Multicultural Meanderings

En prison pour deux publications Facebook

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

Quebec politicians denounce rise in online hate as Ottawa prepares to act

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

Ironic given some of the political discourse in Quebec:

Death threats over an animal control plan, personal insults over stop signs, social media attacks targeting spouses — these are examples of what politicians in Quebec say has become an increasingly difficult reality of their jobs during COVID-19.

From suburban mayors to the premier, politicians in the province have been raising the alarm about the rise in hateful and occasionally violent online messages they receive — and some are calling for stronger rules to shield them.

On Saturday, Premier Francois Legault denounced the torrent of hateful messages that regularly follow his online posts, which he said has worsened “in the last months.”

“Each time I post something now, I’m treated to an avalanche of aggressive and sometimes even violent comments, and to insults, obscenities and sometimes threats,” Legault wrote on Facebook.

Several Quebec municipal politicians have announced they won’t be running again in elections this fall, in part because of the hostile climate online. Others, including the mayors of Montreal and Quebec City, have spoken in the past about receiving death threats. In November, police in Longueuil, Que., arrested a man in connection with threats against the city’s mayor and other elected officials over a plan to cull deer in a municipal park.

Philippe Roy, the mayor of the Town of Mount-Royal, an on-island Montreal suburb, says he’s leaving municipal politics when his current term ends, partly because of the constant online insults directed at him and his spouse.

While taking criticism is part of the job, he said he’s seen a shift in the past two years toward more falsehoods and conspiracy theories, which he said are undermining the trust between elected officials and their constituents. After 16 years in politics, he said he’s tired of the constant accusations directed his way.

“When people are questioning your integrity, you start saying, ‘Well, maybe I have better things to do somewhere else,’ ” he said in a recent interview.

The problem is serious enough that the group representing Quebec municipalities has launched an awareness campaign and drafted a resolution denouncing the online vitriol. It has so far been adopted by some 260 municipal councils.

Suzanne Roy, the group’s president, says the campaign was launched in response to a “flood of testimonials” from mayors and councillors about an increase in abuse and hate speech during the pandemic.

She attributes the phenomenon to a rise in “stress and frustration.”

“People, without having the proper tools to manage their stress, will let off steam on social media and write inappropriate statements towards decisions taken at city council about a stop sign at the wrong place, a hole in the road, everything,” she said in a phone interview.

Roy, who is mayor of Ste-Julie on Montreal’s South Shore, said she experienced the perils of social media firsthand earlier this year when someone stole her identity online and posted anti-COVID conspiracy theories from her Facebook account.

She is among those pushing for stronger rules to combat hate speech, and for platforms such as Facebook to take quicker action to remove hateful comments or restore someone’s identity when it’s stolen. She said the platforms need to take down the messages as soon as they appear to ensure debate remains respectful and false messages aren’t spread.

“It’s a question of debate and a question of democracy,” she said.

Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has promised to introduce new legislation to combat hate speech this spring.

In an interview Tuesday, he said the legislation will define five categories of illegal online activities and create a regulator. The regulator’s job would include pushing online platforms to respect the law and to remove hateful messages within 24 hours.

He said the bill’s goal is to take stronger actions against hate speech, child porn and non-consensual sharing of intimate images. He was careful to say that it would not tackle misinformation, saying it’s not the government’s job to “legislate information.”

Guilbeault said his government has also had to contend with critics who accuse the government of wanting to limit free speech, a charge he denies. Rather, he says the aim of the legislation is to ensure that laws, such as those against hate speech, are applied online as they are in the real world — something he argues will protect free speech rather than stifle it.

“Right now in the virtual world and, I’m sad to say, in the physical world, we’re seeing the safety and security of Canadians is being compromised, that freedom of speech is being affected online,” he said in a phone interview.

“We’re seeing it now with Quebec politicians who say, ‘No, no I don’t want to run for politics, it’s so violent.'” He said the chilling effect extends to equity-seeking groups and racialized Canadians, many of whom avoid the platforms because they’re constant targets of abuse.

“How does that protect free speech?” he asked. “Well, it doesn’t.”

Suzanne Roy says her group, the Union des municipalities du Quebec, gives new councillors some training on how to manage social media accounts, including advice on handling adversarial situations. She says the advice generally includes not getting into debates online and instead steering people to more formal channels to express their opinions, such as city council meetings and public consultations.

Philippe Roy, the soon-to-be ex-mayor of Mont-Royal, says that while there appear to be strong candidates to take his place, he’s already met people who have been discouraged from running by the prospect of online hate — something that bodes poorly for the future if the problem isn’t tackled.

“We’re losing people who could give back to the community, and that’s one of the threats that comes from this situation,” he said.

Source: Quebec politicians denounce rise in online hate as Ottawa prepares to act

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with candidates, Hate, politicians, Quebec

Ottawa to extend eligibility criteria for Yazidi refugees: Mendicino

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

Good:

Ottawa is adopting a new policy to help more Yazidis and other survivors of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reunite with their families in Canada, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said Tuesday.

Mendicino said it will allow more Yazidi refugees to join extended family members, including siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

The Yazidis and other groups who survived abuse, torture and even genocide at the hands of ISIL are among the most vulnerable refugees in the world, he said.

“Guided by compassion, we are now redoubling our efforts to reunite their families.”

The Immigration Department said the new policy will help Yazidis and members of other communities in Northern Iraq to start new lives in Canada.

These refugees were victims of threats or acts including sexual slavery, general enslavement, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, family separation and forced displacement, the department said.

Canada has welcomed more than 1,400 survivors of ISIL from Northern Iraq since 2017.

This includes 1,356 government-assisted refugees and 94 privately sponsored ones. Women and girls comprise the vast majority.

The Yazidi newcomers have been primarily resettled to Toronto, London, Ont., Winnipeg and Calgary where Yazidi communities existed and adequate support, including medical, social and interpretation services, was in place.

Source: Ottawa to extend eligibility criteria for Yazidi refugees: Mendicino

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with Minister Mendicino, Yazidis

#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 31 March Update

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 31 March, in the context of a likely third wave.

Vaccinations: Change from last week: Slight decline in gap between EU countries and Canadian provinces. USA overall ahead of California, New York, France and Quebec ahead of Germany, Ontario ahead of Sweden but Sweden ahead of Canada and Canada less Quebec, British Columbia ahead of Alberta and Prairies.

Trendline charts

Infections per million: The previous trend of a flattening curve is seen in G7 countries and most provinces appears to be changing for the worse.

Deaths per million: Most Canadian provinces continue to flatten the curve, Quebec most dramatically. Overall G7 death rate continue to surpass Quebec’s by an increasing margin.

Vaccinations per million: While the gap between G7 and Canada remains despite the arrival of more vaccines, one can see that Canadian provinces have been ramping up. The increase in vaccination rates of immigration source countries driven by China and India.

Weekly

Infections per million: Some minor shifts: New York ahead of USA and California, Germany ahead of Alberta.

Deaths per million: No relative change.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with comparison, comparisons, COVID-19, monthly, provinces

Turkish Germans are finally finding their voice

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

Interesting overview and history (long read):

IScores of young Turkish men in sober suits move towards the train that will take them to Germany, while their wives and mothers cry on the platform. A few days earlier, these hopefuls had been bare-chested as their teeth and bodies were checked by German doctors to ensure they were strong enough for the physical work awaiting them. Those that pass the test feel immense pride: “I am Yılmaz Atalay from Çorum!” announces one, gazing wide-eyed into the camera in footage originally shot by Turkish state television.

Atalay was among the first Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, to leave a poor part of Turkey for West Germany’s booming post-war economy and a better life. The deal signed in 1961 by Ankara and Bonn sparked an enormous migration between two countries that shared little in terms of culture, religion or prosperity. It changed not only the workers’ lives, but also the nature of their new country. By the end of the first year, 5,623 Turkish workers lived in Germany. When the scheme officially ended, in 1973, there were 900,000. Now the Turkish-German community, comprising the original migrants and their descendants (about half of whom are German citizens) numbers nearly three million, constituting the biggest minority group in the country.

Most of those original migrants spent their working lives in low-paid, backbreaking jobs on assembly lines and building sites, as well as in mines. Their descendants include global successes, such as Game of Thrones actress Sibel Kekilli and World Cup-winning footballer Mesut Özil as well as—most recently—the Covid-19 vaccine creators, the married couple Uğur Şahin (whose parents were doctors) and Özlem Türeci of BioNTech.

But while such figures conjure up an immigrant rags-to-riches story, the truth for most is less romantic. As the 60th anniversary of the Turkish Gastarbeiter programme approaches, the younger generation is struggling to find its proper place. In 2021, Turkish Germans are still among the least integrated, least educated in the country. At the same time, the effects of German xenophobia remain pervasive. Many young Turkish Germans are angry that even after three generations, they don’t appear to fully belong.

During the 2015 migrant crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel famously chose to “open the gates” to mostly Muslim Syrian refugees. Yet five years before, in 2010, she had taken a very different tack, pronouncing the failure of German multiculturalism—in which Turkish Germans provided the single biggest element of diversity.

Was she right the first time? And if so, who is to blame? With hindsight, the seeds of today’s problems were sown in those early days of the Gastarbeiter—compounded by decades of short-sighted strategies and misconceptions.

The Gastarbeiter were never meant to stay. In the 1950s, West Germany invited Italian, Greek and Spanish guest workers to feed the engine of its voracious post-war economy. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, the net was cast wider to make up for the loss of cheap East German workers. Turkey had no particular affinity with Germany, but the latter was a rare country that the Ottoman Empire had not gone to war with in the previous 150 years. Germans had bankrolled and built railways in Anatolia. The two countries were allies in the First World War and Ankara stayed neutral in the second. Turkey had willing workers and high unemployment, so a deal was struck—and with it came the beginnings, for Turks, of German upward mobility.

In theory, each worker was hired for a specific job for a maximum of two years. In practice, employers soon tired of the inconvenience of rehiring and retraining more Turks, so the limit was dropped. Later on, family reunions were permitted and wives and children joined their husbands.

In spite of these changes, the transience inherent in the original scheme had consequences. The guest workers were not taught German or other skills needed to integrate and thrive. At the time, neither side thought this mattered much. The workers mostly settled in crowded hostels in industrial hubs and rarely socialised with outsiders. Their children, who as the years went by were increasingly German-born, nonetheless studied in Turkish schools in Germany, with the aim of returning back “home” one day.

For some, it was like a gap-year adventure. Nazire Severson, now 69, left a civil service job in Mardin, southeast Turkey, when she was 21, applying on a whim with her sister. Before the journey, they received from Turkish officials organising their transport a bag with sandwiches, a banana, a pair of jeans and instructions on how to use German toilets. “Arriving with no German [in 1973] we had no idea how to get to our factory,” she tells me. “We got lost. Eventually a Turkish man put us on a train. We cried all the way. We hadn’t set foot outside Mardin before,” she says, laughing at the memory. “The scary-looking Meister in the factory set tough targets. I found it easy, but my sister kept fainting.” Severson made watches and packaged chocolates in factories, sold insurance and worked for a furniture brand, as well as Siemens and Bosch. She went dancing with Yugoslav and Greek colleagues and taught herself German. Once, between jobs, she slept in Stuttgart train station. Her sister went back, but Severson stayed for a further 20 years before returning to Turkey.

It was always a utilitarian exchange: a 1973 BBC documentary described Gastarbeiter as “industrial raw material.” For its part, Turkey hoped its workforce would send money home to help its ailing economy, and eventually bring useful skills. Workers saved to prepare for a comfortable life in Turkey. The ultimate ambition was to go back in a Mercedes.

After the 1973 oil crisis, which badly affected German heavy industry, Berlin closed the programme to new arrivals—but was surprised when the existing Turks didn’t go home. There was no mystery. Turkey had recently been blighted by a series of coups, ethnic unrest and economic disappointment. Indeed, the migration continued in a new form, as a stream of Turkish dissidents including leftist and Kurdish refugees began seeking asylum in Germany. As it became clear that the “guests” would become a permanent part of the nation’s landscape, an anti-foreigner movement—a taboo in a country ruined by racist nationalism only a generation earlier—began to emerge. “The German government did not know what to do. It was a political sensation,” historian Ulrich Herbert of Freiburg University tells me.

Poorly educated Turkish migrants were primed for exploitation. Investigative journalist Günter Wallraff spent two years in disguise as an unqualified Turkish worker. German society was shocked by his 1985 bestseller Ganz Unten (translated into English as Lowest of the Low), which described horrific racism and unprovoked attacks. He had earned a pittance, worked without protective equipment in dangerous environments and lived in social isolation. Wallraff found that the workers were treated like disposable tools. Some were trafficked by gangs. The book had an impact and Germans began speaking to their Turkish neighbours for the first time.

Reunification in 1990 produced yet another wave of pressure. “There was huge chaos,” says Berlin-based sociologist Gökçe Yurdakul, author of From Guest Workers into Muslims. “East Germans needed work and West Germany had to provide factory jobs for them. Helmut Kohl’s government offered compensation to Turkish workers so they would go.” The contrast with British multiculturalism here is striking. A generation after the beginnings of mass immigration in the UK, subsidies to encourage repatriation were occasionally discussed, but only on the right-wing fringes.

Severson—who arrived under the original guest worker scheme at 21—was among the tens of thousands who left Germany at this time, along with her family. She was tempted by the 10,500 mark payment and wished to live closer to her extended family. But years of hard work had also left her with disabling back pains; many other Turkish German workers also suffered long-term health issues.

For those who stayed, racist attacks increased. In one especially shocking case in 1993, five members of a Turkish family, including children, were killed when four neo-Nazis burned down their home in Solingen, the birthplace of Adolf Eichmann. In response to such attacks, Turkish vigilante groups were formed. Progressive mainstream politicians began championing greater rights for migrants, but Germany did not accept that it was a “country of immigration” for many years.

After 9/11, Turkish Germans were suddenly viewed not so much as Turks but as Muslims—potential objects of fear as well as disdain, but also people who had to be “managed.” Yurdakul said that German efforts to work with and fund Muslim organisations had the unintended consequence of encouraging the less devout to become more visibly religious, so as to appear more authentic representatives of their community: “To access the funding, I know of at least two people who grew beards.”

But if resources were thrown at “community engagement,” it was hardly enough to compensate the Turkish community for a rising mood of fear and resentment among the majority. In 2010, a Social Democratic Party politician and Bundesbank board member, Thilo Sarrazin, published a book called Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab—Germany Abolishes Itself. It argued that Germany’s post-war approach to immigration had been wrong, and that it now had to restrict Muslim immigration or be overwhelmed. Described to me by one of the first Turkish Germans to enter politics—the Green Party’s Özcan Mutlu—as having “opened a real Pandora’s box,” it fast became a “Bible for xenophobes.” Later it was an inspiration for Alternative für Deutschland, which was founded in 2013 principally as an anti-euro party, but soon descended into far-right chauvinism.

“After 9/11, Turkish Germans were viewed not only as potential objects of fear, but also as people who had to be ‘managed’”

The book had such effect because it tapped into real resentment: in 2010, 30 per cent of Germans thought the country was overrun by migrants. Politicians felt like they had to respond. Which brings us to Merkel’s remark that multiculturalism had “utterly failed,” and her suggestion that Germany needed to step up its integration programme.

The long-serving Chancellor has a curious role in Germany’s immigration story. She has personally cleaved to her Christian Democratic Party’s socially conservative instincts—for example, although she catalysed the vote that legalised gay marriage, she voted against the reform. On multiculturalism, as recently as 2013, her government’s dual citizenship reforms excluded swathes of Turks. At the same time, though, she championed immigrant forums and cross-cultural outreach.

And then there was her groundbreaking approach to Syrian refugees, allowing in one million of them in 2015—a policy which, she told parliament, was informed by the mistakes made with Gastarbeiter. She threw open Germany’s borders with the words “wir schaffen das” (“we can do this”). Crucially, she backed integration programmes from day one. She encouraged vocational training, mandatory language lessons, fast-track work permits and financial incentives for company traineeships. Though there have been inevitable teething problems, there are also signs of hope: in this September’s general election, former law student Tareq Alaows hopes to become the first Syrian in the Bundestag.

Some battles have always been exported from Turkey—Kurds and leftists versus Turkish nationalists, secularists versus Islamists, and so on. Now the divide is pro- and anti-Erdoğan: the controversial President’s embrace of Turkish Germans as potential voters has angered Berlin and damaged the minority’s image in the process. A new group of exiles arrived after Erdoğan started jailing opponents, following the attempted coup in 2016. They haven’t all been welcomed by the more settled Turkish community, half of which supports Erdoğan. Some dissidents say they have been threatened by locals. In December, German-born boxer Ünsal Arık was stabbed after wearing a T-shirt criticising the President.

Many Germans don’t understand why Turkish Germans, who mostly vote centre-left in Germany, back the hardline conservative in Ankara. There may be a simple answer: German Greens and Social Democrats are relatively generous to migrants, but Erdoğan nurtures a mythical, welcoming motherland image that is seductive to those feeling alienated.

This alienation is starting to be properly analysed only now. Seyran Bostancı, 34, is a doctoral candidate based in Berlin whose grandparents originally came from Turkey. In a dexterous mixture of English, German and Turkish, she explains how it was only when she wrote a masters thesis on racism in education that she fully understood the discrimination she had faced at school. “My son is five. He’s already understood how the world functions—that German has positive and Turkish negative connotations. I hope he won’t struggle as I did. He has educated parents, more capital, more privilege than we did. But I despair that I still won’t be able to protect him from experiencing discrimination.”

Even for national treasures, the mood can turn sour. When Özil was photographed posing with Erdoğan in 2018, German football officials attacked the supposedly conflicted loyalties of the pious Muslim who didn’t sing the national anthem properly—and who, despite being one of the most talented players of his generation, had lost form playing for Germany. Özil quit the national team, accusing the president of the football federation of racism. “I am German when we win, immigrant when we lose,” he said. When he joined Istanbul’s Fenerbahçe this year, a newspaper referred to his “return to Turkey.” Born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Özil has never previously lived in Turkey. “When the Erdoğan picture happened German people said, ‘we suspected he wasn’t really ours and here’s the proof,’” said Hacı-Halil Uslucan, Professor of Modern Turkish Studies and Integration at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Most Turkish German backstories include an element of “othering.” Yılmaz Atalay, the Turk proud to be moving to Germany who we met at the start of this piece, was once rejected by a landlord who didn’t want a Turk in his flat. Cem Özdemir, former Green Party co-leader, still receives death threats from the far right. Turkish names don’t help on job applications. One successful professional told me she was spat at. Another was called a cockroach. Zeynep Korkmaz Aslan, a language teacher who moved to Turkey as a teenager but has now returned to Germany, was disdained in German schools and called “snooty” in Turkish ones. Her oldest child, a top student in Turkey, was automatically placed in a low-achieving school in Germany. “Old assumptions about Turks being bad students persist,” Korkmaz Aslan told me sadly, making it harder to
raise standards.

In noisy debates about integration, such voices get lost. “There is a fog of misunderstanding,” says Aydın Bayad, who is working on a new government-supported Bielefeld University study on migrant social cohesion. “Both countries are trying to make political manoeuvres around Turkish Germans, but nobody has actually sought their views.”

As the debate about migrants becomes noisy, young Turkish Germans are becoming bolshy too. Turkish rappers use the insults thrown at them in their lyrics. More sensitive to discrimination and implicit bias, a new generation is less tolerant of injustice. They join groups such as the pro-diversity, anti-racism Neue Deutsche Organisation. Uslucan says this is not a sign of failure, but success. It’s the integration paradox—the more integrated a group actually is, the more keenly it feels prejudice. “The first generation wasn’t bothered about being second-class citizens,” he says. “My parents don’t watch German TV or read the newspapers so don’t know what’s said about them. But 15-year-old Mehmet thinks he should be treated the same as Rolf or Sabine.”

The post-2016 arrivals—scientists, writers, artists, academics—have formed an instant community of educated Turkish migrants who ought to integrate fast. Can Dündar, former editor of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet who now lives in Berlin, told me he was busier than ever thanks to Germans’ interest in Turkey and Turkish Germans.

The diversity of this group—illiterate elderly migrants, workers, professionals, social elites and the left behind, Alevis, Sunnis, Kurds and Turks—has long rendered it problematic to treat them as a single undifferentiated mass, even though that is how the discussion is often framed.

Even so, “the Gastarbeiter taught Germany that being a one-way society only for blonde Germans is not the only option,” says academic Ulrich Herbert. And today, finally, the contributions of Turkish migrants are increasingly acknowledged in Germany—more varied food, entrepreneurialism, a more diverse arts scene—more, in other words, of everything humanity has to offer. As the dramatist Max Frisch wrote: “We called for workers, but people came.”

Suna Erdem is a freelance journalist who has written about the arts for the Times, the Guardian and Daily Telegraph

Source: Turkish Germans are finally finding their voice

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with Germany, Suna Erdem, Turkish Germans

Les immigrants auront peu d’incidence sur le déclin du français au Québec

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

More demystification:

Deux nouvelles études mettent en lumière les défis auxquels fait face la langue française au Québec. Elles confirment le recul net anticipé du poids des francophones au Québec d’ici une quinzaine d’années — et cela, peu importe les efforts déployés pour accueillir plus d’immigrants parlant français —, de même que l’importance que prend l’anglais en milieu de travail.

Dévoilées lundi après-midi par l’Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), ces études viennent étoffer des données contenues dans le grand Rapport sur l’évolution de la situation linguistique, publié en avril 2019, et dans une étude de Statistique Canada publiée en 2017.

Pas de grande surprise par rapport aux constats, donc, mais les conclusions « confirment ce que plusieurs études ont montré — le français décline », commentait lundi Myriam D’Arcy, directrice générale de la Fondation Lionel-Groulx, qui s’intéresse de près à ce dossier. « Il est temps d’agir : on attend impatiemment le projet de loi » que doit déposer le gouvernement Legault pour mettre à jour la Charte de la langue française.

La première étude s’appuie sur les Projections linguistiques pour le Canada, 2011-2036. Ce rapport prévoit notamment une diminution importante de la part de la population utilisant le français à la maison (de 82 % en 2011 à 75 % d’ici 2036).

L’OQLF a demandé aux chercheurs de Statistique Canada d’étudier différents scénarios — touchant tous la composition de l’immigration — pour mesurer s’ils auraient un effet sur la part relative du français dans les différentes catégories habituelles (langue maternelle, principale langue d’usage à la maison, etc.). Résultat ? Les « scénarios auraient somme toute un effet assez limité sur l’accroissement du poids démographique de la population québécoise de langue française », notent les chercheurs.

Même un scénario « théorique peu probable » qui ferait en sorte que 100 % des immigrants du volet économique (c’est Québec qui assure leur sélection) seraient originaires de pays francophones « ne permettrait de faire progresser que marginalement les différents indicateurs du français ».

L’OQLF conclut donc elle aussi que « le poids des francophones de langue maternelle et celui des personnes dont le français est la langue parlée le plus souvent à la maison diminueront d’ici 2036 ». Dans le premier cas, on parle d’un recul d’au moins sept points de pourcentage ; dans le second, d’au moins six points.

Au travail

Pour l’étude Langues utilisées dans diverses situations de travail au Québec en 2018, l’OQLF a mandaté une firme de sondage pour qu’elle éclaircisse qui parle anglais au travail et pour quelles raisons. L’Office s’est gardé d’établir des comparatifs ou de commenter la situation.

Sur l’île de Montréal — là où se concentrent les questions liées à la protection du français —, 53 % des travailleurs parlent surtout français au travail, alors que près de 19 % utilisent surtout l’anglais. Le quart des travailleurs passent d’une langue à l’autre.

Pourquoi ? Près de la moitié (49 %) des répondants qui utilisent au moins régulièrement l’anglais le font pour « offrir un service à la clientèle du Québec ». Parmi les autres raisons mentionnées régulièrement, il y a notamment le fait que des « collègues préfèrent utiliser » l’anglais (25 %).

Source: Les immigrants auront peu d’incidence sur le déclin du français au Québec

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with language, l’Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), Quebec

ICYMI: Canada’s schools draw fewer international students due to pandemic travel rules

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

Seeing this in the monthly stats:

Many international students have postponed or cancelled their plans to study in Canada since Ottawa decided last month to limit entry options to the country to just four airports and require international travellers to pay for a mandatory hotel quarantine.

Denise Amyot, the chief executive officer of Colleges and Institutes Canada, said a $2,000 hotel bill is the cost of half of a semester for many students.

“(They) don’t have that kind of means,” she said.

If a group of international students are heading to New Brunswick, for example, Amyot said they might arrive in Toronto, where they would go to a hotel for three days as part of a 14-day quarantine.

Then, because they will be moving to another province with its own rules, they will have to quarantine again for 14 days when they arrive in New Brunswick.

“This is nonsense. It just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It means that for the spring and summer, we have a large number of deferrals.”

Amyot said the number of international students at Canadian colleges has declined by 20 to 30 per cent in the 2020-21 academic year compared to 2019-20.

“It has varied across the country, and we had larger declines in smaller cities and rural and remote areas.”

She said many international students are deferring their plans to study in Canada since the federal government funnelled all international flights to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Vancouver and began requiring travellers to quarantine at government-approved hotels.

“Those two measures that the government has put in place are jeopardizing the number of students arriving,” she said.

Amyot called on the government to exempt international students from the three-day stopover requirement.

The office of Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said in a statement that any decision to ease or modify border measures in Canada will be based on scientific evidence.

“Entry prohibitions, coupled with mandatory isolation and quarantine, continue to be the most effective means of limiting the introduction of new cases of COVID-19 into Canada at this time,” the statement said.

Even before the new entry restrictions were imposed, the total number of all international students in Canada had already declined by about 17 per cent last year, to 531,000 students at the end of 2020 from 639,000 in 2019, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data.

Paul Davidson, the chief executive officer of Universities Canada, said the overall enrolment of international students at Canadian universities has declined by 2.1 per cent this year compared to last.

“It’s against a backdrop where typically the number of international students at universities has grown at over 10 per cent in each of the last five years, so it is quite a setback,” he said.

“We have 96 universities at Universities Canada, and 51 of those institutions saw a decline in the international students … Overall, 26 institutions saw a loss of over 10 per cent of their international students.”

Fewer international students in Canadian post-secondary schools means less revenue for these institutions, which will affect domestic students, said Amyot.

“It means that there will be less programs that can be offered,” she said.

“It’s not only a matter of dollars … There are some programs that are very popular with international students, but not so much for domestic students, and that’s especially in more technical areas linked to engineering or mining … Now (these programs) won’t be offered, because there’s not enough students.”

Amyot said the decrease in international student numbers will eventually create a gap in the labour force in Canada.

“(International students) also come with skills,” she said. “It means that there will be a gap because we won’t be able to count on those students, and who will suffer? The industry, because there will be a labor shortage.”

She said Canadian colleges and universities have used innovation to allow international students to complete their studies online.

Robert Falconer, a researcher at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, said international students studying online at Canadian schools from their home countries might lose interest in immigrating to Canada.

“They might decide, after getting their Canadian degree, that they’re not going to really bother coming to Canada because they’ve never been, they don’t have prospects here and no social network or job opportunities.”

Amyot said education institutions had quarantine plans in the fall for their international students, letting them go to their quarantine locations safely. Local public health authorities and the provincial and federal governments approved.

“It was working very well for the fall intake, but now with this new measure that was taken in place, everything is in the air,” she said.

Davidson said all international students, from kindergartners to PhDs, contribute about $22 billion a year to Canada’s economy.

“It’s a major contributor to Canada’s economic growth,” he said. “The decline in international student numbers is having a widespread economic impact in Canada.”

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the government has encouraged international students to stay in Canada during the pandemic.

“While other countries told international students to go home during the pandemic, we went to great lengths to support them and create a system that allowed them to continue their studies,” Alexander Cohen said in a statement.

The department has tried to make it easier for international students to apply for work permits after they graduate, including counting the time they spend studying online toward the period of time needed to make them eligible, for instance.

Davidson said the United States is reducing barriers to immigration for international students and the government of the United Kingdom is marketing to international students and expediting visa processing for them.

“This is a competitive landscape we’re working in,” he said. “The government of the U.K. is offering guaranteed visa approvals (for international students) in about three weeks, which is much faster than Canada.”

Source: Canada’s schools draw fewer international students due to pandemic travel rules

Filed under Immigration Tagged with Colleges and Institutes Canada, international students, Robert Falconer, Universities Canada

Shree Paradkar: ‘Random’ tax audits of Muslim charities provide cover for biased terrorism suspicions, report finds

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

Of note. Can understand why some of the speakers prompted questions regarding charitable status, the point made inconsistency with respect to some Christian charities and institutions is valid:

When the Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque found its charitable status revoked in 2018, it was told it had promoted “hate and intolerance” by hosting four speakers who were found to have previously espoused dubious views elsewhere.

There was no record of what was said at the mosque, which the government found to be a violation of the Income Tax Act.

“The mere possibility that the views of the speakers … could have been expressed” warranted concern, wrote the Charities Directorate, a federal agency that sits within the Canada Revenue agency and oversees compliance with income tax laws. The fear was that the centre might be a hot spot for radicalized Muslims.

A new report titled “Layered Suspicion” released Monday studies three organizations that lost their charitable status to two key policies: anti-terrorism financing and anti-radicalization. The three are the Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque, the Islamic Shi’a Assembly of Canada and IRFAN-Canada.

The report examines how long-standing tropes of Muslims as the menacing outsiders who pose an imminent threat to society influence tax audits of Muslim-led charities. It looks at biases implicit in the audit, what interpretations auditors make and if there was bias in the selection of their evidence.

Authors Anver Emon, a University of Toronto law professor and director of its Institute of Islamic Studies, and Nadia Hasan, chief operating officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), found that tax audits are often used as a cover for structural biases in policies related to financing terror and radicalization.

These policies operate in the shadows of an otherwise ordinary audit, the authors write, raising concerns about basic fairness, transparency and accountability.

Organizations are often told it’s a random audit. But for years, Hasan said, “we were hearing all kinds of grumblings about the kind of information auditors were asking that didn’t seem right. But nobody could put their finger to what was going on.”

The Ottawa Islamic Centre was created for the purpose of “advancing religion,” which is one of the categories that satisfies the requirement of charitable status. It served a largely Somali Muslim community. Canadian government focus on this community changed from humanitarianism to national security after 9/11, the authors write. Those fears are based on stories of a “small handful of young Somali-Canadians” recruited by al-Shabab extremists as foreign fighters, the report says.

The four speakers were considered to have what the government called “extreme ideas.” Extreme ideas, a nebulous concept based on the belief they can be transformed into violent activities, is key to Canada’s anti-radicalization strategy. It grants Public Safety agents discretionary authority and the power to determine what is extreme and what constitutes a threat to national security.

A BBC documentary reported one of those speakers, the American Abu Usamah at-Thahabi, saying in a Birmingham mosque, “No one loves the kafir (non-believers)” and that “I don’t agree with (Muslim terrorists) but at the same time they are closer to me than those criminals of the kufr (disbelief).”

Others were accused of homophobic and misogynistic attitudes; one of them was banned from multiple countries.

“Our point is even if they have conservative views whether we agree with them or not, they cannot become a pretext for radicalization concerns,” says Emon.

This approach was not applied equally across racial and religious groups, the report says.

“In 2019, pastors from Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries … were arrested in Toronto while preaching anti-gay ideas during Pride Week,” the report says. “At the date of writing this report, Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries remains registered as a charity.”

The report offers other examples: Canada Christian College is registered as a charity with the CRA despite its president Charles McVety’s open homophobia. If the Ottawa speaker was slammed by British broadcasting, McVety was castigated by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council as “abusive.”

Journey Canada, accused of supporting practices of conversion therapy and Northern Youth Programs, which operated some of the last residential schools in Canada, and is accused of running programs in Northern Ontario that LGBTQ2 members claim are harmful to youth, also keep their status.

The other policy of note for the report is Canada’s anti-terrorism financing policy that involves 13 federal departments and agencies, eight of which receive funding totalling $70 million annually.

The CRA is one of those agencies.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and what the report calls “the exaggerated and generally debunked belief” that the wealthy Osama bin Laden was bankrolling al-Qaida brought global attention to the issue of terrorist financing.

In 2015, as part of a risk assessment review process, Canada named 10 groups that posed the greatest threat to terrorist financing.

Out of those, eight are Muslim or Arab including al-Qaida, Hamas, al-Shabab and Hezbollah. One is a vaguely named “Khalistani Extremist Groups” and another is “Remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.”

“What’s this risk-based assessment going to do?” Emon says, “It’s going to put the focus on Muslim charities in particular.”

The Islamic Shi’a Assembly’s troubles began in 2011 right after Stephen Harper was elected prime minister, the report says. The Charities Directorate first determined that the organization’s operations did not support “advancing religion” as its purpose. And if it wasn’t advancing religion then it deemed it to be supporting a political purpose.

Its audit began at a time of tense Canada-Iran relations, days after Harper declared it “probably the most significant threat in the world to global peace and security.” The directorate concluded the organization was a Canadian front for an Iranian-controlled global organization that had among its membership people from Hezbollah.

How did the organization run afoul of its “advancing religion” mandate? The audit report said it found the organization hosting Eid festivals for Ramadan two-and-a-half weeks after the recognized religious dates for Eid ul-Fitr. But there are no statutory holidays for Muslim festivals. And because they follow the lunar calendar, the festival sometimes falls mid-week. As with other non-Christian groups, Muslims have to decide whether to take time off work or school to attend religious services. It is therefore standard for organizations to schedule festivities on a weekend at a later date.

The decision “smacked of a protestant Christian bias that manifested as state protection and state oversight,” Emon says.

IRFAN-Canada or the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (Canada) also ran afoul of the terrorism financing rules, but via a different route. Its mandate was “poverty relief” not advancing religion. Among regions it worked in was the West Bank and Gaza Strip and it was given charitable status in 1999.

But when Hamas won the parliamentary election in the Palestinian territories in 2006, it sent the world into a tailspin. Depending on a nation’s politics, the social wings and political wings of Hamas were either considered separate or they were collapsed. The report reproduces various arguments in Parliament during question period in the early to mid 2000s to show how “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became a political battleground for domestic partisan feuds.”

By 2011 the directorate revoked IRFAN-Canada’s charitable status alleging direct links to Hamas. Any of its projects funded through a government ministry in Gaza were automatically deemed to support Hamas after 2006.

The report calls for an immediate suspension of the CRA’s Review and Analysis Division, the agency’s investigative unit of charities and terrorism funding and a review of Canada’s risk assessment model and strategy to combat extremism and radicalization. It seeks transparency from the Charities Directorate to let organizations know why they’re being audited.

It’s calling for the suspension of discretionary use of revocation powers in audits where counter-radicalization policies are involved.

Mustafa Farooq, chief executive officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said these organizations have to constantly second-guess themselves. “If we invite this Imam do we have to search everything this Imam ever said so we don’t someday lose our charitable status? Will it matter if we hold an Eid celebration a week later. What happens when we’re trying to donate to an international cause domestically but that someday might be unpopular with the government?

“There is always this spectre haunting Muslims that animates and weaves its way through this report.”

Source: Shree Paradkar: ‘Random’ tax audits of Muslim charities provide cover for biased terrorism suspicions, report finds

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with Anver Emon, Assalam Mosque, Canada Christian College, charitable status, charities, Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries, CRA, Layered Suspicion, Ottawa Islamic Centre

Methodology for Investment Migration Programs 2021 (Henley & Partners)

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

For those of you interested in indexes and citizenship and how the private companies make their assessment:

In constructing the Global Residence Program Index (GRPI) and Global Citizenship Program Index (GCPI) we have referred to multiple sources and experts to obtain and interpret the primarily qualitative data used. We have relied principally on the expertise of residence and citizenship analysts and the experience of investors and government officials. As a result, the explanatory power that supports the scores in the different categories is based on surveys, interviews with respondents, and opinions solicited from selected experts. Where possible, the subjectivity of the various factors has been assessed against publicly available data and widely accepted composite indicators.

The data for surveys and interviews has been consistently collected from a representative sample that includes respondents, experts on citizenship, and practitioners who have been involved in the design of qualitative research in global mobility and related spaces. The sample frame for respondents consists of existing and potential investors, their advisors, and government officials in countries that either already have, or are in the process of establishing, investment migration programs. Relying on potential clients means that the responses of those who decided against proceeding with any program are also included. It may also be noted that among our respondent and expert base are government officials and consultants engaged in investment migration programs that have been discontinued as well as those that are in the process of being established or reformed.

The factors that are analyzed in each of the indexes are as follows:

Global Residence Program Index

Reputation
Quality of Life
Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access
Processing Time and Quality of Processing
Compliance
Investment Requirements
Tax
Total Costs
Time to Citizenship
Citizenship Requirements

Global Citizenship Program Index

Reputation
Quality of Life
Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access
Processing Time and Quality of Processing
Compliance
Investment Requirements
Residence Requirements
Relocation Flexibility
Physical Visit Requirements
Transparency

Reputation

Reputation relies on the perceptions of investors and advisors regarding the image of the countries in which they invest. This indicator is subjective by nature, but much like the Attractiveness Indicators employed by the IMD in its Executive Opinion Surveys, our intention was to allow our respondents and informants the space to consider intangible and unanticipated factors while assessing the reputation of destination countries.

Endeavoring to assess reputation is not new, and the relationship between reputation and outcome is a popular mechanism for assessing the competitiveness of organizations, cities, and even regions. Furthermore, the reputation of a country, much like the reputation of a corporate, is a historical indicator that allows its previous efforts to meet investor expectations to be assessed.

Quality of Life

The assessment of Quality of Life (QoL) uses a wide range of methods to evaluate subjective perceptions of various sample groups in different contexts, as well as developing factors that are independent of subjective perceptions. Like Reputation, QoL could well benefit from considering investors’ experiences and what is particularly relevant to individuals who are interested in investment migration.

We are aware, moreover, that there are substantial institutional efforts in developing composite indicators for QoL — the United Nations Human Development Index is one of the most comprehensive (relying on life expectancy at birth, schooling, literacy rates, and gross national income per capita). These factors do not cover all civil and political liberties though; for assessing democratic values, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report is a preferable indicator.

As our focus is also on investment, the World Bank’s Doing Business reports are pertinent, since investors may have to negotiate the regulatory environment of destination countries for a variety of economic activities. We have sought to anchor the framing of our questions in established indicators but recognize that such indicators do not always correspond to what is being assessed in the GRPI and GCPI.

Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access

The methodology for this factor is relatively straightforward. It aims to measure an improvement in the mobility of an investor, or their ability to enter additional countries visa-free or with visa-on-arrival access as a result of being a citizen of, or resident in, a particular jurisdiction.

For the GCPI this factor relies on the 2021 Henley Passport Index, which curates data from 227 different travel destinations (including countries, territories, and micro-states), collated by the International Air Transport Association, to arrive at the ranking. The Henley Passport Index compares data on the number of destinations that a citizen of a given country can visit without requiring a prior visa. A relaxed travel policy is worthwhile in itself, but it also characterizes a country’s political regime and the extent of its civil liberties.

While acquiring alternative citizenship is more directly linked to ease of travel, an alternative residence can also enhance the mobility of individuals. It thus also features as a factor that motivates residence investments and is included in the GRPI.

Processing Time and Quality of Processing

Processing time for applications and their quality of processing are two distinct aspects that are assessed differently. Some countries may offer a short processing time between lodging an application and issuing a visa or permit, but there may be uncertainties in administrative processes. In this regard, input from respondents has proved valuable: the responses and analysis thereof have verified the official or declared processing time and complemented the ‘hard’ data on actual processing time taken (namely, the number of days), including obstructions faced.

Compliance

Countries have different procedures and varying due diligence requirements for profiling applicants (including criminal records and financial statements), sources of funds, the manner of fund transfers, and the vulnerability to abuse of the funds invested. The standard measures adopted are best practices developed by international associations and professional agencies for anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and anti-bribery and corruption. The EU, unlike the USA, does not have a joint or federal procedure for conducting due diligence, so EU countries differ widely in terms of their national rules. Clear information and frameworks regarding due diligence facilitate better risk assessments for potential investors. A more intensive due diligence requirement may be an advantage as this translates into less uncertainty in private investments. Since financial institutions usually engage in Know Your Customer audits regardless of the regulations of investment migration programs, they are less vulnerable than private investments. Vulnerability to money laundering in different sectors could, furthermore, be avoided in the presence of clear regulations.

Investment Requirements

The upfront investment amounts for residence differ in terms of amount required, nature of investment, and additional costs. For this indicator, we consider the required investment amounts. The range in the stated amounts is broad and the nature of the investment is not always left to the discretion of the investor. Options for different forms of investment are specified by the destination governments, largely depending on policy considerations and benefits to the respective countries. Generally, a country offering more choice in how to invest and requiring lower investment amounts (including additional costs) scores higher.

Because of the unique nature of citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programs, investment amounts are substantial, and the accompanying conditions do not allow much choice in the nature of the investment. There is a noticeable pattern to the investments required for CBI programs: the investment amounts are generally greater than those required by residence-by-investment (RBI) programs, there is usually a requirement or at least an option to purchase real estate, and there is usually a requirement or an option to make a non-refundable contribution.

Tax

This factor raises the question of the extent of the tax burden that a resident is required to bear for both corporate and personal economic activities. It is rare for a country not to impose any taxes on its residents. The only two countries in our indexes that have that distinction are Monaco and the UAE, since they do not impose personal income tax, property tax, capital gains tax, or net worth taxes. For all other countries, preferential tax schemes and tax waivers, and incentives for applicants with significant investments heavily influence the score arrived at for this factor.

Total Costs

The stated investment amount does not always constitute the total actual cost an investor must bear to acquire residence status. As the nature of investment differs considerably across programs, it is difficult to compare the total actual cost of investment. Programs that offer a range of investment options score higher in this sub-indicator. Some investors have, however, raised questions about the uncertainties and volatility of foreign markets and therefore the value of choosing options that appear to be safer. Generally, destination countries that reduce investors’ opportunity costs by providing a wider choice of investments or by offering incentive-based investments are considered by investors to be more attractive.

Time to Citizenship

The time it takes applicants to gain citizenship is one of the criteria for assessing a RBI program’s attractiveness.

This refers to the process of naturalizing as a citizen once already a resident, which is distinct from direct CBI. Countries that have appeal in this regard offer a relatively fast path to citizenship, mainly because the time it takes to naturalize is comparatively short. However, this factor considers both the formal time required and any physical presence requirements. Countries with prohibitive rules governing the transition to citizenship score zero.

Citizenship Requirements

This factor examines all the requirements to qualify for naturalization after the specified minimum time has been fulfilled, including physical presence requirements, additional investment requirements or other ‘commitment’ requirements, and other requirements to qualify for citizenship, such as language requirements and cultural integration tests. In some countries, the transition from permanent residence to citizenship is less demanding and there are minimal additional requirements. Other countries have stringent physical presence but few additional requirements.

Residence Requirements

None of the countries ranked in the GCPI impose demanding conditions of residence. Smaller countries keen on attracting investment use waivers or substantial reductions in residence requirements to their competitive advantage.

Relocation Flexibility

An assessment of the number of citizenship investors in the different countries reveals that a substantial percentage of them apply for the migration of family members with the intention of either settling in the destination country or keeping the option open in case they need to leave their home countries. For this factor, we evaluated first the number of investors who indicated their intention to relocate and compared it to the number of investors who have relocated, in order to gauge which countries are conducive to relocation. Subsequently, we assessed the factors facilitating relocation. In this regard, EU member states have a clear advantage because a citizen of an EU member state can consider relocating to another member state or to a choice of several additional countries that have agreements with the EU, such as Switzerland. Though such relocation is not automatic, the rules are well established, they provide clarity on how and when relocation to another EU member state is permissible, and the process entails lower information costs. Destination countries’ efforts towards enabling family unification, and the ease with which they deal with private property, reduce the uncertainties that relocation can entail. Furthermore, for citizens who can support themselves financially, EU law imposes very few restrictions on their freedom to relocate.

The rule of law plays an important part in informing investors’ choices in relocation: their confidence in an existent fair process for securing personal freedom, settling investment disputes, and the legal wherewithal to negotiate with government authorities, all point towards a higher score.

Physical Visit Requirements

This indicator assesses whether physical visits are required as part of the application process, usually for interviews, oath-taking ceremonies, and passport renewals, by evaluating the number of visits required and the bureaucracy of the processes that precede them.

Transparency

The World Economic Forum’s transparency indicators for CBI programs are: public support, evaluation studies, availability of public data, and due diligence criteria. No GCPI countries publish evaluations of CBI inflows, but the other criteria inform the structure and content of the surveys, which inquired about access to clear information on application processes, including due diligence, and how funds are used. Although many investors wish to understand, and preferably choose, where their investments are used, investments are often deployed in predetermined ways, making it difficult to influence their use. The visibility of such contributions in domestic projects and the earmarking of funds influence investors’ decisions and perceptions of program transparency.

Circulating such information is advantageous as it enables investors to conduct meaningful risk assessments. Furthermore, the impact of investments on potential and existing businesses could influence business decisions. The pivotal aspects for transparency are program rules and regulations, and processes and their implementation in program administration.

Source: https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/investment-migration-programs-2021/methodology

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Henley and Partners, methodology

In inclusivity push, workers reject prods to allow mispronounced or ‘whitened’ names

2021/03/30 Leave a comment

Of note. Just ask – not a microaggression:

When Janani Shanmuganathan was in law school, she remembers hearing some misguided professional advice.

“You should take your husband’s name,” Shanmuganathan recalls someone telling her, because her own name was hard to pronounce. Her colleague speculated it would make it harder to get clients.

Shanmuganathan says she remembers being angered by the comment, not only because she was proud of her name, but because it is spelled phonetically — and she doesn’t mind helping people who ask her how it’s pronounced. Plus, she says, she wants up-and-coming lawyers to see Tamil women represented in the law community.

Shanmuganathan has indeed faced professional challenges over time. She says that it was not uncommon for a judge to refer to other lawyers by name, but refer to her only as “counsel,” and her racialized client as “the accused,” raising questions about differential treatment from clients and their families.

“There is something more dignified in a name,” says Shanmuganathan.

Research suggests that “whitened” names have historically made job candidates more likely to be hired. But as many employers claim to be changing course and trying to attract diverse talent, experts say companies must also do more to respect whatever name a worker chooses to identify with.

Shanmuganathan wrote about her experiences with her race, including being mistaken for the interpreter in court, in a publication sent out to other criminal lawyers. Her assessment — which described courts skirting around her name as one of many symptoms of bias in the legal system — resonated with people.

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers began a social media campaign to “make hearing Asian names more commonplace” and help lawyers who were being passed over for opportunities because someone else was uncomfortable with their name pronunciation. Several years ago, law firm Borden Ladner Gervais added a clickable blue megaphone buttons on its staff’s web pages that play a recording of each person pronouncing their name in hopes of levelling the playing field for incoming lawyers.The feature on BLG’s website came out of concern that when summer students joined the firm each year, senior lawyers would be more likely to reach out and assign work to the aspiring lawyers they could comfortably call by name, says Laleh Moshiri, national director, diversity and inclusion at the firm. While it’s far from the only answer to diversity and inclusion issues at the firm, the pronunciation tool shifted some of the onus of learning students’ names to the lawyers.

LinkedIn last year added a similar tool to its website, in an announcement that said “correct pronunciation is not just a common courtesy — it’s an important part of making a good first impression and creating an inclusive workplace.” A tool made by NameCoach is also used for MBA students at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, says Sonia Kang, Canada research chair in identity, diversity and inclusion at the university.

Kang says that the pressure for people to “whiten” their names in many industries can stem from discrimination that begins as early as the hiring process. Resumes with whitened first names and extracurricular experiences led to more callbacks than the unwhitened resumes for both Black and Asian applicants, according to a paper Kang co-authored. Similar findings have been repeated in multiple studies.

“When I’m talking to hiring managers about this — put aside for a second discrimination, which we know exists, for sure. But some of the time, the reason that they might not call someone is because they don’t want to offend them by saying their name wrong,” says Kang. “It’s this kind of benevolent racism.”

Shanmuganathan says things have improved in the legal world, but the issue persists. Last month, Vancouver immigration lawyer Will Tao wrote an essay on how his work with immigrants and community organizers has reinforced to him how many Biblical names have roots in colonialism and, for Indigenous colleagues, the residential school system.

“I am in a profession where marketability, presentation, professionalism, and competency is everything. Why is Will Tao more competent and presentable than Wei Tao?” he wrote.

In a recent talk explaining her perspective as a woman in banking, Laurentian Bank chief executive Rania Llewellyn cited her name as one factor that has motivated her to raise diversity and inclusion expectations at her company.

“My first job in Canada with my degree from a Canadian university was working at Tim Hortons. My last name was not Llewellyn. It was very Middle Eastern. No one would even call me for an interview… inclusive hiring is really, really important,” said Llewellyn. “Nobody ever asked me about where I’m from anymore … When I introduce myself, I always say Rania, like Tanya, and all of a sudden people are like, ‘Ah.'”

Shanmuganathan says that she urges co-workers to refer to her and introduce her by name, so others get used to hearing it. Moshiri, meanwhile, says that she encourages her colleagues to write down phonetic spellings in their notes so they don’t forget name pronunciations.

Kang says that no one can be expected to know every name in the world — and she says asking for name pronunciations should be seen as normal, not awkward. At the same time, learning the sounds and spellings that crop up commonly in your line of work is a skill that will continue to be valuable in building relationships, says Kang.

Encouraging authenticity — whether that is a name a worker was given at birth or one they choose to identify with — can reap benefits for employers, says Kang.

“It’s just about having a choice, and not feeling pressured either way,” she says.

Source: In inclusivity push, workers reject prods to allow mispronounced or ‘whitened’ names

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with "whitened", names, pronounciation

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