Candidate diversity is high on the agenda as Canada’s political parties prepare for a federal election

2021/07/15 Leave a comment

Of note, pending a more complete analysis:

During what’s widely expected to be an election year, Canadians have been confronted with the realities of discrimination, racism and reconciliation as never before.

That’s something major federal parties are thinking about as they craft their slates of candidates, who, if elected, will need to represent the interests of a diverse electorate.

The Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and Greens have all made efforts to connect with under-represented communities, mostly through updated recruiting requirements and fundraising initiatives.

But they’re less forthcoming about the specific targets they’re hoping to hit, such as what proportion of racialized or LGBTQ+ candidates would indicate a successful and representative nomination process.

Women, for example, make up just over half of Canada’s population, but it took until 2020 for just 100 of its 338 MPs to come from that group. Millennials are one of the largest populations in Canada, yet most federally elected officials are much older. And visible minorities, Indigenous people, the LGBTQ+ community and disabled Canadians are all under-represented in the House of Commons.

“Parties are largely vote seeking, organizational machines,” said Erin Tolley, Canada Research Chair in Gender, Race and Inclusive Politics at Carleton University.

“So if a party is looking out into the public landscape and sees that issues related to equity or to diversity or to representativeness are something that the public is hungering for … parties will respond to that in a way that is consistent with their ideological vision.”

Here’s how four major federal parties are looking at tackling the balance this time around. (The Bloc Québécois did not reply to requests for comment.)

The Liberals

As of Tuesday, the Liberals had nominated 191 candidates, with more announcements expected throughout the week. Women make up 43 per cent of that total, with racialized Canadians accounting for more than 20 per cent of those nominated. Seven candidates are Indigenous.

Navdeep Bains, who is chairing the Liberals’ national campaign along with Economic Development Minister Mélanie Joly, has been tasked with seeking out candidates for the governing party.

One of the changes the party has made is to widen requirements within its nomination process. Previously, local riding associations needed to prove they had sought out female candidates. Now, associations must show how they’ve attempted to bring anyone from an equity-seeking group into the fold.

“You’ve got to document, and really have to engage and have a thorough search for potential candidates,” Bains said. “We’re talking about women, Black and Indigenous (candidates), people of colour, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities.”

The party is also dipping into two pre-existing funds to assist with that work. One is the Judy LaMarsh Fund, which supports female candidates running for the federal Liberals. The other is the Indigenous Electoral Endowment Fund, which is intended to help recruit and support Indigenous candidates.

The Conservatives

The Conservatives had nominated 240 candidates as of Monday. The party did not provide a breakdown of the groups to which those candidates belong because it’s still compiling that information, but party spokesperson Cory Hann identified several as Muslim.

Hann said party supporters and staff have been asked to “work their networks and encourage people from all backgrounds to get involved” as either candidates or campaigners.

“The candidates we’ve nominated so far all have varying backgrounds both professionally and personally, ensuring that, as (Conservative Leader Erin) O’Toole has said, Canadians from all over the country see themselves in our Conservative party.”

Where representation is concerned, the party appears to be focusing most on building bridges with racialized and Indigenous communities, although the party is tight-lipped on the specifics of those plans.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis has been leading engagement efforts with “cultural and religious minority communities,” telling the Star he is “excited about the potential that we have for growth in that area in the upcoming campaign.”

Genius would not expand on which communities he was specifically courting, or how those efforts look in practice, citing the Tories’ “inside strategy.”

The NDP

In 2019, the New Democrats led the charge when it came to candidate diversity, hovering near the gender parity benchmark and reaching or surpassing representative levels for Indigenous, racialized and LGBTQ+ groups.

For the next election, the party is trying to ensure more than 50 per cent of its candidates are women — the only specific target cited by any federal party for any equity-seeking group.

The party has nominated 97 candidates so far, half of whom are women. Racialized Canadians make up 33 per cent of that total, while six per cent are Indigenous and 18 per cent are LGBTQ+. People living with a disability account for 12 per cent of nominated candidates, and 11 per cent have been identified as “youth.”

As with the Liberals, riding associations must demonstrate how they’ve sought to recruit diverse candidates. The party is also now requiring that any outgoing incumbent is replaced with someone from an equity-seeking group. Departing MP Jack Harris, for example, will be succeeded by one such candidate.

“This is a huge priority for us. It’s part of our DNA,” NDP national director Anne McGrath told the Star.

McGrath said that because the party has more resources heading into the next election than it did in 2019, more emphasis is being placed on recruitment.

The Green party

There may be no party for which running a diverse roster of candidates is more important than the federal Greens.

While Annamie Paul is the first Black and Jewish woman to lead a major federal party, she is currently embattled within a party structure that insiders charge is perpetuating racism and sexism.

What’s more, a confidential report prepared for the Greens and obtained by the Star found the party fell short of recruiting and supporting diverse candidates in the last general election. In 2019, the party ran fewer visible minority candidates than the far-right People’s Party, according to a report by The Canadian Press.

That’s something Paul is committed to changing, despite opposition she says she’s faced from some party officials.

“There’s a tremendous amount of power in making the invitation. Just making an open invitation to say we see you, we value you, we want you,” Paul told the Star.

As of Monday, 148 applicants had been approved through the drive and other recruitment streams, though only 39 have been formally nominated. Of the approved applicants, 41 per cent are women, followed by racialized Canadians at 19 per cent and youth under 30 at 15 per cent. Six per cent of approved applicants are Indigenous, while 17 per cent belong to the LGBTQ+ community and 12 per cent are persons with disabilities.

Source: Candidate diversity is high on the agenda as Canada’s political parties prepare for a federal election

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Le dossier de l’immigration au Québec va mal

2021/07/15 Leave a comment

Apart from the administrative issues (a natural result of distinct jurisdictional responsibilities that should be addressed administratively), the main argument is for transferring responsibility for temporary migration to Quebec. Given the Quebec government’s overall approach to immigration, hard to see that this would result in improved administration or outcomes.

And complaining that Quebec does not receive integration funds for temporary workers is cheeky, given the overly generous financial support for integration under the Quebec-Canada accord (https://vancouversun.com/business/douglas-todd-quebec-to-get-10-times-more-than-b-c-and-ontario-to-settle-immigrants):

Le 6 juillet dernier, Robert Dutrisac note que « [la] superposition des administrations canadiennes et québécoises [en matière d’immigration] cause des lourdeurs inacceptables dont il faudra bien se débarrasser ».

Il a raison d’expliquer pourquoi cela prend plus de temps pour obtenir la résidence permanente au Québec. En effet, une personne sélectionnée au Québec reçoit un Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) et ensuite fait une demande de résidence permanente au fédéral. Après avoir fait les vérifications de santé et de sécurité, le fédéral est tenu d’accorder la résidence permanente selon l’Accord Canada-Québec sur l’immigration signé en 1991. Quelqu’un qui se destine à ailleurs au Canada n’a pas à passer par l’étape du CSQ.

Le Devoir a offert ces derniers mois plusieurs exemples montrant que le dossier de l’immigration au Québec va mal et combien chevauchement gouvernemental s’ajoute souvent au problème.

Des personnes sélectionnées par le Québec en attente de leur résidence permanente ne réussissent pas à faire renouveler leur permis de séjour temporaire ; des demandeurs d’asile qui contribuent à notre société attendent pour savoir si leur demande de résidence permanente sera approuvée ; sans parler des étudiantes et étudiants étrangers séduits à s’inscrire à des collèges privés avec une promesse de résidence permanente au Canada ou des travailleurs agricoles qui subissent des conditions de travail inacceptables au Québec, liés à leur employeur par un permis de travail temporaire fermé.

Les solutions proposées vont dans tous les sens. Les employeurs réclament une hausse de seuils d’immigration pour pourvoir à la pénurie de main-d’œuvre. Un parti politique réclame une baisse des seuils d’immigration pour protéger notre langue et notre culture. Un autre semble vouloir offrir la résidence permanente essentiellement à tout le monde qui veut s’installer au Québec. Le gouvernement parle de négociations qui traînent avec le fédéral pour accélérer la régularisation des personnes sélectionnées et pour plus de contrôle sur le programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires.

Pendant ce temps, plus de 80 millions de personnes ont été déplacées sur la planète en 2020 à cause des conflits. Combien de milliers d’autres pour des raisons de catastrophes naturelles ? On ne connaît pas encore l’effet à long terme de la pandémie sur la migration économique ou pour les études.

L’immigration temporaire a pris le dessus

L’Accord Canada-Québec signé il y a 30 ans ne suffit plus à la tâche. Le gouvernement du Québec d’alors cherchait à déterminer les volumes d’arrivées et à appliquer une grille de sélection spécifique aux besoins démographiques, socio-économiques et linguistiques du Québec. Il voulait également plein contrôle des services d’intégration socioéconomiques et linguistiques. Presque tout dans l’Accord concerne l’immigration permanente. Même la compensation du fédéral prévue pour les services d’intégration ne touche que les personnes avec un statut de résidence permanente.

Aujourd’hui, c’est l’immigration temporaire qui a pris le dessus, sans planification des volumes. En 2019, l’année où le gouvernement du Québec a baissé le nombre d’admissions de 20 % pour l’établir à 40 000, il y avait près de 160 000 personnes avec un permis temporaire au Québec au 31 décembre, excluant les personnes ayant fait une demande d’asile.

L’immigration temporaire inclut les personnes de l’étranger qui étudient ou travaillent ici, avec des permis fermés ou ouverts qui comprennent leurs conjointes et conjoints et les travailleuses et travailleurs agricoles. Un grand nombre veulent rester et ils y sont même encouragés.

Ces personnes restent souvent au Québec pendant quelques années avant de faire leur demande de résidence permanente. Pendant ce temps, les seules exigences linguistiques qui s’appliquent sont celles des établissements d’enseignement supérieur ou des employeurs. Ils peuvent envoyer leurs enfants à des écoles publiques anglaises. En dépit des grands nombres, la pénurie de main-d’œuvre perdure.

C’est le gouvernement fédéral qui décide les conditions des permis de séjour temporaire et qui traite les dossiers de demande d’asile. Dans le budget fédéral de février dernier, un financement de 49,5 millions de dollars sur trois ans a été annoncé pour appuyer les organismes communautaires qui offrent des programmes et des services d’orientation aux travailleurs migrants. Puisque ces services ne visent pas les résidents permanents, ils ne seront pas couverts par l’Accord Canada-Québec. Le Québec n’aura donc plus le plein contrôle sur le message aux personnes arrivant sur le territoire, ni sur la langue de ce message.

Monsieur Robert Dutrisac affirme avec raison que « le Québec doit, pour des raisons évidentes, garder le contrôle de son immigration ». Malheureusement, il est presque trop tard. Ce ne sont pas les petits pansements ici et là dans les processus qui suffiront à remédier à la situation.

Est-ce que le Québec saurait faire bon usage d’un réel contrôle de son système d’immigration et d’intégration ? Est-ce possible un Accord modernisé ? Il est plus que temps de trouver les réponses à ces questions.

Ancienne directrice de la planification et de la reddition de comptes, ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/617817/quebec-le-dossier-de-l-immigration-va-mal?utm_source=infolettre-2021-07-14&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Is American Economic Freedom Determined by Ancestry, Ethnicity, and Immigrant Countries of Origin?

2021/07/15 Leave a comment

Interesting study and methodology by Cato Institute that counters some of the populist and academic rhetoric:

The best potential counter argument against vastly expanding legal immigration is that immigrants might bring the less-efficient economic institutions, political systems, or cultural mores of their homelands with them to the United States. Ultimately, the United States and other rich countries are prosperous because of our economic and political institutions with some variation potentially explained by culture.

Most immigrants come from poorer countries with worse economic institutions, especially as measured by the Economic Freedom of the World Index. My co-author Benjamin Powell and I investigated whether immigrants worsened domestic economic institutions in our new book Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions, and we found it either to be unsupported by the evidence or that the evidence suggests that more immigration can sometimes increase economic freedom and improve institutions. There’s not much worry that immigrants would kill the institutional goose that the lays golden eggs of economic growth.

Some supporters of the so-called deep roots hypothesis, that events many thousands of years ago affected culture, genes, or both in such a way that our economic outcomes were basically determined long ago, are also worried that immigrants could undermine our institutions. Proponents of this view argue that it’s impossible for immigrants to not bring support for the bad economic institutions of their ancestral homelands with them. Although economic institutions have changed substantially over time, even recently in some countries, and the deep roots theory can’t explain why economic institutions change, it’s still a thoughtful counter argument.

To test whether there is support for it, we created a predicted economic freedom index for a hypothetical United States whose economic freedom is entirely a product of the economic freedom of the countries where immigrants and their ancestors came from. In other words, a native-born American of Irish descent and a native-born American of Italian descent would each support economic freedom in the United States to the extent that economic freedom exists in Ireland and Italy, respectively. For example, if half of a country’s population were of Irish ancestry and half were of Italian ancestry then the predicted economic freedom score of that country would be 7.82 ((8.13+7.51)/2) under this theory. Thus, we created an average weight of the U.S. population by ancestry, attributed the economic freedom scores of those countries to those Americans, and then took the weighted average of economic freedom for the United States in 1980 and 2019. The former date was the first year that the U.S. Census asked about ancestry.

We obtained ancestry data from the American Community Survey (ACS). We used the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index to gather data on the economic freedom of the United States and other countries over time. The EFW estimates a country’s economic freedom by looking at five variables: size of government, legal system and property rights, sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation.

The ACS data is reported using either demonyms, broader regional terms, or ethnic terms. As a result, we had to interpret some proportionally. For example, if an ACS respondent said that he was “Eastern European,” we calculated his inherent EFW score as coming from all Eastern European countries proportionally. Similarly, we combined some terms together. For example, both English and Scottish were combined into British. We then applied the EFW score for the United Kingdom to them, since EFW is reported by country. The biggest challenge was apportioning the ancestry of Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. We know the general area where they came from but not the specific countries. Thus, we followed the general methods here for allocating black American ancestry. The different allocations made in this study are listed in Table 1.

In order to perform later calculations, we needed to determine which countries were relevant to the study. To be relevant, ACS and EFW data needed to both be available in each year. Some countries did not qualify, but their exclusions did not impact the final result as they were generally smaller countries with few historical immigrants to the United States. All demonyms and ethnic terms were interpreted by their national association to match the ACS and EFW data, but this was straight-forward.

To predict the ancestry-only EFW score for the United States, we multiplied the proportion of the population of ancestry by the EFW score in that country for that year. We then simply added up the results.

If ancestry alone determined the United States’ EFW score, it would have had a score of 6.32 in 1980 and 7.46 for 2019. In reality, the United States’ EFW was 8.13 in 1980 and 8.22 for 2019 – 1.8 and 0.76 points higher than what the ancestry-only score would predict. The economic freedom of the United States is substantially higher than its ancestry adjusted EFW score would predict if the deep roots theory were correct. For example, if American ancestry determined our EFW score then we should have the economic freedom score of Hungary in 2019 (7.44) rather than the much higher actual score of 8.22.

Interestingly, the average EFW score of the ancestral homelands of Americans and immigrants has increased considerably over time from 6.32 to 7.45. If deep roots really did drive our economic destiny by affecting economic freedom, we should be much less concerned today than in the recent past, as the ancestral homelands of immigrant groups are much freer today than in the past.

Ancestry and country of origin are not destiny, at least not in the United States in these two years.

Source: Is American Economic Freedom Determined by Ancestry, Ethnicity, and Immigrant Countries of Origin?

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USA: Immigrants Healthier Than Native-Born, But Advantage Fades

2021/07/15 Leave a comment

Likely similar in Canada although medicare and a more generous social safety net likely attenuates the effect. One of the negative aspects of integration:
Immigrants to the U.S. are healthier and have better health outcomes on average than native-born Americans, according to a new study in the journal Health Affairs.But the longer that immigrants live in the U.S., the more their health profiles resemble those of the native-born.

These findings are among a wealth of details about immigrants’ self-reported health and access to health care included the study. The researchers analyzed data from two large surveys, one national and the other focused only on California. The latter survey was used because it included data on undocumented immigrants that was lacking in the national poll.

Four groups of adult immigrants were compared to native-born adults: naturalized citizens, noncitizen immigrants in the U.S. for more than 5 years, noncitizen immigrants here for 5 years or less, and undocumented immigrants.

Self-reported health status among naturalized immigrants — who, by definition, must be in the country for at least 5 years — was similar to that of citizens born in the U.S., the study found. “In contrast, a higher share of noncitizen immigrants who had been in the U.S. for more than 5 years (30.1%) and who had been in the U.S. for 5 years or less (41.6%) had ‘excellent’ health compared with U.S.-born adults (27.1%).”

Both naturalized and noncitizen immigrants had lower rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, asthma, and mental conditions, compared with U.S.-born adults. But naturalized citizens were more likely than the native-born to have type 2 diabetes.

The story was different for undocumented people. In the California survey, twice as many undocumented immigrants (33%) reported being in fair or poor health than native-born citizens (16.5%), and only 29.3% of the undocumented said they were in very good or excellent health, compared to 54.2% of native-born Californians.

In the national survey, the noncitizen adult immigrants were considerably younger, on average, than the U.S.-born adults, which partially explains their better health status. In addition, the study notes, “Chronic conditions are likely to be underdiagnosed among underserved immigrants because of poor access to health care.”

Arturo Vargas Bustamante, PhD, a professor of health policy and management, at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, and the paper’s lead author, told WebMD that a third reason for the disparity between the health status of immigrant and native- born populations is the “healthy immigrant effect.” What this means is that people who choose to face the rigors and challenges of emigrating to a foreign nation tend to be stronger, physically and mentally, than other people from their home country.

Why Health Problems Increase

The biggest reason for the narrowing of differences in health status between immigrants and native-born Americans over time, Bustamante explains, is the aging of immigrants, which is linked to the same kinds of health problems that people born in this country have as they enter middle age.

In addition, he says, exposure to the U.S. lifestyle can harm immigrants’ health. “In their native countries, they might have walked to work or used public transport; here, they drive a car,” he notes. “They get hungry at night and start eating fast food, because it’s convenient. So the process of integrating into the U.S. society also comes with the process of assuming the American lifestyle and behavior.”

Finally, he observes, many immigrants live in low-income areas where there are food deserts, environmental hazards, and poor access to health care. “The longer they live in this country, the more exposed they are to these social determinants of health,” he says.

Higher Uninsured Rate

Compared with 11.4% of U.S.-born adults who lacked health insurance, uninsured rates were 12.3% among naturalized immigrants, 43% among noncitizen immigrants in the U.S. for more than 5 years, and 36.4% among noncitizen immigrants in this country for 5 or fewer years.

Although the Affordable Care Act made more legally authorized immigrants eligible for health care and allowed more of them to have insurance coverage, it left out undocumented immigrants. Unsurprisingly, 45% of undocumented people in the California survey were uninsured.

More noncitizen immigrants who had been in the U.S. for at least 5 years (12.3%) were covered by Medicaid than noncitizen immigrants who had been here for a shorter time (7.5%) or U.S. born adults (9%). Private insurance was the main source of coverage across all immigrant groups, except for the undocumented in California, who were more likely to have public coverage.

Fewer Doctor and ER Visits

Uninsured immigrants, naturally, had less access to health care than the insured did. While 71% of U.S.-born adults reported having made a visit to a doctor, only 50.5% of noncitizen immigrants who had been in the U.S. for over 5 years and 44.2% of those in this country for 5 years or less had seen a doctor.

In addition, naturalized immigrants and both groups of noncitizen immigrants were less likely than native-born citizens to use an emergency room.The underuse of health care cannot be explained purely by the high percentage of immigrants who lack insurance, Bustamante says. Even if immigrants have insurance, they may not seek help from a doctor because they may not get paid for the time taken off from work. In addition, they may be unfamiliar with how the U.S. health care system works. If they don’t speak English, they may not even be able to make an appointment.

Aging Population

Partly due to restrictions on immigration, the immigrant population in the U.S. is aging and therefore subject to worsening health, the study notes. While only a small portion of immigrants are over 65 today, “the process of immigrant aging is going to go really fast if the population of immigrants isn’t replaced by continued flows of new immigrants,” says Bustamante.

The U.S. health care system is poorly prepared to take care of aging immigrants, according to the study. In most states, legally authorized immigrants are subject to a 5-year waiting period before they become eligible for Medicaid, and undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid and Medicare. “Aging documented immigrants may even find it challenging to qualify for Medicare because they need to account for at least 10 years of Social Security earnings to be eligible,” the study says.

Three of the states with the largest immigrant populations — Texas, Florida, and Georgia — severely restrict Medicaid coverage for immigrants, Bustamante says. In contrast, California, Illinois, and New York, which are also home to many immigrants, offer generous Medicaid coverage. In Illinois and California, there are proposals to cover some undocumented people.
What will happen to aging, uninsured immigrants when they get sick?

“That’s a big question,” says Bustamante. “A lot of the care will fall on their families, which are not necessarily high-income families. In some families, the younger people are citizens who will be called on to take care of their grandparents. This could limit the social mobility of U.S.-born family members.”

Source: Immigrants Healthier Than Native-Born, But Advantage Fades

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 14 July Update

2021/07/15 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 14 July as overall rates in Canada continue to decline along with increased vaccinations (Canadians fully vaccinated 45.6 percent, higher than EU countries, just slightly behind USA 48.6 percent and UK 52.4 percent).

Vaccinations: All Canadian provinces ahead of USA and EU countries.

Trendline charts

Infections: No significant change

Deaths: No significant change.

Vaccinations: Captured above, with increasing gap between Canadian provinces and G7.

Weekly

Infections: No relative change.

Deaths per million: No significant change.

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Huq: The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory

2021/07/14 Leave a comment

Good questioning conservative “snowflake” discomfort:

By the end of June, 29 Republican-led state legislatures had considered and nine had enacted laws to penalize schools or teachers teaching critical race theory(CRT). Whether or not such laws would stifle anything taught in public schools today is uncertain because existing legislative control over curricula is already extensive. But the war against CRT is spilling into new arenas: Florida’s anti-CRT law forces colleges to survey how “competing ideas and perspectives” are presented, threatening funding cuts if a university is “indoctrinating.”

A paradox lies at this largely conservative campaign against CRT. If you slice through the rhetoric, it rests on a view of free speech that the political right, until now, stridently and correctly rejected: That speech can and should be curtailed because it makes some people feel uncomfortable or threatened. As a result, perhaps the most powerful argument against CRT’s critics is located on the political right, particularly in a recent opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Consider first how varied and inconsistent the portrayals of CRT on offer are. The Republic Study Committee defines CRT as a belief in “racial essentialism.” In contrast, Ellie Krasne of the Heritage Foundation postulates that CRT is “rooted in Marxism,” and so defines race as “a social construct, enforced by those in power (white men).” Similarly, the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo talks of CRT as “identity-based Marxism.” He detects it whenever terms such as “social justice” and “diversity and inclusion” are used, and so sees it “permeat[ing] the collective intelligence and decision-making process of American government” in advance of a socialist uprising.

Turn to the newly-minted laws, and one finds yet other, quite different depictions. Florida’s, for example, defines it as any “theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice.” Idaho’s characterizes CRT as teaching that treats people as “inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same … race.”

These definitions of CRT can’t be reconciled. None offer clear guiderails to what precisely it means to ban CRT—No more talk of race as an identity? No discussion of laws or institutions that create racial stratification? Taken literally, some of the definitions also extend absurdly far. Florida’s could prohibit Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist Gary Becker’s work on discrimination, because Becker identifies market concentration and education (not “merely” prejudice) as causal predicates of discrimination.

Perhaps it’s a mistake to look for a stable definition of CRT threading together the case against it. For at the core of the case against CRT is instead the simple idea that people shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable about their advantages or others’ disadvantages. This is a version of the “belief in a just world” that psychologists long ago identified. But here it has a partisan edge: it is about appealing to people—especially those in “swing districts” targeted by Republicans in 2022—who feel unease in their present relative advantage, but find it costly to dissect such discomfort.

Both the Idaho and the Florida laws target suggestions that someone should be responsible for disadvantages now faced by Blacks and other minorities, beyond a narrowly defined coterie of ‘bad’ discriminators. Similarly, Krasne centrally objects to being made to feel that she is “an enemy of all that is good.” Rufo complains in a similar vein about people having to write “letters of apology”—since whites have nothing to feel culpable about. As one (white) letter writer to the Laconia Daily Sunplaintively said, the problem with CRT is that it surfaces the possibility of “systems and rules that work in my favor, benefiting me every day, month and year, that are not available to anyone else in America.” Indeed.

The case against CRT, in short, is not about a fixed set of ideas. It is about wanting to avoid certain feelings of discomfort or even shame. But the right has encountered this idea before—and seemed not to like it. Until recently, commentators on the political right have claimed that universities are captured by “leftist” students who “don’t think much” about free speech, or who “don’t want to be bothered anymore by ideas that offend them.” A “jargon of safety” in universities, complained commentator Megan McCardle, is then used to “silence” those who don’t agree.

Conservatives disparage arguments made by “snowflake” college students. But the case against CRT is made of the same stuff. As such, it is subject to the same response. Hence, in a recent opinion concerning off-campus student speech, Justice Alito explained why a student’s crude rant about being excluded from a cheerleading squad could not be punished in simple terms: “Speech cannot be suppressed just because it expresses thoughts or sentiments that others find upsetting.” This is indeed the law: The Supreme Court has not allowed the state to prohibit or punish speech because it riles up an audience since 1951.

The idea that audience discomfort provides a justification for censorship, that is, is at profound odds with our free speech tradition. The case against CRT shows why: Because it turns on how an audience feels, this argument for speech bans has an indefinite, elastic quality, one that accommodates an endlessly voracious appetite for censoriousness. One of the lessons of the CRT debate, indeed, is that offense can and is taken at indubitably true facts. In many educational contexts, this would mean that either side of a hot-button issue would have the right to shut the other down.

Ironically then, if there is a lesson to be learned from the war on CRT, it has nothing to do with how to talk about race—and everything with how the Trumpian revolution continues to devour the principles of American conservatism.

Source: The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory

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Globe editorial: Why did Ottawa kill GPHIN? Because politicians get no credit for averting a disaster that hasn’t happened yet

2021/07/14 Leave a comment

Of note, the overall challenge facing governments with respect to longer-term planning and preparation.

Silent on some of the internal decision-making processes that led to the weakening of GPHIN as it is still not clear whether the decision to shutter GPHIN was bureaucratically or politically-driven. Suspect the former given the small resources involved.

Somewhat normal to have tensions between scientific/medical experts and public service generalists but more serious in this case.

Notable recommendation that touches on this: 2.8 There should be sufficient public health expertise in GPHIN’s management to fully understand event-based surveillance.

A new independent review of the mismanagement of Canada’s pandemic early warning system, which was effectively shuttered by the Trudeau government in the months before COVID-19 made itself known in Wuhan, China, says all the right things.

Released Monday, the report urges Ottawa to better fund the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), and to make better use of the invaluable intelligence on disease outbreaks around the world that it gathers by scanning medical reports, media and other markers on a constant basis.

That, of course, is very good advice. It’s a given that, in the future, there will be more outbreaks in our connected world; it’s not a question of if, but when. Maintaining a well-funded early warning system, and creating a risk assessment group inside Canada’s Public Health Agency to analyze its finding and directly advise decision-makers, is a no-brainer.

But here’s the thing: Coming up with good advice on how to prepare for the next pandemic, and getting politicians to act on it, isn’t hard when a disease that has killed more than four million people worldwide, including more than 26,000 in Canada, is still spreading.

As the report itself says, “The best time to discuss pandemic preparedness is when it is most present in the minds of Canadians and of the governments who serve them.” 

Okay. But what happens in five or 10 years, if there’s been no outbreak in the interim, and those same governments start to lose interest in life-saving measures that don’t make headlines but which, if successful, prevent them?

The fate of GPHIN is just one of several glaring examples of what happens when Canadian governments decide that, since a disaster hasn’t happened recently, now must be a good time to cancel the insurance policy.

Created in the early 1990s, and eventually folded into the Public Health Agency of Canada, GPHIN was a world-leading scientific body that tracked outbreaks such as SARS, H1N1, MERS and Ebola, and shared its findings with the World Health Organization.

The Harper government indirectly weakened GPHIN in 2014, when it stripped PHAC of some of its independence. But the Trudeau government delivered the coup de grace in May of 2019, when it told GPHIN to stop its international monitoring and focus on domestic outbreaks.

It’s impossible to say for sure that turning off Canada’s early warning system contributed to Ottawa’s sluggish and confused response to the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020. It certainly didn’t help.

What may be more important, though, is how the evisceration of GPHIN fits a pattern in Canadian politics.

For instance, after the scare of the SARS epidemic in Toronto in 2003, Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care prepared for a future outbreak by spending $45-million on 26,000 pallets of masks, face shields, needles, disinfectant wipes, disposable thermometers and other vital medical equipment.

But in 2017, the province’s Auditor-General found that more than 80 per cent of the supplies were no longer usable. The stuff had been left to rot, because the government never allocated money to manage and replenish the stocks.

In another example, this one from before the SARS crisis, the Ontario government in 2001 laid off a group of PhD-level scientists hired to watch for emerging diseases. “Do we want five people sitting around waiting for work to arrive?” a Health department spokesman asked at the time.

Yes. Yes we do.

This is going to be the real test of Canada’s postpandemic response: Can measures urgently agreed to while COVID-19 is still an omnipresent threat survive subsequent governments that start to chafe at the independence that GPHIN and PHAC need in order to do their jobs, or become annoyed at money being spent on what may at times look like just a bunch of scientists sitting around waiting for a crisis to arrive?

The GPHIN report is wrong: The best time to discuss pandemic preparedness is not when it is top of mind, but when it has receded to the background and there is no political gain to be had by talking about it.

That’s the critical moment. Canadians won’t automatically be at risk the next time a virus threatens to become a pandemic somewhere on the planet. The danger will come before that, when governments decide to cut back on the vital but unheralded work that could have kept them safe.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-why-did-ottawa-kill-gphin-because-politicians-get-no-credit-for/

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

USA: There Are 11,073 Muslims In Federal Prisons But Just 13 Chaplains To Minister To Them

2021/07/14 Leave a comment

The previous conservative government largely cancelled the chaplain program with respect to non-Christian chaplains in 2012 (Non-Christian prison chaplains chopped by Ottawa). Not sure what the current situation is:

Abdul Muhaymin al-Salim converted to Islam during his incarceration on drug charges at a federal prison in South Carolina from 2004 to 2014. In his first year there, the 49-year-old remembers a Muslim volunteer coming to the prison a couple of times a month to lead religious services.

Then, in the second year, during Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims, the volunteer was no longer allowed in the prison. Al-Salim never found out why.

“There were instances where we could have been denied or not received the proper representation or resources that we needed,” he said.

Muslims, the third-largest faith group in federal prisons, are significantly underrepresented among the chaplaincy, according to a Department of Justice inspector general report released last week. Currently, 6% of federal prison chaplains are Muslim, while 9.4% of inmates identified as Muslim.

As of March 2020, 199 of the 236 federal prison chaplains, or 84%, were Protestant Christian, even though that faith group makes up only 34% of inmates. There were no more than 13 Muslim chaplains in the past six years working at federal prisons — and that number remains today, even though the number of Muslim inmates has grown during that time, to 11,073.

Table showing federal inmates by religion

The challenges in recruiting Muslim chaplains have persisted within the Federal Bureau of Prisons for years, the report says. In response to a 2004 inspector general report that highlighted a significant shortage in Muslim chaplains, the bureau said it tried to attract a greater number through an on-site program that allowed prison employees to acquire the necessary skills to become a chaplain. But those efforts were unsuccessful, resulting in only one Muslim chaplain trained since 2006. And the number of Muslim inmates has more than doubled since then.

“Oftentimes, this will have a negative effect because you’re left to the whims of whoever is in charge of the chaplain’s department,” said al-Salim, who now works at the Tayba Foundation, where he mentors incarcerated Muslims. “There’s nobody there to help them gain that grounding that they need.”

The needs of the federal prisons’ Muslim population are underserved without chaplains, Muslim leaders say. Because most religious services have to be led by a chaplain, not having Muslim clergy means the services get canceled. When Muslim chaplains are employed, they also make sure Muslim inmates have access to books, prayer rugs and halal meals and that they can freely practice their faith.

Why prospective prison chaplains have been discouraged from applying

“The Bureau of Prisons is committed to ensuring that inmates of all faiths can practice their religion and participate in religious services while also maintaining appropriate safety and security measures,” spokesperson Donald Murphy told NPR in a statement.

Based on recommendations from the inspector general’s office, the bureau is “making changes to improve management and oversight over its chaplaincy program,” Murphy added.

To recruit additional Muslim chaplains, the bureau said it is working with current prison chaplains and seminaries to find candidates.

The bureau is also considering waiving requirements that chaplains must be a certain age, have a graduate-level theological degree and have completed coursework in interfaith study. That would make it easier for religious leaders like Imam Sami Shamma. A chaplain at the Connecticut Department of Corrections for over eight years, Shamma said he hasn’t been eligible for a federal position because he is 65 — over the 37-year age limit for appointment. Neither could Imam Abu Qadir al-Amin, who wanted to be a chaplain at a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., where he volunteered. But he couldn’t qualify because he didn’t have access to higher education.

“Some of the more effective leaders are not necessarily people who went to school for what they’re doing now,” al-Amin said. “They’re more inspired leaders that can make a real contribution to people’s lives who are in that restricted environment and need someone who understands their lifestyle, what led them to be there in the first place, and then can more appropriately develop strategies that address the needs of them returning.”

There’s another reason it’s difficult to recruit Muslim chaplains: Ordination is required by the bureau, but Muslims do not formally ordain religious leaders. And often Muslim communities live far from the prisons, requiring the chaplains and their families to relocate. In addition, Muslim chaplains in correctional facilities often face criticism by people claiming that they are spreading an extremist interpretation of Islam to the prisoners, according to a Harvard University report.

In the meantime, the prisons are filling the gap through contracted religious services providers and trained chapel volunteers. But even with volunteers and contractors, who don’t work full time, there is only one Muslim chaplain per 176 inmates, according to the latest inspector general report.

“If they’re actively recruiting Muslim chaplains and they want to employ Muslim chaplains in the federal system, then they should maybe sit down with Muslim leaders in the community and discuss a strategy for filling that vacuum,” al-Amin said.

Despite the chaplain shortage, the bureau has made incremental progress in accommodating Muslims’ religious practices. In 2019, for instance, it changed its guidelines to allow Muslim inmates to pray in groups.

State prisons face a similar shortage of Muslim chaplains

There’s also a shortage of Muslim chaplains at state prisons, Shamma says. While he used to rely on volunteers to help, they have not been allowed to do so during the pandemic. That has sometimes meant canceled services for the almost 200 inmates he serves.

Some state prisons, with larger Muslim populations, have better resources.

Tariq MaQbool, a 44-year-old Muslim incarcerated at the New Jersey State Prison, told NPR through the Prison Journalism Project that the Muslim chaplain there is a “blessing.” He regularly attends Friday prayers and Islamic talks led by the chaplain.

But MaQbool is still advocating for other ways to practice his faith, including access to halal meals and Islamic literature.

Source: There Are 11,073 Muslims In Federal Prisons But Just 13 Chaplains To Minister To Them

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Raise immigration levels to battle labour shortage: Quebec employers group

2021/07/14 Leave a comment

Of note, given lower levels than the rest of Canada:
The Conseil du patronat du Québec (CPQ), the province’s largest employers group, is urging the Legault government to tackle the labour shortage by rethinking immigration levels and encouraging older employees to stay longer in the workforce.
The recommendations are among 10 made public by the CPQ as 181,000 jobs went unfilled in the first quarter of 2021. The labour shortage in the same period in 2020 was 150,000.

Quebec immigration levels must be “quickly raised” to meet the province’s labour needs, CPQ president Karl Blackburn told Presse Canadienne, noting that since 2015, the number of immigrants to the province has never been higher than 53,000 when “the need is for 64,000.”

Blackburn said employers are not looking for “cheap labour,” although there are worker shortages in agriculture and food processing, where salaries are low. But he added there is also a need for workers in the health, education and information technology sectors, where the pay levels are higher.

“We have to avoid categorizing good job and jobs that are less good,” he said.Quebec Premier François Legault has said if an immigrant is earning a minimum salary of $56,000, it’s to the province’s advantage to bring them here. The CPQ thinks “salary should not be a limit to entry.”

Blackburn said the province’s economic recovery will depend on all kinds of jobs, and Quebec limiting its interest to only positions with higher salaries will slow down that recovery.

Another suggestion from the CPQ is to encourage workers between the ages of 60 and 69 to stay longer in the workforce. Blackburn said Quebec is being outperformed by Ontario in this area, and if the policy was adopted “we’d have 75,000 more workers.”

That encouragement could include tax credits for older employees remaining on the job and a revision of the contribution levels to the Quebec pension plan for workers 60 and over.

The CPQ also thinks there’s room for improvement in the area of job training, with Blackburn saying that “30 per cent of employers are ready to train their workforce themselves if given financial support.”

Source: Raise immigration levels to battle labour shortage: Quebec employers group

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Taking Action to Address Potential Barriers in Staffing: Public Service Employment Act amendments receive Royal Assent

2021/07/13 Leave a comment

Some interesting changes announced by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

I think the change that will have the earliest and largest impact will be Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents having the same preference in external advertised hiring processes.

We will see over the next few years the extent to which this has an impact through the annual EE reports and which groups, given disaggregated data, are impacted most:

Too many Canadians continue to face bias, barriers, and discrimination based on their race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or other factors.

The Government of Canada has amended the Public Service Employment Actto address systemic barriers for equity-seeking groups in public service staffing.

These amendments represent foundational work that will help departments take measures in their staffing actions to reduce barriers and encourage more inclusive recruitment practices. 

Over the past several months, the Treasury Board Secretariat worked with employee networks, bargaining agents and senior officials for Employment Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to better understand the experiences of members of equity-seeking groups in public service staffing.

Amendments to the Public Service Employment Act reaffirm the importance of a diverse and inclusive workforce and strengthen provisions to address potential bias and barriers in staffing processes.

With these changes:

  • All new or revised qualification standards must be evaluated for bias and barriers for members of equity-seeking groups. 
  • Permanent residents now have the same preference as Canadian Citizens when appointments are made through external advertised hiring processes.
  • The design and application of assessment methods must include an evaluation of bias and barriers, and reasonable efforts for mitigation.
  • The Public Service Commission now has explicit authority to audit for bias and barriers that disadvantage members of equity-seeking groups.
  • The Commission and deputy heads will have explicit authority to investigate bias and barriers for members of equity-seeking groups. 

These Public Service Employment Act amendments form one part of a set of initiatives and activities to increase diversity and inclusion in the public service so that it is reflective of the Canadian population it serves and a place where all public servants feel a true sense of belonging.

The work of eradicating bias, barriers, and discrimination, which have taken root over generations, demands an ongoing, relentless effort. The Government of Canada is committed to this effort and will use all available levers to improve the experiences of public servants in their workplace and ensure that they are able to realize their full potential.

Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/news/2021/07/taking-action-to-address-potential-barriers-in-staffing-public-service-employment-act-amendments-receive-royal-assent.html?utm_campaign=tbs-sct-20-21&utm_source=lnkn&utm_medium=smo&utm_content=7-27l122-en

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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