Time to shake things up in battered Liberal Party, says youth wing

2019/08/09 Leave a comment

Kind of ironic when most polls indicate, certainly in Montreal, a decline in the importance of the identity issue.

Along with the typical or deliberate misunderstanding of multiculturalism; which I repeat and continually will do so, is about integration: linguistic, social and economic while recognizing identities, all in the context of Canadian laws and regulations:

Quebec’s Liberal youth wing is proposing the party ditch the concept of multiculturalism in its vision of society as a way of reconnecting with the francophone majority.

Releasing a package of resolutions they say should orient the party in its rebuilding process, youth wing president Stéphane Stril said the Liberal party needs a major political shakeup.

The party needs to draw conclusions from its stinging electoral defeat in 2018 and emerge more progressive, more nationalistic and more active in asserting Quebec’s place in the federation, Stril told reporters at a Quebec City news conference Wednesday.

It should hop on the environmental bandwagon and make fighting climate change priority one should it take power in 2022.

And it should not shy away from the identity issue, which the Coalition Avenir Québec milked with great success in the 2018 election campaign and brought it to power.

“We want the Liberal party to incarnate civic nationalism which would not be based on belonging to an ethnic group but would be a political project, a culture, a language,” Stril said, adding a new Quebec constitution could incarnate the vision.

The Liberals say while the CAQ’s approach to the question amounted to a debate on religious symbols and stirring up fear of others, they believe there are better ways to ensure that Quebec’s identity and culture flourish in the North American context.

If the Liberals form the next Quebec government, they should adopt a law enshrining the concept of interculturalism as its model of choice for integrating new arrivals.

While multiculturalism is often used to refer to a society where people of different cultural backgrounds live side by side without necessarily much real interaction, the youth wing defines interculturalism as recognizing the existence of a francophone majority in Quebec along with the right to individual freedoms.

It would state the best path for immigrants is to learn French and actively interact and exchange with the majority.

“This common culture must serve as a pedestal for the integration of new arrivals,” the youth say in a document released at the news conference.

Although the federal Liberals see the concept of multiculturalism as central to their vision of Canada, Quebec’s Liberals and other provincial political parties have never been hot on the idea.

The Liberal youth wing notes former Liberal leader Robert Bourassa distanced himself from the concept while he was in charge, arguing that such a passive approach was not the best way to protect Quebec’s language and culture in North America.

The youth plan — if adopted at the annual convention this weekend in Quebec City — will become part of a wider debate as the Liberals attempt to reboot after suffering their worst electoral defeat in their 152-year history.

The Liberals want to dip into the identity issue as a way to woo francophone voters living outside the Montreal region. In the last election, nearly all the seats the Liberals won were in Montreal.

But hovering in the background all weekend will be questions about who will actually lead the party. The Liberals currently have no leader since Philippe Couillard resigned after the electoral defeat.

The only declared candidate so far is St-Henri—Ste-Anne MNA Dominique Anglade, who announced plans in June to seek the top job

Her potential opponents Marwah Rizqy (St-Laurent), Marie Montpetit (Maurice-Richard) and Gaétan Barrette (La-Pinière) are considering running for the top job but have yet to announce.

In May, the Liberals decided to elect their new leader in the spring of 2020, in time for the next provincial election.

All the potential candidates are expected to turn up for the Liberal youth wing event being held on the campus of Université Laval Saturday and Sunday. The event will wind up with a speech by interim Liberal party leader Pierre Arcand.

Source: Time to shake things up in battered Liberal Party, says youth wing

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Newcomers can ‘no longer find products’ previously available at the Real Canadian Superstore

2019/08/09 Leave a comment

On the scale of challenges and problems faced by newcomers, this is pretty low.

In our experience in Ottawa 20 years ago, when ethnic foodstuff selection was much more limited then now, ethnic grocery stores were the place to go to get the foods we liked.

More expensive, yes, but also supporting a local shopkeeper:

It’s been a few months since the international aisle at the Real Canadian Superstore in Thunder Bay, Ont., made some noticeable changes  — ones that have had “negative effects” on some newcomers to Canada, according to a teacher at the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association.

The retail giant has stopped carrying a number of international products that were previously available; for example, red pepper paste.

“The students have mentioned that they can no longer find products that they were previously able to find in the Superstore and they do try to go elsewhere to look for the product, but aren’t always successful,” said KaeDee Stein, a teacher in the multicultural association’s Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada school.

Stein teaches English to newcomers, immigrants and refugees who come to Canada with “no English language knowledge,” and know very little about their new home. She added that it’s “unfortunate” that the Superstore, a division of Loblaw Companies Limited, no longer carries a lot of the products that the newcomers she teaches were previously able to find.

“For the English language learners who don’t know how to speak English, how to communicate what they want and are essentially alien to another country and are already feeling helpless … they don’t feel as independent as they used to,” Stein said.

She said it’s “upsetting and confusing” to them and, with language barriers and the other challenges of living in a foreign country, not being able to cook some of the dishes they are accustomed to has made “life even more difficult.”

“A lot of cultures take so much pride in their food,” she added. “So when they don’t know how to do that anymore, their confidence goes down and their level of independence goes down.”

A ‘bad problem’ for newcomers and refugees

Khalil Ali has called Canada, specifically Thunder Bay, his home for the past three years. Fleeing from Syria in September 2016, Ali said not being able to buy the products previously available at the Superstore has become a “bad problem for newcomers.”

He said the last time he shopped at the Superstore he asked the manager if they could bring back some of the items that had been removed, but he was told that many of the international products that the retailer carried were “[left on the] shelf for a long time,” and “nobody bought them.”

Ali said he used to purchase a specific type of rice and sauce at the Superstore — a product he has trouble describing in English — which makes it harder for him, and others, to search for it at other stores.

He said he’s found some items at Bulk Barn, but at a higher cost.

“Everywhere it’s more expensive than Superstore,” he added, saying that the same product he used to buy at the retail giant for $5 now costs him almost $7 at other retailers.

“It is making problems for me,” he said.

CBC News contacted Thunder Bay Superstore management and subsequently received an emailed response from the Loblaw public relations department, saying that its stores base the items available in their multicultural sections “on the demographics of the community around a particular store,” in order to “reflect the needs of that specific community.”

“As an example, at the Real Canadian Superstore in Thunder Bay, where there is a significant East Asian and South Asian population, we place a greater emphasis on authentic South Asian and East Asian items in the international aisle.”

Company officials added they “value our customers’ feedback and are always looking to improve, to meet our customers’ needs.”

“If there’s something we’re missing, we encourage customers to let us know so that we can look into sourcing the product, to the best of our ability. “

Source: Newcomers can ‘no longer find products’ previously available at the Real Canadian Superstore

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How to inject youth into Newfoundland and Labrador’s broken, greying democracy

2019/08/09 Leave a comment

Providing provincial voting rights to expatriates makes little sense. Provincial services are largely residency-based, unlike federal voting rights which are citizenship-based (even there I have serious reservations as noted in earlier posts):

And not convinced in any case that this will make much difference in overall voting trends and turn-out:

What does it mean to be a voter in a Canadian federation increasingly defined by wealth inequality and economic migration?

As public policy scholars, we argue that politicians, policy-makers and citizens alike need to start rethinking how to ensure everyone’s voice is heard in a regionally diverse federation. More specifically, we think that provinces have good grounds for extending voting rights to expatriate citizens. In the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, extending the vote is particularly warranted.

That’s because of two issues plaguing Newfoundland and Labrador: People are leaving the province, and those who remain are growing older.

As two expatriate Newfoundland and Labradorians — one of us in Australia — we watched from the sidelines during this spring’s provincial election. It was so defined by negativity and an absence of social vision that it inspired a playful CBC podcast with the question: “Does anyone actually want to win the election?”

That things played out this way came as little surprise. The province is trapped between a need to get its financial affairs in order and politicians who look to spending increases instead of long-term solutions as a means of winning elections. The ruling Liberals, for example, opened their campaign with an extra $152 million for the budget, including a cut to the deficit reduction levy which had only come into effect in 2016.

Not sustainable

Every citizen of the province knows this approach is unsustainable. To put the fiscal situation in perspective, Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial debt is a whopping $21,221 per capita, the highest in Canada, and its debt servicing costs as a per cent of provincial revenues stands at 13.8 per cent compared to the next highest province, Quebec, at eight per cent.

The graph below shows that Newfoundland and Labradorians face a tricky demographic challenge.

The graph vividly portrays how rapidly Newfoundland is growing older. Author provided

The share of the population under 50 years of age has been shrinking for the past 45 years. Since 2000, the population in age quintiles (five-year intervals) has declined in every age group below 50, while increasing in every age quintile above 50. While the population, post-2000, has remained relatively stable, the composition of the province’s population is vastly different.

As the population ages, so too does the median voter.

Citizens who are older are understandably less likely to support long-term reforms that will cut into their more immediate interests. This means that proposing tough solutions to current fiscal problems can make it hard to win elections, especially if there is a rural/urban divide separating younger and older voters.

Unlike Newfoundland’s fiscally tough solutions of the past, we propose a solution that more greatly strengthens attachment to home: Allowing Newfoundlanders and Labradorians living outside the province to vote.

Youth injection

To cast ballots in Newfoundland and Labrador elections, voters must be provincial residents the day before polling day. We propose to extend the vote in a simple, transparent and inclusive manner to anyone 18 or older who has ever attended school in the province.

Why former students? First, many children of Newfoundland and Labrador have been lured or forced abroad to scratch out a living or seek their fortune. All have been victims of the lack of opportunity at home. Many of these people wish to return, and many do return, in their more senior years. Why should their voices not be heard at the provincial ballot box?

A recent study published in the Journal of Labor Economics suggests that the mobility of these workers has boosted pay in their province of origin. Wages rise because employers at home must hike pay to prevent more workers from leaving. This is a real economic gain, on top of any money that workers who leave their home province send back home.

Second, there is precedent — national voter eligibility is not determined by location, but rather by citizenship. The electoral district you vote in federally is determined by your current residential address, but your eligibility to vote is preserved by the government of Canada even when you are living abroad.

Third, consider the civic education that has been instilled in these individuals through the province’s school system. They have a respect for the people and the land, the traditions and the ambitions of their home province.

Generally speaking, we extend the vote to people because they are either directly affected by the collective decisions of government or because they are subject to the laws of that government. Expatriates easily satisfy the first of these two conditions. Provincial policies affect both their ability to return home and their loved ones who remain behind.

To be sure, extending the franchise is not a magic bullet that will immediately solve the province’s problems. And there are no doubt further questions about the voting mechanisms needed to make this proposal a reality.

But we think extending the vote to expatriates strongly aligns with the province’s values. It could also help nudge its politics closer to long-term solutions that respect the roots and rights of all Newfoundland and Labradorians past, present and future.

Source: How to inject youth into Newfoundland and Labrador’s broken, greying democracy

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Even A Grammar Geezer Like Me Can Get Used To Gender Neutral Pronouns

2019/08/08 Leave a comment

Jordan Peterson and followers to take note:

Letter-for-letter, no part of speech gets people more worked up than pronouns do. Linguistic history is dotted with eruptions of pronoun rage. Right now, the provocation is the gender-neutral pronouns that some nonbinary people have asked to be called by, so that they won’t have to be identified as “he” or “she.”

There are several of these in circulation. Some are new words, like “ze” and “co,” but some go back a ways — in fact, people have been proposing new gender-neutral pronouns for 150 years, though none has ever caught on. But the most popular choice, and probably the most controversial one, is the familiar pronoun that people describe as the singular “they.”

You can see why people would pick “they.” In everyday speech we often use that pronoun for a single person, though only when the word or phrase it substitutes for — its antecedent, as it’s called — doesn’t refer to a specific individual. So we say, “Somebody lost their wallet,” or, “If a student fails, they have to retake the course.” Or the person we’re referring to may be simply unknown. Your daughter’s cell phone rings at the dinner table; you say, “Tell them you’ll call them back.” Male or female, one caller or several? The pronoun “they” is like, “whatever.”

That singular “they” goes back hundreds of years. Jane Austen’s novels are bristling with sentences like “No one can ever be in love more than once in their life.” But that use of the pronoun fell into disrepute in the 19th century, when grammarians condemned it as incorrect and proclaimed that the so-called generic “he” should be used instead. The idea is that when you write, “Every singer has his range,” the pronoun “his” refers to both men and women — or as they sometimes put it, “the masculine embraces the feminine.”

When second-wave feminists protested in the 1970s that the generic “he” was sexist, they roused a storm of indignation. They were accused of emasculating and neutering the language. The chairman of the Harvard Linguistics Department charged that they were suffering from “pronoun envy.” William Safire warned that to accept the use of “they” in place of “he” would be to “cave in to the radic-lib forces of usage permissiveness.”

In retrospect, those reactions betrayed the obtuseness that the psychologist Cordelia Fine calls “delusions of gender.” The fact is that the pronoun “he” is never gender-neutral. If Sting had sung, “If you love somebody, set him free,” it would have brought only a male to mind. What the language required was “set them free.”

'I Can Exist Here': On Gender Identity, Some Colleges Are Opening Up

The gender-neutral singular “they” has history, English grammar and gender equity on its side, and it’s gradually been restored to the written language. Schoolroom crotchets can be hard to let go of. But we’ve largely leveled the linguistic playing field — at least, “he” no longer takes precedence over “she.”

But that didn’t make any provision for the rainbow of nonbinary and nonconforming gender identities that have risen into public awareness in recent years. The language still required us to choose between “he” and “she” to refer to a specific individual. The singular “they” initially sounded awkward here. We can say, “Somebody named Sandy was brushing their hair” where the pronoun replaces the nonspecific “somebody” — that’s been standard colloquial English for centuries. But when someone says just, “Sandy was brushing their hair,” you’re brought up short. Your first thought is that “they” must refer to some group of people whose hair Sandy was brushing.

That new use of “they” has passed muster with the AP’s style guide and the American Heritage Dictionary. In theory, anyone can adopt it, whatever their gender identity. But we’ll still be using “he” and “she” to refer to most individuals who identify as male and female. You can introduce new gender-neutral terms without driving out the gendered ones. “Sibling” has been part of the everyday language for more than 50 years, but we can still talk about brothers and sisters. When someone says, “Taylor has a lot going for them,” it’s a fair bet that that’s the pronoun that Taylor prefers to be called by.

It’s not a lot to ask — just a small courtesy and sign of respect. In fact, the accommodations we’re being asked to make to nonbinary individuals are much less far-reaching than the linguistic changes that feminists called for 50 years ago. Yet the reactions this time have been even more vehement than they were back then.

A fifth-grade teacher in Florida whose preferred pronouns are “they,” “them” and “their” was removed from the classroom when some parents complained about exposing their children to the transgender lifestyle. When the diversity and inclusion office at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville published a guide to alternative pronouns in 2015, the state legislature promptly defunded the center and barred the university from promoting the use of gender-neutral pronouns in the future. Like the classic episodes of pronoun rage in earlier eras, these aren’t about pronouns at all.

Source: Even A Grammar Geezer Like Me Can Get Used To Gender Neutral Pronouns

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‘We need to be at the table’: nominated Indigenous candidates near 2015’s record high

2019/08/08 Leave a comment

Of note (have added Indigenous percentage of riding populations):

With at least 43 Indigenous candidates running for federal office in 2019, the number is nearing the record-breaking 54 contenders in 2015, and almost doubling those nominated in 2011.

Most are running under a red banner, with 13 Indigenous people confirmed as Liberal candidates, followed by 11 for the NDP, eight for the Conservatives, seven for the Green Party, and three with the People’s Party, according to party-submitted numbers and a Hill Times analysis of public information. The PPC said it doesn’t have the resources to track demographics for its candidates.

That total is likely to increase, given the NDP and Liberals represented the bulk of nominations in 2015, for a combined 39 of the 54, and both have yet to nominate their full complement of candidates. The Liberals had named 231 out of 338 candidates as of July 29, and the NDP has less than half, with 130 names posted to its website as of Aug. 2.

The 2015 federal election saw a historic 10 Indigenous MPs elected and a historic number of Indigenous voters who cast ballots, with 61.5 per cent turnout on reserves, up from 47.4 per cent in 2011.

Liberal candidate Michelle Corfield, who is running in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, B.C., [8.3 percent Indigenous] said she’s excited by the numbers, thinking about the opportunities that are available now to her 20-year-old daughter and the voice historically marginalized First Nations people can have in government.

First Nations people were denied the right to vote until 1960, and long after that children were taken from their homes and put into residential schools. Up to 2015, there had only been 34 Indigenous MPs elected since Confederation, and 15 Indigenous Senators appointed to the Red Chamber.

“All of these things compounded how people perceived the relationship with the Crown” and affected the perception of participation in politics among Indigenous people, said Ms. Corfield, a former chair of the Nanaimo Port Authority and the Ucluelet First Nation legislative council.

“For decades, people have been making legislation for them but without them, so in order for us to have a voice in significantly designing how legislation informs and impacts Indigenous people, we need to be at the table,” said Ms. Corfield, who’s been a Liberal since she could vote and is one of two Indigenous candidates running in the riding where Green MP Paul Manly won a byelection earlier this year.

‘My whole life is political’

While it’s difficult to pinpoint why record levels of Indigenous people have run for office over the last decade, Liberal candidate Trisha Cowie said she doesn’t have the option not to be political.

“My whole life is political,” she said, pointing to the Indian Act, which determines who has official First Nations status, and historically stripped it from those who fought in wars, pursued post-secondary education, or women who married non-First Nations men.

“It governs my identity to an extent, whether you’re on reserve or off reserve, when there’s a settlement. Everything is political. You could sit back and watch it unfold, but it’s all very personal, so it’s very difficult to do,” said Ms. Cowie who ran in the previous election in Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont., [5 percent Indigenous] coming less than five points behind Conservative-turned-Indpendent MP Tony Clement, who won’t run again.

“You can actually affect change from the inside instead of always fighting from the outside,” she said.

For the last two years NDP Winnipeg Centre, Man., [18.1 percent Indigenous] candidate Leah Gazan tried to work from outside Parliament, lobbying MPs and Senators to pass Bill C-262, enshrining the United Nations Declaration on the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples into law. Ms. Gazan said it was “horrific” to watch the Senate effectively kill the bill in the waning days of the session, by not moving to put outgoing NDP MP Romeo Saganash’s (Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou, Que.) private member’s bill to a vote.

A few hundred kilometres away on the East Coast, Liberal candidate Jaime Battiste [Sydney-Victoria, 10.4 percent Indigenous] was equally frustrated by the outcome, following the weekly developments and delays with his father James Youngblood Henderson, who helped draft the 2006 declaration.

If the Liberals take a second mandate, Mr. Battiste, who is the first Mi’kmaq person to be on a federal ballot and would be Nova Scotia’s first-ever Indigenous member of Parliament, said he’s heartened by the party’s promise to make it a government bill—and therefore more likely to pass —while Ms. Gazan recalled the “years of stalling” by the Liberals before it moved forward.

When looking at the increasing number of Indigenous candidates running, she said it’s important to avoid drawing broad conclusions, because Indigenous people are often “lumped into one group with the same values,” said Ms. Gazan, who’s been fighting for human rights and on the front lines of climate justice for three decades.

The best match for her values, she said, was the NDP, which has several high-profile leaders on its ballot, including former vice-president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Bob Chamberlin, and Grassy Narrows First Nation chief Rudy Turtle, who has said the Liberals haven’t done enough to help his community with the impacts of mercury poisoning.

Over the last decade, Ms. Gazan said political parties have approached her to run, but this time she said she felt the country is at “a critical juncture” and needed strong voices like hers, willing to speak truth to power.

Voting Liberal this election is “not the strategic vote,” a tactic she said helped take Winnipeg Centre from the NDP in 2015, because of the strong desire to boot former prime minister Stephen Harper. Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette beat out six-term New Democrat Pat Martin by a margin 26.5 percentage points in the previous election.

“This is one of the few ridings in the country that you can vote your conscience,” she said, and that’s the message her “community-based, community-led campaign” is giving. “I feel like our campaign is starting a movement and we are planning on getting this riding back.”

Lydia Hwitsum, who is running in Cowichan–Malahat–Langford, B.C., [9.4 percent Indigenous] for the Greens, also said without the strategic anti-Harper vote in play, her chances are better. One-term NDP MP Alistair MacGregor is running again after taking it in 2015 with 35.9 per cent of the vote, while the Greens came in fourth, with 16.9 per cent.

Born in 1964, Ms. Hwitsum is acutely aware that the right to vote came shortly before her lifetime. Cultural leaders like her “bright and brilliant” mother would never have had the chance to put their name on the ballot.

“The door’s open now and it wasn’t for them.”

So far, B.C. has the most Indigenous candidates running, with 10, followed by nine in Manitoba, and eight in Ontario. B.C.’s only Indigenous incumbent is Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Liberal cabinet minister who will run as an Independent this time around in Vancouver Granville.

The Liberal candidates said they were saddened to see a powerful First Nations woman no longer with the party. In the midst of the SNC-Lavalin scandal and allegations the Prime Minister’s Office pressured her as attorney general, Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet and later was booted from caucus.

Ms. Corfield said Ms. Wilson-Raybould made her choice and “knew the consequences of those choices,” while Mr. Battiste said “this election isn’t about Jody and Justin,” but the Conservative policies that had him protesting in the streets four years before.

At the December 2018 Assembly of First Nations national conference, Mr. Battiste said he stood up and asked Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) for one policy that made him different from Mr. Harper.

“And he couldn’t,” said Mr. Battiste, recalling how hundreds of chiefs booed his response that they’d have to wait until the party’s platform was released.

The “big move” by the Liberal party to open membership up made a difference during membership drives signing up supporters who helped him win the Sydney-Victoria, N.S., contested nomination a few weeks ago, said Mr. Battiste, showing the party is “taking strides to make sure Indigenous people are now more involved than ever in the political process.”

Indigenous voters “can be a swing vote in a riding,” said Mr. Battiste, a point the Assembly of First Nations has made to parties and politiciansthrough the 51 ridings it will target this election, 13 of which have Indigenous candidates running.

The Liberals will face their record on reconciliation, which Ms. Gazan said falls far short of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) promise as Canada’s most important relationship.

Four years can’t change 150 years of colonization, said Ms. Corfield.

“Maybe the expectations were set too high,” of the Liberals, but like Mr. Battiste she said this government has done more than any previous. Legislation addressing Indigenous languages and child welfare, and progress on boil water advisories are all signs of progress, they said.

In early March, before Mr. Battiste decided to run for the party, he captured some of that frustration in a Chronicle Herald op-ed, coming to the same conclusion he offers today: more Indigenous candidates must get politically involved.

“The only way to decolonize some of the processes of government is by having more Indigenous voices,” he said.

Source: ‘We need to be at the table’: nominated Indigenous candidates near 2015’s record high

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Why Vanuatu’s lucrative ‘passports for sale’ scheme is popular among Chinese nationals

2019/08/08 Leave a comment

Yet another example of citizenship-by-investment and related abuses:

Are you in the market for a second passport? One that can get you into scores of countries — including Europe, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Russia — without needing a visa?

Key Points:

  • Applicants can become a Vanuatu citizen without needing to set foot in the country
  • It costs about $220,000 for a single application and more for couples and families
  • More than 4,000 passports have been sold under the scheme, with most to Chinese citizens

Or perhaps you’d like to park your money in a tax haven where there are no personal or corporate income taxes.

Maybe you’d just like to get away from the rat race and live on a picturesque tropical island in the South Pacific.

Vanuatu, then, could be the place for you.

These are some of the selling points of Vanuatu’s citizenship by investment scheme, or cash-for-passports as it’s also known locally.

Sales have been booming in recent years, providing the Government with an unexpected but lucrative source of revenue.

But not everyone is happy about the scheme, with several prominent locals — including former presidents and high-ranking chiefs — saying it undermines the value of Vanuatu citizenship and the country’s fight to gain independence from its former colonial masters, the French and British.

The recent deportation of a group of Chinese nationals, some of whom had obtained Vanuatu citizenship, focused even more adverse attention on the scheme.

So how does it work?

Many countries have citizenship by investment schemes but often applicants are required to become permanent residents first and then only after a number of years do they become eligible to become a citizen.

Under Vanuatu’s scheme, successful applicants can become citizens within a matter of months, and there’s no requirement to reside in the country or even set foot on Vanuatu soil at all.

It costs around $US150,000 ($220,900) for a single application and more for couples and families.

Vanuatu citizenship for sale

Interested parties submit their applications through agents who’ve been approved by the Citizenship’s Office and Commission, which oversees the entire process.

The job of screening an applicant’s criminal and financial backgrounds is performed by the Government’s Financial Intelligence Unit.

If their client’s application is successful, the agent pockets around a third of the application fee.

Once approved, freshly minted citizens can then apply for the real prize, a Vanuatu passport.

Why does the Vanuatu Government sell passports?

Pure and simple: to raise revenue. There have been several iterations of Vanuatu’s citizenship by investment scheme since it was first introduced in 2014.

The aim of one of them was to raise money to rebuild the country after Cyclone Pam caused widespread devastation in 2015.

Despite the rising tide of domestic criticism, the Government has largely remained tight-lipped about how many passports have been sold and how much money has been raised.

But in June, a parliamentary committee told local media that more than 4,000 passports had been sold under the scheme.

The Vanuatu Daily Post newspaper examined government financial statements and found that sales sky-rocketed last year, with 1,800 passports sold in 2018 alone.

Most have been sold to people from mainland China even though it’s technically illegal to hold dual citizenship under Chinese law.

What does the deportation of six Chinese nationals have to do with the scheme?

Six Chinese nationals were arrested in the capital Port Vila in late June and later deported back to China at the request of Beijing law enforcement officials.

The group was allegedly running an online financial scam targeting people back in China.

Before their deportation it emerged that four of them had successfully applied for Vanuatu citizenship and obtained passports.

Critics of the citizenship by investment scheme said the incident validated their concerns that undesirable people were buying passports for nefarious purposes.

Vanuatu’s founding president Ati George Sokomanu said the sale of Vanuatu citizenship was demeaning to those who had struggled to achieve the country’s independence.

“The Government needs to state clearly how many passports have been sold, who they’ve been sold to, and how much revenue the sales have generated,” Mr Sokomanu said.

The Financial Intelligence Unit later said none of the deported Chinese nationals had a criminal record and Chinese officials informed local authorities of their investigation after they had been granted citizenship.

Source: Why Vanuatu’s lucrative ‘passports for sale’ scheme is popular among Chinese nationals

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Imam banned from preaching at Edmonton community centre

2019/08/08 2 Comments

Of note, both the initial offence and the Muslim community response:

A community centre in Edmonton has banned a local imam from holding services there because he allegedly used anti-Semitic tropes in his services and online.

The Killarney Community League Hall banned Sheikh Shaban Sherif Mady from using their space to hold services after B’nai Brith alerted the community centre to Imam Mady’s rhetoric, including claims that international Zionism is behind all global terrorism, including ISIS and the New Zealand shooter, and that the Muslims will kill the Jews on Judgment Day.

Aidan Fishman of B’nai Brith said the police are “dutifully investigating” the matter. He also said B’nai Brith has been in contact with the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council (AMPAC).

“They’re aware of this and they, like I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims in Alberta and in Edmonton, have communicated to us that they totally disagree with what this guy said and they condemn it as well,” he said.

Faisal Suri of AMPAC confirmed that AMPAC condemned Shekih Mady’s speeches and online posts. He said AMPAC recognizes both anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia, as they affect two of the biggest communities most harmed by hatred and discrimination.

“We definitely condemn the words of this one individual. One individual’s actions and words do not reflect upon the Muslim community,” Suri said.

He also added that AMPAC is investigating Sheikh Mady, and whether other individuals hold similar views. He said the counci is working to prevent the imam from having any public platforms to advance his views.

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Canada’s Safe 3rd Country Agreement With The U.S. Draws Criticism

2019/08/08 Leave a comment

NPR coverage:

Sitting relaxed at the kitchen table of her new home in a comfortable Toronto suburb, Kinda Bazerbashi recalls how differently she felt when her family lived in Houston.

Originally from Syria, she had lived in the United Arab Emirates, then arrived in the United States with her family on temporary visas and applied for asylum in 2012. Through a series of rejections and appeals, she says, they lived their lives in a legal limbo that made it hard to work, plan or travel to see scattered relatives.

“You are just like in jail, in a nice life,” she says. “There are cars. There is supermarket, but you feel, inside, you are in jail.”

By the time President Trump was elected, only a temporary protected status at the discretion of the White House kept her family from being deported back to Syria. Concerned about the president’s positions on immigration, she and her husband, Anas Almoustafa, looked to an alternative.

“From the TV,” says Almoustafa, “they [were] saying a lot of immigrants, they go to Canada.”

In March 2017, the family did what they had seen on TV and what more than 46,000 people have done since the 2016 election. They walked across the border from the U.S. to Canada, away from official entry points, and applied for asylum.

“People are crossing that way because of the safe third country agreement,” says Maureen Silcoff, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

Signed in 2002, the agreement operates from the assumption that both the U.S. and Canada offer protections, so people fleeing their homes should apply for asylum in either country they arrive in first.

That kind of deal has gained renewed attention as the Trump administration presses Mexico and Guatemala to take in asylum-seekers traveling through those countries to the U.S. As America’s policies push more migrants to head across its northern border, Canadians and rights groups have challenged the agreement with the U.S.

Under the accord, people leaving the U.S. cannot apply for asylum in Canada at an official crossing point, or vice versa. Except for a few limited cases, such as if they have close family in Canada, they will be turned back to the U.S.

However, what some call a “loophole” in the agreement allows people to apply for asylum in Canada if they can arrive in the country.

“People feel hopeless about their chances of receiving protection in the United States,” Silcoff says. “That essentially drives them to cross between ports of entry.”

Most have traversed one country road on the border of upstate New York and the province of Quebec. Royal Canadian Mounted Police wait on the other side of this unofficial path to apprehend them.

The total number of migrant interceptions since 2016 still pales in comparison to 100,000 on the U.S.-Mexico border this March alone. Numbers have also trended downward this year over last. But Canadian pollster Shachi Kurl of the Angus Reid Institute says the border situation took on an outsize political importance because Canadians were unaccustomed to these types of arrivals.

“Just literally walking across an undefended border was starting to create a deep sense of unease and concern not just in right-wing voters, but it was really an issue that crossed the political spectrum,” she says.

Canada’s opposition Conservative Party has picked up this theme in its campaign to unseat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in federal elections this fall. In a speech in May, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called the numbers of irregular crossings “almost hard to believe,” protesting that some migrants are able to “exploit loopholes and skip the line.”

Trudeau’s government has made a number of changes in the last two years to try to reduce the number of arrivals. The Canadian government sent representatives abroad to discourage people considering traveling to the border and to temper perceptions of the welcome they would receive.

Trudeau also created a new Cabinet-level border security minister, a position filled by former Toronto police chief Bill Blair. Earlier this year, Blair met with then-U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about expanding the safe third country agreement so Canada could turn border-crossers back to the U.S. His office declined an interview with NPR but said the two countries have not begun official negotiations.

However, even as the U.S. pushes for similar agreements with Mexico and Guatemala to give migrants heading for the U.S. border asylum in their countries, groups like Amnesty International Canada are urging Canada to withdraw from its asylum deal.

Arguing that the U.S. does not offer equal protections for immigrants, Amnesty Canada director Alex Neve says Canada should allow people to make asylum claims at all official border crossings.

“At a time when refugees and migrants, a very vulnerable group, face this full-out attack on their rights from the U.S. government, Canada shouldn’t be turning its back on them,” Neve tells NPR.

Amnesty has joined with other organizations in a lawsuit to overturn the agreement. Hearings will begin in September.

Silcoff, the attorney, pointed out that U.S. policy changes that have, for example, closed eligibility for asylum to victims of domestic violence, whereas she noted, “They have a good chance because of our laws of receiving protection in Canada.”

Despite their rejection in the U.S., Baserbashi’s family was approved for asylum in Canada last year.

“This is the final step we hope and final move — absolutely it’s [the] final move — because we get approved, thanks God!” she says.

Her family would receive a different reception if they arrived today. The Canadian government passed one more measure this summer, tucked into a large budget bill. The provision bars people from applying for asylum in Canada if they applied previously in the United States or a handful of other countries with which Canada shares biometric data.

Those who have applied elsewhere will now enter an alternative administrative process that Silcoff says offers fewer protections.

A spokesperson for Minister Blair’s office said in an email to NPR that the change was meant to “deter people from making multiple asylum claims in different countries,” but added, “Nobody will be removed without a chance to be heard.”

Source: Canada’s Safe 3rd Country Agreement With The U.S. Draws Criticism

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

White Terrorism Shows ‘Stunning’ Parallels to Islamic State’s Rise

2019/08/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

Many scholars of terrorism see worrying similarities between the rise of the Islamic State and that of white nationalist terrorism, seen most recently in the carnage in El Paso, Tex.

“The parallels are stunning,” said Will McCants, a prominent expert in the field.

And they are growing more notable with each new attack.

Experts say that the similarities are far from a coincidence. White nationalist terrorism is following a progression eerily similar to that of jihadism under the leadership of the Islamic State, in ways that do much to explain why the attacks have suddenly grown so frequent and deadly.

In both, there is the apocalyptic ideology that predicts — and promises to hasten — a civilizational conflict that will consume the world. There is theatrical, indiscriminate violence that will supposedly bring about this final battle, but often does little more than grant the killer a brief flash of empowerment and win attention for the cause.

There are self-starter recruits who, gathering in social media’s dark corners, drive their own radicalization. And for these recruits, the official ideology may serve simply as an outlet for existing tendencies toward hatred and violence.

Differences between white nationalists and the Islamic State remain vast. While Islamic State leaders leveraged their followers’ zeal into a short-lived government, the new white nationalism has no formal leadership at all.

“I think a lot of people working on online extremism saw this coming,” said J.M. Berger, author of the book “Extremism,” and a fellow with VOX-Pol, a group that studies online extremism, referring to the similarities between white nationalism and the Islamic State.

In retrospect, it is not hard to see why.

The world-shaking infamy of the Islamic State has made it a natural model even — perhaps especially — for extremists who see Muslims as enemies.

A set of global changes, particularly the rise of social media, has made it easy for any decentralized terrorist cause to drift toward ever-grander, and evermore nonsensical, violence.

“Structurally, it didn’t matter whether those extremists were jihadists or white nationalists,” Mr. Berger said.

White nationalism in all forms has been on the rise for some years. Its violent fringe was all but certain to rise as well.

The feedback loop of radicalization and violence, once triggered, can take on a terrible momentum all its own, with each attack boosting the online radicalization and doomsday ideology that, in turn, drive more attacks.

The lessons are concerning. It is nearly impossible to eradicate a movement animated by ideas and decentralized social networks. Nor is it easy to prevent attacks when the perpetrators’ ideology makes nearly any target as good as the next, and requires little more training or guidance than opening a web forum.

And global changes that played a role in allowing the rise of the Islamic State are only accelerating, Mr. Berger warned — changes like the proliferation of social networks.

“When you open up a vast new arena for communication, it’s a vector for contagion,” he said.

The nihilism that increasingly defines global terrorism first emerged in the sectarian caldron of American-occupied Iraq.

A washed-up criminal from Jordan, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, exploited the chaos brought by the American-led invasion to slaughter occupiers and Iraqi Muslims alike, circulating videos of his deeds.

Al Qaeda, for all its religious claims, had, like most terrorist groups, killed civilians in pursuit of worldly goals like an American withdrawal from the Middle East.

But Mr. Zarqawi seemed driven by sadism, a thirst for fame and an apocalyptic ideology that he is thought to have only vaguely grasped.

Al Qaeda objected, fearing he would alienate the Muslim world and distract from jihadism’s more concrete goals.

Mr. Zarqawi instead proved so popular among jihadist recruits that Al Qaeda let him fight under its name. After his death, his group re-emerged as the Islamic State.

His group’s unlikely rise hinted at a new approach to terrorism — and sheds light on why white nationalist terrorism is converging on similar beliefs and practices.

Most terrorists are not born wishing to kill. They have to be groomed. Where past terrorist groups had appealed to the political aspirations and hatreds of its recruits, Mr. Zarqawi’s found ways to activate a desire for bloodshed itself.

The American-led invasion of Iraq had seemed, for many Middle Easterners, to turn the world upside down. Mr. Zarqawi and later the Islamic State, instead of promising to turn it right side up, offered an explanation: The world was rushing toward an end-of-days battle between Muslims and infidels.

In that world, Mr. McCants wrote in 2015, “the apocalyptic recruiting pitch makes more sense.”

This gave the group justification for attacks that otherwise made little strategic sense, like killing dozens of fellow Muslims out shopping, which it said would help usher in the apocalypse foretold in ancient prophecy.

Because the attacks were easier to carry out, almost anyone could execute their own and feel like a true soldier in the glorious cause.

Jihadism retained its core political agenda. But the things that made the Islamic State’s form of terrorism so infectious also made it less strategically rational.

With an ideology that said anyone could kill for the movement and that killing was its own reward, much of the violence took on a momentum of its own.

That, some scholars say, is what appears to be happening now with the extreme wings of the white nationalist movement rising globally.

Seeing a Global Race War

The ideological tracts, recruiting pitches and radicalization tales of the Islamic State during its rise echo, almost word-for-word, those of the white nationalist terrorists of today.

For the latter, the world is said to be careening toward a global race war between whites and nonwhites.

“The Camp of the Saints,” a bizarre 1973 French novel that has since become an unofficial book of prophecy for many white nationalists, describes a concerted effort by nonwhite foreigners to overwhelm and subjugate Europeans, who fight back in a genocidal race war.

So-called manifestoes left by the terrorist attackers at Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex., have warned of this coming war too. They also say their attacks were intended to provoke more racial violence, hastening the fight’s arrival.

Radicalization requires little more than a community with like-minded beliefs, said Maura Conway, a terrorism scholar at Dublin City University. While white backlash to social and demographic change is nothing new, social media has allowed whites receptive to the most extreme version to find one another.

Mr. Berger, in his research, found that these deadly messages, which have had mixed success in traditional propaganda channels in all but the most dire historical moments, can spread like wildfire on social media.

He termed the message one of “temporal acceleration” — the promise that an adherent could speed up time toward some inevitable endpoint by committing violence. And the “apocalyptic narratives,” he found, exploit social media’s tendency to amplify whatever content is most extreme.

As with the Islamic State’s calls for mass murder, this worldview has resonated among young men, mostly loners, who might have previously expressed little ideological fervor or experienced much hardship. It offered them a way to belong and a cause to participate in.

And, much like the Islamic State had found, social media gave white extremists a venue on which to post videos of their exploits, where they would go viral, setting off the cycle again.

In 2015, Mr. Berger wrote that the Islamic State had been “the first group to employ these amplifying tactics on social media.” But, he added, “it will not be the last.”

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Maxime Bernier encourage à se battre contre l’imposition des cours d’éducation sexuelle

2019/08/07 Leave a comment

His party’s strong showing in Burnaby South (close to 11 percent) reflected sex education being an issue among some socially conservative Chinese Canadians:

Maxime Bernier estime que les cours d’éducation sexuelle dans les écoles québécoises briment les droits individuels.

Dans une entrevue accordée à un pasteur baptiste montréalais, le chef du Parti populaire du Canada (PPC) encourage les parents québécois à se battre contre l’imposition de ces cours. Il ne veut cependant pas participer personnellement à cette bataille, question de respecter les champs de compétence ; l’éducation relève de Québec et non pas d’Ottawa.

Le pasteur de l’Église baptiste de l’espoir du Grand Montréal George Antonios a publié l’entrevue avec le chef du PPC samedi sur YouTube.

« Ce genre de programme va à l’encontre d’une manière très profonde des valeurs morales, religieuses, de plusieurs personnes », offre en entrée de matière M. Antonios avant de demander à son invité ce qu’il faut faire « pour au moins donner le choix aux parents de ne pas impliquer leurs enfants dans de tels programmes ».

Aux premières protestations venant, celles-là, de l’église catholique en janvier dernier, le premier ministre François Legault a affirmé qu’aucun enfant ne pourra être exempté de ces cours.

« Je ne veux pas m’ingérer dans les champs de compétence des provinces », a commencé par répondre M. Bernier avant de choisir clairement son camp.

« Il y a une certaine partie de la population qui n’est pas encore au courant que cette législation-là brime les droits individuels des Québécois », a-t-il dit.

« Je vous encourage à faire cette bataille-là pour défendre vos propres droits », a-t-il conseillé aux pasteurs et à ses ouailles.

Dans l’entrevue avec le pasteur Antonios, M. Bernier a abordé une série de sujets chers aux groupes socialement conservateurs.

Il a ainsi réitéré qu’il permettrait à un de ses députés de déposer un projet de loi sur le droit à l’avortement et qu’il y aurait un vote libre sur pareil texte législatif, s’il prenait le pouvoir.

Puis, il a une nouvelle fois dépassé par la droite son rival du Parti conservateur Andrew Scheer dans ce dossier.

« Je trouve ça un peu hypocrite si je regarde M. Scheer qui se dit pro-vie mais qui interdit à ses députés de déposer un projet de loi, qui ne veut pas avoir de débat », a-t-il critiqué.

M. Bernier, lui, a voté, par le passé, pour protéger le droit à l’avortement. Mais il dit maintenant ne pas vouloir se prononcer dans ce dossier tant qu’il n’y a pas un projet de loi à débattre.

Autre sujet cher au courant socialement conservateur, la loi C-16 qui interdit la discrimination en fonction de « l’identité ou l’expression de genre » a également été décriée par les deux hommes.

Cette loi, selon ses détracteurs, pourrait imposer un certain langage pour désigner les personnes transgenres.

« Cette législation-là doit être abolie parce que ça vient donner une direction à l’État en ce qui concerne la liberté d’expression », a tranché M. Bernier, promettant, s’il devenait premier ministre, d’abolir C-16 « le plus rapidement possible ».

Source: Maxime Bernier encourage à se battre contre l’imposition des cours d’éducation sexuelle

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

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