Searching for Fred Christie, the Jamaican immigrant who tried to end legalized racism in Canada

2019/12/12 Leave a comment

Part of our history:

Fred Christie was no stranger to the York Tavern, a popular watering hole in the old Montreal Forum.

As a season ticket holder, Christie often dropped by the tavern during hockey season.

But this was the summer of 1936, boxing season, and unbeknown to Christie, the rules at the York were different in boxing season.

He walked in with two friends one Saturday night. The tavern was crowded. Christie slapped 50 cents on the table and asked for three beers.

The waiter said no. He explained that he’d been told not to serve black people. Christie went to the bar. The bartender told him the same thing. So did the manager.

So Christie, a private chauffeur, went to court. Eighty years ago this week, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered its ruling.

In a 4-1 decision, the court recognized that staff at the York Tavern had refused to serve Christie “for the sole reason that they had been instructed not to serve coloured persons.”

However, the court concluded, merchants are free to serve who they please, and in turning Christie away, the York “was strictly within its rights.”

And with that, the highest court in the country enshrined racial discrimination in law.

It wasn’t until Quebec passed its Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in 1975 that Christie vs. York ceased to have effect in the province — and seven years later in the rest of Canada when the federal charter was passed.

Black community rallies

The case has not surfaced in news coverage much since then.

As for Christie, he moved to Vermont not long after the decision and little is known about his life in the U.S.

But a prominent civil rights group in Montreal is using the anniversary of the 1939 Supreme Court decision to seek more recognition for Christie and the legal fight he mounted with the help of Montreal’s black community.

“It’s of major historical importance to the laws of this country and the fight for racial equality — as important as the battle of Viola Desmond in Nova Scotia,” said Fo Niemi, who heads the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR).

Niemi is hoping to persuade the federal government to issue a stamp in Christie’s honour or have him declared a person of national historical significance.

In the meantime, local historians are talking to parishioners at Union United Church, Montreal’s oldest black congregation, to gather more details about Christie.

It’s known he arrived in Montreal from his native Jamaica in 1919, settling in Verdun. According to one scholar, that neighbourhood might have appealed to Christie because it was not far from the Forum arena , and he was an avid sports fan.

Legalized racism differed from the U.S.

When Christie decided to take the York Tavern to court, Montreal’s black community rallied behind him. A young doctor, Kenneth Melville, chaired a committee that raised money to cover his legal costs.

Melville, also a Jamaican immigrant, was the first black medical student at McGill University and went on to chair the university’s pharmacology and therapeutics department.

The committee raised enough money by collecting nickels and dimes at barbershops, newsstands and churches.

“The black community was quite concerned about trying to acquire rights at a time when human rights legislation didn’t exist,” said Dorothy Williams, a historian who teaches black Montreal history at Concordia University.

“They were trying to set up an environment where they would have the same liberties and privileges that their white neighbours had.”

Legalized racism operated differently in Canada than in the United States, where a whole regime of segregation was spelled out in the so-called Jim Crow laws.

“Much of the legalized racism in Canada was enabled through private means,” said University of Alberta law Prof. Eric Adams, who has researched the Christie vs. York decision.

By invoking legal principles such as freedom of commerce, Canadian courts chose not to intervene in areas of social life where racial discrimination was occurring.

“The freedom and rights that mattered to the Supreme Court of Canada were the freedoms to conduct yourself in a racist manner,” Adams said.

In the absence of legal principles ensuring equality, which institutions chose to turn away black people at which time fluctuated in a seemingly arbitrary manner.

This helps explain why Christie would have been served at the York Tavern during hockey season but not during boxing season.

“We didn’t have written laws of segregation,” said Williams. “In Montreal, certain customs and mores were in place that made it very clear that certain people were not welcome in certain establishments.”

Law as a double-edged sword

The decision, which only runs 15 pages, was delivered just days after the start of the Second World War.

Writing for the majority, Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret claimed the York’s rule of not serving black people did not violate “good morals or public order.”

Adelle Blackett, a professor of labour law at McGill University, recalled how reading the decision as a first-year law student left her unsettled.

Blackett, who teaches the case regularly, read the decision again on Monday, 80 years to the day after it was delivered.

“I still found it painful, frankly, to read,” she said.

Even the dissent is “not exactly a strong articulation of the importance of human rights,” said Blackett, a former commissioner of Quebec’s Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission.

The lone dissenting judge, Henry Davis, argued the freedom of commerce principle shouldn’t apply because the York was benefiting from the provincial government’s control of the sale of liquor.

“It’s not rights language,” said Blackett. “It’s not: Mr. Christie, by virtue of being a human being deserving of dignity, has the right to be served and not discriminated against.”

“That’s the kind of specific language that comes through a charter of rights.”

The decision helps illustrate the ways in which human rights codes, which began to emerge after the Second World War, contributed to how Canadians interact with each other.

But for legal scholars, Christie vs. York is also a reminder that the law can be a double-edged sword — a source of protection and of oppression.

And that hasn’t changed.

“There is no monopoly on wisdom in our legal order,” said Adams.

Source: Searching for Fred Christie, the Jamaican immigrant who tried to end legalized racism in Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , ,

Alberta Tories launch new program to subsidize “multiculturalism” and “inclusion”

2019/12/12 Leave a comment

Sounds familiar to Kenney’s reboot of the federal multiculturalism program in 2010-11 and its objectives (which were needed in their re-emphasis on the civic integration purpose of multiculturalism):

Alberta’s UCP government has created a new grant program to provide up to $25,000 a year in subsidies to organizations promoting “cross-cultural understanding, celebrating diverse backgrounds and helping Albertans understand the impacts of discrimination.”

In a news release, Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women Minister Leela Aheer said that the new Multiculturalism, Indigenous and Inclusion Grant will make Alberta “a place where all people feel their culture is valued and respected.”

Organizations can apply for the $25,000 matching grant if their proposal supports multiculturalism, indigenous issues or “inclusion projects.”

Source: Alberta Tories launch new program to subsidize “multiculturalism” and “inclusion”

Program link: Multiculturalism, Indigenous and Inclusion Grant Program

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Shameful: @TrueNorthCentre using the two Michaels to raise funds

2019/12/12 Leave a comment

Speaks for itself – petition and involvement more to raise funds than substance – see highlighted text:

Two Canadians arrested by Chinese authorities on trumped-up charges have been in prison for exactly one year on December 10th.
Enough is enough.
We’re tired of the Chinese communist regime bullying Canada.
To anyone paying attention to China, both its grotesque human rights record and its increasingly belligerent foreign affairs, it’s clear that China is no friend to Canada.
It’s time the Trudeau government stand up to China and demand the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
One can only imagine what conditions they’re being detained in.
We created a petition to help the two Canadians.
If 10,000 Canadians sign this petition, we’re going to table it in the House of Commons.
Can you sign this petition and share it with your friends and family?
We want as many Canadians as possible to sign this petition. We know the majority of Canadians understand the threat communist China poses to Canada.
If you’re able to, chip in a few dollars to help us promote this petition on social media.
Thank you for standing up for Canada,
True North

Filed under foreign policy, Other Tagged with ,

U.S. Commission Censures India’s Proposed New Citizenship Laws

2019/12/11 Leave a comment

Of note. Haven’t seen much commentary from the Canadian government. As the Liberal government abolished the Office for Religious Freedom, any comment would likely have to come from the Global Affairs’ Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion:

A U.S. federal commission has called for sanctions against India’s home minister and other top leaders if the country passes a controversial bill that will prevent Muslim migrants from neighboring countries from receiving citizenship.

After hours of heated debate, India’s lower house of Parliament early Tuesday morning passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill — the next step in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hardline Hindu nationalist agenda.

The bill needs approval from the upper house — expected to come as early as Wednesday — before it become law. It proposes changes to existing citizenship laws to allow citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who illegally migrated to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Muslims are excluded from these provisions. If passed as expected, the move threatens the secular foundation of the world’s second-most populous nation and its constitution that treats all religions equally.

“If the CAB passes in both houses of parliament, the United States government should consider sanctions against the Home Minister and other principal leadership,” The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a press statement. “The CAB enshrines a pathway to citizenship for immigrants that specifically excludes Muslims, setting a legal criterion for citizenship based on religion. The CAB is a dangerous turn in the wrong direction.”

The U.S. commission’s statement was “neither accurate nor warranted,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said. “The Bill provides expedited consideration for Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities already in India from certain contiguous countries. It seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights,” the ministry’s spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a statement.

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission.

‘Discriminatory Laws’

If the bill becomes law, India’s tradition of secularism and pluralism could crumble, said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Washington-based Wilson Center, who has closely researched India’s politics over the past decade, comparing it with Myanmar’s discriminatory law based on ethnicity introduced in the 1980s.

“What happened in subsequent decades in Myanmar — particularly the horrors of the massacres of the Rohingya — underscore just how destructive these types of discriminatory citizenship laws can be for marginalized communities,” said Kugelman.

The bill has evoked both strident support and sharp censure, sparking protests around India, with lawyers working overtime to help millions at risk of being left stateless in the world’s largest democracy.

The hashtag #CitizenshipAmendmentBill2019 was trending on Twitter in India. On Tuesday morning more than 88,000 people had tweeted about the bill, with many supporting the government and others calling it an attack on the country’s secular traditions.

Source: U.S. Commission Censures India’s Proposed New Citizenship Laws

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

A Crying Need for Japanese-Language Instruction Among Immigrants

2019/12/11 Leave a comment

Coming to terms with immigration and related integration realities:

The number of foreign residents in Japan has been growing by about 150,000 annually since 2014, reaching an all-time high of 2.8 million in 2019. At a time of mounting concern over labor shortages and other consequences of demographic aging and population decline, these newcomers—most of whom are under 30—represent a vital resource. The crucial question is whether they can build rewarding lives as productive and accepted members of Japanese society. That will depend very much on their ability to communicate in Japanese, a notoriously difficult language for foreigners to learn.

Unfortunately, it is not at all unusual to encounter foreign residents who are functionally illiterate in Japanese even after living here a decade or more. Many are ill-equipped to cope in the event of an emergency.

The Japanese government must bear much of the blame for this state of affairs. While Germany, South Korea, and many other countries sponsor semi-mandatory orientation and social integration programs, including language instruction, the Japanese government has left it to local communities to respond as they see fit with the resources at their disposal. Fortunately, that is beginning to change.

Signs of Change

The impetus for change has come from the passage in December 2018 of the amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which officially opened Japan’s doors to lower-skilled foreign workers. In conjunction with the new law, the government announced a package of “comprehensive measures for acceptance and coexistence of foreign nationals.” Although this policy document does not have the force of law, it articulates a commitment by the Japanese government to support the social integration of foreign nationals. This in itself is a major step forward.

With regard to the specific issue of language training for foreigners, the measures include budget allocations for improvement and expansion of the existing “community Japanese-language education” program, which relies on local volunteers, with the goal of  ensuring access to instruction in all communities nationwide. It also earmarks funds for the development of multilingual online language-training resources to meet the diverse needs of learners.

In the spring of 2019, the Commission on Japanese-Language Education (an advisory organ under the Agency for Cultural Affairs), of which I am a member, began deliberations on specific measures aimed at improving the level of Japanese-language education in Japan. One major agenda item is the development of a national system for the certification of qualified instructors. The goal is to boost the skills and expertise of Japanese-language teachers; to enhance the prestige of the profession; and to raise the level of Japanese-language education in Japan. We are also considering steps to standardize Japanese proficiency testing and align proficiency levels with those of the Common European Framework of References for Languages.

The Responsibility of the State

Meanwhile, an even more important step forward came in June 2019 with the enactment of a new law that recognizes the government’s responsibility to offer Japanese-language education to foreigners living in Japan. The bill was drafted and submitted by a cross-partisan group of lawmakers led by former Minister of Education Nakagawa Masaharu. While cognizant of the need for far-reaching, comprehensive legislative action to facilitate integration of foreign nationals into Japanese society, Nakagawa decided to place top priority on a Japanese-language education bill in the belief that it addressed an urgent need and was likely to win broad support in the Diet.

Article 1 of the law states that the government “shall carry out comprehensive and effective measures for the promotion of Japanese-language education and thereby contribute to the creation of a dynamic, inclusive society that respects cultural diversity.”

The law’s significance consists in its stipulation that providing Japanese-language education for foreign nationals in Japan is “a responsibility of the state.” It calls for a basic policy to be drawn up by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and approved by a cabinet decision. It also calls on local governments to draw up policies consistent with that of the central government.

Notwithstanding the recent change in the Immigration Control Act, the government of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō continues to insist that it is not adopting “immigration policies” in the sense of measures to encourage or facilitate the permanent settlement of foreigners in Japan. Amid this denial, the explicit commitment to providing Japanese-language education to foreign nationals as a foundation for their acceptance and meaningful participation in an inclusive society is a major step in the right direction.

Challenges on the Ground

But to get a real sense of the task before us, we need to heed the actual voices of foreign residents and those attempting to serve them at the community level.

The Shinjuku Multicultural Community Building Committee was established by municipal ordinance in Shinjuku, Tokyo, where foreign nationals from more than 130 different countries account for 12% of the population. The committee, which I have the honor to chair, consists of more than 20 Japanese and foreign residents representing various demographic segments of the community. The members gather once every few months to discuss the challenges and issues confronting Shinjuku’s foreign residents. In the course of chairing these meetings, I have learned a great deal about the issues surrounding Japanese-language learning and teaching in this diverse community.

The first point to understand is that most foreign residents here are genuinely eager to study Japanese but find the obstacles daunting. While Shinjuku’s international community includes corporate executives with ample time to learn the language, many other foreign residents are juggling school and work, often holding multiple jobs. Mothers with small children, likewise, have very few options when it comes to attending language classes. We need to recognize and accommodate the increasingly diverse and complex circumstances of Japan’s foreign residents.

I also hear many complaints from the teaching side. In the absence of funding from either the central or local government, community-level Japanese-language education has had to rely on volunteers. Most are middle-aged or older married women who only want to teach during daytime hours on weekdays, and more and more are retiring from their volunteer jobs. As a result, Shinjuku’s community Japanese programs suffer from an acute shortage of personnel. Nor are they equipped with the resources and expertise to meet the diverse learning needs of this growing population. The question many people are asking is whether continued reliance on volunteers is a viable option.

Foreign residents also stress the need not just for Japanese instruction but also for direct “life guidance” to equip people from other cultures with the practical skills they need to function on a daily basis. A committee member representing the Nepalese community, for example, has made the point that an increasing portion of the young Nepalese who come to Japan to study or train have no previous experience with urban living. They come from rural areas and have never even been to Kathmandu. It is essential, he argues, that such people receive a basic orientation immediately after arriving if they are to avoid the pitfalls of navigating this alien environment. Providing such orientation could head off needless trouble.

Although Shinjuku’s municipal government has prepared living guides in multiple languages, which it issues to foreign students and trainees when they arrive, it offers no orientation classes, nor am I aware of any local governments that do so. As the foreign population of Japan diversifies, the central and local governments must work together to develop and institute an orientation program for new arrivals, along with Japanese-language instruction geared to foreign nationals who must learn local customs while living and working in Japan.

A Brewing Educational Crisis

Although adequate Japanese-language instruction for adults is critical, the educational needs of foreign children today are even more pressing.

According to data published by MEXT, as of May 1, 2018, there were 50,759 students in Japanese public schools identified as needing remedial Japanese-language instruction—an increase of 6,812 from the previous survey two years earlier. A recent MEXT survey found that, of the high school students identified as requiring remedial Japanese instruction as of 2017, a full 9.6% subsequently dropped out, as compared with a 1.3% dropout rate overall. Of the students requiring remediation who graduated in 2017, only 42.2% subsequently enrolled in a university, college of technology, or other postsecondary school, as compared with 71.1% of all 2017 high school graduates. A full 18.2% of them were unemployed, as compared with a 6.7% rate overall.

Learning to speak Japanese is not the biggest linguistic challenge facing foreign schoolchildren in Japan. The biggest challenge is kanji. During their six years in elementary school, Japanese children learn to read and write more than 1,000 kanji. Foreign children who transfer into the system after the beginning of third grade are already at a serious disadvantage. Poor reading skills tend to affect academic performance in almost every subject. By fifth or sixth grade, when many Japanese schoolchildren are already attending juku or enrichment programs, foreign students often find themselves socially isolated. Bullying is also a serious problem.

In places like Tokyo and Hamamatsu (Shizuoka Prefecture), where foreign students are no longer a rarity, many teachers work extra hours coaching them to improve their Japanese skills and help them catch up academically. A few schools have even hired additional faculty and staff in order to offer pull-out classes, with interpreters providing assistance. But only a fraction of the foreign children living in Japan have access to such support.

Foreign students face a major hurdle when it comes time to take the high school entrance examinations. The test results determine what kind of high school they can attend, which in turn determines their college and career prospects. And the vast majority of foreign students must take the written examination in Japanese in direct competition with their Japanese peers. In big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, there are a few schools that offer special admissions processes for foreign students, and there are also a growing number of nonprofits and other organizations dedicated to helping those students. But again, all too few have access to those services.

As the foregoing suggests, the academic and social pressures of school education in Japan can be overwhelming for young foreign nationals. When the stress builds up, students are apt to avoid school or simply stop attending altogether. In Japan, elementary and junior high school education is compulsory only for Japanese citizens, not for the children of foreign nationals. As a consequence, when a foreign student drops out, school authorities seldom intervene.

Leaving these children uneducated and unsupervised cannot possibly be a good thing, either for them or for the community as a whole. The government needs to address this brewing crisis by drawing up a robust policy for educational support, intervention, and accommodation and implementing it rigorously at the local level in collaboration with foreign residents, NPOs, Japanese-language instructors, and others.

Leaving No One Behind

Some progressive municipalities are leading the way with their own initiatives to support the adjustment and social integration of foreign nationals living in Japan. The city of Yokohama has established the Himawari Japanese-language support center to help recently arrived children adjust to Japanese schools. Hamamatsu has launched a program to ensure that all foreign children attend school. But for most municipalities, the education of non-Japanese children is still uncharted territory.

South Korea has established Rainbow Centers at 25 locations around the country to provide basic instruction in Korean language and customs to foreign children before they enter school. By comparison, Japan has only begun to develop dedicated facilities for such purposes, and it has a long way to go in terms of training and hiring the qualified professionals—including language teachers and interpreters—needed to staff them.

The number of foreigners living in Japan is now roughly equal to the entire population of Hiroshima Prefecture. They have much to contribute to Japanese society, both culturally and economically. But that potential will go untapped in the absence of a concerted effort to develop our language-education infrastructure. Through flexible partnerships with municipalities and nonprofits, the government must actively support language and social-integration programs tailored to the needs of individual communities and fulfill its responsibility to “leave no one behind.”

Source: A Crying Need for Japanese-Language Instruction Among Immigrants

Filed under Integration Tagged with ,

Trump Goes Full Anti-Semite in Room Full of Jewish People

2019/12/11 Leave a comment

Sigh….

Back in February 2017, Donald Trump was asked what the government planned to do about an uptick in anti-Semitism, to which he characteristically responded, “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.” That statement, like the ones he’s previously made about being “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world,” was, and is, obviously not true at all. Prior to being elected, Trump seemed to suggest to a room full of Jews that they buy off politicians; tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton’s face atop a pile of cash next to the Star of David and the phrase, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!”; and releasedan ad featuring the faces of powerful Jewish people with a voiceover about them being part of a “global power structure” that has “robbed our working class” and “stripped our country of its wealth.” After moving into the White House, and just a few short months following his assertion that he is the least anti-Semitic person to walk the earth, Trump refused to condemn neo-Nazis and, just last August, accusedAmerican Jews of being “disloyal” to Israel by voting for Democrats. And if you thought the coming holiday season would inspire the president to pump the brakes on blatant anti-Semitism, boy, do we have a surprise for you!

Speaking at the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida, on Saturday night, Trump hit all of his favorite anti-Semitic tropes before a room full of Jewish people. He started off by once again invoking the age-old cliché about “dual loyalty,” saying there are Jews who “don’t love Israel enough.” After that warm-up he dove right into the stereotype about Jews and money, telling the group: “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said. “But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!” (It feels beside the point that neither Elizabeth Warren nor any other Democratic candidate has proposed a 100% wealth tax.) He continued: “Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.”

Source: Trump Goes Full Anti-Semite in Room Full of Jewish People

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

New Zealand is a far more multicultural place today – its mainstream media is not

2019/12/11 Leave a comment

Similar issues in Canada and some interesting info regarding their ethnic media:

Let’s start with a test, about references to Indian people in the news. Last year, an Indian Naval crew completed the first-ever circumnavigation of the globe by an all-women team, in about eight months. They had a scheduled stop-over (one of only four worldwide) in Lyttelton, Christchurch, for over two weeks in 2017. They were facilitated by the Mayor, ministers, local MPs, and the wider community.

Such a great, inspiring story for women around the world, and in New Zealand, right? But I’m sure a majority of you are reading about it in New Zealand media for the first time. By contrast, stories about the Kiwi-Indian Christchurch GP Rakesh Chawdhry, who in 2018, was found guilty of sex offences against his patients, are hard to miss. His case was, and is, extensively reported by all mainstream New Zealand media.

No one can – or should – question a newsroom’s editorial judgement on what to cover, and what not to cover on an individual story basis. But editors, and even more importantly, owners, must realise that journalism is a business with public interest at its core. And that ‘public’ in New Zealand has changed, and is now more multicultural than ever.

Recently released Census 2018 figures tell us that almost 30% of the country’s population is non-European now. If we just take the three main Asian ethnicities – Chinese, Indians, and Filipinos – two-thirds of whom live in Auckland, they make up about 25 percent of the city’s population. Nationwide, there are more than 700,000 people of Asian descent living in New Zealand.

And to my mind, the recent financial struggles of mainstream New Zealand media are partly due to a failure to acknowledge, appreciate and cater to anyone except the majority community. Apart from a token mention of celebrations such as Diwali and Chinese Lantern Festival, any coverage of multicultural communities tends to invariably be negative, if they get a mention at all.

I dare say that a business that ignores a quarter of New Zealand’s only big city – especially a business that runs on public trust and goodwill – is a recipe for financial failure. The same argument applies to the rest of the country.

I am not for a moment denying the two main reasons being put forward for the struggles of commercial media. The dominance of Google and Facebook in terms of digital advertising revenues, and the subsidisation of state-owned media organisations in New Zealand.

But it is worth adding that ignoring 30% of the population is a third and equally important reason. Google, Facebook, RNZ and TVNZ are not going anywhere, any time soon. So this third reason is really the only one within our control.

A question might be asked – ‘why should we cater to these communities, they don’t matter financially?’ This assumption is incorrect, on two counts. There is a difference in income levels – per NZ Stats June 2019 quarter figures, European median weekly income ($1,060) is almost $100 more than Asian ($959.) But this gap is reducing every year. This is partly due to the aspirational nature, and emphasis on achieving social mobility through education, in the multicultural communities.

Secondly, due to discrimination in securing a job in the New Zealand market, many migrants turn to entrepreneurship. The salaried class doesn’t bring in the same advertising revenues as the business class. So migrant businesses are where some significant untapped advertising dollars are sitting.

Don’t believe me? Attend a Meet the Press programme, which the Indian High Commission in New Zealand regularly organises. I went to one recently held in Auckland. There were more than 10 Indian-origin media organisations present – including print, radio and digital – which report in English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Gujarati, among others. There is a similar number for the local Chinese-origin media. We also have some Filipino, Korean, and Japanese publications across the country. And this number has only grown over the last decade or so.

Clearly, communities are sustaining all these publications.

Hence, the market, the audience, the stories, and the business, is all there for someone who is able to appreciate the changing nature of New Zealand, and is willing to change with it.

Mainstream news media in New Zealand is struggling because, as one CEO said, consumer behaviour is changing. What he failed to say was that the consumer itself is changing. The emerging consumer is is young, urban, earning – and increasingly multicultural.

Source: New Zealand is a far more multicultural place today – its mainstream media is not

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Huawei Canada exec insists CFO Meng Wanzhou is victim of ‘politicization’

2019/12/10 Leave a comment

Always somewhat amusing when a former senior minister (John Baird, shilling for Saudi Arabia) or former senior aide, in Alykhan’s case, works for a Chinese company despite having been part of a government with legitimate concerns over Chinese influence.

And good on the reporter for challenging him for his firm not making representation to free the two Michaels:

One of Huawei’s Canadian bosses says he is concerned about the “politicization” of its CFO’s case south of the border, but dodged questions on why the firm won’t speak out more strongly for the two Canadians arbitrarily detained in China.

In an interview with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson, the executive and former director of issues management for Stephen Harper’s government insisted Huawei Canada respects Canadian laws but did not answer when asked whether the branch would call for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

“Well, you know, we’re concerned. We’ve said that we want the two governments to work together to find a resolution that can bring them home as soon as possible,” said Alykhan Velshi, vice president of corporate affairs of the Canadian branch of the Chinese company.

“With respect to Meng Wanzhou, obviously she has access to Canadian court, she has lawyers here and we remain confident that she will be found innocent because she is innocent and we remain alarmed by the politicization of her trial down in the United States.”

He would not clearly explain why the domestic branch of the company isn’t saying the same for fellow citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, detained by the Chinese government in apparent retaliation for Canada’s observance of its extradition treaty with the U.S.

Under that extradition treaty, Canada honours roughly nine in every 10 requests from the U.S. and it is the courts that decide on the merits of a case for extradition, with the ultimate decision lying at the very end of the process with the Minister for Immigration only in the event extradition is approved.

“If you’re alarmed by that politicization, are you not alarmed that these Canadian citizens are being held on what the Canadian government says are completely specious charges?” Stephenson asked Velshi.

“As I’ve said, we’re concerned. I think all Canadians are concerned by what’s happening over there by their treatment and we want this resolved as soon as possible,” he responded.

“But the solution can only be found by governments working together — by our government here in Ottawa, by the government in China, diplomats working together so we can bring them home as soon as possible. That’s our hope and I think that’s the hope of all Canadians.”

Kovrig, a diplomat on leave from Global Affairs Canada, and Spavor, an entrepreneur, were detained by Chinese authorities last December.

The action came just days after Canadian authorities arrested Meng on a provisional warrant from the United States. Shortly afterwards, the U.S.  charged her and her company with allegedly skirting sanctions on Iran and stealing corporate secrets.

Kovrig and Spavor were held without charge until May 2019, when China formally arrested them on accusations of spying.

They have been kept in conditions described as “harsh,” with no access to lawyers and with the lights on 24 hours a day.

They have received only limited consular visits.

Meng, meanwhile, is out on bail and living in one of her Vancouver homes.

She is currently fighting extradition to the U.S., a process that could take years.

Huawei is seeking to bid on the upcoming 5G spectrum auction but faces allegations from intelligence agencies and experts around the world that it poses a national security risk because of a Chinese law that requires Chinese companies to spy for the state if requested.

Canada is currently in the midst of a review on whether to allow Huawei to bid in that auction.

Officials here are under pressure though from the Americans, who have deemed Huawei an unacceptable security risk and implemented a ban on U.S. companies using its technology. However, they have also issued repeated exemptions to that ban, most recently last month.

Source:  Huawei Canada exec insists CFO Meng Wanzhou is victim of ‘politicization’ – National

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , ,

Guy Saint-Jacques: No end in sight to the plight of the Two Michaels

2019/12/10 Leave a comment

Good commentary from our former ambassador:

I wake up every day thinking about the predicament of Michael Kovrig, a great colleague with whom I enjoyed working at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, and hope that a miracle will happen and free him and Michael Spavor. On this sad anniversary of their first year in detention, the strategy followed by Ottawa has had limited results: Not only have they not been released on bail, but they have not even seen a lawyer!

Since China has warned us that things won’t get back to normal until we return Meng Wanzhou to China, there is no end in sight. Our farmers have lost billions of dollars in sales of canola (exports are down 50 per cent this year), soya, peas and meat. Since the United States created this problem by asking us to arrest Meng, they need to do more to help us resolve the crisis. But knowing Donald Trump’s opinion of our prime minister, can we rely on the U.S.? The message should be that we will be less forthcoming the next time around when the U.S. asks a service from us.

Is it possible to have normal relations with China? As Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times on Nov. 30, it has become more difficult to remain ambivalent after the revelations about China’s campaign in the province of Xinjiang that borders on cultural genocide and its non-respect of the one-country-two-systems agreement on Hong Kong. Assuming that our compatriots would be released next year, I don’t think it is possible to restart the relationship where it was prior to the crisis. Still, we need to look at where we want to be in five or 10 years from now, as China is key to addressing common global problems such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and global pandemics.

The ongoing crisis with China shows the challenges of dealing with a superpower that ignores international rules when they are not to its liking. While Canada is not the first country to be on the receiving end of China’s displeasure and bullying tactics, this is the first time that a targeted country has rallied support from allies. I believe this has taken China by surprise as the reaction affects its image abroad. Our message should be that we are reassessing the relationship and that all official exchanges will be suspended until they release Kovrig and Spavor. After that, we will want to re-engage, but on the basis of reciprocity and mutual respect.

We should start immediately to reassess our engagement strategy with China, recognizing upfront that it has turned into a much more authoritarian state and a strategic competitor since Xi Jinping became secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012. Of course, our capacity to influence China is very limited — our goal is simply to ensure that basic human rights are better protected and that China stops behaving like a spoiled child.

Let’s not abdicate our values. We should react quickly and firmly when we find instances of interference in Canadian affairs, including among Canadians of Chinese origin, espionage activities, or attempts to limit debate on Canadian campuses. The government should look at Australia’s experience and the measures it has taken to deal with Chinese interference. I would also suggest that we undertake a review of ongoing collaboration in the field of high-tech, including artificial intelligence, to ensure that our expertise is not used in China for domestic controls or to limit freedom of expression.

We also have to cultivate expertise on China in all areas of the public service to ensure a well-informed and more sophisticated China policy. This requires supporting universities and think-tanks that study China, but also maintaining contacts in the People’s Republic of China to better understand its objectives and policies, with a focus on the communist party, which has taken over many tasks of the government. We also need programs to entice more young people to learn Mandarin.

As economic opportunities are still available for Canadian companies, the federal and provincial governments and agencies should continue to support Canadian companies in China. There is a need to better integrate information and provide more clarity to companies about assistance available from governments at various steps. In parallel, we also need to diversify our trade by putting more emphasis on other Asian countries to take full advantage of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements we have in the region.

Clearly, Canada is not in a position by itself to criticize China much on its trade practices or human rights. Therefore, as Western countries all face similar challenges in dealing with China, the strategy going forward should be to work together on ensuring that the multilateral system is protected with the same rules for all. The message to China should be that we welcome it to play a larger role in international affairs and to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as long as it stops bullying countries and becomes a better global citizen.

China has been good at ragging the puck for too long: It’s time to apply reciprocity — i.e. we should allow Chinese companies to invest in Canada when a Canadian company is able to do the same in China.

One day, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will be free. Let’s hope that they can resume their lives as soon as possible.

Source: Guy Saint-Jacques: No end in sight to the plight of the Two Michaels

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with ,

After Stephen Miller’s white nationalist beliefs outouted, Latinos ask, ‘where’s the GOP outrage?’

2019/12/10 Leave a comment

Good question but yet not surprising:

It wasn’t the content of White House adviser Stephen Miller’s leaked emails that shocked Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso, Texas, but the silence of her Republican colleagues that has followed.

Miller is the architect of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies that have separated children from parents,forced people seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico under squalid conditions, instituted the Muslim ban and poured money from the military into border wall construction. The administration is currently under fire for the deaths of migrant children and teens who have died while in government custody.

In a trove of emails provided to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, Miller cited and promoted white nationalist ideologies of white genocide, immigrants as criminals and eugenics, all of which were once considered fringe and extreme. White nationalists embrace white supremacist and white separatist views.

Three weeks after the emails were made public, Miller still is in the White House. Only Democrats have called on the White House to rid itself of white nationalism.

“It really has been jarring (that) the president’s enablers and Republicans have not stood up and said, Mr. President, this is unacceptable,” Escobar said in an interview. “I would implore my Republican colleagues to join us in calling for Stephen Miller’s resignation,” she said.

MIller’s ideology has wide reach, consequences

Escobar represents El Paso, where a gunman opened fire in a Walmart on Aug. 3, killing 22 people and injuring 26.

Police have said the suspect in the El Paso shootings told them his target was “Mexicans.” They also said he posted an anti-immigrant, anti-Latino screed that stated the attack was a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Some of the language in the screed is consideredsimilar to words used by the president and state leaders.

After the shootings, Trump condemned white supremacy and said “hate has no place in America” but did not mention that Latinos were targeted or that the victims were predominantly Latino in his speech.

Miller is more than helping reshape immigration policy.

With Miller’s assistance, the administration is “doing an end run around Congress to dismantle every aspect of the immigration system” through executive actions and gutting regulations and replacing them with their own, said Doug Rand, an immigration policy adviser in the Obama White House and cofounder of Boundless Immigration, which uses technology to help immigrants obtain green cards and citizenship.

“Believe it or not, it’s possible to be to the right of President Trump on immigration, and that’s where Stephen Miller has spent his whole career,” Rand said. “He idealizes the 1924 law that banned immigrants from just about everywhere but Western Europe, and he is pulling every lever he can find throughout the federal government to accomplish the same outcome.”

Escobar has asked the Department of Homeland Security to audit its policies to determine which were influenced by Miller “to show the motivations of the administration’s immigration policies and shed light on the people that help craft them.”

Separately, 107 members of Congress signed a letter to Trump demanding he fire Miler.

“A documented white nationalist has no place in any administration, and especially not in such an influential position,” the Democratic congressional members said in the letter.

There also are several petitions calling for Miller’s resignation, including one started by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that had more than 130,000 signatures as of this week.

Miller previously worked for former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. — who served as Trump’s first attorney general — before joining the Trump campaign.

More tolerance for intolerance?

That he persists reflects a change in what the country and political leaders are willing to tolerate under a Trump administration.

At the start of the year, House Republicans removed Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, from committee assignments after he said in an interview with The New York Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

When he said in 2013 that young immigrants had calves the size of cantaloupes, King drew condemnation from throughout the party, including from Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans. King has been repeatedly re-elected and is a Trump ally.

Diaz-Balart, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the three most senior Latino Republicans in Congress, either didn’t respond or declined to comment on the calls for Miller’s resignation.

Rubio and Diaz-Balart, both from immigrant families, have a moderate record on immigration. Miller even targeted Rubio in emails to get negative stories written about him by Breitbart. Rubio’s response has been that he knew Miller wasn’t a fan of his immigration policies.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The White House has defended Miller in previous statements to media, raising Miller’s Jewish background in that defense.

Ocasio-Cortez dismissed that defense in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes saying “the color of your skin and the identity you are born with does not absolve you of moral wrong.”

“I don’t think any public servant should weaponize their identity in order to advance white nationalist ideas. Period. Punto. I don’t care who you are,” Ocasio-Cortez said. Having Miller at the helm of U.S. immigration policy means policies “will become more fascistic and we cannot allow that to be us,” she said.

A rise in violent, white supremacist extremism

In his emails, Miller makes clear the esteem he holds for another period in the country, when President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924 that severely restricted immigration from certain parts of the world. Coolidge is admired by white nationalists, according to the SPLC.

The act was the nation’s first comprehensive restrictive immigration policy that established the Border Patrol.

After being told that Fox radio host Mark Levin has said there should be no immigration for several years “for assimilation purposes,” Miller responds:

“Like Coolidge did. Kellyanne Conway poll says that is exactly what most Americans want after 40 years of non-stop record arrivals,” according to emails posted by SPLC. Conway is an adviser to Trump.

In referencing the 1924 act, Miller is “harkening to an era of racial violence,” said Monica Muñoz Martinez, author of “The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas.”

FBI statistics released in November showed an increase in hate crimes and violence against Latinos.

In a September report, the Department of Homeland Security said while the country still faces threats from foreign terrorist organizations, “unfortunately, the severity and number of domestic threats have also grown.”

The agency said there has been a “concerning” rise in attacks by people motivated by racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, including white supremacist violent extremism, anti-government and anti-authority violent extremism and other ideologies.

White supremacist violent extremists can generally be characterized by hatred for immigrants and ethnic minorities, often combining these prejudices with virulent anti-Semitism or anti-Muslim views, the DHS report states.

In a Sept. 6, 2015, email, Miller suggested Breitbart write about “The Camp of the Saints,” SPLC reported. The novel’s theme is the end of white civilization by migrants who arrive from India.

Kathleen Belew, an expert on the white-power movement, said in an interview with NPR that Miller’s citation of the book is “clear evidence that this is a person who is immersed in trafficking in white nationalist ideology.”

“Voters across the country, constituents across the country who see their leaders standing in silence in the face of unprecedented racism and bigotry at the highest levels of government in our generation, they need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves: Is this acceptable?” Escobar said.

Source: After Stephen Miller’s white nationalist beliefs outouted, Latinos ask, ‘where’s the GOP outrage?’

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