How Canada could prepare for potential new wave of asylum seekers: Anglin and House

2017/11/13 Leave a comment

Former CPC staffers offer their suggestions on how to stem asylum seekers (for Anglin’s earlier piece, see How Canada can restore order to its immigration system: Anglin), essentially having the RCMP escort asylum seekers to ports of entry, where the safe-third country agreement applies and they can be returned to the US (rather than helping them with their luggage).

Canada’s reputation as a refugee-protecting country was further burnished last Wednesday, when Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen announced a multi-year plan that will see over 137,000 refugees and other persons deemed in need of protection settling in Canada by 2020. And, after a fraught few months, Canada is enjoying something of a respite from the illegal border crossings we saw over the summer. According to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), by the end of the summer, they were processing “only” 50 to 100 claims a day, down from 1,200 a day earlier that same season.

Whether this is a trend or a pause, only hindsight will tell. But neither the generosity of Hussen’s plan nor the current respite should make us complacent about the problem of what to do about unplanned arrivals at the Canada-U.S. border. In fact, recent media reports in Canada and the U.S. predict that the issue could flare up again in the coming months.

Currently, there are 250,000 Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans living in the United States without valid visas who face reviews of their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the coming months—four times the number of Haitians who received notice earlier this year that their TPS would be lifted, prompting the mass migration north to Canada this past summer. On Nov. 6, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security decided that the Nicaraguans can be removed safely, while postponing for now a decision with respect to the Hondurans and saying nothing about the Salvadorans. Then there are the 800,000 beneficiaries of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, whose status remains in limbo.

To his credit, after first appearing to invite asylum seekers to try their luck in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now seems to accept the problem it would pose to Canada if populations living illegally in the U.S. were to come north, rather than returning south to their home countries. Walking back his earlier message in a late-summer press conference in Montreal, he said: “Canada is an opening and welcoming society. But let me be clear: we are also a country of laws. There are rigorous immigration and customs rules that will be followed. Make no mistake.”

That’s the right message, even if it was belatedly delivered. But to be credible, it must be backed by action. Otherwise, migrant networks—including for-profit operations—will quickly notice that, despite tough talk, Canada is still an easy mark for opportunistic economic migrants. And so far, three months after Trudeau’s change of tone, there is little evidence of change on the ground.

The problem is the gap in enforcement created by the 2001 Safe Third Country Agreement. This agreement allows Canada to turn back an asylum-seeker coming from the United States who failed to make his claim first in that country, but only if he arrives at an officially designated port of entry. This gives asylum-seekers a strong incentive to simply avoid official ports of entry, crossing the border illegally along back roads and across farmers’ fields.

The government should use the RCMP more effectively to close gaps in our porous border. Just as the U.S. has Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to police its borders, in Canada, the RCMP has the mandate to patrol between ports of entry run by CBSA. Mounties serving in this capacity are tasked with ensuring Canada’s immigration laws are observed and the border is secure. You’d hardly know this, though, from the widely shared images of the RCMP politely assisting asylum-seekers with their luggage. That bellhop service isn’t required by the law, but it has become a government policy—one that should change.

Since the spike in illegal crossings this summer, several ideas have been advanced about how to protect the border. But before we reinvent the wheel, engage new resources, or chart new legal territory, there is something the government could do right now—with no new resources or laws—to defend our border: Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has the authority under Section 5 of the RCMP Act to direct the Mounties to respectfully but firmly stop migrants from illegally entering Canada.

At the border itself, the RCMP could direct migrants to the nearest Canadian port of entry via a route on the U.S. side of the border. If necessary, the RCMP, authorized as members of a joint Canada-U.S. Integrated Border Enforcement Team, could even escort them there personally. Once at a port of entry, the Safe Third Country Agreement would apply and most migrants would be returned to the U.S. to make asylum claims there.

This would be consistent with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of 2001, in which Parliament directed that RCMP officers cannot accept a claim for refugee protection (only a CBSA officer or a designated employee of Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada can do that). That decision frees the RCMP to meaningfully protect the border between ports of entry, reestablishing control over the boundary between our two countries. In extreme cases, that could mean brief detention of the rare aggressive asylum seeker for transport to the nearest Canadian port of entry—but as incentives to run the border build, this would allow the RCMP to reestablish control over the boundary, meaning physically obstructing people will become unnecessary, and ensure that our border means something.

Canadians are generous and welcoming people, but our support for high and now increasing levels of immigration, including refugees, goes hand-in-hand with a belief that the immigration process is orderly and lawful. When Canadians feel their generosity is being abused, goodwill evaporates, as we saw in the backlash against the arrivals of the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea migrant vessels in 2009 and 2010.

If we are to maintain a political consensus in favour of current levels of legal immigration, the Prime Minister must show that his commitment to enforcing the law against illegal migration is more than a rhetorical feint. The government needs to send a clear message that we will enforce our laws and defend the sanctity of our border. And it needs to do so now, in this respite—before winter conditions again increase the danger to northbound migrants.

via How Canada could prepare for potential new wave of asylum seekers – Macleans.ca

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Naheed Nenshi’s real work: Calling out Calgary’s racism

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Gary Mason on Calgary politics and Naheed Nenshi:

After the most bruising election of his political career, Naheed Nenshi is still a little tender in spots.

Although he won handily, his margin of victory wasn’t as awe-inspiring as in the past. Some of that erosion was to be expected: Any mayor who’s been in office for seven years is bound to rub some constituents the wrong way. But this campaign was also more divisive and personal than any other the Calgary mayor has experienced.

He doesn’t hide the fact that comments made about him, particularly online, were incredibly hurtful.

“Certainly, there was a lot of coded language about me which I found uncomfortable,” he told me while scarfing down Chinese food at his office desk. “When I raised the fact that the level of out-and-out racism and hatred and Islamophobia online was getting out of control, rather than condemning it the local media accused me of playing the race card.”

This he found deeply offensive.

“Saying you’re playing the race card actually means we will tolerate you in our society as long as you never remind us who you are,” he said, a tinge of anger in his voice. “I was surprised that in this day and age you could actually say to someone who calls out racism that it is inappropriate to do so.”

He found racism embedded in coded language. For instance, he would hear people say he’d become “too big for his britches” or that he’d “gotten uppity” – things, he said, people would never say about former prime minister Stephen Harper or the late Jim Prentice. This inherent racism was magnified online through bots and trolls, creating a level of ugliness the mayor had not known before.

Mr. Nenshi believes that racism is a bigger problem in his city than it was seven years ago, when he was first elected. Back then, he did not get the impression voters cared about his ethnicity or faith or the colour of his skin. But statistics show that acts of hatred and Islamophobia are on the rise across the country – and Calgary is no exception, he says.

“Certainly it’s an issue here, but you also see it in Vancouver when conversations about real estate too quickly become conversations about ‘the other,’ ” he said. “You’re seeing it in Quebec with Bill 62, saying it’s better to isolate people in their homes and not let them take a bus than it is to actually welcome these folks into our society.”

This isn’t the first time Mr. Nenshi has spoken out on the matter of race. He made headlines a couple of years ago when he told me he’d been personally “shaken” by the racist nature of the debate over accepting Syrian refugees. But generally he has steered clear of the subject, especially as it has pertained to racist rhetoric aimed at Muslims, like him.

That reluctance, however, is disappearing. The mayor now feels a need to sound an alarm about a phenomenon we are witnessing around the world – and certainly in this country. As Canadians, he told me, we need to think hard about our “polite language around multiculturalism” and whether it’s sufficient to protect the promise of a place where everyone can succeed.

“That is the big focus of our work,” he told me, brushing rice off his shirt. “And that is the core strength of Calgary – certainly more so than our proximity to carbon atoms in the ground.”

Mr. Nenshi now has four more years to champion this cause, and I hope he does. Few speak with as much passion and authority on the subject or can speak from his personal experience. Social media has given those who yearn for a society that existed in the past – who have no room in their hearts for people who may not look like them or speak like them – an unfiltered megaphone.

Still, the mayor has reason to be heartened. Voter turnout in Calgary’s civic election was the highest in 40 years. Citizens were convinced that something significant was at stake – something worth fighting for.

Maybe the kind of city they want to live in.

via Naheed Nenshi’s real work: Calling out Calgary’s racism – The Globe and Mail

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In Brexit-Era London, a Mosque Sits Between Two Types of Hate – The New York Times

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Good long read (excerpt from beginning):

Behind a glass door inside Al Madina Mosque, Ashfaq Siddique stands at ramrod attention, his eyes darting. He is the mosque’s guiding spirit. He is also a former policeman with Scotland Yard. He is scanning live feeds from 36 closed-circuit cameras that monitor everything from the prayer hall to the ablutions room. He is searching for trouble.

None in the parking lot, where white nativists routinely throw nails over the walls to puncture the car tires of those praying inside. Nor in the main hall, where Islamist extremists have sometimes argued against democracy with mainstream imams.

This morning, the problem is overcrowding. So many Muslims now live in the working-class East London neighborhood of Barking that roughly 9,000 people attended the morning prayer sessions in early September to begin the holiday of Eid al-Adha.

“Upstairs is filling up — start moving them to the upper hall of the community center!” Mr. Siddique, 50, shouts into a yellow walkie-talkie.

Few, if any, major Western cities have been more open to Muslims than London. More than 12 percent of Londoners are Muslim. Eighteen months ago, this became the first Western capital to elect a Muslim mayor, a milestone for residents proud of their multicultural ethos.

Barking and Dagenham was one of the few districts of London to favor Brexit, and it did so by a vote of nearly two to one. Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Now, though, religious hate crimes are up nearly 30 percent, primarily against Muslims. At his mosque, Mr. Siddique is hiring extra security guards to protect his congregants. Muslim women have complained about being spit on, or cursed.

What has brought these tensions to the surface? Brexit and terrorism.

Britain’s unexpected vote in June 2016 to exit the European Union — only a month after London elected Sadiq Khan as mayor — was fueled by a nationwide campaign infused with anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant venom. Then, after a decade without Islamist terrorist attacks, this year Britain has suffered four, including an assault by Islamist terrorists in June that killed eight people at London Bridge and Borough Market.

Even as crowds of Londoners came out to mourn — and to show their commitment to the city’s inclusive spirit — the dynamics of daily life shifted for many mainstream Muslims. Brexit and the terrorist attacks have given bigots license to express hostility, many Muslims say, or to label them all as terrorists, or to tell them to go home — as if London were not their home.

“People feel they have the right to be open about Islamophobia,” said Saima Ashraf, a local council member in Barking and a French-Palestinian immigrant. “Or to be open about their racial views, or just to be a bit more nasty.”

The Brexit vote stunned many Londoners — the city voted heavily to remain in the European Union — but not Mr. Siddique. His borough of Barking and Dagenham was one of the few in London that voted to leave, and it did so by a margin of nearly two to one. Many whites there saw a vote for Brexit as a vote against immigration and Islam.

For years, Al Madina Mosque has sat uncomfortably on a fault line between the Islamist radicalism of the terrorist attacks and the white nativism intertwined with Brexit….

via In Brexit-Era London, a Mosque Sits Between Two Types of Hate – The New York Times

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Quebec’s Bill 62 splits federal Liberals amid calls to ignore court challenge

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising:

Quebec’s face-covering law is exposing divisions among federal Liberals, with staunch defenders of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on one side and a large number of Quebec MPs who fear becoming political casualties of the contentious debate on the other.

Several Liberal MPs are calling on the government to stay out of the coming court challenge to the law, including some of the most vocal opponents of Bill 62 in caucus.

The Trudeau government has responded with a carefully calibrated response: stating that women have the right to dress as they want, while refusing to be drawn into an open confrontation with the provincial government.

The Liberal government’s decision to stay on the sidelines has created anger among opponents of the legislation who feel it is a full-on assault of Charter rights targeted at Muslim women. Passed last month, the provincial law requires people to show their face when giving or receiving services in places such as libraries, university classrooms, daycares and buses.

Federal officials said the government has yet to decide whether it will participate in the coming court challenge, which was launched this week by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and Canadian Civil Liberties Association. If Ottawa participates in the judicial showdown, federal lawyers will have to publicly state their views on the Charter issues raised by the law, which could contribute to its defeat.

Liberal Party officials said that Quebec MPs and ministers have been urging their colleagues from other parts of the country to cool their rhetoric on the issue in recent weeks.

“The Quebec caucus was very clear … in telling our colleagues, our ministers, that this is a file that belongs to the Quebec government,” said Liberal MP Rémi Massé, who is the chair of the party’s Quebec caucus. “This is [the Quebec government’s] responsibility and we are giving them the necessary leeway to do what they feel they have to do. With the court challenges that are starting, it’s up to them to react accordingly.”

Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès has been one of the most vocal critics of the law, but she said Ottawa should continue to stay out of the matter at least until it reaches the Supreme Court of Canada.

“I think right now, the government should just let it play out in Quebec and see how the courts in Quebec look at this,” said Ms. Mendès, who represents a riding on Montreal’s south shore. “The fact that I have a very strong opinion doesn’t mean that the government should necessarily intervene right away.”

Another opponent of Bill 62, Liberal MP Raj Grewal, said the law goes against his vision of the country, but added the government needs to respect “the National Assembly’s ability to pass their own laws.”

“I’m fundamentally happy that it is going to be challenged because in my humble opinion, it goes against everything that Canada stands for,” said Mr. Grewal, the MP for Brampton East.

Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio, a lawyer who represents a Montreal riding, said Ottawa cannot take the lead when it comes time to challenging the constitutionality of provincial laws.

“The federal government’s role is not to act as law enforcement for the legislatures,” he said. “There are organized groups that are sufficiently resourced to be able to raise these issues, and the federal government should not be at the forefront of such a topic.”

While the law has exposed political fault lines across the country, it has garnered support in all regions of Canada. According to a Nanos survey conducted for The Globe and Mail, 63 per cent of Canadians support or somewhat support Bill 62.

Support for the law is highest in Quebec (69.4 per cent), the Prairies (63.5 per cent) and the Atlantic provinces (62 per cent), but Ontario (59.4 per cent) and British Columbia (58.4 per cent) are not far off behind. The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted between Nov. 4 and 7 and is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20

Pollster Nik Nanos said the results show how “this is a no-win situation” for the Liberals. “The message to the government is that this is a political minefield,” he said.

To this point, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has walked a fine line on the law, always stopping short of vowing to fight it in court.

“As I’ve said several times, I don’t think a government should be telling a woman what to wear or not wear,” he has said. “We are looking very carefully at what tools we have and what steps we have to make sure we make this situation better for everyone.”

Liberal MPs from Quebec said they don’t want the debate to turn into a federal-provincial battle, or a symbol of Ottawa’s interference in Quebec’s affairs. One of the worst scenarios would be for Quebec to use the notwithstanding clause to keep the law on the books even if it is defeated in court, a Liberal MP from Quebec said.

The groups who filed a court challenge in Quebec Superior Court on Tuesday said the law is unconstitutional and discriminates against Muslim women.

“I live in fear,” co-plaintiff Warda Naili said at a news conference in Montreal. “I don’t know what will happen when I go out. I don’t know how people will react because of this law.”

via Quebec’s Bill 62 splits federal Liberals amid calls to ignore court challenge – The Globe and Mail

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EU watchdog: Anti-Semitism goes unchecked in large parts of Europe | The NEWS

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Canadian police reported hate crimes also take time to be compiled and reported on, the latest statistics reflect 2015 numbers (Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2015 – Statistics Canada):

The EU is not keeping proper track of anti-Semitic crimes and incidents, the bloc’s human rights agency has said on the anniversary of the 1938 Nazi pogroms against Jews.

Of the 28 EU countries, 11 have not provided official information on such incidents for 2016 or have not recorded anti-Semitism at all, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency said in Vienna on Thursday.

“Without such data, efforts to combat anti-Semitism will remain general and untargeted,” the agency said in a statement.

Different data collection methods among EU countries and “large-scale underreporting by victims” also obscured the picture.

Some of the countries that do report hate crimes against Jews need to improve their monitoring, the agency added.

The Fundamental Rights Agency carried out a large-scale survey among nearly 6,000 Jews in the EU in 2012, which showed that more than 26 per cent had been verbally harassed because of their religion in the past year.

Four per cent had experienced physical violence or threats.The survey will be repeated next year.

The EU agency reported that there is no police data at all from Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and Portugal.

The following countries have not provided data for 2016: Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovakia and Sweden.

via EU watchdog: Anti-Semitism goes unchecked in large parts of Europe | The NEWS

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To our inner Hadiya resisting workplace conformity, carry on. Just don’t keep calm: Paradkar | Toronto Star

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Good column by Paradkar:

It’s fair to say that when “Black on Bay Street,” the piece by lawyer-turned-academic Hadiya Roderique in the Globe and Mail, went viral, it lit flames of #IAmHadiya in many of us, and not just those belonging to Bay St., not just lawyers and not just Black, even though the Black experience of racism is uniquely painful.

Roderique’s piece should once and for all silence the proponents of the politics of respectability — the idea that you won’t be discriminated against if only you pull up your socks, do the right thing — as in, do everything you can to fit in with “mainstream” culture.

Mainstream in this country is, of course, Anglo-Euro settler culture. The truth is no matter what marginalized individuals do to change, to fit in, to be just like everyone else in the workplace, most have to be brilliant to be considered good enough.

So how far should you go to try to fit in?

Roderique referenced diversity consultant Ritu Bhasin, who says in her book The Authenticity Principle, “there’s only so much conforming and masking we can do. It eats away at your spirit.”

Quite by chance I was reading the book when Roderique’s article appeared. I’m usually leery of self-help gurus whom I tend to see as dishing out quotable words of wisdom whose sole role is to land on eminently re-giftable Hallmark mugs.

But at one point in the book, whose subtitle declares it’s about resisting conformity and embracing differences, Bhasin, herself once a Bay St. lawyer, writes she realized how even being authentic can be a performance. I found that revelation honest. “I would try to signal ‘Look how real I am,’ ” she writes. “For example, I chose to wear bright colours in the business world to signal ‘I’m so anti-conformist.’ ”

Reading both these women revealed to me — a rank outsider to Bay St. types — what an anally retentive bunch the people who make big decisions must be if wearing bright colours is considered rebellious in their world. “I filled my arms with two colours,” Roderique wrote about suits she bought, “black to blend and the more daring light grey.”

Beyond clothing, though, conformity can be extracted in multiple ways. Do you shine at meetings? Do you laugh at the boss’s jokes? Do you toe the line with group think?

In order to not fall afoul of those narrow constraints, to a certain extent everybody adopts behaviours and habits that don’t come naturally — white men might, for instance, force an interest in golf.

But the more marginalized you are the more you have to contort your personality to fit those expectations. Women might tone down talk of motherhood, feign an interest in hockey, pretend to be extroverted, laugh at stupid jokes and even allow men to take credit for their ideas just to see those ideas in action.

Add colour to your skin or a scarf on your head or fluidity to your gender and workplace constraints begin to suffocate. At that point, you’re not just masking your likes and dislikes, or adjusting aspects of your personality.

What’s at stake are your values, your fundamental identity.

Bhasin says, as a child of immigrants, she learned at a young age to not act brown, but to act white. “By the time I ended up in the workplaces I had already learned how to switch codes and navigate through white male culture. The more I conformed, the more I was rewarded, and I succeeded … that continued to the point where I was living a binary life. So I was one way at work and evenings and weekends, living in a very different way. And ultimately I was profoundly unhappy.”

She talked to hundreds of women and found that, “my story is the story of people who come from marginalized communities. We’re taught to conform and that cannot be the way we live any longer.”

Embrace yourself, be yourself are great mantras. Yet, as Bhasin writes, even authenticity is a privilege.

“I have found that those with higher status, power and success are often better positioned to practice authenticity more consistently than others.”

There’s your chicken and egg — being true to who you are might liberate you to attain some social power, but until you’re powerful, you may not have the confidence — or the leeway — to be authentic.

So please, if you have the privilege to do so, carry on. Work out your own formula, make your choices, resist if you can.

Carry on, because you are unfairly burdened with the task of challenging the system. Carry on until leaders stop looking at “others” with a condescending gaze. Carry on until they exhibit openness to hiring practices people like Roderique are advocating, or change the framework of what they consider “successful.”

Carry on until sweeping systemic changes give everyone a fair chance. Just don’t keep calm, because that is one thing they’re definitely counting on.

via To our inner Hadiya resisting workplace conformity, carry on. Just don’t keep calm: Paradkar | Toronto Star

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Diversity among Canadian Heads of Mission: Two Years In | Canadian International Council

2017/11/10 Leave a comment

My latest:

Of the 74 appointments to date, close to half have been women compared to an end-2015 baseline of less than one-third. When considered proportionately to the 15 percent of Canada’s population who are both visible minorities and Canadian citizens, visible minorities remain slightly under-represented at 11% of appointments. Significantly, there are no identified Indigenous peoples heads of mission.

via Diversity among Canadian Heads of Mission: Two Years In | Canadian International Council

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MPs prepare to head south to dissuade asylum seekers in U.S. from heading north once protected status expires

2017/11/10 Leave a comment

Part of the toolkit integrated into a social media strategy:

Members of Parliament are planning trips to the U.S. in the coming weeks to try to stem a potential new flow of asylum seekers to Canada.

Haitians who have been living in the U.S. under temporary protected status since the 2010 earthquake are facing potential deportation as of Nov. 22 unless the U.S. Department of Homeland Security renews their status, which it is not expected to do.

“We don’t know what the U.S. will do to remove those people so we are doing messaging and using social media,” said Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal member of Parliament for the Bourassa riding in Quebec.

Dubourg said he and two other MPs will be going to the U.S. in the next two weeks to try to dissuade asylum seekers from Haiti, Africa, Central America and elsewhere from trying their luck in Canada in the same way that thousands of others have in the past year: by walking across the U.S.-Canada border at unofficial crossing points and applying for asylum once they get to Canada.

The RCMP has intercepted more than 15,000 asylum seekers crossing illegally between official ports of entry since January, the bulk of them in Quebec during the months of July through September.

Haitian-born Liberal MP Emmanuel Dubourg will be travelling to New York next week to meet with the Haitian immigrants who are likely to lose their temporary protected status later this month and whom he fears could try to cross into Canada illegally. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

“The main reason is to tell them we have a robust immigration law and that they should use the right channels to come to Canada instead of crossing in between the borders,” Dubourg said of his planned trip.

Canadian diplomats from a dozen consulates are also reaching out to non-governmental organizations, politicians and community groups, with a special focus on New York, Florida and California.

The government has recently issued blunt warnings that crossing into Canada illegally is not a free ticket to a new life. The Canada Border Services Agency has posted signs near irregular entry points to warn migrants against making an illegal crossing.

Canadian officials are also using social media to counter fake information that could be encouraging migrants to enter Canada. This was a significant factor in the surge of Haitians attempting crossings this summer so the government has started publishing videos online in Creole to push back against misinformation.

A Creole language pamphlet for Haitians in the U.S. spelling out legal ways to apply for asylum in Canada and advising against crossing illegally. Dubourg brought it with him when he visited the U.S. in the summer to meet with the Haitian community. (Emmanuel Dubourg)

Dubourg’s efforts will focus on the Haitian community in New York City, he said.

via MPs prepare to head south to dissuade asylum seekers in U.S. from heading north once protected status expires – Politics – CBC News

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Ms. Payette and Mr. Scheer: Science and religion can – and should – co-exist: Peter McKnight

2017/11/10 Leave a comment

The most balanced commentary I have seen on the GG controversy by McKnight, a former Templeton-Cambridge fellow in science and religion at the University of Cambridge:

My horoscope warned me that I’m likely to offend everyone today, so here goes: Governor-General Julie Payette is wrong. And so are her critics.

In a speech attacking anti-scientific sentiments in society, Ms. Payette riffed on astrology and climate change skeptics and, in the interest of complete self-immolation, tackled religious belief by saying: “We are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process.”

As many critics have charged, Ms. Payette’s language was impolitic to say the least. Her incredulous “oh my goodness” suggests she’s shocked – shocked, I tell you – that anyone might think God had something to do with life. But I’ll leave it to others to discuss the proper decorum for a governor-general.

I’d rather discuss science and religion. And on the former subject, I’m not even sure of what science Ms. Payette was referring to. That “random process” business sounds like evolution by natural selection, which, as any biologist can tell you, is as well confirmed as any scientific theory.

Or perhaps she was referencing the origin of life, which is the province of abiogenesis, not natural selection. And as any biologist can also tell you, abiogenesis is not nearly a settled matter.

But here’s the rub: As scientists work on abiogenesis or any other scientific theory, they won’t appeal to divine intervention – because they can’t. Science, as the study of the natural world, permits consideration only of natural causes – causes involving matter, energy and their interaction. Scientists must therefore resist any appeal to supernatural causes, be they God, karma or voodoo.

This approach, known as methodological naturalism, has proven tremendously successful, allowing us to predict and control much of the natural world. But it doesn’t mean that supernatural causes don’t exist; it only means that science must, by its own choosing, remain silent about the supernatural.

And indeed, many scientists who are faithful to the methodological naturalist approach are also faithful to God, because they recognize that the supernatural lies beyond science, that when science tries to squeeze God out of the equation, it is overstepping its bounds. This, it seems, is Ms. Payette’s faux pas: She may know a lot about science, but she evidently doesn’t know where science ends.

That’s only half the story. Ms. Payette’s critics make the same mistake, from the other side. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, for example, spoke of “faith groups who believe there is truth in their religion” and opined that “respect for diversity includes respect for the diversity of religious beliefs.”

Now where to begin with that? How about here: Mr. Scheer is effectively equating respect for people with respect for opinions. That’s more than a little ironic coming from a conservative: Remember when the left was rightly ridiculed for promoting exactly this sentiment – “viewpoint discrimination” – which means we must accept all opinions as equal?

But more to the point, if religion is going to use its theories to explain the natural world – to overstep its bounds and compete with science on its own turf – then it ought to be criticized, for criticism is essential to science. Unfortunately, though, if the United States is any example, the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination has taken hold. So we see “religious freedom” laws that demand equal time for evolution and creationism in science classes. After all, these are two opinions about the nature of life, and all opinions are equal, right?

Religious freedom laws are, of course, disastrous for science. But the attempt to compete with science on its own turf, the failure to recognize where religion ends, is also detrimental to religion: It presents an impoverished view of God, one where the divine becomes part of nature rather than something transcendent, something beyond the natural world. And worse, it draws religion away from the big questions that lie beyond science, the moral and metaphysical questions that have preoccupied the religious for millennia.

Rather than engaging in turf wars, as Ms. Payette and Mr. Scheer seem destined to do, perhaps we should consider how science and religion can co-exist and, indeed, complement each other. Science, after all, teaches us about the nature of life, about what we are and how we came to be, while religion teaches us about the nature of living, about who we are and how we ought to behave. And we need both. In their rightful places.

via Ms. Payette and Mr. Scheer: Science and religion can – and should – co-exist – The Globe and Mail

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U.S. Congress split over whether criticizing Israel constitutes antiSemitism – Haaretz.com

2017/11/10 Leave a comment

Expect we would have similar divisions if there were hearings on an antisemitism definition, and how it applies to criticism of Israel and Israeli policies:

A U.S. House of Representatives committee heard tough exchanges between proponents and opponents of a bill that would codify a definition of anti-Semitism that incorporates a controversial component addressing attacks on Israel.

The nine witnesses appearing Tuesday at a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee were split: Five among those said the proposed addition to federal anti-discrimination statutes is a necessary means of stemming anti-Semitism on campuses, and four who argued it infringes on speech freedoms. The law if enacted would apply to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which addresses institutions — including universities — that receive federal funding.

The witnesses at times directly addressed one another, violating congressional protocol. Barbs were exchanged, with each side questioning the bona fides of the other in defining anti-Semitism. In a bizarre twist, the coauthors of the language that the bill would codify argued opposing viewpoints.

Lawmakers — who also bickered at times — marveled at the Jewish family food fight they were witnessing.

“It’s like throwing a ball and having a scrum and seeing who wins,” Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., said.

At issue is the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act — a version also is under consideration in the Senate — which would codify the State Department’s definition of the phenomenon, which is used by diplomats to identify the problem and report on it.

Top officials of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Christians United for Israel advocated for the proposed statute, as did Paul Clement, a former U.S. Solicitor General. Opposing were two Jewish studies professors, the director of PEN America –  a speech freedom umbrella, and the head of an outfit that combats anti-Semitism.

Representing the American Jewish Committee, which backs the bill, was Rabbi Andy Baker, the AJC’s director of International Jewish Affairs. Ken Stern, who in 2004 when both he and Baker were employed by AJC  drafted the language in question,  now directs the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, which combats anti-Semitism. Stern opposes codifying the language into law, although he still endorses the language for its intended use, as a means for diplomats to identify anti-Semitism.

The language, in its current State Department formulation, includes a section that defines as anti-Semitism language that “demonizes” Israel. It breaks down the term “demonizes” as: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions.”

In his testimony, Stern said that the tough standards he would apply in assessing whether a speech at the United Nations by Iran’s president was anti-Semitic should not devolve onto college freshmen. He said it would be especially cruel to young Jews still testing their boundaries within the community.

“Whether or not you can be an 18-year-old anti-Zionist and within the (Jewish) community is not a debate Congress should decide,” he said.
Proponents said that the bill would not inhibit speech because the definition would only be applied when assessing whether a Title VI-banned act — violence or a bid to shut off speech — was anti-Semitic, and not to anti-Semitic speech in and of itself.

“It wouldn’t raise First Amendment problems, it would only be triggered by harassment,” said Clement.

That, Stern said, was “disingenuous” — a federal statute would naturally inhibit speech. “When you prioritize a certain definition it has the weight of having Congress behind it,” he said.

Barry Trachtenberg, a Jewish studies professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, seemed to accuse proponents of the legislation of bad faith. “They are part of a persistent campaign to thwart scholarship, debate, and activism critical of Israel,” he said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper and the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt fired shots at Trachtenberg, and at Pamela Nadell, the president of the Association for Jewish Studies, saying that academics were not in the trenches. Cooper chided the committee for inviting them. “It’s like inviting people from the Flat Earth Society to a hearing about NASA,” he said. Greenblatt mocked them as being ensconced in an ivory tower.

Cooper seemed visibly uncomfortable, crowded next to Trachtenberg at the witness table, who kept staring at him. Cooper kept emphasizing that the Jewish leadership in its entirety backed the bill, seeming to sideline Stern’s organizational affiliation. At one point Cooper’s insistence that the entire Jewish community backed the bill drew a correction from Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who produced a letter from J Street U, the liberal Middle Eastern lobby’s campus affiliate, opposing the bill.

via U.S. Congress split over whether criticizing Israel constitutes anti-Semitism – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

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