The perils of counterterror overreach – Yakabuski

2015/02/03 Leave a comment

Valid points by Konrad Yakabuski:

Since the attacks, there have been more than 200 similar outbursts among students, mostly Muslim teenagers protesting during a new mandatory moment of silence in public schools in memory of the January terror victims. The French government’s response to this backlash from minority students is a 250-million-euro plan to enhance the teaching of “the values of the Republic” in public schools.

The measures also include designating Dec. 9 as a new official “Day of Secularism” in honour of the 1905 law enshrining the separation of church and state. The same law guarantees freedom of religion, but that aspect gets short shrift from the French establishment and opinion-makers, for whom the law is primarily a guarantee of freedom from religion.

If France was really being true to its republican values, however, it would be celebrating its pluralism after the attacks. The reason French law bans the collection of census data on race, ethnicity and religion is not because the state is supposed to be officially blind to such distinctions; at its origin, the law was meant to shield minorities from discrimination.

Faced with a growing Muslim minority and what Prime Minister Manuel Valls recently called a “territorial, social, ethnic apartheid,” France’s adherence to its own values is being challenged. Many French believe Islam and republicanism are incompatible. But what’s really incompatible are republicanism and anti-terror laws that criminalize unrepublican opinions.

Canada is facing largely the same challenge as France. Let’s hope we strike a better balance.

The perils of counterterror overreach – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Radicalization, Security Tagged with , ,

A distinctly Canadian oath – I’ll swear to that – Yakabuski

2014/08/18 Leave a comment

Konrad Yakabuski, in an otherwise good overview of the Canadian oath of citizenship, misplaces the question of the oath with the question of being a republic.

“Constitutional monarchy is the best form of government that humanity has yet tried,” Dylan Matthews concluded in an empirical report, published last year in The Washington Post. “It has yielded rich, healthy nations whose regime transitions are almost always due to elections and whose heads of state are capable of being truly apolitical.”I’ll swear to that.

After all, Australia changed its citizenship oath while remaining a constitutional monarchy:

From this time forward, under God (under God optional),

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,

whose democratic beliefs I share,

whose rights and liberties I respect, and

whose laws I will uphold and obey.

A distinctly Canadian oath – I’ll swear to that – The Globe and Mail.

The Star, argues the opposite from Yakabuski, noting Australia as above and the UK change for new citizens to  “give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms,” in addition to swearing allegiance to the Queen:

But that doesn’t mean the oath to the Queen cannot — or should not — be changed by the people and their Parliament. The very principles symbolized by the Crown guarantee the right of all Canadians to work through the constitutional system for this kind of political reform.

In fact, the oath of allegiance can — and should — be changed. Not because it violates any newcomer’s private political beliefs. It should be changed because a straightforward declaration of loyalty to Canada, its laws and traditions would be much more meaningful to the quarter million who choose this country every year.

Adopting an oath of allegiance to Canada would not affect the Canadian monarchy one bit. Elizabeth II would remain the Queen of Canada, and the Crown would remain the symbol of our constitutional, democratic system.

New citizens should pledge loyalty to Canada: Editorial

 

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Alexander blasts critics of immigration bill as C-24 goes to second reading

2014/05/29 2 Comments

On the eve of Second Reading of C-24 Citizenship Act revisions, a broadside by Minister Alexander against the critics of the Bill.

Not quite in the Pierre Polievre school of how to promote your Bill, but quite remarkable given Alexander’s previous career as a diplomat where language was more nuanced, to say the least (see Konrad Yakabuski’s earlier profile Chris Alexander balances his portfolio and power).

Always unfortunate when a Minister feels more comfortable attacking those opposed to legislation as hypocrites, rather than arguing the merits of the Bill.

But the opposition also has some responsibility. While active in Committee, there is by no means the same focussed attention on C-24 as there was for Bill C-23 (elections), C-13 (cyberbullying and surveillance) and the ongoing Temporary Foreign Workers controversy. Opposition parties also make choices on how hard to push issues on both policy and political grounds. Their calculation appears to favour more pro-forma opposition, albeit based upon legitimate concerns over some aspects of the Bill, rather than a more high profile effort. Unless I have missed it, have not heard either opposition leader say much on C-24:

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander is accusing the opposition of “folly and hypocrisy” as the government prepares to shepherd its controversial citizenship bill over its next legislative hurdle.

“Both the Liberals and the NDP remain offside with Canadians who recognize the immense value of Canadian citizenship and the importance of protecting its integrity,” Alexander said in a statement.

“It is shameful that activist immigration lawyers, who never miss an opportunity to criticize our governments citizenship and immigration reforms, are attempting to drum up business by promoting the interests of convicted terrorists and serious criminals over the safety and security of Canadians.”

As to the “drumming up business” line, all of those supporting or opposing the Bill do so from their perspective, values and interests. This does not necessarily diminish the value of their comments, for or against.

And while some elements of C-24 may “reduce the business” for immigration and refugee lawyers (i.e., revocation for fraud at Ministerial discretion, rather than the courts), other may “drum up business”  (i.e., revocation for terror and treason). Somewhat ironic to say the least.

Last night’s somewhat perfunctory Parliamentary debate at Second Reading allows C-24 to proceed to a vote today.

We will see how the next stages proceed and whether the Government will consider any changes to the Bill (some C-24 supporters recommended some process changes). In any case, the Bill will make it through by the summer recess.

Alexander blasts critics of immigration bill as C-24 goes to second reading.

Filed under C-24, Citizenship, Citizenship Act Tagged with , , , ,

Job-vacancy rate plunges as Tories drop Kijiji data – Evidence vs Anecdote

2014/05/06 1 Comment

A reminder that bad and incomplete data can lead to bad policy decisions and arguments, as exemplified by the over-stating of labour shortages and justification for programs like Temporary Foreign Workers.

Employment and Social Development Canada recently revised its Employment Insurance, Monitoring and Assessment report to take out weak data from on-line sites like Kijiji (see earlier post How Kijiji’s data threw off Ottawa’s math on skills shortages – The Globe and Mail):

“There’s isn’t really any good data out there. Online postings are online postings. How well can you clean those up?” he [Mostafa Askari] asked, pointing out the need to avoid double counting jobs or counting jobs that have been filled but were not taken offline. He said the solution would be to give Statistics Canada more money to improve its research on job vacancies, which are based on surveys of employers.

“I think Statscan can definitely provide better data if they have the means to,” he said. “I assume they are obviously under budget constraints as well. So they have to put that as a priority but they won’t do it unless there’s pressure on them to provide that kind of information.”

Job-vacancy rate plunges as Tories drop Kijiji data – The Globe and Mail.

Konrad Yakabuski’s take on the problem with big data and lack of rigour in analysis:

Yet, if Mr. Kenney and his advisers are guilty of anything, it is of falling victim to the same social media hype that has led many data enthusiasts to spurn official statistics as oh-so yesterday. Want to know if the flu is headed your way or the housing market is set to take off? Why, go to Google Trends. Forget the official unemployment rate. Just track “lost my job” on Twitter.

The idea that the trillions of bytes of data we generate on social media are equipping policy-makers with vast new predictive powers is all the rage these days. Official statistics, the kind compiled by bureaucrats through scientifically tested surveys and representative samples, seem to bore the geeks. But they get all hot and bothered at the mere mention of the word algorithm….

This is but one example of how big data can lead to misguided policy. Mr. Kenney’s Kijiji snafu is another. You’d think this would make people cautious. But in our insatiable desire to make sense out of an increasingly complex world, we are turning evermore to big data to sort it out.

The latest trend is “data journalism” with The New York Times and several upstart media outlets hiring an army of twentysomething computer geeks to massage the numbers in order to spot trends, predict elections and provide funky, counterintuitive insights in the vein of Freakonomics.

The problem is that much of what they report is probably wrong, or at least tendentious. The Upshot, The Times feature launched April 22, has come under fire for stories that either read too much into the data or leave too much out. “First-rate analysis requires more than pretty graphs based on opaque manipulations of data unsuited to address the central substantive points,” prominent U.S. political scientist Larry Bartels wrote in response to one piece on Southern politics.

The most common sin in data journalism is making spurious correlations. Just because Google searches of the term “mortgage” have closely tracked Canadian housing sales in the past two years means nothing on its own.

Big data’s noise is drowning out the signal

A final irony, the final report of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service comes out at the same time as these news reports, affirming the need for outside information and discounting the value of more objective surveys:

New sources of information and data have shaken up the process of providing advice to government, he [David Emerson] said, and the public service is adapting to accept data from outside Statistics Canada or other traditional sources.

“I think we made some real progress in helping public servants to open up and I think political staff now have access to a lot of that same information, so there are checks and balances that I think are a little sharper-edged than they were perhaps in the past,” he said.

While I don’t disagree with opening up, we also need to learn the lessons from Kijiji jobs data, ensure better quality control and analysis, and strengthen the role of official statistics and Statistics Canada.

PS thinking more about the digital revolution: Emerson

Filed under Government, Public Policy Tagged with , ,

Can we really wash our hands of extremist dual nationals?

2014/04/19 Leave a comment

Konrad Yakabuski on C-24’s proposed revocation measures for terrorism-related crimes, calling for serious debate on the implications, given recent US and UK revelations regarding US drone strikes on former UK citizens whose citizenship was revoked. See also Chris Selley’s Actually, my citizenship is a right | National Post.

Will be interesting to see if the debate within Committee focuses on the long-standing principle since Diefenbaker that a citizen is a citizen, whether born in Canada or naturalized, or more on due process and rule of law in any referrals to the Federal Court seeking revocation.

Still, C-24 is not perfect. Its proposal to strip dual nationals convicted of terror-related crimes of their Canadian citizenship warrants serious scrutiny in light of recent revelations by the British news media. If the intent is to ease CIA drone strikes, or the extradition to the United States of terrorist suspects living abroad, MPs should think long and hard about what that means for Canada.

Mr. Alexander has said he is “confident” that many of the 130 Canadians believed to be fighting with extremist groups abroad are dual nationals. Revoking their citizenship while they’re outside the country could prevent them from ever returning to Canada. This country would effectively absolve itself of their fate, even though some of them may have been born here…

Mr. Alexander has insisted that “the courts will play a very important role” in the process of revoking the Canadian citizenship of a dual national convicted of terrorism. That’s an improvement over the British system, where most of the power lies with the Home Secretary. But is it enough? The Commons citizenship committee needs to ask Mr. Alexander some tough questions.

Can we really wash our hands of extremist dual nationals? – The Globe and Mail

Or, given the “shopping for votes” culture, opposition parties focus more on fee increases and increased residency requirements.

Filed under C-24, Citizenship, Citizenship Act, Revocation Tagged with

Nenshi to Quebeckers: Come to Calgary, we don’t care how you worship – The Globe and Mail

2013/09/02 Leave a comment

Many of originally from Toronto have Mayor envy, and here is another illustration why Mayor Nenshi continues to show leadership on a wide range of issues, unlike the sadness of Toronto’s Rob Ford.

Nenshi to Quebeckers: Come to Calgary, we don’t care how you worship – The Globe and Mail.

And Konrad Yakabuski notes the masterful political, cynical and polarizing game of identity politics played by PQ Premier Marois as she tries to create winning conditions for the next election by uniting the “progressive” secularists” in the cities and the conservative traditionalists in the hinterland. Sad if it works.

 Marois plays a masterful game of identity politics 

Filed under Charte des valeurs québécoise, Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , ,

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