Away from spotlight of national Conservative campaign, Jason Kenney runs another

2015/10/16 Leave a comment

Interesting list of commitments (not in the party platform), reinforcing the link between domestic (diaspora) politics and foreign policy:

He’s [Kenney] been going non-stop since the campaign began, he said, because despite all the inroads the Conservatives have made, demographics and shifting immigration patterns provide new opportunities for outreach.

“We’re not going to retain every vote we have in the last election but I think we’re doing very well,” he said.

He’s doing more, however, than just showing up.

Kenney has made several campaign promises in recent weeks that appear nowhere in the official Conservative campaign platform.

To the Sri Lankans, Kenney promised a promise to expand Canada’s high commission to the city of Jaffna, a provincial capital in that country whose population is mostly Tamil. The Tamil diaspora in Canada is among the largest in the world.

To Iranians, Kenney promised to make it easier for them to access consular services from Ottawa, as opposed to having to travel to Washington, D.C. Canada expelled Iranian diplomats from Ottawa in 2012, leaving the Iranian diaspora without access to services like passports or other government documents.

To the Armenian community, a pledge to opening trade and consular office in Yerevan, the country’s capital.

Armenian Canadians should “return the favour to the Conservative party and its candidates by voting and helping party candidates,” the head of the Armenian Canadian Conservative Association reportedly said, according to a post about the announcement on the HyeForum, an Armenian community website.

While not speaking specifically about those promises, Kenney said the Conservatives have their eye on getting diaspora communities more involved in foreign policy.

“Think tanks, foreign policy commentators say that Canada’s diversity is in principle a great strength for foreign and economic ties around the world and we have never really done that in a systematic way,” he said.

“So we’ve been trying to develop ways to more formally engage the large diaspora communities who are new Canadians to deepen ties with countries of origin.”

The Conservatives have come under considerable fire, however, for how closely they appear to link foreign policy to diaspora politics.

Since 2006, under the Conservatives, 1.6 million people became Canadian citizens, Kenney pointed out.

“There are new communities that have developed in large part since our government came to office and so that’s an advantage we did not have in the past.”

Those Canadians are looking for change just like everyone else, said Liberal John McCallum, and they are not responding well to what he calls the Conservatives’ divisive — and often entirely misleading — approach.

A recent set of ads appearing in the Chinese and Punjabi press asked readers whether Trudeau’s values — described as being about putting brothels in communities, allowing marijuana to be sold in corner stores and allowing drug injection sites in local neighbourhoods — none of those things are in the Liberal platform, McCallum said.

“It’s wrong, on principle, and it’s a sign of desperation.”

Source: Away from spotlight of national Conservative campaign, Jason Kenney runs another | National Newswatch

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Backward Bill Passed, but Vietnamese-Canadians Move Forward – New Canadian Media

2015/05/11 1 Comment

The contrary view to the Government’s support for one section of the Vietnamese Canadian community, by Dai Trang Nguyen:

Bill S-219 does not add anything good to the community, and it will continue to divide it. How backward that the bill still has a we-were-victims mentality rather than focusing on moving forward. Furthermore, this bill is an obstacle for Canadians who work in sectors or are interested in promoting Canada’s Global Markets Action Plan, International Education Strategy, or aid effectiveness agenda in Vietnam.

Let’s put Bill S-219 in an international context. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the US normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995. In 2015, the US is ready to build a better relationship with the government of Vietnam. A recent US policy prohibits the flying of the old Saigon flag and singing the old national anthem on federal property.

To the opposite, Canada decided to be friendlier with the old Saigon group, at the risk of upsetting a partner of more than just trade, and the minister of defence has draped the old Saigon symbol around his shoulders at Vietnamese events.

April 30 as a dark day is the view of only a few thousand South Vietnamese who lost their power and privileges. On the other hand, April 30 is North-South reunification day for ordinary Vietnamese-Canadians, including many refugees who arrived in 1979-80 and over 100,000 economic immigrants who landed after 1981, who longed for peace and prosperity.

We agree that the experience of 60,000 boat people from Vietnam and the generosity of Canadian people in accepting them should be acknowledged as part of Canadian history. Refugees would want to remember the date when they are accepted and land in a safe place. The appropriate date of commemoration is July 27 when the first flight landed in Toronto in 1979, and the title should be along the line of an appreciation of Canada by Vietnamese refugees.

What would happen if fictitious governments that no longer exist–such as the old Saigon regime–continue to be recognized in Canadian legislation?

Canadians who are interested in freedom and democracy might want to take a look at our community. The few thousand South Vietnamese who fled in 1975 seek to impose their old Saigon political view on the refugees and immigrants who came later. All other voices are suppressed using threats of red-baiting. Members who are not outspoken about their anti-communist view or who have any contact with the government of Vietnam are singled out and labelled “communist.”

But because of Bill S-219, many members who have put up with this old group for so long, now for the first time in 40 years, have mobilized among themselves and become active in their political life.

On April 30, we will celebrate our own journey to freedom day as we understand it. We understand that even in a democratic country like Canada, the Senate can deny opposing views to be heard; that our community has been imposed a political view by a small group for 40 years.

But after 40 years, our journey has reached a critical point to achieve the freedom we look for. We will celebrate this day as the day when we feel free to have our own views, despite the Conservative government’s attempt to take the side of the old Saigon group with this vote-grabbing bill.

Backward Bill Passed, but Vietnamese-Canadians Move Forward – New Canadian Media.

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Election Watch: Debunking the “Ethnic Vote” Strategy – New Canadian Media

2015/05/04 Leave a comment

While generally correct, this piece by Stephen E. White, Inder S. Marwah, and Phil Triadafilopoulos understates the degree of targeting – and micro-targeting – between and within ethnic communities. The current government’s approach, taking a more explicit side in any number of diaspora politics, is but one illustration:

New Canadians are no less savvy than the rest of the Canadian electorate. While it’s true that recent immigrants don’t have many years of experience with Canadian politics and elections, research also suggests they learn rather quickly.

There’s no reason, then, to think that parties’ targeted appeals to ethnic minority communities are any more effective than the strategies used to win the support of other kinds of voters.

Where does this leave us?  We can be sure the “ethnic vote” will figure prominently in political parties’ 2015-election campaigning. While the success of their efforts can in no way be assumed, the parties will undoubtedly compete for the support of new Canadians.

There’s no evidence that ethnic outreach actually works – but the parties believe it might, and this conviction shapes both electoral strategies and policy making.

Canadian political parties’ ongoing and ever more systematic efforts to compete for the votes of new Canadians helps explain why anti-immigrant discourse is so rare in Canadian elections and why Canadian parties, regardless of their ideological stripe, support robust immigration levels and the maintenance of an official multiculturalism policy.

Put differently, Canadian “exceptionalism” in the area of immigration politics and policy may have less to do with our innate civic virtues than with the strategic calculations of our political operators.

Election Watch: Debunking the “Ethnic Vote” Strategy – New Canadian Media.

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Conservatives rally for communism memorial as Vietnamese Canadians mark Journey to Freedom Day

2015/05/02 Leave a comment

Making the politics involved even more transparent:

Canada’s minister of state for democratic reform told a crowd of Vietnamese Canadians gathered to commemorate the inaugural Journey to Freedom Day that opposition to the prominent downtown site planned for a memorial for the victims of communism was “shameful” and that the controversial monument will get built.

“It is shameful that the Liberals and the NDP have come out against building this monument at this site, and it is shameful that some in the media have done the same. This is a worthy project, it is the right thing to do, and under the strong leadership of Prime Minister Harper, we will build this monument,” Pierre Poilievre told more than 500 people at a rally on the downtown site chosen for the monument across from the Supreme Court and fronting onto Wellington Street.

Poilievre’s sentiments were echoed by Ludwik Klimkowski, board chair for Tribute to Liberty, the group fundraising to build the monument.

The monument’s prominent location has drawn criticism and opposition from the likes of Mayor Jim Watson, Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky, Shirley Greenberg, an architect who was on the jury that chose the winning design, and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

Conservatives rally for communism memorial as Vietnamese Canadians mark Journey to Freedom Day | National Post.

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Minister Kenney issues statement on the passage of the Journey to Freedom Day Act – Vietnamese Diaspora Politics

2015/04/25 Leave a comment

More neutral and positive messaging than much of the anti-Communist focus of the Bill (Is the Divisive Bill on Vietnamese Refugees All About the Election?):

“The Journey to Freedom Day Act, which was introduced in the Senate in April 2014 by the Honourable Senator Thanh Hai Ngo, designates April 30 as a day to commemorate the thousands of Vietnamese ‘boat people’ Canada has welcomed since the end of the Vietnam War.

“Designating April 30 as an annual day of commemoration will give Canadians the opportunity to reflect on the journey of more than 60,000 Vietnamese refugees to Canada, to recognize the remarkable role Canadians played in helping them settle in their new home through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program, and to celebrate the contributions of Canadians of Vietnamese origin to our country.

“I encourage all Canadians to reflect on the heartbreaking and inspiring voyage of the Vietnamese boat people, which is an important part of our country’s history.”

Minister Kenney issues statement on the passage of the Journey to Freedom Day Act – Canada News Centre.

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Is the Divisive Bill on Vietnamese Refugees All About the Election?

2015/04/09 1 Comment

“Shopping for votes” and micro-targeting among Vietnamese Canadians, along with a mix of ideology:

Some observers say the bill is a textbook case of targeted political pandering for ethnic votes ahead of what is shaping up to be a close-fought federal election.

Alberta-based political strategist Stephen Carter says, “This is being done in essence to gather support from those people in the first generational subset. It absolutely is being done for votes, there is no other way around it.”

Veteran poll analyst Paul Barber says that, among multiple strategies that parties use to woo ethnic votes is the use of “overarching symbolic things that are connected to their homelands.”

Senator Ngo’s office refuted the accusation that the Senator’s intent with this bill was to play into ethnic politics, and said that he only wanted to have a day to commemorate the Vietnamese boat people’s saga and pay tribute to Canadians who assisted them.

But a former Liberal strategist told iPolitics that this scenario is typical of the Conservatives, who he says have a history of targeting subgroups within larger ethnic communities. “I think of Hong Kong Chinese versus mainland Chinese, I think of Sri Lankans, or people of Indian descent; Conservatives are good at targeting subgroups within immigrant communities.” he says.

Phil Triadafilopoulos, a professor of Political science at the University of Toronto who has researched the Conservative Party of Canada’s “ethnic outreach” strategies, also says that Canada’s electoral system facilitates these types of approaches. “With our electoral system, you don’t need everybody, you just need enough to win. Some of our communities have upward to 40, 50, 60% people who are on board. Never mind second generation.” he says.

As to those who wonder how the Conservative government is threading the thin line between courting communist Vietnam as a trade partner and commemorating those who fled its brutal communist regime, Carter says “You do it very carefully.”

Is the Divisive Bill on Vietnamese Refugees All About the Election? – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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Tories target diasporas in foreign-aid talk tour | Embassy – Canadas Foreign Policy Newspaper

2014/09/04 Leave a comment

Good piece in Embassy Magazine on some of the diaspora politics of the Government and “shopping for votes”:

Harper government members have reached out to immigrant communities in places where their numbers are strong: Haitians in Montreal; Ukrainians in Saskatoon and Winnipeg; Somalis in Edmonton; Asians in Vancouver and Surrey, BC; and people of Caribbean origin in Brampton, Ont., for instance.

They’ve dropped by the Calgary Afghan Charitable Society to announce money for UNICEF in Afghanistan; stepped on stage at a Vancouver festival, billed as the largest Filipino cultural event in Canada, to say they’re doling out $500,000 to help a conflict-affected island in the Philippines; and sat across from Ukrainian-Canadians at St. Vladimir Ukrainian cultural centre in Windsor, Ont.

…. Pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research said he saw the roundtables as part of the Conservatives’ broader “segmentation strategy” to piece together a winning coalition.

“This is quite, what I’ll say, niche politics: where one single group will not put them over the top, but a combination of successful outreach initiatives to these groups could incrementally help the Conservatives,” he said.

He pointed to the government’s staunch support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, for instance.

“There are ridings in Saskatchewan where in very close races, a one, two, three or four per cent shift of public opinion in favour of the Conservatives can just make it a little better for them in that particular riding,” he said.

Tories target diasporas in foreign-aid talk tour | Embassy – Canadas Foreign Policy Newspaper.

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Glavin: What’s so wrong with involving diasporas in foreign policy?

2014/08/29 1 Comment

Terry Glavin on diaspora politics:

Here’s the thing. Even if these claims are true, so what?

Parliament obtained full foreign-affairs sovereignty from Britain only with the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931. I can’t seem to find the codicil stipulating that foreign-policy jurisdiction was to be transferred only to wheezy Upper Canada diplocrats, yesteryear UN ambassadors, boring Middle Eastern Studies grad students and the twilight alumni of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

Canada is a bustling multicultural democracy. One fifth of Canadians are foreign-born. With dozens of diaspora communities, Canada is blessed with an invaluable foreign-policy resource of experts, global networks, deep wells of human intelligence, and — heaven forbid — ballot-box moxy. Where better to turn for guidance and close consultation?

Three years ago, the Mosaic Institute and the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation undertook an in-depth analysis of the potential for Canada’s diaspora communities to more directly and usefully inform foreign policy. The government hasn’t paid it much attention, but what’s worth noticing here is that the authors of the “Tapping Our Potential” study straight away encountered a cynical old-guard view that the whole idea was a bad one to start with. There was a “general skepticism” in foreign-policy circles, “a view, in other words, that foreign policy is best left to the experts.”

Glavin, of course, cites the examples of diaspora politics he agrees with: Ukraine and Israel, but only makes a passing message to those he disagrees with (China).

Ethnic communities have a natural interest in events in their “homeland.” Canada, as a democracy, naturally responds to those interests, as it does to other interests as I argued in my take on diaspora politics (Shopping for Votes Can Undermine Canada’s Fine Balance).

But responding does not necessarily mean adopting wholesale the position of a particular community. This has to be balanced against other Canadian interests.

And what about diasporas that the Government or Canadians do not want to support? What is the criteria? The ideology of the Government of the day? The political strength of the community? The presence or absence of economic or other interests? Do we simply accept the leading community organizations as being fully representative of the community? And how do we balance – or should we – competing diaspora interests?

So, the question is not, as Glavin frames it as turning “away from the talents, insights and leadership in this country’s diaspora communities.” On the contrary, we can and should continue to listen and engage with them.

But the harder issue, which Glavin ignores, is how to balance these diaspora interests against other equally legitimate Canadian interests?

Glavin: What’s so wrong with involving diasporas in foreign policy? | Ottawa Citizen.

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Vietnamese government fears Black April Day bill would open up old wounds

2014/07/31 Leave a comment

Vietnamese diaspora politics on how to commemorate the events following the fall of Saigon. Not surprisingly, the Conservatives favour an approach that links it to their general approach to events related to Communism; others favour an approach that focuses more on the Canadian story of welcoming Vietnamese refugees:

Conservative Senator Thanh Ngo sponsored the Black April Day Act, currently at second reading in the Senate.

“It has the general aim of bringing the attention of all Canadians to the events and suffering that followed the fall of Saigon after the Vietnam War in 1975. It would also shed light on the fundamental role that Canadians played in rescuing and welcoming thousands of Vietnamese refugees,” says a page on Mr. Ngo’s website that promotes the bill.

“Too little is known about the struggles and the atrocities that followed the devastating Vietnamese war,” Mr. Ngo told the Senate on April 30 of this year.

Too few Canadians are aware of Canada’s diplomatic work serving on international truce commissions during the Vietnam War, he said.

The war ended on April 30, 1975 with the fall of the then-southern capital, Saigon, to Northern forces. Mr. Ngo arrived in Canada as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 after working as a diplomat for the government of South Vietnam prior to the fall of its capital. He was unavailable for an interview, spokesperson Tanya Wood wrote in an email.

Mr. Ngo’s experience contrasts with that of Mr. Vu, whose father and brother fought for the Communist forces that would prevail in the war.

Vietnamese loyal to the prevailing North suffered during the war as well, said Mr. Vu. He said an explosion killed his grandmother while she sat in an improvised bomb shelter during the Christmas bombing campaign in 1972.

“Everything was leveled, only a bomb crater was seen,” he said

If passed, the Black April Day Act would bring up bad blood remaining from the war among Vietnamese at home and abroad, he said.

“The war [gave] a lot of wounds to us, to Vietnam, and we have been trying to make every effort to heal the war wounds. So we think that opening up these wounds, that [does] not help, and it only causes continuing hatred and division from inside the country and outside,” he said.

Canada’s government has been supportive of Vietnamese reconciliation efforts in the years since the war, he said, something for which the government of Vietnam is grateful.

Vietnamese government fears Black April Day bill would open up old wounds | Embassy – Canada’s Foreign Policy Newspaper.

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Justin Trudeau can’t ignore domestic concerns in foreign policy

2014/05/23 Leave a comment

John Ibbitson on diaspora politics and how that will influence any future Liberal government’s foreign policy. He is right, of course, that all Canadian governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, respond to diaspora concerns, always have, and always will, and the change is more in the number and relative influence of diasporas, rather than the principle. Democracy, as he notes, responds to interests; the more organized, cohesive and large the diaspora, the more the influence. We are living in a “shopping for votes” world.

But what he and others get wrong is the assumption that diaspora voters are single issue voters (some are, most likely not) and that they all share the same views on diaspora issues. There is political diversity within ethnic communities with respect to both domestic and international issues. Of course, for every diaspora pushing one perspective another exists with an opposing one (e.g., Canadian Jews and Arab Canadians, Armenian and Turkish Canadians etc):

“Diasporas are a huge problem in foreign policy,” he observed. Immigrants’ unwillingness to sever political ties with their homeland “is a problem with diasporas everywhere,” he added. The duty of political leaders is to transcend the “old views” of immigrant communities and craft a responsible, enlightened foreign policy, something Mr. Westall believes the Harper government has conspicuously failed to do.

Mr. Westall is absolutely right. Canadian Tamils influence Conservative foreign policy toward Sri Lanka; Canadian Sikhs influence Conservative foreign policy toward India; Chinese Canadians influence the Harper government’s approach to China; Ukrainian Canadians influence the Harper government’s approach to Ukraine.

But what would you expect? When Canada’s population was mostly of French, English, Irish and Scottish descent, does anyone believe our foreign policy was anything other than diaspora-driven?

Forgive this repetition, but over the past two decades we have imported the equivalent of two Torontos-worth of immigrants, almost all of them from what used to be called the Third World. Any political party that wants to succeed must earn their support. Political parties that lose the immigrant vote lose the election.

The Liberals believe that they can reconnect with Canada’s immigrant community without pandering to parochial concerns. They believe they can improve Canada’s reputation abroad and revitalize the Canadian economy through trade while recognizing the hard realities of today’s global environment.

If so, Mr. Trudeau’s supporters may be surprised to discover that Canada’s foreign policy under his leadership is essentially what it was under the Conservatives, but with softer language and a warmer smile.

Again, governments of any stripe make policy choices of which diasporas to support, and which organizations within each diaspora. How they express that support, how they manage it, and how they dismiss an opposing diaspora’s concern, however, can make a difference.

The Government has chosen a more muscular approach in articulating these choices. In some cases, this is appropriate, in others, “softer language and a warmer smile” may be more effective to “harsher language and a cooler scowl” both domestically and internationally.

Justin Trudeau can’t ignore domestic concerns in foreign policy – The Globe and Mail.

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