The Battle for Hong Kong Is Being Fought in Sydney and Vancouver How Beijing is weaponizing social media in its fight to crush the Hong Kong protests.

2019/08/15 Leave a comment

Good account:

As the police deploy tear gas against protesters on the streets of Hong Kong, another battle is raging less visibly: the one for narrative control. After weeks of asserting that the unrest had been orchestrated by foreign “black hands,” Chinese officials on Monday accused protesters of showing the first signs of “terrorism.” Such messaging is key to Beijing’s public opinion operation, which has been turned up to full volume.

The weapons of this information war include a flood of social media posts from state-run media, some carrying misinformation. When a woman dispensing first aid was shot in the eye by the Hong Kong police, the state-run CCTV reported on its official social media account that she had been shot by protesters. It also accused her of handing out money to demonstrators. Chinese readers are unlikely to question the veracity of such an authoritative source, and CCTV’s Weibo post, which says the movement is slandering the Hong Kong police by blaming them for the injury, has been liked more than 700,000 times.

Ten weeks ago, when Hong Kongers first took to the streets to protest disputed extradition legislation, Beijing censored all reports of this civil unrest. But in recent days, it has reveled in posting video of protesters purportedly using air guns, slingshots and petrol bombs against the police. The state-run Global Times has described protesters as “nothing more than street thugs who want Hong Kong to ‘go to hell,’” or as people who had “voluntarily stripped themselves of their national identity.” Such descriptions are aimed at delegitimizing the protesters’ cause, especially among educated mainlanders who might otherwise be sympathetic.

Chinese people living or studying overseas are another important audience for Beijing’s messaging. Their primary news diet is largely delivered via WeChat, a Chinese chat app where messages are subject to censorship, so they often still fall within Beijing’s propaganda orbit. Recent pictures of an American diplomat meeting two activists, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, were used to bolster Beijing’s claims of hostile foreign forces backing the protests. On Tuesday, scenes of a Chinese state media worker being tied up at the airport and beaten by young protesters flooded Chinese social media, bolstering calls for Beijing to intervene militarily in Hong Kong.

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Chinese immigration applications to Canada plunge since Meng Wanzhou arrest

2019/08/15 Leave a comment

Interesting. While to date we have not seen a decline in student visa applications, will see whether this apparent trend will start to extend to students:

Chinese applications for Canadian immigration and visitor visas both fell to their lowest levels in recent years after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver and Beijing issued a travel warning to its citizens about “arbitrary detention” in Canada.

The explosive growth rate in Chinese tourism that had seen mainlander arrivals in Canada nearly quadruple since the start of the decade has also plummeted, official figures show, with potential losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in visitor spending.

There were 1,574 mainland Chinese immigration applications in June, the lowest monthly total since March 2015, according to the latest data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). And this February’s 1,754 applications had represented a 45-month low at the time.

Jean-Francois Harvey, a Hong Kong-based immigration lawyer, said three mainland Chinese immigration consultants had told him that Meng’s December 1 arrest and the resultant diplomatic chill had had an effect on business, although it was not necessarily a “deal breaker”.

Source: Chinese immigration applications to Canada plunge since Meng Wanzhou arrest

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Kelly McParland: Why reactionary populism will fizzle in Canada

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

Tend to agree:

Populism is getting a bad rap in Canada, unjustifiably so.

According to my unaffiliated and wholly non-partisan online dictionary, populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” That’s pretty much the whole world, outside a few billionaires, right?

Appealing to ordinary people is what most major political parties claim to do. The least populist parties are the ones on the extreme left or right that seek to spread blinkered minority views that are too often rooted in bitterness, envy, anger, ignorance or ideology run wild. The only people who think this is ordinary are the extremists themselves.

Donald Trump is not a populist, he’s an appallingly shallow, ignorant and narcissistic loudmouth who has struck a chord with Americans who are, for the most part, decent people, but feel they’ve been forgotten by Washington’s craven and self-serving establishment. They have good reason for feeling that way, though supporting Trump is not the solution.

There is little chance of Canada’s federal government being seized by the same sort of ugliness. There are several reasons for this, chief among them that Canadians are vastly different from Americans, less fixated on the outer reaches of individualism, less prone to absolutism and more inclined to compromise and a culture of reformative fudging.

Nonetheless, someone in Ottawa evidently felt the need to invite a perceived expert on the issue to address a task force of senior bureaucrats on “diversity and inclusivity,” which under the Trudeau government has become an obsession all its own. The expert, Tim Dixon, is a “a social movement builder” who co-founded More in Common, a non-profit with operations in a number of European countries that seeks to “build communities and societies that are stronger, more united and more resilient to the increasing threats of polarization and social division.” He is also co-founder of Purpose Europe, “a home for building movements that harness technology to engage large numbers of people and help make progress on major global problems.” Before setting out to remake the world he was a speechwriter for Australian politicians.

If you survey the faces of the various Purpose teams on their websites, you’d have a hard time finding a better-scrubbed, diverse group of young, motivated, good-intentioners anywhere. More in Common has only existed since 2017 but has already printed numerous publications, mostly focused on the U.S. and Europe, dealing with the strains linked to immigration and refugees.

There is no question such strains exist. The Brexit mess in the U.K. is tied directly to hostility towards immigration rules. Over the weekend The New York Times published a lengthy examination of how Sweden’s legacy of tolerance has been undermined by a cross-border digital web of dark impulses exploited by a local party founded on Nazi principles. Italy’s latest government crisis could see the prime ministership go to Matteo Salvini, a party leader with very Trumpian views who has been linked in a series of recent reports to illicit funding from Russia. In the U.S., the political divide has grown so wide and deep there is serious doubt the Democratic party can find a nominee free enough from plans for radical social and economic upheaval to stand a chance against Trump.

Such developments offer good reason for Canadians to look beyond their borders and wonder what perverse political virus has seized the world. But there still is not much cause for serious concern that it might take hold here. For all the Trudeau Liberals’ attempts to portray Conservative leader Andrew Scheer as a bigot-in-training, the man’s biggest flaw may be that he’s just too much an everyday Canadian to inspire excitement among a population that takes its politics in small doses, and only when necessary. The closest Canada comes to a party of intolerance is the People’s Party of Maxime Bernier, who broke away from Scheer’s Tories out of pique at having been rejected as leader and precisely because necks among the Scheer Conservatives aren’t nearly red enough for his liking. Bernier is pledging to significantly reduce immigration to Canada, but fears he might steal votes on the right have proved unfounded: the party barely registers in polls and Bernier has been reduced to recruiting from among disaffected candidates who were either rejected by the Tories or couldn’t drum up much interest anywhere else.

In contrast to Bernier’s pledge to cap immigration at minimal levels, the other parties all remain gangbusters for increased numbers, mainly because Canada needs bright, educated and hard-working people to feed the workforce and the gaps that remain in important industries. The biggest difference between Tory thinking and Liberal thinking relates to the qualifications of would-be migrants, how much time they spend in Canada and how many family members should be allowed in without much prospect they’ll be able to contribute to the benefits they’ll consume.

The “immigration crisis” most often referred to in headlines refers to the sudden flood of arrivals across an illegal crossing in Quebec, which upset Canadians because they thought it was unfair, and because many felt Trudeau brought it on himself via a typically vainglorious tweet offering open arms at a time the world was beset by crises involving millions of people displaced by war and poverty. Conservatives saw arrivals as largely opportunistic and illegal, Liberals wanted to deny there was a crisis. Since the numbers have eased, the “crisis” talk has faded.

The bottom line is that there’s not much evidence Canada is in danger of producing the sort of deep-seated antipathy that feeds the forces of rancour on the left and right. If anything, it seems more likely the abhorrence with which Trump is widely viewed will act as a barrier to any serious spread of the virus that has troubled Europe and the U.S. It’s nice that bureaucrats would feel the need to familiarize themselves with the challenges confronting their colleagues in other countries, but it’s unlikely More in Common will need to mobilize its forces to establish a branch plant in Canada just yet.

Source: Kelly McParland: Why reactionary populism will fizzle in Canada

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Glavin: While Hong Kong fights for democracy, Canada goes silent

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to continue to watch how this issue plays out among Chinese Canadians, mainland and Hong Kong origin, the degree that this is reflected in Chinese language ethnic media and whether this becomes an election issue for Chinese Canadians and party messaging:

All flights out of Hong Kong International Airport were cancelled this afternoon as authorities blamed protesters for disruptions following a brutal police crackdown on street demonstrations over the weekend. In the most dramatic civil disturbances since Hong Kong was turned over to China in 1997, more than 600 people have been arrested in what has been a largely non-violent uprising. It has carried on for 10 straight weeks.

In an ominous escalation of its threats of retaliation, Beijing dispatched a massive convoy of armoured vehicles from the Peoples Armed Police that arrived Saturday at a stadium in Shenzhen, just across the border from the semi-autonomous financial hub. Last Tuesday in Shenzhen, following a general strike that paralyzed much of Hong Kong, more than 12,000 “anti-riot” police engaged in elaborate mock riot-suppression drills. On Sunday, a senior Communist Party official declared that “the first signs of terrorism” are beginning to appear in Hong Kong.

The confrontations over the weekend sent 40 people to hospital, including protesters, volunteer medics, journalists and bystanders. They were injured by baton-swinging police or struck by tear-gas canisters, rubber bullets or bean-bag rounds fired at close range directly into groups of people in crowded metro stations.

The Hong Kong protests have been escalating ever since June 9, when a million people marched in opposition to a now-suspended extradition bill that anticipated the integration of Hong Kong into China’s penal system. The protesters’ demands quickly grew to include the full withdrawal of the proposed law, a retraction of the “riot” classification that put protesters arrested in a series of clashes on June 12 at risk of 10-year prison sentences, amnesty for all arrested protesters, an independent inquiry into police conduct, and perhaps most importantly, the relaunch of a promised electoral reform process—the main objective of the failed 2014 “Umbrella Movement” protests—to establish a system of one person, one vote.

This summer’s protests constitute the most direct challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he consolidated power seven years ago and embarked on a policy of accelerated internal repression and outward neo-imperialist belligerence. Xi’s reign has been marked by intensive surveillance and ramped-up censorship, the persecution of human rights defenders and the mass incarceration of the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang.

His foreign-policy initiatives include the annexation of the South China Sea, the militarization of China’s global “Belt and Road” initiative and a series of outlandishly aggressive moves, not least the “hostage diplomacy” at work in the arbitrary arrests of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

The protest leadership, meanwhile, is organic and profoundly democratic, bringing together a diverse cross section of Hong Kong Society that includes separatists, young, disaffected militants, middle-class democrats, the Roman Catholic church and the Hong Kong Law Society. Squared off against Xi’s authoritarian regime in Beijing and his incompetent regional puppet, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s protest movement has tried and largely failed to win support from the world’s liberal democracies.

A recent poll by Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Research Institute found that while 58 per cent of the protesters are animated by their dismal economic prospects, mostly in relation to housing, 84 per cent say they’re protesting on account of their distrust of Lam’s administration, and 87 per cent are taking to the streets for the “pursuit of democracy.”

Natalie Hui, a senior member of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong organization, says Canadians are not facing up to the dire implications of the Hong Kong crisis, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is foolishly wishing it would all just go away. “What we are seeing in Hong Kong is a crystal ball for Canada,” Hui told me.

There are at least 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. Canada is home to another 1.5 million ethnic Chinese. Many have family in mainland China, and they fear that their relatives will be harassed if they speak up. The Trudeau government’s policy of business-as-usual trade engagement and otherwise saying nothing to arouse Beijing’s ire will do nothing in the cause of freeing Spavor and Kovrig, who were arrested in retaliation for last December’s detention in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou. The chief financial officer for the Zhenzhen telecom giant Huawei, Meng was picked up on a U.S. Justice Department extradition warrant on charges of bank fraud and evading U.S. sanctions on Iran.

On the bright side, Hui said Hongkongers are showing that you can fight Beijing, and if you won’t necessarily win you won’t necessarily lose, either. Hongkongers have fought Beijing to a draw, so far, and they’ve managed to stop the extradition bill in its tracks. “Hong Kong is showing that you can push back. They are inside the mouth of the lion, but they still say no to the regime. But we must take action now.”

The Trudeau government, however, has failed to uphold the global values it so loudly claims to cherish. “This is a very critical moment in history. I don’t want to demoralize people but I think the Chinese Communist Party will destroy peoples’ careers and arrest a lot of people. Canada is weak. As a Canadian citizen, I have not seen anything from our government. We have emboldened China’s thuggish behaviours, because we haven’t done anything. It’s just silence.”

Maclean’s reached out to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office for comment, but got no response.

David Mulroney, Canada’s ambassador to China from 2009 to 2012, agrees that silence is the worst policy. “We’ve really, really let down the side. It may be too little, too late now, but I’d like to see clearer statements from the foreign minister and the Prime Minister. Anything is better than silence.”

The horrible predicament that Kovrig and Spavor face is no excuse for Canada’s silence, Mulroney said. “China is hoping they can so intimidate people and cow people in the west that they can achieve their aims with almost no cost to themselves. When Canada is silent, when much of Europe other than the U.K. is silent, it’s easier to get away with what they’re trying to do, to undermine what freedoms Hong Kong still has.

“You’ve got to be honest with China. You’ve got to be direct with China, whether it’s detentions of Canadian citizens or attacks on democracy and autonomy in Hong Kong, we have to speak up whenever we can. I don’t think our silence does anything other than confirm China in its commitment to hostage diplomacy. If they find that by doing this they secure our silence, it makes it even more likely that they’ll do it in the future. It confirms them in their proclivity to take hostages and detain people. So it does nothing to change their behaviour.”

While U.S. President Donald Trump has been worse than useless—Trump has praised Xi for his restraint in dealing with Hongkongers, and has referred to the protests as “riots”—one of Hong Kong’s best hopes at the moment is the bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy bill that’s up for consideration in the U.S. Congress when the summer recess ends after Labour Day. Mulroney has added his name to a letter from a long list of China experts, directed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging quick adoption of the bill.

Among other things, the bill would potentially remove Hong Kong’s special status in U.S. trade law, a status that has allowed China to evade rules and sanctions by employing Hong Kong as a conduit for inbound and outbound investment since the early 1990s. The bill would also suspend visa restrictions on criminal convictions for individuals convicted for participating in demonstrations, and would sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials deemed guilty of human rights abuses.

Passage of the bill could put Beijing on notice that if the Hong Kong democracy movement is crushed, Beijing would reap no benefit, but would instead stand to be punished severely in its trade relationships with the United States.

It’s too bad that Canada isn’t contemplating a similar law, Mulroney said. Hui agreed.

“A Canadian law, like that. That is my dream, that we could do that,” she said. “That is my dream.”

Source: While Hong Kong fights for democracy, Canada goes silent

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Black male educators sound diversity alarm | New Orleans’ Multicultural News Source

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

Some interesting research. If I recall correctly, there is overall under-representation of males in education, particularly at the primary level:

A diverse and inclusive education workforce can play a critical role in ensuring that students receive a robust, quality educational experience. While students of color comprise more than half of P-12 classroom populations in the United States, overcoming the shortage of educators of color has been a decades-long dilemma for U.S. schools.

The shortage is especially alarming among Black male educators, who represent less than two percent of the total teaching population. Their recruitment continues to be a critical topic in educational reform, but studies on the factors contributing to the shortage remain scarce. As a result, there has been little improvement in attracting and retaining Black male educators.

To uncover factors affecting the shortage of Black male teachers, researchers from University of Phoenix Center for Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Research (UOPX) – in partnership with the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) – examined the current status of Black male educators in the nation’s classrooms.

The exploration highlighted insights of fellows of the 2018 cohort of NNSTOY Outstanding Black Male Educators. Their reflective quotes and personal narratives were published in a joint white paper titled “Having Our Say: Examining Career Trajectories of Black Male Educators in P-12 Education.”

Three areas of focus were spotlighted as potential solutions to the shortage: improved recruitment efforts, greater representation in teacher preparation programs and enriched experiences in school settings.

“With limited insight into the factors affecting Black male educators in P-12 education, the voices of the NNSTOY fellows served as the ‘coal miner’s canary’ – calling attention to the challenges experienced within the career trajectory of many Black male educators at every phase,” said Dr. Kimberly Underwood, University of Phoenix research chair and lead author of the paper.

“While this paper will help identify potential solutions, we must continue to champion efforts to create sustainable actions to diversify the teaching profession and improve recruitment and retention efforts.”

As highlighted in the paper, various studies suggest that the lack of Black male educators has negative implications for all students, both culturally and academically.

In their absence, students lose access to valuable insights and perspectives that can dramatically decrease bias and prejudice. Additionally, direct results can be seen among the benefits to students of color, which include lower dropout rates, a more positive view of schooling, fewer disciplinary issues and better test scores.

To develop a strategic approach to the issue, the UOPX and NNSTOY team will build off the voices of the fellows and conduct research to examine socialization experiences of Black male educators, including the root cause of the attrition.

Source: Black male educators sound diversity alarm | New Orleans’ Multicultural News Source

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CAQ’s immigration plan blasted for favouring European white francophones

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

I think this critique may be overblown if we look at the impact of the federal Express Entry system, where an offer from an employer is given considerable weighting: In 2008, immigration from Europe/UK was 17 percent of economic class, in 2017, it declined to 13.7 percent, from the USA, it declined from 3.1 percent to 2.4 percent:

Immigration hearings got off to a rocky start Monday when a group said the government is ignoring the issue of systemic racism faced by new arrivals even with a series of reforms that have been put in place.

And if you add into the mix the requirements of a Quebec values test and plans to give more power to employers to pick their own workers, the future is shaping up to mean most new arrivals will be white francophones from Europe, the group said.

The comments were made by representatives of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI), which represents 150 groups across Quebec who aid immigrants and refugees.

Refugees and families from diverse countries will be overlooked because they are seen as a burden to society, while others with the right skills won’t stand a chance because of “unconscious ethnic profiling” by employers, they said.

With the Quebec business lobby exerting enormous pressure on the government to boost immigration levels to as high as 60,000 a year, the TCRI warned Quebec must not overlook the human side of the equation.

As it stands, the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s immigration plan is “simplistic and utilitarian,” light years from the dreams of diversity and so focused on plugging labour shortages it represents a “historic setback” for Quebec’s immigration policies, they said.

The TCRI representatives were presenting a brief on the opening day of legislature committee hearings into Quebec’s immigration plan for the next three years.

After slapping a reduction on the number of immigrants for the year 2019 at 40,000, Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette shifted gears and is proposing to gradually increase it to 52,500 a year by 2022.

But he proposes to increase the percentage of qualified workers from 59 per cent to 65 per cent of the total to meet labour shortages, which has upset immigration groups. There are 120,000 vacant jobs in Quebec.

On his way into the hearings, Jolin-Barrette was cautious when asked whether he will boost the numbers as high as Quebec Inc. wants, saying he wants to listen to the views of everyone first.

But the TCRI gave the government an earful, saying cutting the number of refugees and candidates in the family unification category is wrong because they actually settle better into Quebec society while workers often move away.

“Immigration should not be instrumentalized to respond to economic needs,” Veronica Islas, a member of the group, told the committee.

“Immigration needs to be seen in a global sense. Yes, business plays a role. They need workers. But we need to avoid the privatization of immigration access.

“If we give business all the power, we could wind up with very homogeneous immigration. An employer could say it’s easier to integrate someone who is already like me.”

The group said they doubt Quebec’s much vaunted Arrima system — which matches immigrants with open jobs before they arrive — is the miracle solution, either.

It gives more power to employers to select workers, but there is no mention of how Quebec proposes to counter discrimination experienced by candidates with “non-Québécois”-sounding names.

That won’t disappear overnight with the new system, they said.

“Like it or not, there is a problem that can be qualified as systemic racism,” group member Dominique Lachance said during her testimony.

“It’s not so much intended by the employer, but there is a built-in discrimination in the system because people come from foreign countries, don’t know our system and don’t have the network of contacts others do to make their pitch (for work).”

The group said employers are completely unprepared to handle such powers.

“The TCRI fears that the net result is that we will observe a homogenization of permanent immigrant profiles to be more and more European white francophones,” it says in its brief.

“In partially leaving the power of selection of immigrants at the discretion of employers, and the bias of employers in this area is well documented, we can reasonably expect some candidates will never be approached despite their skills due to an unconscious ethnic profiling.”

Speaking to reporters later, group spokeswoman Eva Lopez said such discrimination hits the Maghrebian and black communities the most.

Some new arrivals even try to change their names to get around the problem of getting a job.

Speaking at the committee, Jolin-Barrette countered the comments, saying the Arrima system is based on skills and experience and “not the region of the world they come from,” so everyone has an equal chance of being admitted.

The immigration and refugee group is the first of 31 who will appear this week.

During the next few days, Jolin-Barrette will face an intense business lobby that will argue Quebec has to open the door to more immigrants than ever before.

The minister will present his final plan in November.

Source: CAQ’s immigration plan blasted for favouring European white francophones

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Lise Ravary: Multiculturalism, interculturalism and Quebec

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

Yet another example of a comementator who does not understand the intent, history and practice of multiculturalism in Canada, which is based upon integration with accommodation where warranted, all within the context of Canada’s constitutional, legal and regulatory frameworks.

And generally, with some exceptions, Canadian multiculturalism is working well, whether in terms of linguistic, social or economic integration:

Tricky words like nationalism, patriotism and multiculturalism dominate today’s public discourse in much of the developed world. These are essential topics of debate in these days of migration, but there is one problem: these words have different definitions, meanings and populist undertones.

An official research document from the Library of Parliament suggests that multiculturalism can be interpreted in three different ways, as a sociological fact, ideology or policy.

As a sociological fact refers to a society made up of people of different origins. The ideology is that found in the 1971 Multiculturalism Policy established Canada as a mosaic as opposed to the American melting pot, one key objective of which was to assist cultural groups to retain and foster their identity. And teaching immigrant children their heritage language, culture and history in public schools, something Quebec has done since 1979, is an example of a good multicultural policy, because it facilitates integration.

So how do we know we’re all on the same page?

If I say I’m against multiculturalism, you may think I am saying that I am opposed to diversity, when what I am doing is stating that I prefer to see immigrants integrate and become non-hyphenated Canadians who do not bring conflicts in their native lands to their new home. This should not be mistaken for a call for assimilation, the aim of Canada’s residential schools for Indigenous people.

Let’s be clear, Quebec has never been opposed to being a pluralistic society, starting with Samuel de Champlain, who forged brotherly relationships with Indigenous peoples of eastern North America whom he saw as “nations indiennes.” (Read Champlain’s Dream by American historian and Pulitzer Prize-winner David Hackett Fischer. It is an eye-opener on how this country began.)

Every Quebec government since 1971 has officially rejected multiculturalism, an ideology devised by Trudeau père that serious nationalist thinkers believe was meant to destroy Quebec nationalism. Later, Gérard Bouchard promoted Quebec’s own “interculturalism” as an alternative that recognizes the existence of a majority culture, something multiculturalism does not.

I have travelled all over Canada and lived in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. Canadian identity exists, regardless of people’s origin. I don’t understand why Canadians did not condemn Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ignorant and truncated view of Canada as a post-national country.

Canadian multiculturalism, whose 2011 redefinition by the federal government includes “improving the responsiveness of institutions to meet the needs of a diverse population,” has far-reaching consequences. For example, judges have been known to consider an accused’s culture of origin as a mitigating factor at sentencing time.

Similar debates go on elsewhere. Boris Johnson’s recent demand that immigrants learn English to feel British was condemned by some as “imperialistic” and “racist.”

But without a common language, or two — and such shared fundamental values as gender equality, the separation of Church and State and loyalty to Canadian institutions — it’s hard to imagine a harmonious future.

Neil Bissoondath raised some important concerns in his 1994 book Selling illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada, concerns that remain pertinent. His message: “Canada has sought to order its population into a cultural mosaic of diversity and tolerance. Seeking to preserve the heritage of Canada’s many peoples, the policy nevertheless creates unease on many levels, transforming people into political tools and turning historical distinctions into stereotyped commodities … highlighting the differences that divide Canadians rather than the similarities that unite them.”

Speaking a different language helped Quebecers sidestep this cultural tug-of-war. Quebecers know who they are: it’s the rest of Canada that struggles with Quebec’s identity as a nation 400 years-plus in the making, with the help of immigrants along the way.

The Coalition Avenir Québec government has just announced it will invest massively in the integration of newcomers: I can’t think of a more generous gesture to people who seek to join us. And telling proof that immigration is not an dirty word for most Quebecers. Unlike multiculturalism as ideology.

Source: Lise Ravary: Multiculturalism, interculturalism and Quebec

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The Impact of Racism on Children’s Health

2019/08/13 Leave a comment

Interesting study and observations, for parents and parents to be:

This month the American Academy of Pediatrics put out its first policy statement on how racism affects the health and development of children and adolescents.

“Racism is a significant social determinant of health clearly prevalent in our society now,” said Dr. Maria Trent, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was one of the co-authors of the statement.

Racism has an impact on children and families who are targeted, she said, but also on those who witness it. “We call it a socially transmitted disease: It’s taught, it’s passed down, but the impacts on children and families are significant from a health perspective,” said Dr. Trent, who is the chairwoman of the A.A.P. section on adolescent health. Social transmission makes sense here, because race itself is a social construct, she said: “Genetically, we’re very much the same.”

But the impact of bias on children’s health starts even before they’re born, Dr. Trent said. Persistent racial disparities in birth weight and maternal mortality in the United States today may in part reflect the deprivations of poverty, with less availability of good prenatal care, and poorer medical care in general for minority families, sometimes shaped by unacknowledged biases on the part of medical personnel. High rates of heart disease and hypertension also persist among African-Americans.

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Le français est bafoué dans une communication du ministère de l’Immigration

2019/08/13 Leave a comment

Amusing (although I would not assume some of the written French of the federal government is above reproach):

Le ministère de l’Immigration ne prêche pas toujours par l’exemple dans son maniement de la langue française.

C’est ce qu’a pu récemment constater La Presse canadienne, à la lecture d’une communication écrite produite par un service du ministère de l’Immigration et rédigée dans un français très approximatif.

La courte missive d’une quarantaine de mots transmise à l’agence, document officiel affichant le logo du ministère dirigé par Simon Jolin-Barrette, était bourrée de fautes de français.

Pourtant, en cette matière, l’appareil gouvernemental n’a pas le choix : il doit donner l’exemple. La Politique gouvernementale relative à l’emploi et à la qualité du français dans l’administration, rédigée en 1996 et mise à jour en 2011, stipule clairement que les ministères doivent accorder « une attention constante à la qualité de la langue française ».

Dans ses communications écrites, l’appareil de l’État québécois doit utiliser en tout temps un français de qualité irréprochable, selon la politique en vigueur.

Or, le Service de l’accès à l’information et de la gestion des plaintes au ministère de l’Immigration a accompagné sa réponse à une demande d’accès d’une lettre de présentation visiblement rédigée par une employée de l’État maîtrisant mal la langue officielle du Québec.

La missive débutait par ces mots : « En lien avec vous demandes d’accès aux documents ».

« Veuillez, s’il vous plaît, trouvez ci-joint une copie des lettres décisions », écrit-on par la suite. On remarquera que le verbe « trouver » aurait dû être à l’infinitif, et que le style télégraphique des « lettres décisions » a de quoi surprendre le lecteur.

La fonctionnaire notait ensuite avec une ponctuation douteuse que « les lettres originales, sont également, envoyées par la poste » et elle concluait par une formule de politesse, « cordialemente ».

Fait cocasse, à la fin du message, le ministère responsable de la francisation des immigrants faisait la promotion de sa campagne « Apprendre le français, c’est gratuit et c’est gagnant ».

« Inacceptable »

Il n’a pas été possible de savoir si l’écart linguistique observé constituait un incident isolé ou non.

Impossible aussi de savoir dans quelle mesure le français créatif est toléré, voire s’il est devenu la norme dans les communications établies entre le ministère de l’Immigration et ses destinataires, clients ou autres.

Alerté au cours des derniers jours, le ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette a jugé la situation rapportée « inacceptable ». Par la voix de son porte-parole, il a affirmé avoir pris aussitôt les mesures nécessaires pour que les correctifs requis soient apportés, afin que ce genre de bavures ne se reproduise plus.

Source: Le français est bafoué dans une communication du ministère de l’Immigration

Filed under Government, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Seuils d’immigration: autre affrontement à prévoir à Québec

2019/08/13 Leave a comment

The immigration levels debate in Quebec. One of the ironies is that reduced Quebec levels will further reduce the overall importance of Quebec, politically and economically, in Canada.

Not necessarily a valid reason to maintain high levels but a longer term impact that needs to be recognized. One can, of course, question Canadian high levels without being xenophobic or racist:

Un autre affrontement est à prévoir lundi entre la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) et le Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) sur l’immigration.

Plus tôt cette année, les deux partis avaient jeté les gants durant l’étude du projet de loi 9, qui visait à réformer le système d’immigration, jusqu’à ce que le gouvernement Legault finisse par adopter la loi sous bâillon.

Cette fois-ci, il sera question des seuils d’immigration, ou du nombre d’immigrants que le Québec admettra sur son territoire d’ici 2022. Déjà, le porte-parole du PLQ en matière d’immigration, Monsef Derraji, s’insurge contre un plan « incohérent », « illogique » et « électoraliste ».

Le Plan d’immigration du Québec, qui sera à l’étude dès lundi, prévoit l’admission en 2019 de 40 000 personnes immigrantes au Québec, ce qui constitue une diminution de plus de 20 % dans chacune des catégories d’immigration.

Le gouvernement dit s’allouer une pause cette année pour améliorer les services de francisation et d’intégration, après quoi il entend augmenter progressivement le nombre d’immigrants admis pour atteindre 49 500 à 52 500 personnes en 2022. Il souhaite alors que la proportion de personnes admises dans la catégorie de l’immigration économique soit de l’ordre de 65 %.

Pour M. Derraji, il ne fait aucun doute que ces seuils sont trop bas, surtout dans un contexte de pénurie de main-d’oeuvre « extrême ». Emploi-Québec estime que plus de 1,4 million d’emplois seront à pourvoir au Québec au cours de la période 2017-2026.

Son parti prône plutôt le retour immédiat aux seuils qui existaient avant l’élection de la CAQ, soit environ 52 000 immigrants admis par année. « Moi, je pense qu’il y a une mauvaise foi derrière ça, a-t-il déclaré en entrevue à La Presse canadienne dans un bureau du parlement. Je pense que ce gouvernement a de la misère, ou il n’est pas à l’aise avec l’immigration, moi c’est juste ça que je vois.

“Ce sont des PME en région qui vont refuser des contrats et parfois c’est du temps supplémentaire pour des employés qui ne vont pas avoir de vacances pour aller se reposer parce qu’ils doivent livrer la marchandise », s’est-il indigné.

La question des seuils d’immigration a toujours été émotive à Québec, les partis ayant tous leur petite idée sur ce dont la province a besoin pour se développer et s’épanouir en français.

Le débat qui s’amorce lundi en commission parlementaire, et qui s’étirera sur quatre jours, ne fera pas exception. Au total, 31 groupes ont été invités à y prendre part, dont le Conseil du patronat et le Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés.

Lors des échanges, M. Derraji demandera entre autres au gouvernement de produire les études qui l’auraient mené à trancher pour 40 000 immigrants en 2019. Il soupçonne qu’il n’y en a guère.

« C’est un ” check ” d’une promesse électorale, on a dit aux gens qu’on va baisser les seuils à 40 000, mais il n’y a aucune assise logique ou économique qui démontre que le gouvernement avait raison de baisser les seuils. Moi je veux bien qu’il nous dévoile ça », a-t-il insisté.

« C’est de l’incohérence depuis le début. Je cherche encore de la cohérence, il n’y a aucune cohérence, a-t-il renchéri. La logique, c’est de revenir aux mêmes seuils qu’on avait, parce qu’on ne répond à aucun besoin des entreprises. »

QS outré

De son côté, Québec solidaire (QS) dit également s’attendre à un débat tendu la semaine prochaine. Son porte-parole Sol Zanetti blâme la CAQ de n’avoir rien fait depuis 10 mois pour enrayer les préjugés contre les immigrants.

Il précise que QS est également en faveur d’un retour immédiat à un seuil d’environ 52 000 immigrants admis chaque année.

« Quand la CAQ avait promis en campagne électorale de baisser les seuils d’immigration, on sentait qu’il voulait aller chercher un électorat qui sentait l’immigration comme étant un danger et potentiellement une menace, a-t-il déclaré en entrevue téléphonique vendredi. Là, on voit qu’ils ont réduit les seuils, mais que là, déjà, ils constatent que c’était peut-être quelque chose d’électoraliste et que ce n’était pas une bonne idée pour le Québec de le faire. »

En promettant de rehausser les seuils d’immigration dès l’an prochain, le gouvernement a fait « un aveu d’erreur », selon M. Zanetti.

Marc-André Gosselin, l’attaché de presse du ministre de l’Immigration Simon Jolin-Barrette, a envoyé par courriel une déclaration en fin de journée : « Nous allons écouter avec attention les différents arguments avancés lors de la consultation publique et nous déposerons ensuite un plan triennal d’ici le 1er novembre ».

Source: Seuils d’immigration: autre affrontement à prévoir à Québec

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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