La situation des demandeurs d’asile en période de COVID-19

2020/10/01 Leave a comment

Of note:

La pandémie de COVID-19 a mis au grand jour la question des demandeurs d’asile, qui sollicitent une protection à titre de réfugiés au Québec ou ailleurs au pays. Bien qu’ils fassent partie des gens les plus vulnérables, ils ont été les plus touchés par la décision gouvernementale de fermer les frontières.

Nous sommes conscients du fait que le gouvernement canadien, comme tant d’autres gouvernements, s’est retrouvée devant un important dilemme : assurer la santé et la sécurité de sa population ou remplir ses obligations internationales comme pays signataire de la Convention de 1951 relative au statut des réfugiés. Une de ces obligations est de respecter le principe de non-refoulement des demandeurs d’asile, selon l’article 33, qui stipule :

Aucun des États contractants n’expulsera ou ne refoulera, de quelque manière que ce soit, un réfugié sur les frontières des territoires où sa vie ou sa liberté serait menacée en raison de sa race, de sa religion, de sa nationalité, de son appartenance à un certain groupe social ou de ses opinions politiques.

La fermeture de la frontière canado-américaine a entraîné le refoulement de centaines de personnes à notre frontière, des personnes qui avaient frappé à la porte du Canada afin d’y solliciter la protection en tant que réfugiés. Impossible donc de se présenter à un poste de contrôle, ni même de tenter un passage irrégulier au Québec par le « fameux » chemin Roxham. Or, qui dit « refoulement aux États-Unis » dit « détention » avec des prisonniers de droit commun et des criminels de tout acabit. Une situation qui implique aussi la séparation des familles, la détention d’enfants et le risque d’expulsion vers le pays d’origine des réfugiés, où ils étaient persécutés. Autant de conséquences néfastes de la fermeture de la frontière avec les États-Unis en période de COVID-19 !

Malgré l’appel de plusieurs groupes et organismes œuvrant dans le domaine de la défense des réfugiés, rien n’a réellement été fait pour amener le gouvernement fédéral à respecter ses obligations internationales envers les demandeurs d’asile. Il y a bien eu la décision de permettre à des individus de solliciter l’asile à un poste de contrôle terrestre à la condition, entre autres, que des membres de leur famille habitent déjà au Canada, ou d’accepter la demande de mineurs non accompagnés, en vertu du décret du gouvernement adopté le 22 avril 2020, mais cela ne touche pas la très grande majorité des demandeurs d’asile, qui sont actuellement refoulés vers les États-Unis.

Une autre conséquence majeure de la COVID-19 est la fermeture, en mars 2020, du tribunal chargé d’entendre les requêtes des demandeurs d’asile au pays, la Commission de l’immigration et du statut de réfugié (CISR). Toutes les audiences devant la Section de la protection des réfugiés (SPR) ont été annulées. À Montréal, les audiences ont repris seulement le 3 août et se déroulent au ralenti. Cette fermeture occasionnera de longs délais de traitement qui s’ajouteront aux retards déjà accumulés avant la pandémie. À cet égard, soulignons que le Règlement sur l’immigration et la protection des réfugiés prévoit qu’un demandeur d’asile doit être entendu par le tribunal dans un délai maximum de 60 jours suivant le dépôt de sa demande auprès des autorités compétentes. Or, avant la COVID-19, il n’était pas exceptionnel que certains demandeurs d’asile doivent attendre plus de 20 mois avant de pouvoir être entendus par le tribunal. La CISR précise sur son site Web que le temps d’attente prévu avant qu’une demande d’asile ne soit instruite par la Section de la protection des réfugiés est « d’environ 22 mois à compter de la date à laquelle le cas est déféré ». On peut facilement imaginer que ces délais vont maintenant exploser, ce qui occasionnera très certainement de l’incertitude et un stress supplémentaire pour les demandeurs d’asile en attente d’être fixés sur leur sort.

La pandémie nous a fait réaliser que plusieurs demandeurs d’asile occupent dans le système de santé un emploi dit « essentiel » pour combattre la COVID-19, principalement comme préposées aux bénéficiaires. Des gens qui, malgré leur statut incertain au Canada, ont accepté de mettre leur santé en péril afin de sauver celle des autres ― et qu’on appelle maintenant nos « anges gardiens ». Des gens qui n’ont pas hésité à aller au front, malgré le danger.

Des groupes de pression s’étaient formés afin de demander au gouvernement qu’il régularise le statut de ces demandeurs d’asile. Dans l’état actuel des choses, il m’apparaît tout à fait logique de garder ces gens en poste. Pour ce faire, leur accorder le statut de résident permanent est la voie appropriée pour éviter leur expulsion du Canada et, par le fait même, conserver cette main-d’œuvre si précieuse en période de pandémie.

Le 14 août dernier, le gouvernement fédéral, en collaboration avec les gouvernements provinciaux, a répondu favorablement à cet appel. Les demandeurs d’asile qui ont offert des soins directs aux patients ― préposé(e)s aux bénéficiaires, infirmiers et infirmières, aides-soignants et aides en service ― pourront soumettre une demande de résidence permanente par le biais d’un programme de régularisation. Par contre, certains types d’emplois ne sont pas inclus dans ce programme, notamment ceux des agents de sécurité et du personnel du service d’entretien, même si ces emplois sont occupés dans un centre hospitalier, dans un CHSLD ou dans une résidence privée pour personnes âgées.

De plus, nombre de demandeurs d’asile occupent un emploi qui a été classé comme « essentiel » par le gouvernement du Québec au début de la pandémie. On n’a qu’à penser aux employés d’épicerie, aux commis des stations-service et des pharmacies, aux livreurs d’aliments, aux cuisiniers ou aux employés de services de garde. Devrait-on régulariser aussi le statut de ces personnes ? Que dire à la mère de famille qui a perdu son emploi comme femme de chambre à cause de la COVID-19 ou au père de famille qui a perdu son emploi de serveur en raison de la pandémie ? Ces demandeurs d’asile qui se retrouvent dans une situation de vulnérabilité accrue, ne devrait-on pas les inclure dans le programme ?

Il ne faut pas oublier non plus que de nombreuses personnes qui ne sont pas des demandeurs d’asile mais qui sont en attente d’un statut au Canada (demandes humanitaires, réunification familiale) ont elles aussi occupé un emploi jugé essentiel comme préposé(e)s aux bénéficiaires. Ces personnes ne devraient-elles pas bénéficier du programme de régularisation ?

Ce programme n’est donc pas parfait ; cependant, il reconnaît le travail des « anges gardiens » de première ligne. C’est tout de même mieux que rien. Il permettra aussi aux demandeurs d’asile admissibles d’inclure dans leur demande de résidence permanente leur conjoint et leurs enfants qui se trouvent à l’extérieur du Canada.

À mon avis, le plus important, c’est de s’assurer que ceux et celles qui ont droit à ce programme de régularisation de leur statut y auront accès rapidement et que leurs dossiers seront traités dans des délais raisonnables. Il serait absurde que ces personnes doivent patienter pendant trois à cinq ans avant d’être fixées sur leur sort.

Source: La situation des demandeurs d’asile en période de COVID-19

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There’s a social pandemic poisoning Europe: hatred of Muslims

2020/10/01 4 Comments

Of note:

Rarely does the EU act so swiftly. Less than four months since the killing of George Floyd in police custody and the Black Lives Matter campaign that spilled into Europe and galvanised continent-wide protests, the EU is appointing its first ever anti-racism coordinator.This brilliant idea will make little sense, however, if anti-Muslim hatred is not part of their portfolio. Because instead of building a “truly anti-racist union”, as the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, would wish, we have so far built an anti-Muslim one.

Prejudice against Muslims exists in every corner of Europe. Not only do we collectively devalue and discriminate against Europeans who follow Islam, but the incidence of violence against Muslims is increasing.

We have known since the refugee and migration crisis of 2015 and the jihadist terrorist attacks in France, Spain and Germany that Muslims suffer from an exceptionally bad reputation in our societies. In 2019, research conducted for the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Religion Monitor yet again confirmed widespread mistrust towards Muslims across Europe. In Germany and Switzerland, every second respondent said they perceived Islam as a threat. In the UK, two in five share this perception. In Spain and France, about 60% think Islam is incompatible with the “west”. In Austria, one in three doesn’t want to have Muslim neighbours.

Source: There’s a social pandemic poisoning Europe: hatred of Muslims

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 30 September Update

2020/10/01 Leave a comment

Highlights:

Deaths per million:Canada less Quebec now ahead of Germany

Infections per million: Ontario now ahead of Germany, Canada less Quebec ahead of Philippines

Weekly:

Monthly Comparison (September 2-30 increase percent):
Infections: British Columbia and Prairies in top 5 jurisdictions with highest increases
Deaths: No provinces in top 5 in terms of increased death rates but British Columbia, Alberta and Prairies in top 10
The Globe has an editorial highly critical of the Ford government:

The German language probably has a word for the state of being surprised by the unsurprising, unprepared for the expected, and caught off guard by the danger you were on guard against. English does not have such a word. But when this pandemic is over, we are going to have to come up with one.

We’ll need it to describe what appears to be happening right now, in Canada.

Governments from coast to coast knew a second wave was coming. It was as predictable as fall. It was as expected as the rising of the sun. It was as surprising as the first snowfall – timing and severity uncertain; occurrence inevitable.

And yet, somehow, many governments have reacted like someone who forgot to set the alarm clock. Leading the parade of those surprised by the unsurprising is Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario government.

On Monday, Ontario reported 700 new cases of COVID-19, a new single-day record. Also on Monday, Ontario casinos reopened their doors to gamblers.

They say timing is everything in comedy and politics. In pandemics, too.

Also on Monday, the Ford government announced that, in response to the second wave, it would be hiring 3,700 more frontline health care workers. It’s a move that should have been made in May or June, not late September.

Still on Monday: Ontario reported processing more than 41,000 tests, but had a backlog of 49,586 waiting to be analyzed. By Tuesday, the backlog was nearly 55,000. The province, like many parts of the country, has recently seen enormous lineups at testing centres; lineups that are – how is this surprising? – driven by the predictable and predicted combination of rising infection rates and people needing to get tested to allow a safe return to school.

Yet again on Monday: The Ottawa Citizen obtained a memo showing that provincial health bureaucrats ordered a reduction in testing in some areas, owing to labs being overwhelmed. It’s another unsurprising result of too little test-processing capacity meeting growing demand for tests.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the pinned tweet at the top of Health Minister Christine Elliott’s Twitter feed still said: “It’s never been more important to get tested for #COVID19.” She’s right. The more people who get tested, the more often, the better. That should include lots of people who have no symptoms. But if everyone takes that advice to heart in the current system, where there are not enough tests or facilities to process them, Grade 3 math points to the inevitability of a surprisingly unsurprising outcome.

For anyone who remembers what Ontario went through last spring, that outcome looks all too familiar. We have lived this movie before.

Yes, Ontario is conducting several times more daily tests than it did back in April. Yes, Ontario has the second-highest provincial testing rate (Alberta is tops). There has been progress. There just hasn’t been enough.

With case numbers rising, as in the spring, and testing not keeping pace, as in the spring, this looks a lot like a sequel. The script has a disturbing amount of consistency. If it were run through plagiarism-detection software, someone would be getting an “F.”

More unsurprisingly surprising findings:

The most recent data from Toronto Public Health, as reported by the CBC, show that most people testing for COVID-19 don’t get results for at least two days. And nearly half of those who test positive are not followed up by contact tracers within 24 hours. Both of those numbers are well below the targets that need to be met for a program of heavy testing and contact tracing – which the province is supposed to have, but doesn’t – to be able to quickly find infected people before they infect others, and even more quickly track down anyone they may have infected.

In an effort to speed things up, the Ford government last week gave the green light for some pharmacies to begin administering tests to some asymptomatic individuals. The province also intends to hire more contact tracers. The mystery is why it didn’t do that months ago.

And last week, the province began rolling out plans for its response to the pandemic’s second wave. But this is like announcing in January that, in response to recent snowfalls, you plan to put out a tender for snowplows. It’s a bit late in the game.

And CBC has an analysis of what went wrong in Quebec:

A little over a month ago, Health Minister Christian Dubé congratulated Quebecers for their hard work at containing the spread of the coronavirus.

It was a Tuesday, Aug. 25, and the province had registered just 94 new cases of COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours.

“We have really succeeded at controlling the transmission of COVID,” Dubé said at a news conference in Montreal.

It was a statement of fact, but the ground had already started to shift. In the weeks that followed, transmission increased. At first it grew slowly, then exponentially.

On Monday, the government implicitly acknowledged it has again lost control of the virus. The province is reimposing lockdown measures on Quebec’s two biggest cities, starting Oct. 1.

Until Oct. 28, Quebecers won’t be able to entertain friends or families at home. Bars, restaurant dining rooms, theatres and cinemas will also be closed.

“The situation has become critical,” Premier François Legault said Monday evening. “If we don’t want our hospitals to be submerged, if we want to limit the number of deaths, we must take strong action.”

The new measures will bring abrupt changes to the lives of millions of Quebecers. They will also prompt questions about how the public health situation could have deteriorated so quickly.

This story tries to trace how Quebec again lost control of the spread of COVID-19.

At first, a stern warning

As Dubé addressed reporters on that Tuesday in late August, public health officials in Quebec City were busy trying to track down patrons of Bar Kirouac, a watering hole in the working-class Saint-Sauveur neighbourhood.

A karaoke night at the bar ultimately led to 72 cases and the activity being banned in the province.

There were also numerous reports by then of young people holding massive house parties and flouting physical distancing recommendations. One of them, in Laval, led to a small outbreak.

On Aug. 31, as Quebec’s daily average of new cases neared 152 cases, Legault delivered a stern warning.

“There has been a general slackening in Quebec,” Legault said. “It’s important to exercise more discipline.”

Legault and his health minister threatened stiffer punishments for those who disobeyed public-health rules, but stopped short of imposing new restrictions.

Private gatherings identified as the culprit

In late August, public health officials were attributing the rise in infections to Quebecers returning home from vacations around the province, as opposed to the start of school.

Though Quebec’s back-to-school plan wasn’t met with widespread criticism, some experts expressed concern about the large class sizes and the lack of physical distancing guidelines for students.

The government also ignored advice that it should make masks mandatory inside the classroom.

But the first weeks of the school year went relatively smoothly. By the start of Labour Day weekend, only 46 out of the province’s 3,100 schools had reported a case of COVID-19. Importantly, there were no major outbreaks.

The problem was elsewhere. Outside schools, in the community at large, cases continued to rise. On Sept. 8, the province was averaging 228 cases per day.

By now public health officials had identified private gatherings as the main culprit behind the increase.Montreal’s regional director of public health, Dr. Mylène Drouin, was among those who urged more caution when hanging out with friends and family.

“Yes, we can have social activities, but we have to reduce contacts to be able to reduce secondary transmission,” Drouin said on Sept. 9.

Warning signs

In an effort to spell out the consequences of the increase in cases, the Quebec government unveiled a series of colour-coded alert levels.

Areas coded green would see few restrictions; yellow zones would see more enforcement of existing rules; orange zones would be the target of added restrictions; and red zones would see more widespread closures of non-essential activities.

When the scheme was announced on Sept. 8, Quebec City was classified yellow. Montreal was classified green.

At this point, though, health experts were already concerned that more was needed to curb the spread of the virus.”It is important to intensify these measures,” Dr. Cécile Tremblay, an infectious disease specialist with the Université de Montréal hospital network, said after the alert levels were announced.

The warning signs were starting to multiply.

Officials in Montreal were investigating 20 outbreaks at workplaces on Sept. 9; a week later that number had risen to 30. Long lines were also forming outside testing centres, filled with anxious parents and their children.

And more stories were circulating of private gatherings where the 10-person limit was ignored, angering the health minister.

He told reporters about a dinner with 17 people at a restaurant in Montérégie, which led to 31 cases. A corn roast in the Lower St. Lawrence, he said, resulted in 30 cases.

“To me, that’s unacceptable,” Dubé said on Sept. 15.”If people won’t understand from these examples then, I’m sorry, but they’ll never understand.”

He moved Montreal, and four other regions, into the yellow zones and banned bars from serving food after midnight. The province was averaging 338 new cases per day.

Second wave arrives

The warnings from the government did not curb the spread of the virus. By mid-September, authorities were reporting more cases in closed settings.

On Sept. 17, Herzliah High School in Montreal became the first school in the province to say it was shutting down for two weeks to deal with an outbreak. At least 400 other schools were also dealing with active cases of COVID-19.

Cases accumulated too in private seniors homes (known as RPAs), a major source of concern for public officials given the vulnerability of the residents to COVID-19.There were only 39 cases in RPAs at the start of the month, and 157 by Sept. 20.

On that day the government announced it was moving Montreal, Quebec City and the Chaudière-Appalaches region into the orange zone, the second-highest alert level. Private gatherings were capped at six people.

The province was by then averaging 501 new cases per day. The second wave had begun, according Quebec’s public health director, Horacio Arruda.

Red zone

Over the last week, Quebec’s health system has shown signs of strain as authorities race to contain the spread of the virus.

Drouin, the Montreal public health director, admitted on Sept. 21 that her contact-tracing teams were swamped by the demand.

Until now, the increase in cases had not been accompanied by a corresponding surge in hospitalizations. Most of the new cases were concentrated in younger people.But the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Quebec has increased by 45 per cent in the last seven days. Hospital staff are starting to get stretched. Several thousand health-care workers are in preventive isolation.

“We’re feeling the second wave,” Dr François Marquis, the head of intensive care at Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital. “We were apprehensive about it, but now it’s a reality.”

On Monday, Quebec reported 750 new cases of COVID-19. Montreal and Quebec City were classified as red zones later that evening.

Source: How Quebec went from COVID-19 success story to hot spot in 30 days

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The conservative case for toppling statues: Why ‘bad men’ shouldn’t be revered in the public square

2020/09/30 2 Comments

Interesting categorization of monuments of historical figures:

It may have been the easiest political no-brainer of the year when Conservative leader Erin O’Toole rushed to condemn the unruly mob that brought Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue tumbling down in Montreal last month.

Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has won elections by outflanking the NDP to the left, thought about it for a day or two and then denounced the “vandalism” that has “no place in a society that abides by the rule of law.”

Trudeau’s advisers have likely seen polling that shows only 11 per cent of Canadians approve of mobs spontaneously pulling down statues and only 31 per cent of people support some political process that removes the statues of politicians, even if the person implemented racist policies.

In general, Canadians like statues and monuments of their first prime minister and people who vote Conservative especially like them. But as McGill University political theory professor Jacob T. Levy argues, maybe revering “great men” isn’t a good way to figure out public morals. Levy thinks we should be thinking a little harder about who we idolize.

For support and to help convince conservatives, Levy points to the words of 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith, who gave the world “the invisible hand” of the free market and whose classical liberal economics were vital to 20th century conservatism.Smith believed we are hard-wired to venerate powerful people, whether they are morally upright or not, and that this is an impulse we should fight back against.

“Even when the order of society seems to require that we should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves to do it,” wrote Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. We look at political leaders in “delusive colours in which the imagination is apt to paint in,” creating a “peculiar sympathy.”

Levy also points to the words of Lord Acton, who famously said that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Levy argues that if Smith and Acton are right, then we are honouring the wrong people almost across the board. And that extends to people like Macdonald, whose triumphs in government are marked in equal measure by outrages, said Levy in an interview with the National Post.

“There’s no doing without Macdonald in Canadian political history. But that doesn’t mean that celebration has to be a uncritical or has to conceal what is actually a very complicated institutional legacy,” said Levy.

In an article for the Niskanen Center in the United States, Levy divides these historical leaders into three categories. The first are people who committed dishonourable acts and are celebrated precisely for those acts, like Jefferson Davis, who is remembered as the president of the confederacy during the U.S. civil war and a defender of slavery.There are also people who lived unimpeachable public lives, like George Washington, who also owned slaves in his private life. When Washington is publicly revered, it’s for his role as a founding father rather than his private sins.

In Levy’s view, Macdonald represents a middle-ground because he is venerated for a record that has troubling moments along with the great triumphs.

“His wrongs were official wrongs. The head tax and the treatment of First Nations, those are as much a part of his legacy as building Confederation in a way that differs from the private slave-owning of American founders,” said Levy. “That means that his legacy is contested in the same way that the moral character of Canadian Confederation is contested. And I don’t think there’s any way to set aside either part of that.”

Smith believed that we sympathize with the dead and pile on affection, especially “when they are in danger of being forgot by everybody.” Because the dead can’t defend themselves people are moved to do it for them or to hold off on criticism.

Levy’s response to that is simple: Sir John A. could handle criticism when he was alive and he can surely handle it now.

“We not only overestimate the moral standing of rulers, we overestimate the harm in moral criticism of the dead,” wrote Levy.

Although conservatives are more likely to defend statues and monuments, progressives are not immune from the phenomenon that Smith describes. The death of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provoked a massive wave of grief, even beyond the borders of the U.S.

“I absolutely think we’re seeing that Smithian dynamic at work,” said Levy. “There’s been 15 years worth of half tongue-in-cheek idolatry about her. There’s a wildly excessive personalization of the relationship to her.”

It’s not just world leaders either. We venerate celebrities and athletes, no matter how many times they disappoint us.

The polling on these monuments suggests that many people are more disturbed by the mob action than the actual removal of the statues. When Trudeau gave his comments about the incident in Montreal he singled out the lawlessness for criticism and almost nothing else.

Levy believes, though, at the heart of it is our out-sized and often irrational affection for the people who lead us.

“There is widespread and justifiable aversion to the sight and the phenomenon of people no one elected taking matters into their own hands,” said Levy. “But the politics of taking statues down through lawful procedures gets so controversial that I’m inclined to doubt that the mob scene is really what’s doing most of the emotional work.”

Source: The conservative case for toppling statues: Why ‘bad men’ shouldn’t be revered in the public square

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‘Words alone will not be enough’: Black caucus, community cautiously optimistic about feds’ Throne Speech pledges

2020/09/30 Leave a comment

Initial reactions (and wait for the budget for initiatives to be concretized or not):

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Throne Speech further elevates the priorities long advocated by the Black community, say MPs, Senators, and advocates, though some say the lack of specificity on certain planks gives the government too much wiggle room to follow through on its commitments.

Mr. Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) parliamentary reset last week featured a grab bag of mostly old commitments that are likely to compete with one another for resources against the immediate threat posed by the global pandemic.

It featured a separate section devoted to “addressing systemic racism,” reflecting, in sweeping terms, many of the priorities that the Black Parliamentary Caucus had lobbied for in response to the anti-Black racism rallies that hit many cities around the world over the summer. Some of its commitments include addressing standards on the use of force; implementing a plan to increase representation in public service; and finding new ways to support the “artistic and economic contributions of Black Canadian culture and heritage.”

Liberal MP Greg Fergus (Hull-Aylmer, Que.), chair of the cross-party caucus that includes MPs and Senators, said the attention focused on grappling with racial inequities in the speech is a testament to the caucus’ and the Black community’s drive to prevent the momentum from fading. The caucus’ statement, a document that set out policy prescriptions for achieving racial equity that was released in June, received the endorsement of nearly all cabinet ministers and more than 150 Parliamentarians.

For Mr. Fergus, who is also parliamentary secretary to the Treasury Board president and to minister of digital government, said seeing the caucus’ agenda adopted in the speech means members have a “green light” to keep pressing for reforms. Had the speech not reflected those priorities, Mr. Fergus said, there would be “screaming headlines” registering that omission—and it would have been justified.

“It’s all forward thrusters on in terms of moving on this file, and given that we are in a pandemic, for us to recognize we have to address the real fault lines that exist, and make that a priority in the Speech from the Throne, it means I got a green light for the Black caucus to continue [its work],” he said.

Mr. Fergus pointed to the “down payments” the government has made on the collection of disaggregated race-based data, which started with Statistics Canada’s move to publish, for the first time, a Labour Force Survey tracking job losses by race and ethnicity. Though such data is likely to confirm the existence of longstanding inequities linked to structural forces, having hard figures, advocates say, would help further illustrate the scope of the problems. The speech picks up on that priority advocated by the caucus, in committing to developing an approach across the government around “better collection of disaggregated data.”

Mr. Trudeau, in response to the wave of protests in June, promised action “very quickly” and enlisted his cabinet ministers to develop a “summer work plan.” A request for comment from the Prime Minister’s Office was not returned by deadline.

Independent Senator Rosemary Moodie (Ontario) said when hard data is available, it makes the inequities that have long been apparent, “much more indisputable,” and “easier for us to speak with authority.”

Independent Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Nova Scotia) echoed that sentiment, saying that degree of commitment on data collection suggests the government could make a push to apply an “intersectional lens” on policies. Such an approach, she noted, is already happening in the files overseen by Diversity Inclusion Minister Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Ont.).

“Part of the problem is that, in government, change happens very slowly. Through the pandemic, it’s slowed down even more,” Sen. Bernard, a caucus member, said. “There’s a great need, in this country, for policy development to be more inclusive, and so, bringing the voices of all stakeholders in policy development is something we really haven’t been doing.”

While Sen. Bernard said the speech gave profile to the concerns of Black and Indigenous Canadians, where it didn’t “go far enough” for her was in providing specific and substantive reforms around criminal justice. During the pandemic, Canada has seen the pandemic collide with racial injustices, she said, pointing to several incidents involving police that have led to violent encounters and in some cases, the deaths of Black and Indigenous people such as Chantel Moore and Regis Korchinski-Paquet. Both women died during so-called “wellness checks” carried out by police.

“I often look at the decal on the side of police cars; it says, ‘To serve and protect,’ and there are many Black Canadians and Indigenous Canadians who don’t feel well served or well protected by police and, in fact, feel fear,” she said. “That has to shift; that requires major change, major reform, and the Throne Speech references this a little bit.”

Sen. Bernard said she had hoped the speech would have made specific references to the development of a Black-Canadian justice strategy—an acknowledgement that underscores that the community has been disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system and “state violence.” She noted that Nova Scotia has already moved in that direction. Instead, the speech states a pledge to “take action to address the systemic inequities in all phases of the criminal justice system, from diversion to sentencing, from rehabilitation to records.”

Sen. Moodie agreed that a lack of specifics would make it “harder to hold people accountable.” “I don’t think it lessens our responsibility as Parliamentarian; I don’t think it lessens our mandate to pursue that,” she added.

NDP MP Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, Ont.) said while pledges in the speech are wrapped up in the “words of equity and the language of racial justice,” the government isn’t responding with the urgency required. He added the government doesn’t have a solid track record of implementing policies it endorses.

“The government has all the power to immediately act on the priorities outlined in the Black caucus’ statement. From procurement to policing, they have failed,” said Mr. Green.

He pointed to the government’s policy requiring that companies with more than 100 employees that are interested in bidding on contracts worth more than $1-million to set diversity targets, saying that, without audits, it’s a toothless measure.

“That is a good policy that the Liberals put forward, but how many audits have actually happened?” he said.

Federal audits of companies were scrapped under the Harper government and have not been brought back, according to The Toronto Star.

“It was not through the goodwill of the government,” he added of the government’s move to adopt priorities pushed for by the caucus and protesters. “It was the tens of thousands of Canadians led by the Black Lives Matter movement, demanding that they move beyond performative actions.”

Mr. Green cited getting rid of mandatory minimums and amnesty for those convicted of recreational marijuana possession as examples of other policies the government can move on without delay.

Even as he expressed frustration over the pace of the government’s response, Mr. Green said the work of the caucus, of which he is a member of, has been meaningful, saying it’s been an “overwhelmingly non-partisan” vehicle for change.

“We are looking at creating a governing structure to institutionalize the work we’ve done to date,” he said. “I stand by that work. My job, in opposition, is to ensure that I continue to point out the uncomfortable truths.”

‘Rare’ for speeches to have hard timelines

Sen. Moodie said the speech, which gave a “prominent place” to the concerns of Black and Indigenous communities, sends a reassuring signal that the government is serious about delivering on its commitments.

“It’s my sense there’s a will and perhaps a plan,” Sen. Moodie said. “We know the prime minister has spoken about it. He will need to follow through, or he risks losing credibility when he speaks on the issue. Words alone will not be enough for the country, for Black and Indigenous Canadians who have heard him.”

Sen. Moodie is feeling upbeat about the prospects for change, a shift from where she was at before the speech was released in late August, when she said, in an email response, “any continued delay” on responding to calls from the Black community could not be “wholly blamed on prorogation.”

Alfred Burgesson, a member of the Prime Minister’s Youth Council and founder of advocacy group Collective Action, said the main “missing piece” from the speech was the lack of “tangible targets” for measuring the pace of progress.

Mr. Fergus noted that Throne-Speech commitments rarely come with timelines.

“It’s cool to see we’re going to make progress on systemic racism, but without tangible targets, then how are we measuring our success?,” he said, speaking for himself, not on behalf of the council. “Are we just striving towards saying we’re doing it, or are we doing it to have an impact across Canada?”

He said the budget or the promised fiscal update in the fall will be indicative of whether the government is “truly putting their money where their mouths are.” Mr. Burgesson said the feds’ launch of the Black Entrepreneurship Strategy, which promises close to $221-million in partnership with banks to help thousands of Black business owners recover from the pandemic, earlier this month was a positive development, but said “that can’t be it.”

At the same time, Mr. Burgesson, who participated in a council meeting that was an hour and half long with Mr. Trudeau on Friday, said he left feeling a “great deal of optimism.”

“He’s not afraid of the criticism. …When others challenged him, he received it very well,” he said, adding that Mr. Trudeau did not respond defensively in the face of criticism about the speed of the government’s response to pressing issues.

Velma Morgan, chair of Operation Black Vote, said the speech was a “good start,” with many of the broad commitments reflecting what the community has been campaigning on for in countless meetings with government officials, but the real work has yet to begin in earnest. (Ms. Morgan is also working on Green Party candidate Annamie Paul’s leadership campaign; the two are personal friends, and Ms. Paul is the only Black candidate running for the Greens.)

“It’s time we move from aspirational to action. We need for that work to be expedited. The time should’ve been last year. There’s a little bit of catchup,” she said. “The government has been really good at speaking to the community. It has been said over and over again, ‘Let’s get it done.’ The ball is in their court.”

Source: ‘Words alone will not be enough’: Black caucus, community cautiously optimistic about feds’ Throne Speech pledges

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Rich families buy second citizenship in post-Ritz Saudi Arabia

2020/09/30 Leave a comment

Of interest:

“I have clients who escaped the Ritz-Carlton event because they were prudent enough to secure second citizenship beforehand. … The moment you hire me you are admitting to yourself that there is a danger,” David Lesperance, a Canadian lawyer who has advised dozens of affluent Gulf families since the early 1990s, told Al-Monitor.

In November 2017, 381 prominent Saudi businessmen, royals and officials were caught up in the “anti-corruption” crackdown led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

Saudi authorities reportedly pressured a quarter of Ritz-Carlton detainees, including through physical abuse, to hand over to the state assets worth a total of over $106 billion.

Ryan Bohl is a Middle East analyst at the US-based geopolitical-­risk firm Stratfor. He told Al-Monitor anti-corruption campaigns led by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are now “used to seize assets of those the state sees as disloyal.”

In this context, the global trade of second citizenship — often associated with tax evasion, money laundering and corruption — is viewed by some Gulf nationals who are exposed to risks related to political oppression and regime change as a strategic way out.

Cyprus and the bin Laden family

Preferred destinations are publicly known — Cyprus, Ireland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the Caribbean islands, among others — but firms operating in this secretive industry do not disclose how many Gulf nationals bought second citizenship.

Internal documents leaked to the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera earlier this year revealed, however, the extent of Cyprus’ citizenship by investment program: about 2,500 individuals from 74 countries bought a Cypriot passport between 2017 and 2019.

Although Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian citizens account for the vast majority of names listed in the Cyprus Papers, applications from Saudi Arabia have “increased since the rise of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,” Al Jazeera’s investigation reads.

In 2019, Cyprus granted citizenship to the relative of a Saudi national detained at the Ritz-Carlton and to a member of the bin Laden family — once one of the most influential in the kingdom. During the crackdown, three bin Laden brothers were detained and the family’s conglomerate effectively taken over by the state.

According to The Independent, some wealthy Saudis moved assets “out of the region” in the days following the Ritz-Carlton arrests, and Capital Economics’ senior emerging markets economist Jason Tuvey noted “a jump in Saudi residents placing banking deposits abroad.”

GCC states either prohibit dual citizenship or condition it on government approval but are not actively cracking down on second citizenships, Bohl believes. “They are, however, trying to find ways to ensure that such secondary passports do not become shields by which dissidents can attack their policies with impunity,” the analyst said.

Saudi operatives abducted three princes living in Europe between 2015 and 2017 and a year later a hit squad killed and dismembered Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who was a US resident with three children who are US citizens.

“It is beyond having a second nationality,” said Ziad Karkaji, managing partner of a Beirut-based firm specialized in residency and citizenship programs. Speaking about Al-Waleed bin Talal, a high-profile Saudi investor who holds a Lebanese passport, Karkaji told Al-Monitor, “With all his power and connections, he still stayed in the Ritz-Carlton.”

In September 2020, a group of Saudi dissidents, most of them in exile, crossed a red line by announcing the formation of a pro-democracy political party to call for peaceful change and combat what they referred to as state “violence and repression.”

“Every society is three meals away from chaos”

Beyond political considerations, getting second citizenship is “a long-standing practice” for Gulf businessmen and investors who travel frequently and want to avoid visa processing time, Bohl recalled. According to The Henley Passport Index, a power ranking of passports, the Cypriot travel document is twice as powerful as the Saudi.

Given the complexity of navigating national and international legislation, high-end intermediaries such as private bankers and family offices often recommend wealthy individuals seeking second citizenship to hire an expert. Some jurisdictions, like Malta, publish the names of foreigners who have acquired citizenship in the island state.

Applications for second passports from GCC nationals also soared about a decade ago during the Arab Spring. Some senior officials and members of royal families fear social discontent could lead to shifts in power and their assets being frozen.

As the global economy is expected to gradually shift away from carbon-intensive energies, the ruling families in the Arab Gulf states face unprecedented economic and sociopolitical challenges to reinvent their oil-dependent model of governance. Experts warn the change could cause political instability and eventually increase demand for second citizenship.

“Well, as Lenin said, ‘Every society is three meals away from chaos.’” Things happened, you know; in Tunisia it started with a fruit seller,” Lesperance commented.

Source: Rich families buy second citizenship in post-Ritz Saudi Arabia

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Scientists combat anti-Semitism with artificial intelligence

2020/09/30 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to assess the effectiveness of this approach, and whether the definition of antisemitism used in the algorithms takes a narrow or more expansive approach, including how it deals with criticism of Israeli government poliicies.

Additionally, it may provide an approach that could serve as a model for efforts to combat anti-Black, anti-Muslim and other forms of hate:

An international team of scientists said Monday it had joined forces to combat the spread of anti-Semitism online with the help of artificial intelligence.

The project Decoding Anti-Semitism includes discourse analysts, computational linguists and historians who will develop a “highly complex, AI-driven approach to identifying online anti-Semitism,” the Alfred Landecker Foundation, which supports the project, said in a statement Monday.

“In order to prevent more and more users from becoming radicalized on the web, it is important to identify the real dimensions of anti-Semitism — also taking into account the implicit forms that might become more explicit over time,” said Matthias Becker, a linguist and project leader from the Technical University of Berlin.

The team also includes researchers from King’s College in London and other scientific institutions in Europe and Israel.

Computers will help run through vast amounts of data and images that humans wouldn’t be able to assess because of their sheer quantity, the foundation said.

“Studies have also shown that the majority of anti-Semitic defamation is expressed in implicit ways – for example through the use of codes (“juice” instead of “Jews”) and allusions to certain conspiracy narratives or the reproduction of stereotypes, especially through images,” the statement said.

As implicit anti-Semitism is harder to detect, the combination of qualitative and AI-driven approaches will allow for a more comprehensive search, the scientists think.

The problem of anti-Semitism online has increased, as seen by the rise in conspiracy myths accusing Jews of creating and spreading COVID-19, groups tracking anti-Semitism on the internet have found.

The focus of the current project is initially on Germany, France and the U.K., but will later be expanded to cover other countries and languages.

The Alfred Landecker Foundation, which was founded in 2019 in response to rising trends of populism, nationalism and hatred toward minorities, is supporting the project with 3 million euros ($3.5 million), the German news agency dpa reported.

Source: Scientists combat anti-Semitism with artificial intelligence

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Carleton PhD student detained in Turkey, accused of inciting protests

2020/09/30 Leave a comment

An interesting and disturbing consular case that highlights a number of issues:
  • increasing repression in autocratic countries
  • calls for consular assistance are being applied to Permanent Residents, not just citizens (as in the case of Iran’s shooting down of the Ukrainian airline)
  • Canada will likely have more cases like this for those international students researching their country of origin histories and issues
  • and the intersection with LGBT identities.

In the ten years they’ve been together, Ömer Ongun has not gone a day without hearing the voice of his partner, Cihan Erdal.

It’s now been three days since they’ve spoken.

Their last conversation came on Friday, just moments before Erdal was detained in Istanbul’s Besiktas neighbourhood.

“It was 2 a.m. for us, 9 a.m. for Cihan in Istanbul. He called me and said ‘I love you. They are at my door. They’re going to take me away,'” Ongun said.

Erdal, a 32-year-old PhD candidate at Carleton University and a permanent resident of Canada, is now being held at a detention centre in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

He was among dozens of people named in warrants issued across Turkey on Friday. Ongun, also a permanent resident, said Erdal’s lawyer has not been allowed to see the specifics of his case file, but the allegations against all of the detainees relate to a letter written in 2014.

The letter called on the Turkish government to step in to help the Kurdish town of Kobani, in Syria, at the height of ISIS attacks.

Deadly protests

Thirty-seven people were killed in protests in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast that October as people filled the streets, angry the Turkish Army wasn’t moving in to protect Kobani and its people.

The Turkish government accuses the signatories of that letter of supporting the protests.

And the statement from Carleton:

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University condemns in the strongest possible terms the detention of Carleton Sociology doctoral candidate, Cihan Erdal, in Turkey today. The charges stem from events back in 2014, which the Turkish government are using to continue persecuting members of the leftist HDP political party, the third largest party in Turkey’s parliament. Cihan and 81 others, including academics, activists, and politicians, have been targeted because they are all signatories to a letter from six years ago calling for the Turkish government to step in to protect a Kurdish town from ISIS attacks, during a time when ISIS was quite active and many Kurds were being killed.

Cihan was an active member of the HDP in 2014 as their youth representative. However, he has not been involved in Turkish politics since he moved to Canada to do his doctoral studies at Carleton in January, 2017. He had only returned to Turkey to visit family and then to interview Turkish activists as part of his doctoral fieldwork. Cihan’s research is on youth-led social movements in Europe, including in Turkey, focused on the stories of young activists about their involvement in social movements. His work is in no way critical of the Turkish state. His research passed a formal proposal defense, and his research ethics proposal was approved before the COVID-19 pandemic began. He was beginning interviews online, while awaiting approval under the new pandemic ethics process to begin face to face interviews in Turkey, Athens, and Paris.

We ask you to vigorously demand the release of Cihan from detention and demand that the Canadian government consular offices support Cihan, who is a permanent resident of Canada.

More information on the arrests can be found here.

Source: https://carleton.ca/socanth/2020/the-department-of-sociology-and-anthropology-at-carleton-university-condemns-in-the-strongest-possible-terms-the-detention-of-carleton-sociology-doctoral-candidate-cihan-erdal-in-turkey-today/

And the website and social media campaign: freecihanerdal.ca

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UK barrister mistaken for defendant calls for compulsory anti-racism training

2020/09/29 Leave a comment

One would hope that this would not occur in Canada:

The barrister who was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court has called for compulsory anti-racism training at every level of the UK legal system.

Alexandra Wilson, who specialises in criminal and family cases, put in a complaint on Wednesday and spoke of her frustration about the incident on Twitter. Her tweets, which quickly went viral, resulted in an apology by the head of the courts service in England and Wales.

Since tweeting about what happened to her, Wilson said she has been flooded by responses from other black and minority ethnic lawyers who have had similar experiences. She added the frequent occurrence of such incidents points to the failure of current training in the legal system that only focuses on unconscious bias or diversity.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Lapse in early pandemic warning system ‘a colossal failure,’ says former federal Liberal health minister Dosanjh

2020/09/29 3 Comments

Appears, if Minister’s spokesperson correct, decision was taken at the official not political level:

Following the abrupt resignation of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) president Tina Namiesniowski on Sept. 18, a former Liberal federal health minister says the lapse in the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN)’s role under this government’s watch was “a colossal failure,” with the Bloc Québécois’ health critic saying the new president of PHAC will have to work hard to rebuild the agency “so that it can be more efficient in carrying out its duties [of] prevention, detection and management of public health crises.”

Former health minister Ujjal Dosanjh, who was in the role from 2004 to 2006 under then-prime minister Paul Martin, told The Hill Times that “the Public Health Agency isn’t an agency that’s supposed to sleep, ever. Its job is to continuously surveil, nationally, and internationally.”

“I think there is something the matter. If you are an activist minister, and you’re not just a politician who got elected, but you’re there to change the world even in the [most minute possible way], you would ask questions as to why GPHIN was folded. You would ask questions [about] when the information was coming from China,” Mr. Dosanjh said in a phone interview.

Canada was a leader in pandemic preparedness during his tenure, according to Mr. Dosanjh.

“I think it was a colossal failure on the part of government, and unfortunately no one is looking at these things because we are so wrapped up—and rightly so—dealing with the here and now, and we’re prepared to forgive the errors that have been made.”

“Whoever is responsible for it, it’s been a near fatal mistake in the pre-pandemic era which has come back to bite us in the pandemic era,” said Mr. Dosanjh, who also served as premier of British Columbia from 2000 to 2001.

“We would have been far better prepared, we would have had far more robust tools at our disposal, had we not put GPHIN to sleep,” said Mr. Dosanjh, who also noted that GPHIN was initially established following the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s.

“The infrastructure had been put in place before I got there, it was only completed when I got there, so I can’t take responsibly for it, but I’m somewhat saddened (which is not the best word), but knowing what I know, I’m angry,” said Mr. Dosanjh. “I’m actually sad at the kind of conflicting and unclear information that’s emanated from all of the responsible sources as COVID-19 started.”

Protecting the health and safety of Canadians ‘top priority’ 

According to Cole Davidson, spokesperson for Minister Hajdu, “protecting the health and safety of Canadians is our top priority.”

“Public health intelligence is vital to that goal,” said Mr. Davidson. “The minister was concerned to learn about the changes made to the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), and has ordered an independent review to look into these changes. The minister is expecting recommendations from this review in the next six months.”

“As the minister has said, these changes were made within the Public Health of Agency of Canada, not at the political level. These are serious and disturbing allegations—ones that we take seriously,” wrote Mr. Davidson. “When the minister became aware of these changes, she requested an independent review to investigate the questions that she had. GPHIN is an important tool for the government of Canada, and the analysts that serve this country must be empowered to do their work.”

PHAC’s president Tina Namiesniowski announced she was stepping down from the organization on Sept. 18, saying she was “now at a point where I need to take a break” and that she felt she “must step aside so someone else can step up” in a message to staff that day, according to multiple media reports.

Ms. Namiesniowski worked as a bureaucrat within the federal public service for decades, including stints as executive vice-president with the Canada Border Services Agency, as an assistant deputy minister at the Department of Agriculture, and as assistant secretary to cabinet, operations secretariat, with the Privy Council Office. She was appointed as president of the PHAC in May 2019.

‘There should be a strong public health capacity at different levels of government’

Dr. Paul Gully, a senior public health physician who was director of Health Canada’s population and public health branch and the department’s main spokesperson during the 2003 SARS outbreak, said he believes the Public Health Agency of Canada has responded well and continues to respond well to COVID-19.

“But I think lack of increased funding over the last few years, which probably goes back to the creation of the agency in 2014, is that it hasn’t been able to do a number of things,” said Dr. Gully. “One is to enhance its scientific capacity, while at the same time losing scientific capacity. It also hasn’t been able to deal with issues which have been well-known, such as the national emergency stockpile, for example.”

“There should be a strong public health capacity at different levels of government, that could then advise government and ensure that fiscal policies and all of the other policies are scientifically-based,” said Mr. Gully.

Government ‘asleep at the switch’ in ensuring strong PPE stockpile, says NDP’s Don Davies 

“I think the rapid removal of Ms. Namiesniowski and her rapid replacement is a clear acknowledgment that PHAC has been mismanaged for a long time now,” said NDP MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.), his party’s health critic. “The speed at which they replaced Ms. Namiesniowski, I think is also concerning.”

“Without casting any personal aspersions at the current appointment, the process makes me concerned,” said Mr. Davies.

“The Public Health Agency was slow to understand and acknowledge the risk level of COVID-19, they were slow to acknowledge community transmission, they were slow to acknowledge asymptomatic transmission,” said Mr. Davies. “They were also slow to acknowledge the efficacy of closing borders, and perhaps most egregious, they were completely asleep at the switch in making sure that we even had a good PPE stockpile.”

Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault (Montcalm, Que.), his party’s health critic, told The Hill Times that the “hasty and unexpected departure” of Ms. Namiesniowski will “definitely complicate the management of the current crisis.”

“But as the resignation of Mrs. Namiesniowski seems to be linked to personal burnout, it is difficult to blame her for this decision,” wrote Mr. Thériault in an emailed message to The Hill Times.“As for Mr. Iain Stewart, who has, it seems, a solid scientific profile, he will have to work hard to rebuild the Health Agency of Canada so that it can be more efficient in carrying out its duties [of] prevention, detection and management of public health crises. Especially since scientists warn us that such crises may be more common in the future because of increasing interference between human activities and nature, and accelerating climate change.”

Mr. Thériault also said that PHAC has shown “several shortcomings” in its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, and that the pandemic has shown that the agency isn’t adequately prepared to face such a crisis.

The government’s stock of masks and PPE was “clearly insufficient,” and PHAC erred by failing to heed warning from GPHIN about the pandemic, said Mr. Theriault.

“In addition, it was only two weeks after the onset of active community transmission and the rise in infections and deaths that the agency recommended social and economic restrictions, due to ineffective data collection,” he said.

“In short, PHAC must redefine its methods of preventing and preparing for future health crises, and it must make its responses to a public health crisis more rapid and effective. With the arrival of the new wave of COVID-19, it will have no room for error, as this wave had been expected for several months. We will be closely monitoring her actions in the face of this second wave.”

Mr. Thériault also said Quebec and the provinces were too much at the mercy of the ineffectiveness of PHAC.

“Indeed, they themselves suffer from systemic underfunding of their health system. That is why the Bloc Québécois, like Quebec and the provinces, is calling for an immediate [provision] of $28-billion in health transfers, an annual indexation of six per cent, and a federal contribution of 35 per cent,” said Mr. Thériault. “As health is a provincial responsibility, this will be the best way to prevent the different health systems from suffering once again from PHAC’s poor preparation for a future health crisis.”

Source: Lapse in early pandemic warning system ‘a colossal failure,’ says former federal Liberal health minister Dosanjh

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