously unreleased internal communications indicate the Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question to the census with the goal of affecting congressional apportionment, according to a report issued Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The documents appear to contradict statements made under oath by then-Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who told the committee that the push for a citizenship question was unrelated to apportionment and the reason for adding it was to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The nearly 500 documents include several drafts of an August 2017 memorandum prepared by a Commerce Department lawyer and political appointee, James Uthmeier, in which he initially warned that using a citizenship question for apportionment would probably be illegal and violate the constitution, the report said.

Source: New evidence disputes Trump administration’s citizenship question rationale

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Munro and Lamb: The pandemic forced Canadian business out of a tech lethargy. What happens next?

2022/07/21 Leave a comment

A reminder that the government’s strategy of relying on immigration to address labour shortages neglects the role that technology can and does play.

The government’s focus on addressing business demands for more immigration reduces incentives for businesses to adapt new technology and improve productivity.

This analysis by Munro and Lamb should be a wake-up call to governments:

Canadians tend to think that innovation is mainly about inventing, producing and selling new technologies and products. Largely neglected in the discourse about innovation in Canada is the critical role of technology adoption or tech-taking. Technology adoption is often viewed as a lesser form of innovation, if it is viewed as innovation at all. Yet, adopting technologies that range from data analytics software to communication and collaboration tools, e-commerce platforms, and design technologies can enhance productivity and growth. It can also generate more and better employment opportunities, and enable new and different kinds of innovation.

Why are so many Canadian firms technology adoption laggards? Why are they content with low-tech business strategies? The short answer, borrowing an observation from Peter Nicholson, is that Canadian business has been “only as innovative as it has needed to be” – and, we might add, can be. Firms across a range of sectors have been able to maintain above-average profits for decades with low-wage strategies and minimal innovation and technology adoption. Among those that have seen the need to change, many face resource, knowledge and skills constraints that prevent them from doing so.

But our longstanding low-tech, low-innovation equilibrium may be changing, as we reveal in a new report on Canada’s technology trajectories.

Not only has the pandemic forced firms in key sectors to adopt new technologies to sustain operations, but recent changes in the ways technologies are packaged and sold have improved the cost-benefit analysis facing firms. For example, the increasing adoption of cloud solutions has meant that instead of making large upfront investments in hardware or software, firms can now purchase subscriptions that are easily administered, can be scaled up or down, canceled or customized and often have readily accessible education and consulting services. Are we in the midst of a fundamental shift in Canadian firms’ attitudes about the benefits and feasibility of adopting new technologies? Or will pre-pandemic lethargy return?

Canada’s pre-pandemic tech lethargy

Prior to the pandemic, Canada was a laggard on business investments in information and communications technologies (ICT). ICT investment per job in Canada, for example, has ranged from just 54 per cent to 68 per cent of U.S. levels since the late 1990s – largely due to lower investment in software and databases and contributing to our weak productivity relative to the U.S.

On another measure of ICT investment, Canada’s performance has deteriorated absolutely and relative to peers. In 2000, ICT investment as a share of total gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) in Canada was roughly 16 per cent. By 2019, this had declined to 11 per cent – roughly six percentage points lower than investment levels in France and the U.S. Since 1995 – when Canada trailed only the U.K. and the U.S. among G7 countries for whom data were available – we have been overtaken by France and Italy and now trail four of the six countries with available data (figure 1).

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Canadian firms often cite weak incentives to explain why they do not adopt technology, with many firms saying that investment is “not necessary for continued operations” or that they were “not convinced of the economic benefit” of candidate technologies. Other data aligns with this explanation. Notably, Canadian firms’ profitability has been rising over the past two decades, reducing incentives to adopt technologies to sustain revenue. Between 1997 and 2017, average annual growth of after-tax profits rose 7.6 per cent over the period. Profits as a share of GDP rose from 8.4 per cent in 1997 to 15.2 per cent by 2017, and since 2000 have exceeded that of the U.S. both before and after tax (figure 2).

At the same time, many firms recognize how technology adoption could help maintain or improve competitiveness, but they lack the capacity to make the change. This includes financial resources to purchase new technologies or technology service subscriptions; access to skills to implement, use, and maintain technologies; organizational and management cultures equipped to embrace and effectively use new technologies; and other factors. Given these weak incentives and substantial barriers, it is easy to see why business leaders might stick with existing low-tech strategies rather than shifting to an alternative.

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The pandemic tech shock

The pandemic and associated restrictions sent shockwaves through Canada’s low-tech equilibrium. Key sectors recognized that lagging technology adoption was no longer an option. Implementing a range of communications, e-commerce, logistics and other technologies would be necessary for survival. 

Retail firms, for example, realized that they had to find ways to reach customers virtually or go out of business. Turn-key online sales platforms, like Canada’s own Shopify, along with government- and industry-supported digital adoption support programs, like Digital Main Street, helped move many businesses’ retail operations online. The result? From February 2020 to May 2021 retail e-commerce sales in Canada increased by over $2 billion, reaching an all-time high of more than $4.1 billion – an increase of 127 per cent relative to May 2019 (figure 3).

Similarly, non-retail firms that depend on the efforts of people to provide services, collaborate, and interact with clients and colleagues to generate value have adopted virtual platforms to enable interaction. Platforms like Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and myriad collaboration software. In the first quarter of 2021, when businesses were asked what technologies they adopted due to the pandemic, collaboration tools and cloud solutions were the most frequently cited.

This rose to over 50 per cent of businesses in information and cultural industries and professional, scientific, and technical services, two highly knowledge-intensive sectors. What began as a necessary change to maintain operations and sales has the potential to become a new, higher technology equilibrium for Canada.

The intangible shift

Much of the accelerated tech adoption amidst the pandemic has been facilitated by a trend that was gathering momentum before the pandemic – a shift away from more tangible kinds of technology investment, like hardware and IT systems, and toward more intangible, ICT-as-a-service investments, like cloud solutions and ready-made software. More intangible technology options help address some of the historical barriers to technology adoption, such as high cost, high skills needs, and integration with existing systems.

Cloud computing services offer a useful illustration. Instead of making large upfront investments in physical software and/or hardware, firms are now able to purchase ongoing subscriptions for services, which are easily administered and can be scaled up or down, canceled or customized depending on the effectiveness of the services and firms’ changing needs. Cloud services help de-risk and ease the purchase and use of digital technologies, overcoming one of the key barriers to technology adoption and use that have long faced Canadian firms.

And the shift is striking: Canadian firms spent $420 million on cloud services in 2006 and nearly $2.6 billion in 2014 – an annual growth rate of more than 25 per cent over the period. Contrast that to the 20 per cent annual growth in cloud service spending among firms in the U.S. over the same period. By 2017, 29 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reported using cloud computing technologies over the previous three years, which was the most frequently selected technology, above data analytics, customer relationship management software, and enterprise resource planning software, to name a few.

The embrace of cloud services prior to and during the pandemic suggests that current data and measurement probably underestimate the extent to which Canadian firms are investing in and using technology because subscription cloud services are not always reported by firms as technology investments. By how much, exactly, is not clear, though there are some signals.

Moreover, while we expect that, over time, these investments will begin to have an effect on, and show up in measurements of, productivity and growth, we are not yet seeing the results. Still, given what we know about the relationships among technology adoption, productivity and growth, it is encouraging to see technology adoption strategies emerging in the face of new constellations of incentives and capabilities.

What’s next for technology diffusion in Canada? 

What does the future hold for technology adoption in Canada? Early indicators suggest that many Canadian firms may stick with the technologies they adopted during the pandemic and add more. Retail firms have learned that e-commerce can complement and expand in-person sales, and many employers have seen how remote work and collaboration can improve talent recruitment and retention. Moreover, the intangible shift has reduced the cost of technologies, making long-term technology adoption options more feasible.

Still, old habits die hard. A number of managers still prefer to have their employees interact in-person and many retail firms will welcome the return to in-person, albeit smaller, markets. Those firms that try to maintain higher technology adoption patterns will need people with technical skills to implement and use new kinds of technologies – and these skills may be scarce in the years ahead. Access to digital infrastructure (such as sufficient broadband) remains spotty in rural and remote areas, and cybersecurity continues to be a challenge for many firms. Even with new incentives to maintain or increase technology adoption, barriers will remain.

If governments and large anchor firms can find ways to help small and medium firms overcome labour and infrastructure challenges, Canada might shift to a higher technology adoption trajectory and reap the innovation and productivity benefits it generates. The financial, technical, and infrastructure support provided by programs like Digital Main Street, the Canada Digital Adoption Program, and the Universal Broadband Fund are promising signs that governments are willing to do their part. What remains to be seen is whether Canadian businesses are ready to leave behind the low-wage, low-technology equilibrium and embrace a higher technology, higher productivity, and higher wage and well-being future.

Source: The pandemic forced Canadian business out of a tech lethargy. What happens next?

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