Articles of interest: Government and politics

2023/12/08 Leave a comment

More of a grab bag:

Wernick: The pay-as-you-go proposal on cutting federal spending not as simple as advocates say

Michael continues to provide interesting commentary based up his experience in government:

There are two interpretations of what pay-go legislation could mean in Canada. One is that the proponents know it is just for show – a form of fiscal virtue signalling – and they have no intention of applying it with any rigour. The future would be full of exemptions, waivers and extensions. It makes the base happy and looks like decisiveness. But it isn’t serious.

The other possibility is that it is serious and would at regular intervals create a hot mess for future governments and for future fiscal choices. It isn’t going to deliver more effective government to let an algorithm stack the deck, distort the options, create unnecessary and artificial crises, and stealthily erode those parts of government that don’t have political and media champions.

So, which is it – empty virtue signalling or a hot mess of fiscal distortion? We can do better, either way.

Any political party that wants to take real action on restraining spending should do it in a serious way: Let Canadians know before the election what it considers cuttable and what it considers a priority. Once in office set up a deliberative process. The 1990s program review would be my starting point for designing the next one.

What is essential and what is discretionary in government spending is a political judgment informed by ideologies and values – a judgment that must be responsive over time to new facts and realities.

There are many better ways for democratically elected politicians to approach spending restraint and to achieve it. Pay-go legislation isn’t a good one and should be discarded before the platforms for the next election are written – after which it will be difficult to turn back.

Source: The pay-as-you-go proposal on cutting federal spending not as simple as advocates say

Buruma: Geert Wilders may have shock value, but he harbours an ‘outsider’ rage we’ve seen before

Of note:

Mr. Wilders may not be a fascist, but his obsession with sovereignty, national belonging, and cultural and religious purity has a long lineage among outsiders. Ultra-nationalists often emerge from the periphery – Napoleon from Corsica, Joseph Stalin from Georgia, Hitler from Austria. Those who long to be insiders frequently become implacable enemies of people who are farther away from the centre than they are.

Source: Geert Wilders may have shock value, but he harbours an ‘outsider’ rage we’ve seen before

Kurl: Pierre Poilievre needs to choose his words much more carefully

Yes, the risks are there:

The last six weeks have brought out the worst in us. Bomb threats and shootings at Jewish schools. Calls for doxxing, censure and harassment of students and faculty who sympathize with Palestinians and ceasefire calls. In Toronto alone, police are reporting 17 incidents of Islamophobic or anti-Palestinian hate crimes since Oct. 7 (compared to just one in the same period in 2022). Antisemitic hate crimes numbered 38 (last year it was 13 in the same period) and now comprise half of all hate crimes reported to Toronto police since Oct. 7.

At such a fraught time, leadership from Poilievre would see his words about these highly sensitive issues focused on appealing to Canadians’ better natures, not further driving them into suspicion and division.

But will the opposition leader and his strategists do this? We are not so far removed from the failed Conservative campaign of 2015, notorious for its “barbaric cultural practices” tip line. The director of that disastrous campaign is reportedly tipped to direct the upcoming one.

Poilievre and the Conservatives for now, anyway, have the support of a plurality of Canadians. They need to start acting like it means something to them.

Shachi Kurl is President of the Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation.

Source: Kurl: Pierre Poilievre needs to choose his words much more carefully

May: Chief information officer Catherine Luelo resigns from job revamping federal tech

Doesn’t bode well:

Private sector executives, unfamiliar with the culture and complexity of operations, have historically had rough time making the adjustment, said Michael Wernick, a former clerk of the privy council and now the Jarislowsky chair of public sector management at the University of Ottawa.

He said the government has never resolved how technology should be managed. Is it a single service with common standards, interoperability and cybersecurity? Or is it a loose federation of 300 departments and agencies where deputy heads and managers have autonomy? It now operates with both philosophies, depending on the agency.

Source: Chief information officer Catherine Luelo resigns from job revamping federal tech

Filed under Government Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Angus Reid Survey: Islamophobia in Canada-Four mindsets indicate negativity is nationwide, most intense in Quebec

2023/03/16 Leave a comment

No real surprises as similar findings in other surveys. But an evidence-based riposte to criticism of Shachi Kurl’s (ED of Angus Reid) for raising anti-muslim attitudes in Quebec during the 2021 election debate:

A new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds unfavourable views of Islam prevalent across the country at varying levels and highest in Quebec.

Indeed, two-in-five Canadians outside of Quebec (39%) hold an unfavourable view of Islam. In Quebec that number reaches half (52%). These views take more concrete forms, however, than just the overall sentiment that the religion receives. Its followers face the risk of being unwelcome in a number of areas of Canadian society.

To clarify the picture further, the Angus Reid Institute created the “Views of Islam Index”. Respondents were asked six questions about five religions – Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Judaism. The dimensions measured included:

  • Feeling favourable or unfavourable about the religion
  • Support or opposition to people wearing distinctive religious symbols in public
  • Levels of comfort with working in the same space where colleagues wore these symbols
  • Support or opposition to the establishment of different places of worship in their neighbourhood
  • Acceptance of a child marrying a member of one of these religions.

For the purpose of this analysis and given the ongoing discussion about the level of Islamophobia in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, responses to this national survey were analyzed according to the level of positivity or negativity towards Muslims across all six question areas. Four groups were created, those with Very Positive, Positive, Negative, and Very Negative views of Islam.

A comparison of Quebec with the rest of Canada reveals stark differences. Outside of Quebec, Very Positive and universally accepting views of Muslims and their religious symbols are evident in 37 per cent of the population. A further one-quarter (27%) hold generally positive views but not in all circumstances assessed in the study. On the other end of the spectrum 16 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec hold Very Negative views on Islam and religious practices of this faith in nearly every circumstance assessed in the survey.

In Quebec, positive views are more muted but still represent almost half the attitudinal landscape with one-in-five (20%) displaying Very Positive views and a further one-quarter (25%) on the generally positive side of the index.

That said, the largest segment of the population in Quebec (30%) displays Very Negative views toward Islam. The level is about twice that observed in the rest of the country (16%). This “Very Negative” segment in Quebec is similar to the group of the same name in the rest of Canada with one important exception: among this group in Quebec there is a distinct level of negativity towards Judaism and Christianity that is less prevalent elsewhere in the country.

Amid this, Quebec’s Bill 21 continues to be supported by more than half in that province (57%). That law, which prohibits the wearing of religious symbols for individuals in certain public positions of authority while they are on the worksite, is unpopular in the rest of the country with one-in-four (25%) supporting the concept for their own province and two-thirds (65%) opposing it.

Cliquez ici pour lire le rapport complet en français

More Key Findings:

  • Asked whether Canada has a problem with Islamophobia more broadly, Canadians are evenly divided, with 50 per cent saying it does and 50 per cent saying it does not. Those most likely to view Islam negatively, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada alike, are also most likely to say there is no problem.
  • There is some correlation between age and education when it comes to the Views of Islam Index. Older Canadians are more likely to be in the Very Negative group than younger ones while younger Canadians are more likely to be in the Very Positive group. As well, half of the Very Negative group has a high school diploma or less, while the Very Positive group is much more likely to have graduated from university than other segments.
  • More than two-in-five (44%) Canadians believe it is unnecessary to have a special representative on combatting Islamophobia, a position recently appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This view is the overwhelming majority one (82%) of those who have Very Negative views of Islam.
  • Seven-in-ten outside of Quebec (72%) support the wearing of the hijab in public spaces, while 28 per cent oppose it. In Quebec, slightly more than half (55%) are supportive, while 45 per cent voice opposition. In Greater Montreal support for the hijab rises to 63 per cent, while it drops to 46 per cent in the rest of Quebec.

Source: Islamophobia in Canada: Four mindsets indicate negativity is nationwide, most intense in Quebec

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

EDITORIAL: The question you can’t ask in Canada

2021/10/04 Leave a comment

Good editorial in the Toronto Sun:

It says a lot that the most talked about moment in the leaders’ debate since Brian Mulroney nailed John Turner in 1984 for not rescinding Pierre Trudeau’s patronage appointments, had nothing to do with anything the leaders said.

Instead, it was the controversy over a question asked by debate moderator Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, to BQ leader Yves-Francois Blanchet about Quebec’s controversial language and secularism laws.

The essence of their exchange was this:

Kurl: “You deny that Quebec has problems with racism. Yet you defend legislation such as Bills 96 and 21, which marginalize religious minorities, anglophones, and allophones. For those outside the province, please help them understand why your party also supports these discriminatory laws.”

Blanchet: “The question seems to imply the answer you want. Those laws are not about discrimination, they are about the values of Quebec … we are saying that those are legitimate laws that apply on Quebec territory … which is again, by itself, for Quebec.”

So, asked and answered. Except in Canada.

The post debate reaction — the criticism being that by even asking the question Kurl was falsely suggesting Quebecers are racists — was a sight to behold.

Everybody was upset. Blanchet was upset. Quebec Premier François Legault was upset. Pundits were upset. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh were upset — albeit belatedly since they didn’t raise any concerns when the exchange occurred.

Never mind that a Quebec judge had previously ruled Bill 21 is discriminatory, cruel and dehumanizing to Muslim women and others, but constitutionally valid due to the province’s use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.

Recently in the Globe and Mail Kurl wrote a column sensibly refusing to apologize.

But the most interesting part was Kurl explaining that, “every question was reviewed by the debate’s editorial team, which included representatives from all the networks that organized and produced it — CBC, CTV, Global and APTN. More than a dozen senior journalists and news executives had seen and vetted the questions I asked …”

Knowing that makes the spectacle of everyone running for the hills after the question was asked downright hilarious.

Source: EDITORIAL: The question you can’t ask in Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , , ,

Shachi Kurl on the question [Quebec discrimination in Bills 21 and 96]

2021/09/27 Leave a comment

Good rebuttal to the unfair criticism and cravenness of Canadian federal leaders:

The question to Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet created a controversy in Quebec, taking on a narrative and a legend of its own. It led the National Assembly to censure me, cartoonists to ridicule me and party leaders to demand an apology.

So here was the question: “You deny that Quebec has problems with racism. Yet you defend legislation such as Bills 96 and 21, which marginalize religious minorities, anglophones, and allophones. For those outside the province, please help them understand why your party also supports these discriminatory laws.”

To those asking me to take it all back: I stand by the question. Unequivocally.

I stand by it because the question gave Mr. Blanchet the opportunity to talk to people outside Quebec, about secularism, about laïcité. He could have shared the Quebec perspective with the rest of Canada. He chose not to.

I stand by it because the Quebec government has or signalled it will override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect Bills 21 and 96 from legal challenges over discrimination. And because the National Assembly included provisions in Bill 21 and 96 to override the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, leaving many Quebeckers feeling vulnerable and as Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard put it in regard to Bill 21, dehumanized.

I stand by it because what does it say about the state of our democracy that a question is deemed unaskable? Who gets to decide which issues are appropriate to discuss during a federal election campaign? What does it really say about the convictions of our political leaders when they choose to make me a target to divert from their own position on a critical issue of personal freedom?

What does it say about journalism when seasoned reporters and political commentators were shocked that I dared to “go there?” Is the state of our federation so weak that we cannot even raise questions about it?

Alexander Tytler, the 17th-century Scottish philosopher, wrote democracy lasts only about 200 years. A quote commonly attributed to him says that part of the cycle moves from courage to liberty, then to abundance, to selfishness, to complacency, then apathy, and eventually back to bondage. I hope we are not on the downslope of this cycle.

During my silence – appropriate during the election campaign – people encouraged me to educate myself about Quebec. I don’t live there, but I have spent time in places like the Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean and La Malbaie. Operating entirely in French, I experienced a lasting immersion in Québécois pride and history, and in Quebeckers’ outlook on secularism, survival and the strong desire to maintain culture and language. Learning is never finished.

I have heard and listened to what people have said about the question, and the hurt it caused in Quebec. Could it have been phrased differently? Yes. Do I ultimately believe a change in wording would have prevented Mr. Blanchet, Quebec Premier François Legault, and party leaders Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh from exploiting it all for their own purposes? No.

Becoming the story was not a life goal. Yet what happened was just craven politics. What else would Mr. Blanchet have done in the midst of a sagging campaign? Politically, it made sense that Mr. O’Toole, Mr. Trudeau, and Mr. Singh piled on in order to protect their Quebec campaigns rather than stand on principle.

Other things were a little harder to take. Columnists wrote that I was “aggressive,” or “shrill,” likening my tone to that of a “mom,” using “chains” to keep order. The only square they didn’t blot on that particular bingo card appears to be “nasty woman.”

But this isn’t about them. It’s about Canadians. I did the debate as a public service, not to earn gold stars. Some people didn’t like it or didn’t like my style. That’s okay. Polling from our own organization found that 53 per cent of older men found the debate engaging, I’ll take that split. It is notable that number rose to 65 per cent among women 18 to 34. Past, meet the future.

For all the disagreement, and there has been a lot, I’ve had thousands of messages of appreciation from across the country, including Quebec. Notes of thanks for not taking the leaders talking points at face value. People who wrote saying they don’t usually watch the whole debate, but did that night with their children. Teenagers who talked about the debate in class and concluded I was “badass.” Women thanking me for being prepared, fierce, professional and strong.

On the way out of Ottawa, I stopped in Toronto, where I was met at the hotel door by a bellman.

“I think I saw you the other night.” Here we go, I thought to myself.

“And what did you think?”

“It was great!” I could tell he had more to say. He was holding back.

“Look, it’s okay. I can take it.”

“I just want to tell you … I just … I’m really glad you asked that question.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-i-was-asked-to-apologize-for-my-question-in-the-leaders-debate-i-stand/?utm_campaign=David%20Akin%27s%20🇨🇦%20Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Filed under discrimination, Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , , , ,

Kurl: Quebec’s – and Canada’s – tolerance for religious symbols remains selective

2018/12/10 Leave a comment

Useful reminder:

As battle lines are drawn over the Coalition Avenir Quebec’s promised ban on public servants wearing religious garments or articles at work, it’s instructive to separate generalities from specifics.

When Quebecers are asked general questions such as “do you support a ban” on public employees in positions of authority wearing religious symbols at work, two-thirds say yes. But when asked specifically which symbols would be unacceptable for said public employees at work, it appears what they’re really saying is they support a ban on non-Judeo-Christian symbols.

This is a key distinction, because some observers take this majority support on the general question as a sign the province – and the rest of the country – is becoming more secular. Indeed, Quebec Premier François Legault himself wraps his plans in words such as “secularism” and “neutrality.” Public sentiment, however, is anything but “neutral.”

While most Quebec residents support the provincial government’s proposal overall, our polling data also show that majorities believe public employees should be allowed to wear a crucifix or a Star of David on the job (73 per cent and 68 per cent, respectively). Indeed, polling further indicates Quebecers are nearly twice as likely to want to see the crucifix in Quebec’s National Assembly stay put as to see it removed.

Quebecers aren’t alone in this thinking. Majorities in all other provinces are also more amenable to the display of Judeo-Christian symbols in the workplace. But where the province differs from the rest of the country is that while more than half say “non” to public servants wearing the Muslim hijab (57 per cent) and the Sikh turban (55 per cent), majorities in the rest of the country (between 70 and 80 per cent, depending on the province) have little issue with it.

These general opinion trends aren’t new. But Legault now represents the fourth premier (the CAQ the third governing political party) to try such a moratorium. Beyond legal challenges, there’s a reason his predecessors, while never explicitly abandoning the idea, also never quite got around to making it happen.

In a province where Catholic nuns have a centuries-old tradition in health care, is any political party in Quebec willing to apply its own ban evenly and tell them they can no longer provide comfort to hospital patients while in habit? In a province where the first Jewish synagogue was established in the 1760s, will this government politically survive telling a public school teacher to remove his kippah?

Meanwhile, it’s not like the rest of the country is completely tolerant of minority religious symbols. If there is something that “unifies” people across Canada, it is opposition to and discomfort with three specific articles of faith identified with the Sikh and Muslim religions. Regardless of where people live, most don’t think the burqa and the niqab – worn by some Muslim women – or the kirpan, the ceremonial dagger worn by some Orthodox Sikhs, should be worn by public servants in their own provinces.

Many would use these general opinions towards a religious symbol ban as evidence Canada is becoming more hostile to religion. But in fact, more people are inclined to see the general role and contributions of religious and faith groups to Canadian society as good than bad. Instead, the sobering reality is this hostility is reserved for some garments and symbols associated with specific religions.

In a country that often prides itself on acceptance of different cultures and ways of life, this can seem depressing. But a silver lining could exist in the views of the next generation. Times change. Nearly three decades ago, this country was gripped by a divisive debate over whether turbaned Sikhs should be able to serve in the RCMP and armed forces. Today that debate is over. And today, it is younger people – both in and outside Quebec – who are more permissive towards all articles of faith being worn in public workplaces. For more than a decade, a province and a country has exhausted itself talking about these issues. Maybe, a generation from now, the debate will be over.

Source: Kurl: Quebec’s – and Canada’s – tolerance for religious symbols remains selective

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Kurl: Canadians are now confronting how generous we really are

2018/05/10 Leave a comment

While overall support for immigration remains high, and Canadians believe in the economic benefits of immigration, valid to ask how these macro numbers will continue to hold up should the asylum seeker numbers continue to grow and the government measures, current and likely those under consideration, do not result in a decline:

This is soon to be our summer of our discontent, disagreement and discomfort, as Canadians watch increasing numbers of people claiming asylum try their luck at undesignated border crossings

Discontent over Justin Trudeau’s government’s handling of the file. Disagreement over how it should be handled, and discomfort over the realization that despite the often-proffered narrative of Canada’s endless, unconditional welcome of newcomers, we’re wary to say the least, about this phenomenon.

As they try to escape the ever fear and uncertainty of Donald Trump’s ever-tightening restrictions on immigration, and spurred on by that now infamous prime ministerial tweet, they do so by circumventing Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which denies entry to those who have already claimed or obtained status in the United States, by crossing into Canada not at airports or other, staffed border crossings, but anywhere they can, along thousands of kilometers of unmonitored perimeter.

Who doesn’t remember the iconic photograph early last year, of a smiling Mountie lifting a little girl in a pink coat over the U.S.-Canada border near Hemmingford, Que? What came to national attention as something of a curiosity – and for many a representation of the “best of Canada” – has since given way to pointed questions about how officials plan to deal with the tens of thousands and counting who are seeking to make a home on this side of the 49th parallel.

When the issue again dominated headlines last fall, slightly more than half of Canadians (53 per cent) said the country has been “too generous” to the border crossers, more than eight times as many as those who said Canada hasn’t been “generous enough” (six per cent). Politics drives those opinions: past Conservative voters are overwhelmingly more likely to say this, although it should be noted that at least 40 per cent of 2015 Liberals and yes, even past New Democrat voters agree.

As to where they wanted government focusing its attention, seven-in-10 said they’d prioritize assigning more staff to monitoring and securing unguarded parts of the border. The rest (30 per cent) said they’d prioritize assisting those seeking asylum.

Little wonder then, that at the time, the majority (57 per cent) disapproved of the Liberal government’s handling of the situation, including one-third of his own party’s past voters.

Even less wonder, for reasons practical and political, the government which last year rejected calls to suspend the STCA, is now calling on the U.S. to agree to amendments that would have it apply to the entire length of the border.

How did we get here? Didn’t Trudeau proclaim that “diversity is our strength?” Wasn’t the popularity of his stance on accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees part of what convinced centre and centre-left voters to spur the Liberals to a majority?

The thing is, feel-good rhetoric is easier to accept when a complex issue isn’t staring you right in the eyeballs. Before this, incidents of irregular asylum seekers suddenly reaching our borders were largely limited to a handful of boats that managed an arduous ocean journey; Indian nationals arriving off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in the ’80s. Migrants from Fujian arriving in the late ’90s. Sri Lankans who made a similar trip about 10 years later.

Not until now have we had to answer uncomfortable questions about how welcoming we really are. The vast majority of people in this country (79 per cent) have said our immigration and refugee policy should give primacy to national economic and workforce needs over those in crisis abroad (21 per cent).

Given the more than 150,000 economic class immigrants who came from every corner of the world in 2016, diversity is indeed our strength. What Canadians perceive as a government weakness, however, is equating diversity with an open invitation followed by an ill-prepared response, to unchecked migration as Canada confronts its own mini-Greece moment.

via Kurl: Canadians are now confronting how generous we really are | Ottawa Citizen

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Religion, multiculturalism and the public square: Shachi Kurl, Angus Reid

2017/12/06 Leave a comment

See the article for the charts:

The inclusion of “God” in the preamble to Canada’s 1982 Constitution Act was a last-minute addition by Pierre Trudeau.

Thirty-three years later, as his son Justin presided over the swearing in of a new Liberal cabinet, over half of its members chose to drop the words “so help me God” from their oath of office. In a little more than a generation, the religious beliefs that were once the central tenets of Canadian society have been swept aside, as the courts and Parliament moved to assert a person’s individual liberty over their body, their identity and their relationships, from birth to death. And Canadian public opinion — sometimes leading, at other times following — has marched largely kept pace with this transformation.

The era when churches and religious leaders held sway over public policy in Canada has come to an end. There are important pockets of religious opposition to abortion, assisted dying and gender neutralization, but in the final analysis secularism seems to have won the day.

Religion and religious influence declined in Canada after the Second World War. (In Quebec during the 1960s the process accelerated, and the province moved from being the most to the least churched society in the modern world.) In the 1980s, not long after Pierre Trudeau wrote the word “God” into the constitutional preamble, regular church attendance in Canada was at around 40 percent. When Justin Trudeau formed his first cabinet in 2015, regular attendance had decreased to around half that….

With this decline in influence, the era of religious dominance in the public square has come to an end. But this is not the end of the story. The role of religion in setting public policy has been replaced by a new issue: religion itself as a topic for public policy.

The highest-profile example is the controversy over the clothing worn by some Muslim women. In Quebec — once more at the centre of a religion-versus-state tangle — Bill 62 would require citizens to show their faces when receiving public services. Squarely aimed at niqabs and burkas, this legislation is wildly popular in Quebec but less so in the rest of Canada, where such moves have failed to garner majority support…

The niqab/burka issue is part of a larger drama playing out in Canada concerning rising levels of religious diversity, how Canada should adapt to this multifaith reality and the importance Canadians place on religious freedom guarantees enshrined in the Constitution.

The current debate over religious freedom isn’t limited to the Muslim religion. Indeed, major issues of religious freedom that have recently been before the courts involve Christian organizations attempting to assert their rights: for example, in British Columbia, Trinity Western University’s policies that impose moral standards on their students; in Ontario, the fight with the College of Physicians and Surgeons over exempting health care workers from activities related to abortion or assisted dying; and in Quebec, Loyola College’s demand to be able to set its own religious instruction curriculum, independent of the one established by provincial education authorities.

Beyond the legal aspects, the fate of religion in Canada ultimately depends on public attitudes. On this, the results of surveys by the Angus Reid Institute in 2017 reveal there is cause for concern among religious communities and faith groups. The most startling finding is the relatively tepid support for the very concept of religious freedom. Asked whether the inclusion of religious freedom in the Constitution makes Canada a better or worse country, only slightly more than half (55 percent) of 1,500 respondents in an October 2017 poll said “better.” A sizable minority — roughly 1 in 7 — said “worse”….

These findings, which reflect deep division in Canada over the country’s increasing religious diversity, follow decades of immigration from non-Christian countries. Canada may prize its multiculturalism, but when it comes to the religious roots of this diversity, Canadians are divided.

When asked if religious diversity in Canada is good or bad, 26 percent said “good” and 23 percent “bad,” and the rest were unsure or felt the impact is “mixed.” (Not surprisingly, Quebec is the outlier on this question, with those who said “bad” outnumbering those who said “good” by nearly 2 to 1.) This finding is supported by another from our polling, which asks Canadians if they think the country does too much to accommodate different religious and faith groups… Here we find opinions massively on the side of doing too much (53 percent think the country does too much to accommodate religion, only 9 percent say it doesn’t do enough, and the rest think it strikes the right balance).

The lack of deep support for religious freedom and religious diversity suggests that faith communities could come under increased scrutiny in the future, especially if political leaders sense an advantage in limiting the special status enjoyed by these organizations in taxation, education and health care.

On taxation, recent polling shows Canadians divided — 55 percent in favour and 45 percent against — on special tax status for religious organizations; in Quebec, the percentages are reversed…. The same pattern is evident on opinions about religious schools and about regulations that would curtail the right of faith-affiliated hospitals to opt out of assisted dying.

Starting with the election of Stephen Harper, and continuing into Justin Trudeau’s government, there has been an increasingly politicized debate over religion. Although Harper appointed a special ambassador for religious freedom, he also voted against a motion proposed by members of his own caucus to set up a parliamentary committee to study when life begins. Trudeau, in contrast, did not hesitate to ban pro-life candidates from running for the Liberal Party. When the Governor General he appointed used her maiden speech to disparage those who believe in “divine intervention,” he was quick to jump to her defence.

It’s still early days in this political chapter, where leaders are seeking to change public expression and institutional arrangements associated with religious belief. Ironically, the diversity that is at the heart of this emerging debate may impose the greatest limits on those who would seek to limit religious expression: Canadian immigration policies favour vibrant Islamic, Sikh, Hindu and Christian communities.

The late Richard Neuhaus, one of the 20th century’s great activists and thought leaders on matters of religion and the public square, was born a few miles down the Ottawa River from Canada’s parliament. He understood better than most that politics is a function of culture, and culture is ultimately a function of religion. Canada, which so proudly celebrates its multiculturalism, is witnessing a growing debate over religious diversity that eventually will have far-reaching political consequences. How the debate evolves depends on whether the different religions and traditions can cooperate and have sufficient impact in the political sphere to withstand the forces of secularism that are driving large elements of public policy in Canada.

via Religion, multiculturalism and the public square

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Jagmeet Singh’s challenge: substance over style: Kurl

2017/05/20 Leave a comment

Shachi Kurl asks the question: are Canadians ready for a Sikh Canadian political party leader given overall discomfort with religious headgear and related symbols?

My sense is that discomfort will affect some potential voters but agree with her assessment that his performance will be more significant with most:

Canadians are by now used to seeing turbaned Sikhs on every party’s bench. Lost to the annals of history is the fact that Gurbax Malhi’s election as the Liberal MP for Brampton-Gore-Malton nearly 25 years ago prompted a rule change on Parliament Hill. Prior to that, it was forbidden to wear “headgear” in the House of Commons.

Nor did Canadians bat an eye when Harjit Sajjan, also an orthodox Sikh, was named Defence Minister, in part because there was more to his story. He had been a soldier and a police officer, so he brought (notwithstanding the Operation Medusa mess) a credibility to the job.

In the same way, some of Jagmeet Singh’s political advantages and liabilities will be equally banal. On the plus side, he’s a bike enthusiast and a human-rights activist, which will stand him in good stead with urban New Democrats. In the minus column, he isn’t well known outside his home province, a problem shared with the rest of the pack.

But let’s not forget for a moment how judgy Canadians can be when it comes to politicians’ appearances. Stephen Harper was fat-shamed over his fondness for root beer. Chrystia Freeland takes heat for often wearing the same dress. And if Tom Mulcair’s beard was a topic for the last federal campaign, it’s certain Mr. Singh’s beard, turban, and kirpan – all tenets of his faith – will be the subject of discussion at the coffee shop, the ice rink, and on talk radio.

He will have to overcome Canadian discomfort with some of that religious symbolism. Angus Reid Institute polling on the subject from April (totally independent of Mr. Singh’s entrance into the race) shows that, while the vast majority have no issue with the wearing of turbans, they object to the display and wearing of the kirpan. Indeed, two-thirds of those polled oppose it, rising to more than three-quarters in Quebec, where the issue wound its way into the courts in a divisive, high-profile case. One can only imagine what Quebeckers, who once returned a large mandate for “le bon Jack” Layton, would make of Mr. Singh. Would they be prepared to embrace “le bon Jagmeet?”

He’s given interviews saying he doesn’t mind Canadians talking about his looks. Well that’s good, because it will be talked of, a lot. The key to overcoming barriers and discomfort will be education, familiarity, and Mr. Singh ensuring his narrative is about more than religion. By education, he will need to tell and tell and tell again why he choses to wear the kirpan and why it’s important to him. Familiarity is just that, getting voters used to him and the way he looks, a task made easier by fashion spreads and appearances on national comedy shows.

I firmly believe Mr. Singh the politician is more than the sum of his religion and appearance. However, his ability to convince Canadians coast to coast to look past the visible symbols of his faith and assess him as a potential prime minister is yet undetermined. Urban, younger voters will be more receptive than older, rural ones. But no demographic is a monolith, and much will depend on Mr. Singh’s own performance as a credible alternative to his federal Liberal counterpart, all while putting the capital “V” in visible minority.

Source: Jagmeet Singh’s challenge: substance over style – The Globe and Mail

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