Michael Geist: When it comes to antisemitism, the sound of silence is loud in Canada 

2025/07/28 Leave a comment

Valid comments on lack of consistency in approaches:

…In response, there have been some notable efforts to address the antisemitism scourge. Both the federal government and some local municipalities have enacted or proposed bubble zone legislation designed to create a safe perimeter around places of worship, schools, hospitals, and other vulnerable institutions. Some universities and governments have adopted much-needed guidelines to combat antisemitism and promised to enforce them more aggressively.

More is required, but those responses appear to have shifted the discourse from disbelief to efforts to silence and thwart initiatives to protect the community. It often starts by insisting that the Jewish community is not only unable to judge what constitutes antisemitism, but that it actively engages in its weaponization. It is hard to think of any other group that is not only denied its own ability to identify harms but is painted as acting nefariously when it does so.

When the issue does break through, the efforts to protect the Jewish community are then silenced by framing them as undermining the rights of others. For example, bubble zone initiatives are frequently criticized as an affront to freedom of expression, despite being carefully drafted and modelled on similar laws that have been upheld by Canadian courts as constitutional.

Similarly, antisemitism guidelines on campus have been derided as chilling freedom of expression. These institutions have long histories of adopting extensive regulations to protect women, visible minorities and Indigenous groups, even going so far as to identify and guard against micro-aggressions. But the same approach seemingly does not apply to the Jewish community, who instead face charges that protecting their rights would come at the expense of the rights of others.

In fact, even political views on the founding of the State of Israel or expressions of support for Zionism, which as former prime minister Justin Trudeau noted “is the belief, at its simplest, that Jewish people, like all peoples, have the right to determine their own future” runs the risk of being labelled as “racist” in today’s educational environment, thereby silencing the perspectives.

As the rise in antisemitism has become too pronounced to ignore, there have been some important efforts to chronicle it and call for action. But what has been missing is an examination of its day-to-day effects, which has placed the safety and well-being of an entire community, from grade school to seniors’ homes, at risk. Those effects will become less visible if all that is left is the sound of silence.

Source: Michael Geist: When it comes to antisemitism, the sound of silence is loud in Canada

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US citizenship test too easy? Trump bringing back 2020 naturalisation format

2025/07/28 Leave a comment

Stay tuned. Arguably, many Trump administration figures could start with a better understanding of the US constitution and history:

The new director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) stirred a debate after he said that the present US citizenship test is easy and can be memorised. The US citizenship test, officially known as the Naturalisation test, is an examination that an applicant has to take to become an American citizen.

The test is not for green card holders unless they are applying for citizenship. Joseph Edlow, the new director of USCIS, said that since the tests are too easy, the Trump administration is planning to bring back the 2020 version of the test.

For the test, applicants have to submit a former N-400 seeking naturalisation. They would be required to pass a background check and meet residency tenure, along with other requirements. After this, they will have to attend an interview where they take two tests: One is an English test, and the other is a civic test.

Source: US citizenship test too easy? Trump bringing back 2020 naturalisation format

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Le Québec fait le plein de cerveaux grâce à l’immigration

2025/07/28 Leave a comment

Similar to other provinces. We select immigrants largely based on human capital, including education:

Le Québec peut compter sur des immigrants très scolarisés : ceux-ci détiennent un diplôme universitaire dans une proportion de loin supérieure à celle des non-immigrants. C’est l’un des constats qui se dégage d’un rapport de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) publié jeudi.

Les chiffres sont sans équivoque. Selon les données du dernier recensement canadien, tenu en 2021, 44 % des immigrants présents au Québec détenaient un diplôme universitaire, contre 25 % des non-immigrants. Chez les résidents non permanents, cette proportion grimpait à 58,6 %.

Ces écarts s’expliquent essentiellement par la méthode de sélection de la population immigrante. « Elle est “sélectionnée” en favorisant la scolarité élevée », explique par courriel l’autrice du rapport, Christine Lessard. « Il n’est donc pas étonnant qu’on y trouve une plus grande proportion de titulaires d’un grade universitaire que dans la population non immigrante. »

Ce rapport est le troisième volet d’une étude dressant le portrait des détenteurs d’un diplôme universitaire au Québec. Après avoir comparé les données québécoises à celles des autres provinces et les avoir décortiquées par région administrative, l’ISQ s’est penché sur le statut migratoire des détenteurs de diplôme. Les données analysées ne concernent que les personnes âgées de 25 à 64 ans.

En 2021, quelque 21,3 % des résidents du Québec étaient des immigrants permanents ou temporaires.

Plus de la moitié des immigrants admis au Canada depuis 2001 détiennent un diplôme universitaire : en d’autres mots, ils sont très scolarisés. « Il est certain que l’immigration contribue au maintien voire à l’accroissement du niveau de scolarité de la population », avance Mme Lessard.

La croissance de la population du Québec repose par ailleurs en grande partie sur l’immigration. Entre 2016 et 2021, la population québécoise non immigrante de 25 à 64 ans a chuté de 2,7 %, tandis que la population immigrante a augmenté de 11 %, et celle des résidents non permanents de 150 %. Au net, la population du Québec a crû de 1,4 % sur cette période….

Source: Le Québec fait le plein de cerveaux grâce à l’immigration

Quebec can count on highly educated immigrants: they hold a university degree in a proportion far greater than non-immigrants. This is one of the findings that emerges from a report by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) published on Thursday.
The numbers are unequivocal. According to data from the last Canadian census, held in 2021, 44% of immigrants in Quebec held a university degree, compared to 25% of non-immigrants. Among non-permanent residents, this proportion rose to 58.6%.
These differences are mainly explained by the method of selection of the immigrant population. “It is “selected” by promoting high schooling,” explains the author of the report, Christine Lessard, by email. “It is therefore not surprising that there is a greater proportion of university degree holders than in the non-immigrant population. ”
This report is the third part of a study portraying university degree holders in Quebec. After comparing Quebec data with those of other provinces and dissessing them by administrative region, the ISQ looked at the migration status of diploma holders. The data analyzed only concern people aged 25 to 64.
In 2021, some 21.3% of Quebec residents were permanent or temporary immigrants.
More than half of the immigrants admitted to Canada since 2001 hold a university degree: in other words, they are highly educated. “It is certain that immigration contributes to maintaining or even increasing the level of education of the population,” says Ms. Lessard.
Quebec’s population growth is also largely based on immigration. Between 2016 and 2021, the Quebec non-immigrant population aged 25 to 64 fell by 2.7%, while the immigrant population increased by 11%, and that of non-permanent residents by 150%. Netly, Quebec’s population grew by 1.4% over this period….

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Kelly and Treblicock: Canada needs a coherent immigration policy – not another piecemeal fix

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Good op-ed and call for a more serious review and approach. Their recent book, Reshaping the Mosaic, captures the change from previous policy processes to current less comprehensive ones, and is a very useful documenting the changes to immigration-related policies and programs along with the consultative processes:

…Immigration remains a powerful engine of Canadian growth and resilience. Immigrants already make up nearly one-quarter of the population, a share projected to rise to 36 per cent by 2036. But as recent volatility in public opinion underscores, we cannot afford to keep muddling through with fragmented, short-term responses. There has not been a serious, comprehensive review of Canadian immigration policy in more than 30 years. 

It may be too late to influence next year’s immigration levels plan. But the Minister should renew the government’s 2023 commitment to review the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This review should not be conducted behind closed doors. Like previous major legislative reviews, it must bring together evidence and experience from federal and provincial policymakers, employers, service providers, newcomers, researchers and citizens in a transparent process.

Getting immigration policy right is more than a social or political imperative – it is essential to Canada’s long-term economic resilience in the face of trade instability, demographic aging, and rapidly advancing technology.

Source: Canada needs a coherent immigration policy – not another piecemeal fix

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Thompson: Trump is wielding U.S. citizenship as a weapon

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Well, we will see where this ends up at SCOTUS but yes, the weaponization intent and actions are clear:

…Whether this particular legal battle will become a preoccupation of the Trump administration, amid so many other executive orders and attempts at presidential overreach, remains to be seen. But should Mr. Trump decide that the attack on birthright citizenship is a battle he wants to wage (or a useful distraction to draw attention away from the Epstein files), the implications are astounding. 

Birthright citizenship is not the only or even the most popular way that countries denote who can and cannot hold rights, participate in the political sphere, and be an irrevocable member of the political community. But in the United States, it is a core constitutional right. It has both a symbolic weight and offers fundamental legal protections in a country perpetually at odds over who truly belongs. 

This most recent attack is undeniably ideological. In Mr. Trump’s worldview, birthright citizenship is tightly tied with his priorities to curb immigration, secure borders and redefine American identity. Citizenship is most often associated with the right to vote, but more importantly confers the right to remain. To leave and come back. You cannot be denied entry to your own country, my brother, who decades ago worked as a Canadian immigration officer, once told me. They have to let you come home.

The Trump administration claims that its efforts will preserve and protect the meaning and value of American citizenship. They are instead an attempt to wield citizenship as a weapon. This executive order threatens to limit access to citizenship for the masses and will inevitably increase the administrative burden of proving citizenship for those for whom it has previously been automatic. Mr. Trump has threatened to revoke citizenship from his political opponents (or those he just doesn’t like), enabled the Department of Justice to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans charged with certain crimes, and created a path for wealthy foreigners to buy it through the “gold card” program for the low, low price of US$5-million. 

The proposed end to birthright citizenship is the hallmark policy of an America that seeks to close and bolt its doors to the huddled masses. The deeper lesson, however, is that nothing is absolute or untouchable, even and perhaps especially the constitutional order. Everything can be undone.

Source: Trump is wielding U.S. citizenship as a weapon

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Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Parents and grandparents applications always over subscribed. Suspect some, if not many, of immigrant origin Albertans are interested in sponsoring their family members. But of course, from a demographic perspective, parents and grandparents only increase average age, not decrease it:

Alberta’s immigration minister says he’s concerned about the federal government’s plan this year to accept thousands of parents and grandparents of immigrants already in Canada.

Joseph Schow responded Tuesday to a federal notice that Ottawa plans to take in 10,000 applications from those who have previously expressed interest in sponsoring family members.

Schow took issue with the 10,000 figure.

In a statement, Schow said provincial health-care systems, housing and social services don’t have the capacity and could be overwhelmed.

Federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s office said the federal government’s actual countrywide target for approvals this year for the parent and grandparent immigration stream is higher at 24,500.

Diab’s office said Schow was responding to a notice that the ministry is preparing to take in 10,000 applications for consideration from already settled immigrants who expressed interest in 2020 in sponsoring their parents or grandparents.

“Family reunification is an important part of Canada’s immigration system, helping Canadian citizens and permanent residents sponsor their loved ones to live and work alongside them in Canada,” a spokesperson for Diab said in an email, adding that the federal government is committed to reuniting as many families as possible.

“Opening intake for 10,000 applications will help us meet this commitment and will not increase the target.”

Schow’s office said it was under the impression the 10,000 was the 2025 target, and his concern remains the same.

‘Disproportionate strain’

Schow said in the Tuesday statement that he understands “the importance of family reunification, [but] inviting large numbers of parents and grandparents into the country without proper co-ordination with provinces places disproportionate strain on already busy health systems.”

“This creates serious concerns for both Albertans and the newcomers themselves, who may not receive timely care if our system is overwhelmed.”

The minister didn’t directly answer questions about whether he wants to see the parent and grandparent target reduced or eliminated. In an email, he said the “root issue” is the federal government setting immigration targets without provincial input.

“The more direct concern with this program is its impact on health care,” Schow added….

Source: Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

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Meggs: Et si on réduisait les chevauchements entre Ottawa et Québec en immigration ?

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Notable shift in Quebec’s no longer pursuing additional powers in immigration (at least for the moment):

Le gouvernement Legault veut-il toujours plus de pouvoirs en immigration ? Si oui, ce serait le bon moment d’en discuter avec le gouvernement fédéral.

On a appris récemment que le ministre fédéral des Finances et du Revenu national, François-Philippe Champagne, dans une lettre à ses collègues, a exigé un examen « ambitieux » de leurs programmes et activités dans une perspective de sabrer de manière considérable les dépenses. Un des moyens proposés pour y arriver serait de réduire les chevauchements avec les provinces. Un autre serait de se défaire des programmes, lorsque possible.

S’il y a un domaine où les chevauchements abondent entre le Québec et le fédéral, c’est bien celui de l’immigration. Chaque personne qui souhaite s’établir au Québec, de manière temporaire ou permanente, passe par les processus des deux gouvernements à un moment donné de son parcours, généralement en payant des frais chaque fois. Il y a quelques exceptions. Les personnes qui obtiennent un permis de travail temporaire du fédéral dans le cadre du Programme de mobilité internationale et ne demandent pas de résidence permanente n’ont pas d’étape à faire auprès du gouvernement québécois

Réduire les chevauchements serait un soulagement énorme, en matière de coûts et de temps, pour les gens arrivant au Québec. Les retards créés par ces dédoublements sont très stressants et peuvent être interminables.

De plus, le Québec contrôlerait enfin plus de leviers en matière de l’immigration. N’est-ce pas ce que le gouvernement réclame depuis son arrivée au pouvoir ? En septembre 2019, lors de la campagne électorale fédérale, le premier ministre François Legault demandait aux candidats de s’engager à autoriser le Québec à décider seul essentiellement l’ensemble de son immigration, précisant les « réfugiés et les personnes acceptées en vertu du programme de réunification familiale » et la gestion complète du programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires.

En avril 2022, lorsqu’il se dirigeait lui-même vers des élections, il a affirmé que le succès du français au Québec passe par un rapatriement de « tous les pouvoirs » en immigration, une revendication répétée en juin, insistant sur le fait qu’une forte délégation de députés caquistes l’aiderait à convaincre les partis fédéraux de l’importance de lui céder tous les pouvoirs en immigration. Il a même menacé d’organiser un référendum sur le sujet, pour ensuite se rétracter en février 2024, en disant que ce n’était pas nécessaire, avant de ressortir l’idée de sa poche en avril de la même année. En fait, en 2024, M. Legault a demandé deux fois au premier ministre Justin Trudeau le rapatriement de l’ensemble des pouvoirs en immigration.

Plus tôt cette année, pendant la campagne fédérale, M. Legault a été plus précis dans sa demande. Dans sa lettre aux chefs à la course du 27 mars 2025, on peut lire : « Dans l’immédiat, le gouvernement québécois vous demande de respecter l’esprit de l’Accord Canada-Québec relatif à l’immigration et à l’admission temporaire des aubains, en accordant au Québec le pouvoir de sélection et de fixation des seuils du Programme de mobilité internationale, sauf pour les demandeurs d’asile. » Il a été ravi quand le chef du Parti conservateur du Canada, Pierre Poilievre, a appuyé cette demande et l’a incluse presque mot pour mot dans sa plateforme pour le Québec.

La gestion du Programme de mobilité internationale (PMI) compléterait les pouvoirs du Québec sur l’immigration temporaire. Il est vrai que c’était l’intention des négociateurs de l’accord en 1991 que le Québec gère l’ensemble de son immigration, incluant l’immigration temporaire, comme expliqué à quelques reprises dans ces pages, notamment par André Burelle, le négociateur fédéral, et par l’autrice de ces lignes, avec le constitutionnaliste André Binette, dans Le Devoir du 6 février dernier.

Il est donc d’autant plus surprenant qu’on ne retrouve plus, dans le cahier de consultation en vue de la consultation publique prévue en septembre sur la planification de l’immigration au Québec pour la période 2026-2029, aucune trace de revendication de plus de pouvoirs pour le Québec. Dans la section 5, Demandes du Québec envers le fédéral, le PMI est présenté tout simplement comme un programme « sous la responsabilité exclusive du fédéral ». Même chose dans la description des responsabilités partagées en immigration temporaire. On ne parle plus de l’esprit de l’accord en matière d’immigration temporaire.

Il convient sûrement au gouvernement du Québec de pouvoir mettre le gros du fardeau pour la baisse de l’immigration temporaire sur le dos du fédéral. Il est pourtant triste de constater que le gouvernement abandonne des négociations avec le gouvernement fédéral dans ce domaine. Surtout quand le moment semble si propice.

Anne Michèle Meggs, Ancienne directrice de la planification et de la reddition de comptes au ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration.

Source: Et si on réduisait les chevauchements entre Ottawa et Québec en immigration ?

Does the Legault government always want more powers in immigration? If so, it would be a good time to discuss it with the federal government.

We recently learned that the Federal Minister of Finance and National Revenue, François-Philippe Champagne, in a letter to his colleagues, demanded an “ambitious” examination of their programs and activities with a view to significantly cut back on spending. One of the proposed ways to achieve this would be to reduce overlaps with the provinces. Another would be to get rid of programs, when possible.

If there is one area where overlaps abound between Quebec and the federal government, it is that of immigration. Each person who wishes to settle in Quebec, temporarily or permanently, goes through the processes of both governments at a given point in their journey, usually paying fees each time. There are some exceptions. People who obtain a temporary federal work permit under the International Mobility Program and do not apply for permanent residence do not have a step to take with the Quebec government

Reducing overlaps would be a huge relief, in terms of cost and time, for people arriving in Quebec. The delays created by these splits are very stressful and can be endless.

In addition, Quebec would finally control more levers in terms of immigration. Isn’t that what the government has been demanding since coming to power? In September 2019, during the federal election campaign, Prime Minister François Legault asked candidates to commit to allowing Quebec to decide alone essentially all of its immigration, specifying the “refugees and people accepted under the family reunification program” and the complete management of the temporary foreign workers program.

In April 2022, when he himself was heading for elections, he said that the success of the French in Quebec requires a repatriation of “all powers” in immigration, a repeated demand in June, insisting that a strong delegation of Caquist deputies would help him convince the federal parties of the importance of ceding all powers in immigration. He even threatened to organize a referendum on the subject, and then retracted in February 2024, saying that it was not necessary, before bringing the idea out of his pocket in April of the same year. In fact, in 2024, Mr. Legault twice asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to repatriate all immigration powers.

Earlier this year, during the federal campaign, Mr. Legault was more specific in his request. In its letter to the leaders at the March 27, 2025 race, we can read: “In the immediate future, the Quebec government asks you to respect the spirit of the Canada-Quebec Agreement on immigration and the temporary admission of aubains, by granting Quebec the power to select and set the thresholds of the International Mobility Program, except for asylum seekers. He was delighted when the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, supported this request and included it almost word for word in his platform for Quebec.

The management of the International Mobility Program (PMI) would complement Quebec’s powers on temporary immigration. It is true that it was the intention of the negotiators of the 1991 agreement that Quebec manages all its immigration, including temporary immigration, as explained on a few occasions in these pages, in particular by André Burelle, the federal negotiator, and by the author of these lines, with the constitutionalist André Binette, in Le Devoir of February 6.

It is therefore all the more surprising that we no longer find, in the consultation book for the public consultation scheduled for September on the planning of immigration in Quebec for the period 2026-2029, no trace of claiming more powers for Quebec. In section 5, Quebec’s requests to the federal government, the PMI is presented simply as a program “under the exclusive responsibility of the federal government”. The same goes for the description of shared responsibilities in temporary immigration. We no longer talk about the spirit of the agreement on temporary immigration.

It is surely up to the Quebec government to be able to put the bulk of the burden for the decline in temporary immigration on the federal back. It is sad, however, that the government is abandoning negotiations with the federal government in this area. Especially when the time seems so auspicious.

Anne Michèle Meggs, Former Director of Planning and Accountability at the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration.

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A Columbia genocide scholar says she may leave over university’s new definition of antisemitism

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at ColumbiaUniversity, has used Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas. 

But after Columbia’s recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel’s founding. 

For the first time since she started teaching five decades ago, Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether.

“A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry,” she told The Associated Press. “I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”

Hirsch is not alone. At universities across the country, academics have raised alarm about growing efforts to define antisemitism on terms pushed by the Trump administration, often under the threat of federal funding cuts. 

Promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the definition lists 11 examples of antisemitic conduct, such as applying “double standards” to Israel, comparing the country’s policies to Nazism or describing its existence as “a racist endeavor.”

Ahead of a $220 million settlement with the Trump administration announced Wednesday, Columbia agreed to incorporate the IHRA definition and its examples into its disciplinary process. It has been endorsed in some form by Harvard, Yale and dozens of other universities. 

While supporters say the semantic shift is necessary to combat evolving forms of Jewish hate, civil liberties groups warn it will further suppress pro-Palestinian speech already under attack by President Donald Trump. …

Source: A Columbia genocide scholar says she may leave over university’s new definition of antisemitism

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Antisemitism envoy says resignation prompted by frustration over ‘not connecting’ with anti-hate message

2025/07/25 Leave a comment

Dispiriting. But kudos for Lyons for opening sharing her frustrations and critiques regarding the silence of business and faith leaders. Most despairing comment to me was this reference to silos:

“Lyons told The Canadian Jewish News that Amira Elghawaby, the federal government’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, tried to work with Lyons on fighting hate, citing an apparently shelved plan to visit provincial education ministers together.

“Neither my community, nor her community, were happy all the time to see us in pictures together,” Lyons said. “There were often people who just simply didn’t want me participating in respectful dialogues, or wouldn’t come into the room.””

Ottawa’s outgoing envoy for tackling antisemitism is accusing Canada’s business sector and civil society of failing to call out a rising tide of hate against Jews and other minorities.

In an extensive interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Deborah Lyons also said she could not get a meeting with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during her nearly two-year term.

In a statement sent to The Canadian Press, the Conservatives said that Lyons was “powerless” in her job.

Lyons resigned early in her term as Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. She said her decision reflected her “despair” over the growing gulf in society over violence in the Middle East and the failure of many Canadians to find common ground against hate.

“People were listening and hearing on different frequencies, and so we just were not connecting,” said Lyons. “That was where the big despair comes from.”

She said her work wasn’t made any easier by the silence of corporate leaders “whom I asked many times to stand up,” and by faith leaders who seemed to keep quiet on the suffering of people from other religions.

“I was incredibly disappointed with business leaders,” she said.

“We have a tendency to want to blame politicians all the time, but where have the faith leaders been? Where have the priests and ministers and rabbis and imams and so forth (been)?”

Lyons said that some community leaders did ask for her help in finding the right words to speak out against hate — because they feared that they would offend one community if they stood up for another.

“I’ve been really quite amazed — and often become quite despondent and despairing — about the fact that it was hard to get people to speak up. To speak with clarity, to speak with conviction,” she said.

“The mark of a country is not the courage of its military. It is the courage of its bystanders.”

The Canadian Press has requested an interview with Lyons but has not yet had a response.

Lyons told The Canadian Jewish News that Amira Elghawaby, the federal government’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, tried to work with Lyons on fighting hate, citing an apparently shelved plan to visit provincial education ministers together.

“Neither my community, nor her community, were happy all the time to see us in pictures together,” Lyons said. “There were often people who just simply didn’t want me participating in respectful dialogues, or wouldn’t come into the room.”

She said that indicates a “weakening” in the ability of both Canadian society and the broader western world to stand for common human values.

Lyons said she lacked the energy at times to bridge that gap.

“I held back from having some discussions, because I knew there was going to be animosity, or I wasn’t going to be welcome in the room. It disappoints me,” she said.

Lyons said she could not get a meeting with Poilievre despite requesting one and having a cordial chat with him during an event.

“I tried to meet with Mr. Poilievre when I was in the job, and in the end I got a response that he was too busy to meet with me,” she said.

In a statement attributed to Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman, the party did not dispute Lyons’ version of events.

“While communities face increasing threats, vandalism, intimidation and violence over the last 20 months, the Liberals deflected responsibility to a powerless envoy,” says the statement.

“We are ready to meet with the government at any point, because they’re the only ones with the power, the tools and the responsibility to do something — and they have done absolutely nothing to date.”

Statistics Canada reported this week a slight increase in police-reported hate crimes in 2024 compared with a year prior, and a very slight drop in those against Jewish people, who remain the most targeted group in Canada.

Lyons accused all three levels of government of failing to adequately co-ordinate their responses to hate, saying that issues like car theft or tariffs are seen as more tangible.

She said Prime Minister Mark Carney seemed engaged and requested a meeting with her, though she added it was not possible to meet with him before the July 8 date of her departure.

Lyons said she is leaving her job three months early not for health reasons but rather to restore “a little bit of the joy back into life” through retirement.

She said she would have liked to continue, but described the envoy role as more difficult than her stints as ambassador to Afghanistan and Israel.

“It was without question the toughest job I ever did.”

Source: Antisemitism envoy says resignation prompted by frustration over ‘not connecting’ with anti-hate message

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Why One of the Causes of Falling Birthrates May Be Prosperity

2025/07/25 Leave a comment

Interesting and I think good analysis:

…People in rich countries have fewer children

There are many factors that can contribute to lower fertility rates. China and India, for example, both had decades-long government programs designed to lower their birthrates. And experts have suggested that many other aspects of modern life — birth control, shifting marital patterns, increased career and education opportunities for women, and perhaps even smartphones — could also play a role.

But the statistics are very clear. As economies get richer, children get rarer. Today, nearly all developed countries have fertility rates between 1.2 and 1.8 births per woman, significantly below the “replacement level” of 2.1 that allows populations to remain stable over time.

The social and economic changes of the last 50 years mean that many people now have more choices, and the ability to freely make them. In the past, laws that banned contraception and abortion and limited women’s ability to own property often caused families — and women in particular — to have more children than they wanted.

But that is not the whole story. Survey data shows that around the world, people consistently have fewer children than they say they would like to have. Gallup opinion polling has found that Americans’ ideal number of children per family has averaged about 2.5 since the late 1970s, even as the actual fertility rate has fallen much lower. Financial concerns are the most commonly cited reason for this gap.

What’s going on here? It may seem paradoxical that people would claim to be less able to afford children as their countries become richer. But as economies grow, several things happen.

Wages rise, which means that the opportunity cost of unpaid activities like parenting also goes up. The more parents can earn in paid work, the more of a sacrifice it becomes to spend their time on unpaid parenting instead.

Parenting also becomes more labor-intensive, because developed countries tend to put a greater premium on education and human capital, which require more effort and attention from parents. In most developed countries, parents now spend roughly twice as much time on child care as they did in the 1960s.

There are also big changes that take place as developed countries build a social safety net. In less-developed economies, children often work for family farms and small businesses from a young age, then support parents in their later years. But as countries get richer, they tend to tax working adults to pay for retirees’ benefits. That means today’s children grow up to support everyone’s parents, not just their own, but individual parents still bear the vast majority of the costs of raising children. That puts parents at a financial disadvantage in comparison to their peers who have fewer or no children.

The end result: As countries get richer, parenting shifts from being a way to save for retirement and be better off financially to being an obstacle to financial well-being.

Even the most generous welfare states do very little to defray those costs. Nordic countries, which are famed for their subsidized child care and maternity leave, for example, actually have some of the highest parenting costs in Europe, once parents’ time and out-of-pocket costs are taken into account.

Of course, becoming a parent is not strictly an economic decision. Children bring joy and meaning, and the loving bonds between a parent and a child, or between siblings, are among the most rewarding human relationships. But even the most loving and dedicated parents are still subject to economic reality.

Even if they have one child or two, they may decide not to have more, because they love the ones they already have and want to give them the best lives possible. That might explain why more than three-fifths of the decline in birthrates comes from people having fewer children, not from people opting to remain childless, a recent working paper found.

The problem or the cause?

For those who believe women should return to traditional gender roles, falling fertility has become a convenient way to argue that women’s participation in the work force is a threat to the survival of humanity. But the reality, unsurprisingly, is more complex.

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist who won a Nobel Prize in 2023 for her work on women in the work force, found in a recent working paper that birthrates have fallen especially steeply in countries like Japan, South Korea and Italy, where economic growth rapidly sent more women into the workplace, but gender attitudes failed to adjust to that shift. In those countries, women began working more hours outside the home, but men did not do more housework or child care, leaving women with a heavy double burden.

In that situation, Dr. Goldin writes, “women must reduce something,” and that something turned out to be children. In South Korea, for example, fertility rates plummeted from an average of six children per woman in the late 1950s to just 0.75 in 2024 — the lowest in the world….

Source: Why One of the Causes of Falling Birthrates May Be Prosperity

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