David: La sécurité imaginaire [Bill 96]

2022/05/27 Leave a comment

One side of Quebec commentary on Bill 96:

Quand on est en politique, où l’horizon ne s’étend guère au-delà de la prochaine élection, il devient parfois difficile de distinguer le compromis, qui facilite la victoire, de la compromission, qui sacrifie l’essentiel.

« Une grande journée pour le français », a déclaré le premier ministre François Legault après l’adoption du projet de loi 96. Il doit surtout se féliciter de la levée de boucliers dans la communauté anglophone et au Canada anglais.

Même si les dispositions de la « nouvelle loi 101 » demeurent bien insuffisantes pour enrayer le déclin du français, la colère des anglophones, partagée tardivement par le Parti libéral du Québec, et la réprobation du pays apparaissent aux yeux d’une majorité de francophones comme autant de signes qu’elles vont dans la bonne direction.

Le sentiment de sécurité que peut procurer l’impression d’être en mesure de dicter les règles du jeu dispense d’envisager les moyens plus décisifs que nécessiterait la survie d’une société française en Amérique du Nord et permet de rationaliser le manque d’audace collective qui a causé la défaite du « oui » en 1995.

S’il a provoqué chez les représentants de la communauté anglophone des dérapages qui ont parfois frôlé le délire, le débat sur le projet de loi 96 n’a d’ailleurs pas eu chez les francophones l’effet galvanisant de celui qu’avait suscité l’adoption de la loi 101.
* * * * *
Dans un essai qu’il vient de publier sous le titre La nation qui n’allait pas de soi, Alexis Tétreault, doctorant en sociologie à l’UQAM, évoque la nouvelle « mythologie de la normalité » qui aurait remplacé la traditionnelle « mythologie de la vulnérabilité » dans la conscience politique québécoise.

L’Acte constitutionnel de 1791 avait pu donner pendant un temps l’illusion que la Conquête n’empêcherait pas l’ancienne Nouvelle-France de poursuivre son développement d’une façon à peu près normale. Après l’écrasement des patriotes et l’Acte d’Union, la conscience de leur vulnérabilité et la crainte de l’assimilation n’ont cessé d’habiter l’imaginaire de leurs descendants.

C’est toujours ce désir d’échapper au sort prévu par le rapport Durham et d’aménager un espace politique où leur situation majoritaire permettrait aux Québécois de retrouver cette normalité qui a largement inspiré la Révolution tranquille et le mouvement indépendantiste.

Malgré le coup de force constitutionnel de 1982 et l’échec du référendum de 1995, Alexis Tétreault constate le maintien « d’une hégémonie de l’imaginaire majoritaire et de la nouvelle mythologie de la normalité qui est, pour le moins, inconsciente du péril de la minorisation-assimilation ».

Son maître à penser, le sociologue Jacques Beauchemin, l’avait exprimé de la façon suivante dans Une démission tranquille : « À force de ne pas disparaître et de se maintenir, les Canadiens français et, après eux, les Québécois de la Révolution tranquille ont fini par intégrer la certitude de leur perduration. »
* * * * *
Il est sans doute heureux que les Québécois ne vivent plus continuellement dans la hantise de disparaître ni dans l’impression d’être « nés pour un p’tit pain », mais cette nouvelle sérénité ne doit pas se traduire en inconscience. La diminution du poids démographique du Québec au sein du Canada et celui des francophones au sein du Québec sont des réalités incontournables.

« Ce sentiment d’éternité fera-t-il long feu à mesure que s’effriteront cette stabilité démographique et cette rhétorique en inadéquation avec la tendance démographique et politique du Canada ? » demande M. Tétreault.

Les francophones acceptent volontiers, se réjouissent même de vivre dans une société diversifiée et acceptent, à ce jour, qu’elle s’inscrive dans le cadre fédéral canadien. Encore faut-il que les règles du vivre-ensemble soient compatibles avec la survie de cette « majorité minoritaire », qui marche elle aussi sur la ligne fine entre le compromis et la compromission.

Même ce que le premier ministre Legault estime « raisonnable », qu’on pourrait également qualifier de minimal, est remis en question. Le ministre fédéral de la Justice, David Lametti, a confirmé que le gouvernement Trudeau s’associerait à la contestation de la loi 21 sur la laïcité devant la Cour suprême, et ce n’est qu’une question de temps avant que la loi 96 se retrouve à son tour devant les tribunaux.

Il est clair que le grand débat sur l’immigration, que M. Legault annonce pour son deuxième mandat, provoquera un autre affrontement, qui pourrait être encore plus dramatique. Une sécurité imaginaire n’a jamais protégé qui que ce soit. Qu’ils le veuillent ou non, les Québécois devront un jour avoir le courage de regarder les choses en face.

Source: La sécurité imaginaire

Filed under Other Tagged with , , , ,

Debating difference and diversity: combining multiculturalist and interculturalist approaches to integration

2022/05/26 Leave a comment

Much of these debates and discussions are more semantics than substantive, as the devil is in the details regarding the specific practices and policies of integration, social cohesion, multiculturalism and interculturalism:

In the UK, as elsewhere in Western Europe, issues of integration and social cohesion in relation to ethno-cultural minorities are never far from the headlines or policy concerns in one form or another. In the last year, events such as the Black Lives Matters protests, COVID-19, the Euros, and the upcoming Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, have all prompted reflection on integration. In 2019 the government published a new indicators of integration framework and the term has again been the central concern of a recent report by a prominent think tank, which notes that integration is ‘one of the slipperiest concepts in the political lexicon’.

One of the central issues to thinking about integration is what is to be done about ethno-cultural difference? Is it a problem to be overcome, a barrier to integration? Is it something positive, to be embraced and celebrated? Should it be overlooked in favour of what we all, as individuals, have in common, or should it be the ground we build a more equitable sense of belonging from?

The term integration can be not just slippery but the site of antagonistic and at times heated debate. These two properties of antagonism and slipperiness are well exemplified in debates between two alternative camps on how to manage and think about integration and ethno-cultural diversity: multiculturalism and interculturalism. Whereas the former emphasises respect for difference and hyphenated identities, the latter emphasises contact, mixing and what is shared or common against difference.

The two have frequently butted heads in academic debates, with multiculturalism under fire from interculturalists as in need of replacement, something reflected in political and policy discourse. For instance, the government’s 2018 Integrated Communities Strategy stated that ‘multiculturalism has too often encouraged communities to live separate lives – reinforcing distinct cultural identities to the detriment of efforts to draw attention to what we have in common – and is defunct’. Multiculturalists have responded by pointing out how these arguments misrepresent or caricature multiculturalism.   

In a new research project, PLURISPACE, we ask if this antagonism must necessarily be the case. We’ve found that integration as it exists in government policy as well as policy advocacy from civil society organisations more often combines these two opponents in various ways, and this is where the slipperiness comes in. Peeling back from political rhetoric and academic theory debates, what might we learn from the slipperiness?

While policies that are consistent with an intercultural position have become central, through increased emphasis on contact and mixing, as well in discourse around fundamental British values, the term itself is found nowhere in policy documents or parliamentary debates themselves (unlike, for example, in Spain or at the EU level). Moreover, these interculturalism gains have not been to the detriment of multicultural policies, which have also shown an increase over the last few decades. This begins to point to types of complementarity between different approaches, which forms the focus of the PLURISPACE project. But what different forms does such complementarity take in practice?

From an analysis of documents produced by prominent civil society organisations, supplemented by interviews, we can point to three main types of complementary form in which multiculturalism and interculturalism are combined in the UK, reflected in alternative emphases on the idea of integration. The first two represent what we might call a principled multiculturalism, complemented or qualified by interculturalism to different extents.

The first variation is broadly multiculturalist in emphasis. It wants to preserve the importance of difference between ethnic, cultural, and faith communities whilst developing a sense of multicultural nationhood that can include these differences. Integration is thought about as relations between communities and across difference, but which adds to this the need for contact and mixing between people of different ethnicities and faiths and a simultaneous emphasis on what is held in common if it is to be successful. Here, integration is very much a ‘two-way street’.

The second variation represents a more equal mixing of multiculturalism and interculturalism. It is more cautious of stronger statements about group rights but with a significant feature; its underlying premises can be said to be more multiculturalist than interculturalist. That is, underpinning interculturalist features is a stronger sense of the need to recognise and respect difference as a fundamental way in which equality is thought about. As one report puts it: ‘If integration is not about everybody, it is not integration‘. Interculturalist emphases from this position are important, but bound to fail if not substantively underpinned by thicker multiculturalist sensibilities and policies when it comes to identifying and addressing discrimination and positive recognition.

Across these two positions features of interculturalism are seen as extremely important but also as inadequate and ineffective if not underpinned by more substantive approaches to equality consistent with multiculturalism.

A third position is one we might call critical interculturalism. This adopts a broadly interculturalist stance, but is qualified in significant ways (and ways that some interculturalists would reject) by multicultural emphases. It emphasises contact and mixing, and is oriented foremost around individual rights and the centrality of ascribing to fundamental British values, and of minority integration into these values. It stresses general laws and policies that apply to everybody, rather than differentiated policies and stronger forms of group recognition. Yet, different expressions of this broad position also emphasise the national level as significant in setting the tone for equality and integration; some emphasise that group targeted policies might be necessary in order to address patterns of discrimination and disparities in policy areas such as employment, education and so on, even if they are not necessarily ideally desirable and one day might not be necessary. We might see this as a kind of stop gap multiculturalism.

Overall, these different forms of complementarity are suggestive of the important contestations and differences there are when it comes to questions of what integration should mean and look like. But what they also show is that out of the shadows of academic debates and political rhetoric, syntheses and hybrids are occurring on the ground, and this has lessons for theory and politics alike. It also shows that behind the rhetoric, multiculturalism is not only alive but a multicultural sensibility is a significant feature of how we should think about equality and belonging.

Thomas Sealy (@SealyThomas) is Lecturer in Ethnicity and Race in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.

Source: Debating difference and diversity: combining multiculturalist and interculturalist approaches to integration

Filed under Integration, Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Australia: How did Labor get it so wrong in Fowler?

2022/05/26 Leave a comment

One of the more interesting vignettes in Australia’s election, when parachuting a “white” candidate backfired spectacularly:

“Dai! Dai!” they cry from across the street, followed by a burst of Vietnamese.

As their new federal member walks through the Cabramatta mall in a pink suit, people run across to shake her hand and hug her. In Gough Whitlam Place, Dai Le is mobbed by fans and poses for photos.

After a lacklustre election, the electorate feels, well, alive.

There’s shock and amazement that a once seven-year-old girl who fled Vietnam by boat will be heading off to Canberra to represent them. Who would have thought?

“We are the little people,” one man said. “But this time we raised our voice.”

“Kristina Keneally sucks!” a tradesman in fluro added.

It’s all a wild dream, according to Ms Le, who spoke to 7.30 a day after Labor’s parachute candidate Kristina Keneally conceded defeat.

On Saturday night, as the results trickled in from booths across Fowler in Sydney’s south-west, the veteran local councillor’s pleasant surprise turned to shock and disbelief.

The very safe Labor seat of Fowler hadn’t changed hands since its creation in 1984, and it had been held by retiring incumbent Chris Hayes on a margin of 14 per cent. Ms Le won narrowly but enjoyed a 16 per cent swing towards her. A political miracle.

“I sat there in my lounge room and I literally looked back at that time when I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean with my mum and two younger sisters and I remember how fearful that moment was for me because we thought we were going to die,” she said.

If the 2022 election was about flipping the bird to the major parties, then the result in Fowler speaks volumes.

Questions over Labor’s multicultural legacy

Gough Whitlam is known as the father of multiculturalism and used to live in Cabramatta. There’s a monument to his legacy in the heart of the mall. It sits in front of a cafe where old men gather around tables to play traditional games.

So how did Labor, the purported party of multiculturalism and the working class — the people of Fowler are both — get it so wrong?

Some blame Labor’s Sussex Street headquarters, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese played his part by backing Kristina Keneally over young lawyer Tu Le.

Ms Keneally would have lost her Senate spot had she stayed there, and needed a safe Labor seat to return to parliament.

Mr Albanese described Ms Keneally — a white American-born woman from the northern beaches, who did not grow up in south-west Sydney — as a great migrant success story.

Ms Keneally was unavailable for an interview.

“Fowler shows that people will see through cynical ploys,” Per Capita research fellow and Labor member Osmond Chiu told 7.30.

“They don’t want to be taken for granted, and when they feel like you’re taking them for granted they’re more than willing to punish you.”

The Keneally decision sparked an outcry among some Labor MPs at the time, but the increase in cultural diversity among Labor ranks in this parliament is likely to neutralise the anger.

Either way, the end result is the first Vietnamese Australian to enter federal parliament, just not on the Labor side.

‘I’m not a teal’, Dai Le declares

If blue seats turned teal this election, then Dai Le’s Fowler turned from red to pink. The politics are slightly the same, the shade is a little different.

The disparity between Fowler and the wealthy teal electorates in Sydney and Melbourne is stark.

In Fowler, most voters are labourers and tradespeople, clerical and administrative workers, machinery operators and drivers, and community service workers.

According to the 2016 Census, 60 per cent were born overseas while more than 80 per cent have parents born overseas. Vietnamese is the top ancestry.

The rise of the independents in Australia is as uneven as our country.

Dai Le is quick to say she’s not a teal even though she’s happy to sit down and “have a cup of tea” with them.

How she votes in the parliament remains to be seen.

When 7.30 asked her how she would vote on climate change, Ms Le seemed to echo Scott Morrison who told 7.30 last week that some parts of the country were more insulated to such issues.

“The teal independents are very much affluent,” Ms Le said. “They have other things they can worry about. Whereas my electorate, we actually have to worry about food on the table.

“The climate change issue, the federal ICAC issue, I mean it is important to us, but for me it’s our health system.

“For me, the priority would be how to make sure there is affordable and cheap electricity prices.”

As she embarks on a life in the Canberra bubble, Ms Le is promising to be her same, genuine self, and on the streets of Fowler, voters are proud that one of their own will be in parliament.

“Menzies, years ago, talked about the forgotten people,” said Than Nguyen, a former Vietnamese community leader.

“We are the real forgotten people.”

Politicians be warned. If you forget the voters, they’ll remember.

Source: How did Labor get it so wrong in Fowler?

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

Soutphommasane: We’re about to have Australia’s most diverse parliament yet – but there’s still a long way to go

2022/05/26 Leave a comment

Still less than 10 percent (Canada is just under 16 percent):

The message from Saturday’s election result was clear: Australians want a political reset. And not just about issues such as government integrity and climate change.

While much attention has been directed at the teal wave of independents, another change is taking place to the composition of parliament.

This Australian parliament is shaping to be the most diverse yet in its ethnic and cultural background. Capital Hill is about to see a substantial injection of colour.

A fitting result

Newly elected members Sally Sitou, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Sam Lim, Zaneta Mascarenhas, Cassandra Fernando and Dai Le will bolster the non-European representation of the House of Representatives.

The Indigenous ranks of parliament are also set to swell, with the additions of Marion Scrymgour and Gordon Reid in the House, and Jacinta Price in the Senate.

In many ways, it is a fitting result to an election that had its share of controversies about representation.

Labor caused consternation when it parachuted former Senator (and ex-NSW Premier) Kristina Keneally into its then safe southwest Sydney electorate of Fowler, cruelling the prospects of local Vietnamese-Australian lawyer Tu Le.

A second captain’s pick from Anthony Albanese, millionaire former political adviser Andrew Charlton, ran in the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, to the chagrin of local aspirants from multicultural backgrounds.

Such picks left many asking, with good reason: if worthy candidates from non-European backgrounds can’t get preselected in multicultural electorates like Fowler and Parramatta, how can we get more diversity into parliament?

It’s a question that lingers, notwithstanding what this election has delivered.

Still a long way to go

If it feels like a surge of diversity will flow through the parliament, it’s only because there was so little to begin with.

While those from a non-European background make up an estimated 21% of the Australian population, they made up just a tiny fraction of the 46th parliament.

The 47th parliament could feature up to 13 parliamentarians with a non-European, non-Indigenous background, along with nine or ten (depending on final results) parliamentarians of Indigenous background.

That may sound like a strong result – it’s certainly an improvement, and better than how many other major institutions in Australian society perform – but we should put it in perspective.

It would still mean just a tiny fraction of the parliament (no more than 10%) having a non-European or Indigenous background – far less than what you’d see if the parliament actually reflected our society accurately. Australia lags significantly behind the US, UK and Canada and New Zealand.

It’s not all about numbers, of course. We can’t judge the calibre of our parliament solely on whether it’s proportionately representative.

Yet when sections of society can’t see themselves within our public institutions, it is a problem. The very legitimacy, and quality, of those institutions can suffer

A new phase?

For a long time, calls for greater multicultural diversity in politics have been typically greeted with indifference. It wasn’t an urgent problem. Gender diversity was a higher priority. Political parties didn’t feel the pressure from those supposedly excluded from the system.

That now has changed. Labor has been brutally punished for its Fowler move. A swing of more than 16% saw the seat fall to independent (and former Liberal) Dai Le.

Clearly, being from a non-European background isn’t the electoral handicap political parties have sometimes feared.

Something generational is at play. Australia may once have comfortably accepted that newer arrivals were expected to play the role of the grateful supplicant in their “host society”.

But the children and grandchildren of yesterday’s migrants don’t see themselves as guests in their own country. They aren’t happy refugees or cheerful migrants who are content to know their place. They’re taking their lead less from the Anh Dos of the world and more from the AOCs (Democrat politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) of US politics.

Demands about access and equity for non-English speaking background people have been replaced with calls for the equal treatment of “people of colour” and for attention to “intersectionality”.

We could be seeing a new phase in the evolution of Australia’s multicultural project.

While a triumph in many respects, Australian multiculturalism has to date fallen short on several counts. A celebration of cultural diversity has never been accompanied by a sharing of Anglo-Celtic institutional power. Or, for that matter, by a full reckoning with racial inequality and injustice.

That’s why it will be interesting to observe this new parliament. The very presence of this new ethnic and cultural diversity will, in subtle and not so subtle ways, be felt in Canberra and beyond.

Critical mass matters. It is hard, for example, to imagine a more diverse parliament trying to wind back racial hatred laws (as parliament has done on more than one occasion with respect to the Racial Discrimination Act).

Or to imagine a diverse parliament indulging other periodic bouts of race politics (think of the scaremongering over African gangs in Melbourne or the McCarthyist targeting of Chinese-Australians).

All such excesses become much harder when the people debating such matters have skin in the game.

So don’t mistake the wave of multicultural politicians for being a mere symbolic adornment in Canberra – like the political equivalent of having exotic foods and festivals.

It may feel like a subplot for now, but this could end up being just be as significant as the teal revolution.

Source: We’re about to have Australia’s most diverse parliament yet – but there’s still a long way to go

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , , ,

Minister Fraser celebrates Citizenship Week

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

Yet another missed opportunity to release the revised citizenship guide! Understand the guide has been ready and approved for some time.

No surprise on elimination of citizenship fees given not in Budget 2022.

Don’t understand the reference to “Most recently, these amendments include broadening the interpretation of “citizenship by descent” to be more inclusive for families.” as the first generation limit has not been change, although Bill S-245 has been approved in the Senate but has not reached first reading in the House:

The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, today issued the following statement to mark the start of Citizenship Week, which runs from May 23 to 29, 2022:

“Today, I join Canadians from coast to coast to coast to mark the beginning of Citizenship Week. This week is a chance to celebrate what it means to be Canadian—from the rights we enjoy, to the responsibilities we share, to the diversity that makes us a strong and proud nation.

“This year, we marked the 75th anniversary of the first Canadian Citizenship Act. The passage of the Act, which was later replaced with the Citizenship Act in 1977, was a monumental moment in Canadian history that shaped the identity we share today. In the days that followed, Canada held its first-ever citizenship ceremony, establishing a formalized rite of passage that millions of new Canadians have taken part in since.

“Canada is known around the world as a country that respects and celebrates our differences. As we have grown, we have amended our Citizenship Act so that it reflects our values and promotes an inclusive society. Most recently, these amendments include broadening the interpretation of “citizenship by descent” to be more inclusive for families. They also include establishing a new Oath of Citizenship that recognizes the inherent and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, and the obligation that all citizens have to uphold the treaties between the Crown and Indigenous nations. We are committed to ensuring that the tragic parts of our history are not forgotten, as we continue on the path of reconciliation.

“Canadian citizenship holds so much significance and meaning. For some, it represents the achievement of a dream and the promise of a new life. For others, it is an innate and unbreakable bond to the beautiful country we call home.

“For all of us, citizenship remains a commitment not only to Canada, but to our fellow Canadians. Whether volunteering for a community project, helping out a neighbour in need or welcoming newcomers to our country, I encourage all Canadians to look for ways to take part in building a strong, inclusive and prosperous Canada—this week and every week.”

Source: Minister Fraser celebrates Citizenship Week

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn’t Have to Be That Way

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

Not to be smug, as USA provides too easy a benchmark. Better comparison is with Europe, where we are slightly better in terms of infection and death rates. Hard to see how even an enquiry will address the deeply divided public opinion and Republican denialism of science, evidence and susceptibility to mis- and disinformation:

646,970 lives.

This is the number of Americans who would be alive today if the United States had the same per capita death rate from COVID-19 as our northern neighbor, Canada.

Reflect for a moment on the sheer magnitude of the lives lost. 646,970 is more than the entire population of Detroit. And it is more than the total number of American lives lost in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam combined.

No country is more similar to the U.S. than Canada, whose economy and culture are closely intertwined with our own. Yet faced with a life-threatening pandemic of historic proportions, Canada showed far greater success in protecting the lives of its people than the U.S. How are we to understand Canada’s superior performance and the disastrous performance of our own country, which has the highest per capita death rate (3023 per one million, compared to Canada’s 1071) of any wealthy democratic country?
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In comparing the two countries, the starting point must be the different response at the highest levels of government. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in March 2020, “I’m going to make sure that we continue to follow all the recommendations of public health officers particularly around stay-at-home whenever possible and self-isolation and social distancing”. This message was reinforced by Dr. Teresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, who in March delivered a message urging solidarity, declaring “We need to act now, and act together.”

In the U.S., President Trump in striking contrast declared that he would not be wearing a mask, saying “I don’t think I will be doing it…I just don’t see it”. And instead of reinforcing the messages of Dr. Anthony Fauci and other leading public health officials, Trump actively undermined them, declaring in reference to stay-at-home orders in some states, “I think elements of what they’ve done are just too tough.” Not content with undercutting his top public health advisers, President Trump further undermined public confidence in science by suggesting “cures” for COVID-19, including at one point ingesting bleach and taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug that research confirmed had no efficacy as a COVD-19 treatment.

These divergent responses at the national level were to shape responses at the state and provincial level of the U.S. and Canada, respectively, as well as the response of the public. By the beginning of July 2020, the impact of these divergent responses was already visible, with Canada’s death rate just 60 percent of the American rate. As Canada’s more stringent public health measures—which included larger and stricter stay-at-home orders, closure of restaurants, gyms, and other businesses, curfews, and limits on public gatherings—took effect, the gap between the two countries widened even more. By October 2020, the per capita death rate in Canada had dropped to just 40 percent of the rate in the U.S.

It is tempting to blame America’s disastrous response to COVID-19 on Trump, and there is no question that he bungled the situation. But the pandemic revealed deep fault lines in America’s institutions and culture that would have made effective responses difficult no matter who was in the White House. Had Barack Obama, for example, been in office when COVID-19 arrived, he, too, would have faced the country without a national health care system, one with deep distrust of government, exceptionally high levels of poverty and inequality, sharp racial divisions, a polarized polity, and a culture with a powerful strand of libertarianism at odds with the individual sacrifices necessary for the collective good.

The differences between the U.S. and Canada became even more starkly visible on the issue of vaccines. The U.S., which had purchased a massive supply of vaccines in advance, was initially far ahead, with 21 percent of Americans and only 2 percent of Canadians vaccinated by April 1, 2021. The U.S. was still ahead in July, but by October 1, 74 percent of Canadians were fully vaccinated, compared to just 58 percent of Americans. Part of the difference no doubt resides in the superior access provided by Canada’s system of universal, publicly funded healthcare. But equally, if not more important, is the far greater trust Canadians have in their national government: 73 percent versus 50 percent in the U.S. Coupled with greater vaccine resistance in the U.S., the net result is a vast gap in the proportion of the population that is not fully vaccinated: 32 percent in the U.S., but 13 percent in Canada.

Also implicated in the far higher COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. is the simple fact that Americans are less healthy than Canadians. Lacking a system of universal healthcare and plagued by unusually high levels of class and racial inequality, Americans are more likely to have pre-existing medical conditions associated with death from COVID. Americans have an obesity rate of 42 percent versus 27 percent for Canadians and a diabetes rate of 9.4 percent versus 7.3 percent for Canadians. Overall, the health of Canadians is superior and they live longer lives, with an average life expectancy of 82.2 years compared to 78.3 years in the U.S.

Exacerbating these differences in health are the deep cultural differences between the two countries. More than three decades ago, the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset noted in Continental Divide that the ideologies of anti-statism and individualism were far more resonant in the U.S. than in Canada. For the many Americans influenced by the powerful libertarian strand in American culture and by its elaborate right-wing media apparatus, masks were a violation of freedom and vaccines a form of tyranny. Canada, which produced a trucker convoy that shut down the nation’s capital, is not immune to such sentiments. But they were far more pervasive in the U.S. and led to a degree of non-compliance with the government and public health officials that had no parallel in Canada; to take but one example, the percent of Canadians wearing masks in January 2022 when the Omicron variant was at its height was 80 percent compared to just 50 percent in the U.S.

Following a national disaster of this magnitude, there must be a serious inquiry into what happened and how it might be prevented or mitigated in the future. This is what the nation did after the attack on September 11, forming a Commission that issued a major report within two years of its formation. Surely a pandemic that has taken the lives of more than one million Americans warrants a report of at least equal seriousness. But in the current atmosphere of intense political partisanship, it might be better if such an investigation were conducted by a nongovernmental entity composed of distinguished citizens and experts, or by a non-political body such as the National Academy of Sciences. But whatever form such a commission might take, it must address a pressing question: why so many countries, including Canada, proved so much more effective in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We could—and should—learn from their experiences, so that the U.S. does better when the next pandemic arrives.

Source: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn’t Have to Be That Way

Filed under Government Tagged with , , ,

America’s states are drifting apart over illegal immigration

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

As in so many areas:

Congressional dysfunction can cause chaos in America. Look at illegal immigration, where the law strands 10.5m unauthorised migrants in limbo, with little chance of deportation or the legal status that confers the right to work. In the absence of legislation, presidents oscillate wildly. Barack Obama sought to declare almost half of the unauthorised population exempt from deportation and eligible to work. Donald Trump turned the screws the other way, and tried deterring migrants by heartlessly separating parents from children. President Joe Biden is facing dissent from Democrats fearful of Republican attacks if, as planned, he ends a pandemic-response measure called Title 42 on May 23rd. This lets American border police expel asylum-seekers and other migrants on public-health grounds.

America’s federalist system wisely leaves much room to the states to act as laboratories. But state experimentation on immigration has gravitated to the extremes. In some Republican states the aim seems to be cruelty for its own sake. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has suggested that the Supreme Court should reverse precedent and remove the obligation to educate illegal children, as if that would do anybody any good.

Democratic states, by contrast, have opted to spend money. They are expanding welfare benefits for their illicit residents. New York, which in 2019 began issuing driving licences to residents in the state illegally, set up a $2.1bn fund to provide unemployment benefits and pandemic relief. Three years ago California expanded Medicaid, the government health-insurance programme for the poor, to include young irregular residents. Its governor, Gavin Newsom, wishes to offer the programme to all, regardless of immigration status.

America is an outlier. In Europe and elsewhere access to benefits is limited to citizens or legal immigrants—who often have to wait for several years to be eligible. You would not expect Bavaria to sponsor Syrian migrants that the German interior ministry had turned away, or councils in London to offer housing benefits to adults who are in Britain illegally. It is Congress’s lack of will to deal with illegal immigration in America that explains the urge in California and New York to do something about their permanent shadow-class. Despite vigorous efforts, one-tenth of California’s non-elderly population lacks health insurance. Of that group, the illegal immigrants account for 40%.

Alas, these efforts are likely to be yet another stop-start measure. Because most federal laws ban spending on illegal residents, states must fund the expanded services without federal subsidies. At present, their budgets are swollen by a strong recovery and overgenerous federal funding during the pandemic. In a recession, when budgets are squeezed, such spending is likely to come under political attack. Democrats have long maintained, correctly, that unlawful immigrants by and large work hard and pay taxes, but receive few benefits. That line will be harder to sustain as these programmes grow—to the relish of the nativist right, who will deem their warnings vindicated.

Only Congress can sort out the confusion of half-built border walls, seesawing presidential decrees and contradictory state regimes. Immigration reform, with an orderly path to legal residency for those who pay taxes and do not commit crimes, was once a bipartisan pursuit. It has been forgotten amid the Trumpian takeover of the Republican Party. Some Democratic senators, like Bob Menendez and Catherine Cortez Masto, remain committed to the idea of trading a route to citizenship for stronger border security and faster immigration courts, which today are overwhelmed. The party’s left has turned instead to daydreaming about abolishing America’s immigration authority. The pity is that a labour shortage makes this an especially propitious time for mending the system.

Source: America’s states are drifting apart over illegal immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic ‘backsliding’ worsens: security experts

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

Not my area of expertise but significant and needed. Hopefully, government and opposition will listen:

Canada’s intelligence community will have to grapple with the growing influence of anti-democratic forces in the United States — including the threat posed by conservative media outlets like Fox News — says a new report from a task force of intelligence experts.

“The United States is and will remain our closest ally, but it could also become a source of threat and instability,” says a newly published report written by a task force of former national security advisers, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) directors, ex-deputy ministers, former ambassadors and academics.

Now is the time for the federal government to rethink how it approaches national security, the report concludes.

The authors — some of whom had access to Canada’s most prized secrets and briefed cabinet on emerging threats — say Canada has become complacent in its national security strategies and is not prepared to tackle threats like Russian and Chinese espionage, the “democratic backsliding” in the United States, a rise in cyberattacks and climate change.

Thomas Juneau, co-director of the task force and associate professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, said that while Canada’s right-wing extremism is homegrown, cross-border connections between extremist groups are alarming.

“There are growing transnational ties between right-wing extremists here and in the U.S., the movement of funds, the movement of people, the movement of ideas, the encouragement, the support by media, such as Fox News and other conservative media,” he said.

Convoy was a ‘wakeup call,’ says adviser

“We believe that the threats are quite serious at the moment, that they do impact Canada,” said report co-author Vincent Rigby, who until a few months ago served as the national security adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“We don’t want it to take a crisis for [the] government of Canada to wake up.”

The report he helped write says that one area in need of a policy pivot is Canada’s relationship with the United States.

He pointed to state Sen. Doug Mastriano’s recent win in the Republican primary for governor of Pennsylvania. Mastriano is a well-known proponent of the lie that election fraud caused former president Donald Trump’s loss in 2020.

“There are serious risks of democratic backsliding in the U.S. and at this point, that is not a theoretical risk,” Juneau said.

“So all of that is a serious threat to our sovereignty, to our security, and in some cases, to our democratic institutions … We need to rethink our relationship with the United States.”

The report points to the convoy protest that occupied downtown Ottawa in February and associated blockades in a handful of border towns earlier this winter. What started as a broad protest against COVID-19 restrictions morphed into a even broader rally against government authority itself, with some protesters calling for the overthrow of the elected government.

RCMP said that at the protest site near Coutts, Alta., they seized a cache of weapons; four people now face a charge of conspiracy to murder.

It “should be a wakeup call,” said Rigby.

“We potentially dodged a bullet there. We really did. And we’re hoping that the government and … other levels of government have learned lessons.”

The Canadian protests drew support from politicians in the U.S. and from conservative media outlets, including Fox News, says the report.

“This may not have represented foreign interference in the conventional sense, since it was not the result of actions of a foreign government. But it did represent, arguably, a greater threat to Canadian democracy than the actions of any state other than the United States,” the report says.

“It will be a significant challenge for our national security and intelligence agencies to monitor this threat, since it emanates from the same country that is by far our greatest source of intelligence.”

During the convoy protest, Fox host Tucker Carlson — whose show draws in millions of viewers every night — called Trudeau a “Stalinist dictator” on air and accused him of having “suspended democracy and declared Canada a dictatorship.”

Carlson himself has been under attack recently for pushing the concept of replacement theory — a racist concept that claims white Americans are being deliberately replaced through immigration.

The theory was cited in the manifesto of the 18-year-old man accused in the mass shooting in a predominately Black neighbourhood in Buffalo, N.Y. earlier this month.

The conspiracy theory also has been linked to previous mass shootings, including the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Calls for new national security strategy

“When we think about threats to Canada, we think about the Soviet military threat, we think about al-Qaeda, we think about the rise of China, we think about the war in Ukraine. All of these are true. But so is the rising threat to Canada that the U.S. poses,” said Juneau.

“That’s completely new. That calls for a new way of thinking and new way of managing our relationship with the U.S.”

The conversation with the U.S. doesn’t have be uncomfortable but it does need to happen, said Rigby.

“It certainly would not be couched in a way of, ‘You’re the source of our problems.’ That would not be the conversation. The conversation would be, ‘How can we help each other?'” he said.

“We had those conversations during President Trump’s tenure and business continues. Does it become a little bit more challenging when you have a president like Mr. Trump? Absolutely, without a doubt. But we are still close, close allies.”

It’s why both Rigby and Juneau are hoping the report will spur the government to launch a new national security strategy review — something that hasn’t happened since 2004.

“I know there’s a certain cynicism around producing these strategies … another bulky report that’s going to end up on a shelf and gather dust,” said Rigby.

“But if they’re done properly, they’re done fast and they’re done efficiently and effectively — and our allies have done them — they can work and they’re important.”

The report makes a number of recommendations. It wants a review of CSIS’s enabling legislation, more use of open-source intelligence and efforts to strengthen cyber security. It also urges normally secretive intelligence agencies to be more open with the public by disclosing more intelligence and publishing annual threat assessments.

“There’s a new expanded definition of national security. It’s not your grandparents’ national security,” said Rigby.

“It’s time to step out of the shadows and step up and confront these challenges.”

Source: Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic ‘backsliding’ worsens: security experts

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , , ,

Meggs: Le système d’immigration n’est plus maîtrisé

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

Good and valid critique, highlighting some of the inconsistencies and incoherence of immigration policy:

Tous les drapeaux rouges signalent que le système d’immigration au Canada et au Québec n’est plus maîtrisé. Il y a d’abord le nombre de dossiers en attente de traitement au fédéral. Selon un reportage de CBC du 1er février 2022, plus de 1,8 million de dossiers d’immigration permanente, temporaire et de citoyenneté étaient en attente de traitement ! Au rythme noté dans le reportage, si on n’en ajoute pas à la pile, il faudra presque cinq ans pour les traiter.

Mais on persiste à en ajouter à la pile ! Le 11 avril, il y en avait plus de 2 millions, dont 1,1 million de demandes de permis temporaires, une hausse de 230 000 depuis la mi-mars.

Ces personnes à statut temporaire généreront une bonne proportion des nouvelles admissions parce que les gouvernements font tout pour encourager et faciliter le passage de statut temporaire à permanent. Au Québec, au moins 86 % des personnes sélectionnées en 2019 avaient un statut temporaire.

Plus on augmente le nombre de personnes à statut temporaire, plus il faudra augmenter les cibles d’immigration permanente parce que les demandes dépasseront les seuils établis. Il serait politiquement téméraire de refuser de recevoir leurs demandes. Ces personnes sont installées et intégrées au pays depuis des années. Planifier des seuils d’immigration permanente devient redondant dans un contexte d’immigration temporaire non maîtrisée.

Davantage de demandes entraînent une augmentation des coûts. Le gouvernement fédéral a budgété 85 millions de dollars l’automne dernier pour faire baisser le nombre de dossiers à traiter. Dans son dernier budget, il prévoit 2,673 milliards sur cinq ans et 441,3 millions annuellement par la suite en nouveau financement, ainsi que 43,5  millions, en 2022-2023, pour « maintenir le soutien fédéral aux services d’aide juridique à l’immigration et aux réfugiés ».

Outre les hausses de volumes, de délais et de ressources, il y a la multiplication des « politiques d’intérêt public », un mécanisme utilisé par le ministre fédéral pour changer unilatéralement les règles d’octroi de la résidence permanente et de permis temporaires, s’il « estime que l’intérêt public le justifie ».

Utilisées quatre fois entre 2005 et 2013, elles ont pris un envol extraordinaire récemment avec 11 recours en 2020 et 19 en 2021.

Elles touchent des situations tant ponctuelles (les personnes à statut temporaire résultant des incendies en Colombie-Britannique ; le parrainage des personnes réfugiées syriennes et irakiennes) que générales (une forme d’exemption des exigences linguistiques pour les personnes avec un handicap physique ou mental).

Il y a des exemples d’utilisation discriminatoire et manifestement politique. Par exemple, en 2020, l’une d’elles visait « à attirer au Canada des jeunes instruits de Hong Kong, dont on s’attend à ce que leur capital humain et leur expérience internationale contribuent au tissu économique, social et culturel du pays ». Elle témoignerait de la solidarité du Canada « avec d’autres alliés aux vues similaires, de son appui solide à l’égard des valeurs démocratiques et de sa défense de celles-ci ». Il y a sûrement de jeunes diplômés ailleurs dans le monde qui aimeraient être sauvés des régimes autoritaires et répressifs.

Le gouvernement fédéral modifie aussi allègrement les règles d’immigration temporaire. Il a annoncé le 1er avril des assouplissements au Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires qui vont sensiblement plus loin que l’entente négociée avec le Québec. En 2016, il a créé un nouveau permis ouvert pour les employeurs hors Québec qui embauchent des francophones de l’étranger. Pourquoi exclure les employeurs québécois de cet avantage ?

Il y a des exemples d’incohérences presque inexplicables. Depuis plusieurs années, le fédéral vante sa politique de rétention des étudiantes et étudiants étrangers sans avoir modifié le Règlement de l’immigration exigeant que la personne faisant une demande de permis d’études au Canada démontre qu’elle quittera le pays à la fin de son séjour.

Les 40 000 Afghans annoncés arriveront avec un statut de réfugié, mais les Ukrainiens auront un permis de travail spécial de trois ans, sans plafond sur le nombre.

Il n’y a aucune consultation systématique avec les gouvernements provinciaux avant la prise de ces décisions. Aucune considération de l’effet de cette augmentation rapide de la population sur des besoins en logement ou en services de garde, ni sur les écoles, les systèmes de santé et de services sociaux, le transport en commun. Il y a très peu d’arrimage possible entre l’expertise et l’expérience de travail des personnes qui arrivent et les besoins locaux du marché de travail.

Le Québec est à la remorque du fédéral à bien des égards. N’ayant aucun moyen d’agir sur les délais de traitement fédéraux, il encourage l’immigration temporaire, ce qui fait augmenter le nombre de demandes d’immigration, et improvise avec de nouveaux programmes qui ne donnent pas les résultats escomptés.

L’immigration est un projet foncièrement humain. Comment penser le réussir sans une vision claire soutenue par une infrastructure législative et administrative efficace ?

Tous les drapeaux rouges signalent que le système d’immigration au Canada et au Québec n’est plus maîtrisé. Il y a d’abord le nombre de dossiers en attente de traitement au fédéral. Selon un reportage de CBC du 1er février 2022, plus de 1,8 million de dossiers d’immigration permanente, temporaire et de citoyenneté étaient en attente de traitement ! Au rythme noté dans le reportage, si on n’en ajoute pas à la pile, il faudra presque cinq ans pour les traiter.

Mais on persiste à en ajouter à la pile ! Le 11 avril, il y en avait plus de 2 millions, dont 1,1 million de demandes de permis temporaires, une hausse de 230 000 depuis la mi-mars.

Ces personnes à statut temporaire généreront une bonne proportion des nouvelles admissions parce que les gouvernements font tout pour encourager et faciliter le passage de statut temporaire à permanent. Au Québec, au moins 86 % des personnes sélectionnées en 2019 avaient un statut temporaire.

Plus on augmente le nombre de personnes à statut temporaire, plus il faudra augmenter les cibles d’immigration permanente parce que les demandes dépasseront les seuils établis. Il serait politiquement téméraire de refuser de recevoir leurs demandes. Ces personnes sont installées et intégrées au pays depuis des années. Planifier des seuils d’immigration permanente devient redondant dans un contexte d’immigration temporaire non maîtrisée.

Davantage de demandes entraînent une augmentation des coûts. Le gouvernement fédéral a budgété 85 millions de dollars l’automne dernier pour faire baisser le nombre de dossiers à traiter. Dans son dernier budget, il prévoit 2,673 milliards sur cinq ans et 441,3 millions annuellement par la suite en nouveau financement, ainsi que 43,5  millions, en 2022-2023, pour « maintenir le soutien fédéral aux services d’aide juridique à l’immigration et aux réfugiés ».

Outre les hausses de volumes, de délais et de ressources, il y a la multiplication des « politiques d’intérêt public », un mécanisme utilisé par le ministre fédéral pour changer unilatéralement les règles d’octroi de la résidence permanente et de permis temporaires, s’il « estime que l’intérêt public le justifie ».

Utilisées quatre fois entre 2005 et 2013, elles ont pris un envol extraordinaire récemment avec 11 recours en 2020 et 19 en 2021.

Elles touchent des situations tant ponctuelles (les personnes à statut temporaire résultant des incendies en Colombie-Britannique ; le parrainage des personnes réfugiées syriennes et irakiennes) que générales (une forme d’exemption des exigences linguistiques pour les personnes avec un handicap physique ou mental).

Il y a des exemples d’utilisation discriminatoire et manifestement politique. Par exemple, en 2020, l’une d’elles visait « à attirer au Canada des jeunes instruits de Hong Kong, dont on s’attend à ce que leur capital humain et leur expérience internationale contribuent au tissu économique, social et culturel du pays ». Elle témoignerait de la solidarité du Canada « avec d’autres alliés aux vues similaires, de son appui solide à l’égard des valeurs démocratiques et de sa défense de celles-ci ». Il y a sûrement de jeunes diplômés ailleurs dans le monde qui aimeraient être sauvés des régimes autoritaires et répressifs.

Le gouvernement fédéral modifie aussi allègrement les règles d’immigration temporaire. Il a annoncé le 1er avril des assouplissements au Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires qui vont sensiblement plus loin que l’entente négociée avec le Québec. En 2016, il a créé un nouveau permis ouvert pour les employeurs hors Québec qui embauchent des francophones de l’étranger. Pourquoi exclure les employeurs québécois de cet avantage ?

Il y a des exemples d’incohérences presque inexplicables. Depuis plusieurs années, le fédéral vante sa politique de rétention des étudiantes et étudiants étrangers sans avoir modifié le Règlement de l’immigration exigeant que la personne faisant une demande de permis d’études au Canada démontre qu’elle quittera le pays à la fin de son séjour.

Les 40 000 Afghans annoncés arriveront avec un statut de réfugié, mais les Ukrainiens auront un permis de travail spécial de trois ans, sans plafond sur le nombre.

Il n’y a aucune consultation systématique avec les gouvernements provinciaux avant la prise de ces décisions. Aucune considération de l’effet de cette augmentation rapide de la population sur des besoins en logement ou en services de garde, ni sur les écoles, les systèmes de santé et de services sociaux, le transport en commun. Il y a très peu d’arrimage possible entre l’expertise et l’expérience de travail des personnes qui arrivent et les besoins locaux du marché de travail.

Le Québec est à la remorque du fédéral à bien des égards. N’ayant aucun moyen d’agir sur les délais de traitement fédéraux, il encourage l’immigration temporaire, ce qui fait augmenter le nombre de demandes d’immigration, et improvise avec de nouveaux programmes qui ne donnent pas les résultats escomptés.

L’immigration est un projet foncièrement humain. Comment penser le réussir sans une vision claire soutenue par une infrastructure législative et administrative efficace ?

Anne Michèle Meggs Ancienne directrice de la planification et de la reddition de comptes du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration

Source: Le système d’immigration n’est plus maîtrisé

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Pap Ndiaye on BLM and the antiracist movement in France

2022/05/25 Leave a comment

Good background on France’s new education minister and the debates over racism and “wokeism”.

Arun's avatarArun with a View

I’ve been in Berlin for the past week and generally away from the laptop, thus the absence of AWAV’s take on Emmanuel Macron’s appointment of Élisabeth Borne to Matignon and the subsequent announcement of her government—all the picks being Macron’s, of course. The most noteworthy, indeed astonishing, one—I let out a loud “wow!” when I learned of it—was that of Pap Ndiaye as Minister of Education, which is a pretty important ministry in the French government—the minister having a million or so (heavily unionized) fonctionnaires under her/his tutelary authority, plus responsibility for some 13 million schoolchildren and students. Pap Ndiaye is well known to all those of a social scientific/humanities academic and/or left-wing bent, as a brilliant academic specialist of race in France, but also in the United States, and as director since March 2021 of the Museum of the History of Immigration (for which he was profiled in The…

View original post 689 more words

Filed under Multiculturalism

← Older posts

Newer posts →