Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

Hard to see that bill will make it through both houses by the June 19 deadline, likely meaning no restrictions pending the Bill becoming law:

Ottawa is preparing a bill to reinstate rights for “lost Canadians” after an Ontario court ruled it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.

The bill is expected to require a Canadian parent born abroad to demonstrate substantial ties to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside Canada.

The bill would reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s government in 2009 which stripped children of a Canadian parent born outside Canada of their automatic right to citizenship.

The 2009 change was designed to crack down on what Conservatives called “Canadians of convenience.” It followed an outcry after Canada spent more than $80-million to evacuate 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah war….

Source: Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

Saunders: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

Valid critique, and not helping the Conservatives much in the polls:

…Mr. Sunak’s scheme is faring even worse. Without having managed to deport a single migrant, his government has already paid $412-million to the government of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who has an appalling human-rights record. Britain’s National Audit Office recently estimated that it will cost more than $900-million to deport the first 300 people – more than $3-million per migrant – though it seems unlikely that as many as 300 will ever be deported.

This vast cost, extraordinary inefficiency, policy pointlessness, unnecessary cruelty and general stupidity could all have been avoided if Mr. Sunak just paid attention to the very rational decision-making processes that guide those migrants. As experts have repeatedly pointed out, Channel crossings would all but disappear if it were easily possible to apply for British humanitarian and labour visas and family-reunification admissions en route, in Europe and elsewhere, creating safe legal paths for applicants.

That would increase his country’s refugee intake by a small, manageable margin (and would require some old-style deportations of those rejected), but it would all but end deadly illegal migration and its political consequences, at far lower cost. This would allow a politician to say “I ended this terrible problem” – something no number of flights to the middle of Africa will accomplish.

Source: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

May: Office Blues (government back to office)

Unlikely to garner much sympathy (public servants rarely do!) but out of step with overall trend of office workers returning to the office. Not sure how many will actually “demote out” of being an executive. But appreciate the adjustment challenge:

The more than 9,000 executives who normally keep their heads down publicly are raising alarms.

APEX is getting lots of reaction from its members. Executives are now required back in the office four days a week. Some accept the shift as part of the job, but most are disappointed and surprised at the lack of consultation.

Some say they are thinking of leaving executive roles and “demoting out.” There is also a concern that the four-day requirement will discourage people from applying for promotions.

Many feel they don’t have the tools and support to smoothly manage the transition – like they don’t have the space, desks or the office configurations for their teams to be productive.

They also question this decision when the government is committed to reducing half of its office space portfolio over the decade.

Executives feel they have faced many challenges managing teams at a distance while scrambling to deliver programs during the pandemic. This is seen as another one piled onto an already taxing workload. The “straw that broke the camel’s back,” said one.

APEX says stress is high among executives, mental-health claims are rising, and this decision won’t help.

“These issues are real and concerning,” said APEX CEO Carl Trottier. “APEX has started consulting the executive community to better understand their concerns and will advocate tirelessly on their behalf to support them as they are faced with implementation.”

Source: May: Office Blues (government back to office)

One way to decrease temporary residents is to make them permanent, ministers suggest

Still boils down to the overall numbers, both temporary and permanent:

…Several ministers warned the new policy would create added demand for their provincial immigration programs as temporary residents apply to stay in the country. They pitched expanding their provincial programs as a win-win solution to keep people in Canada permanently.

“The fact people are already here, their impact on affordability has already been baked in, so it’s smart,” Miller said.

“But it doesn’t mean by extension that everyone’s entitled to stay here or be here in Canada.”

Ottawa can also do more to seek people who are already in Canada when it comes to federal permanent residency programs, he said….

Source: One way to decrease temporary residents is to make them permanent, ministers suggest

Also:

Talks about reducing the number of temporary foreign residents in Canada have kicked off between the federal government and provinces, with the Immigration Minister Marc Miller acknowledging that there needs to be better co-ordination to shrink numbers across Canada.

The Forum of Ministers Responsible for Immigration (FMRI) met in Montreal on Friday, where Mr. Miller asked his provincial and territorial counterparts to provide figures to show where there is a need to bring in more foreign workers, as he took the first step to reducing numbers.

There are now about 2.5 million temporary residents, a number that includes asylum seekers, international students and people here on work permits. The government plans to reduce the proportion of temporary residents in the population from 6.2 per cent to 5 per cent over the next three years. That would decrease the temporary resident population by about 19 per cent….

Source: Ottawa holds first talks with provinces about reducing temporary foreign resident numbers

Yakabuski: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

Of note:

….Truth be told, the term “museum” is a misnomer in this case. To go by his own descriptions, what the Premier seems to have in mind is a pantheon of Québécois heroes, from hockey greats Maurice Richard and Mario Lemieux to artists such as Céline Dion and Ginette Reno – all francophone Québécois, though he did allow that Leonard Cohen might also make the list. How big of him.

Source: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

Douglas: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

Indeed, a nuanced and balanced account of the issues and responsibilities, along with the honesty to state no easy answers:

“We will have to be nuanced in our response.” I wrote to my Board of Directors, as a follow up to their discussion on the almost daily announcements of changes to the International Students Program from the federal Minister of Immigration. But after hitting send, I wondered how do you nuance the lives of individuals that are being impacted by these changes? 

In the last year or so, Canada’s housing crisis has unfairly landed on the shoulders of International Students, here in Ontario and across the country. In some quarters, the increasing cost of living, the damped down wages and rising youth unemployment numbers, all laid at their blameless feet. Some ‘charities’ in the Greater Toronto Area has even gone as far as barring them from accessing food to feed their hungry stomachs. 

Students – young people courageous enough to cross oceans in search of education and yes, hopefully an opportunity to stay here in this land of plenty (for some) where they can build a life for themselves and those who sacrificed to afford them this opportunity. We know their stories. During the recent health pandemic, they were praised (along with migrant workers) for filling the labour gaps of food delivery, cleaners, drivers, shelf-stockers and cashiers in our grocery stores and other jobs that employers were only too glad to fill with their underpaid labour. 

But now, as rental housing prices soar in cities and towns and grocery barons are allowed to gouge us as consumers with impunity, we lay the blame at their feet. We do not ask, why were universities and especially community colleges (including the private ones) allowed to significantly increased enrollment of international students without providing affordable dormitories or other housing for them? Why didn’t provinces, who bankrolled the costs of post-secondary education on the backs of international students, ensure that enough affordable rental units were being built to accommodate the growth in population? What about the federal government who exponentially increased the number of student visas issued each year- tripling the number in the last decade or so – did they stop to think about infrastructure as they responded to provinces and educational institutions insatiable appetite for international student dollars? 

The vitriol in the comments sections of newspaper covering the Immigration Minister’s announcement is unbelievable at times- the xenophobia, the racism, the misinformation, all forming a perfect storm of hate towards this very heterogenous group of people. 

But there are issues here that must be addressed, I remind myself. Are the changes the Minister has made, all wrong? Of course not. Students are here to study, but must also work to support their daily needs. The change back to twenty-four hours (three eight hour shifts per week) during the school year and uncapped number of hours during vacation or school break seems reasonable to me. The increase in funds they must have available on annual basis was more than doubled. Some increase surely was required, but more than doubling? On top of the astronomical tuition fees? Maybe not so reasonable. 

The significant reduction in the number of visas issued per province and the Ontario government’s decision to ensure that the vast majority of these visas go to publicly funded (and not private colleges) tertiary education institutions- absolutely the right decision. 

And what about the unintended consequences? Who or what else is impacted by these changes? During our regional meetings with member agencies last month, we heard about the negative fall out for smaller and rural communities. Especially northern Ontario. International students are an important bread and butter line for those communities. There will be much negative fall out there. 

On the other hand, we are hoping that these drastic changes would mean a lessening of exploitation of students not yet here – from unscrupulous recruiters peddling false dreams. Landlords who invested in housing, driving up housing costs and fleecing these unfortunate students, who at times were reduced to renting time in a bed- so crowded were some of these spaces. Or the employers who steal the labour of students refusing to pay them for the actual time they have worked. 

There are no easy answers here. I still remember the stories from our community health centres who speak of the pain of having to inform families of the suicide of their child (at least 91 international students from India reportedly died in Canada in the past five years). 

For the students already here and who are navigating these changes, we call for their institutions to step up to ensure that they have adequate shelter and access to basic needs. We call on the federal government to leverage their existing funded settlement services programs so that these students have the supports they require to make their way through their studies and eventual success as permanent residents of our communities. 

A nuanced response? Maybe not. But certainly, the reality at this moment. More to come on this. 

Source: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

Rioux | La nazification d’Israël

Useful reminder of past and present naïveté:

L’humour peut-il être ignoble et drôle tout à la fois ? Je l’avoue, il est arrivé que des humoristes qui flirtaient avec l’abject me fassent rire. Comme il m’est arrivé de m’ennuyer avec d’autres trop bien intentionnés. C’est tout le mystère de l’humour. Et c’est toute l’ambiguïté de cette blague qui, cette semaine, a coûté son poste au comique de France Inter Guillaume Meurice, qui avait qualifié le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Nétanyahou, d’une « sorte de nazi mais sans prépuce ».

Peut-on en rire sans pour autant adhérer à cette infamie sans nom qui consiste à nazifier le peuple de la Shoah ? L’idée n’est pas nouvelle. Quelle jouissance de démasquer le loup déguisé en mère-grand et de dire à la victime qu’elle est devenue semblable à son bourreau. Comme le disait le philosophe Michel Eltchaninoff, rien de tel que de peindre les Israéliens en nazis pour « se libérer de la culpabilité d’une des plus grandes tragédies de l’histoire récente : le génocide des Juifs d’Europe » qui, à de très rares exceptions, n’a jamais été reconnu dans le monde arabo-musulman.

Ce n’est évidemment pas parce qu’on appartient à une droite dure, comme Nétanyahou, et qu’on s’est allié par pur opportunisme politique à des partis extrémistes qui sont la honte d’Israël qu’on est un nazi et qu’on prépare un génocide. Génocide dont on attend encore la preuve sonnante et trébuchante. Les deux millions de citoyens d’origine arabe qui vivent librement en Israël étant la preuve éclatante du contraire.

Les slogans entendus ces jours-ci sur les campus américains, français et canadiens n’en finissent pourtant pas de nazifier Israël, quand ils n’expriment pas parfois un antisémitisme flagrant. Ainsi en est-il du mantra « from the river to the sea » (« du fleuve à la mer »), dont l’origine n’évoque rien de moins qu’une Palestine où Israël aurait été rayé de la carte. Faudrait-il, pour soutenir le peuple palestinien — qui mérite toute notre compassion, répétons-le —, aller jusqu’à qualifier le pogrom du 7 octobre d’acte de résistance ? Ou en taire l’horreur absolue, ce qui revient au même ?

On peut certes comprendre le désir d’une génération élevée en banlieue, dans un moralisme souvent étouffant, de se rejouer la grande épopée de l’opposition à la guerre du Vietnam. « En 67 tout était beau, c’était l’année de l’amour », disait la chanson.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, la mythologie a pourtant pris quelques rides. Si la libération du Vietnam méritait le soutien de tous, il n’en allait pas de même des Viêt-Cong et de leurs alliés communistes, dont le véritable visage nous a été révélé quelques années plus tard par les multiples vagues de boat people et le génocide des Khmers rouges au Cambodge. Un vrai, celui-là, puisqu’il fit 1,7 million de morts.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, malgré l’émotion légitime, c’est pourtant la même naïveté béate qui s’exprime à l’égard du Hamas, dont l’objectif avoué n’est pas de créer un État palestinien, mais de rétablir le califat en Palestine. Et pour cela, d’en finir avec l’État d’Israël.

Serait-ce trahir « la cause » ou « faire le jeu de l’ennemi » que de rappeler à ces militants LGBTQ+ et autres « Queers for Palestine » le destin que leur réserverait la charia advenant une victoire du Hamas ? Quant à celles qui hurlent leur colère souvent légitime contre Israël, savent-elles le sort qu’on réserve aux femmes dans ces théocraties ?

C’est Raymond Aron qui disait que « les hommes font l’histoire, mais ils ne savent pas l’histoire qu’ils font ». Cette naïveté criminelle fait étrangement penser à celle de cette gauche française qui, derrière Jean-Paul Sartre et Michel Foucault, n’avait dans les années 1970 que des mots doux à l’égard de l’ayatollah Khomeini, réfugié dans le petit village de Neauphle-le-Château. Parlez-en à cette jeunesse d’extrême gauche très active à l’époque dans les universités iraniennes, et qui sera littéralement exterminée après la révolution de 1979.

Si on a raison de dénoncer le cul-de-sac politique que représente Nétanyahou, l’émotion légitime que suscitent les souffrances des Palestiniens ne saurait justifier la moindre concession à une organisation qui, en islamisant la cause des Palestiniens au profit d’un pur délire religieux, signe pour ces derniers la plus terrible des défaites. « Ce que cherchait le Hamas, écrit l’ancien ambassadeur de France à Tel-Aviv Gérard Araud, c’est de commettre des atrocités qui rendent tout compromis inacceptable. Je crains qu’il n’ait réussi… »

Source: Chronique | La nazification d’Israël

Nicolas | Racisme anti-palestinien

As mentioned earlier, I think the existing forms of racism, anti-Arab for both Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and anti-Muslim for Muslim Palestinians, cover the essential. The substantive examples raised by Nicolas can be addressed under both:

On apprenait mercredi dans le Toronto Star que la nouvelle version de la Stratégie canadienne de lutte contre le racisme, qui devrait être rendue publique sous peu, n’inclura pas de définition du racisme anti-palestinien.

Cette stratégie, publiée pour la première fois en 2019, « est conçue pour jeter les bases de la lutte contre le racisme systémique par des actions immédiates à l’échelle du gouvernement du Canada ». Plusieurs groupes ont fait pression sur la ministre de la Diversité, de l’Inclusion et des Personnes en situation de handicap, Kamal Khera, pour que le racisme anti-palestinien soit désormais défini et donc reconnu par le gouvernemental fédéral, au même titre que l’islamophobie et l’antisémitisme, le racisme anti-noir ou le racisme anti-asiatique, par exemple. Ça aura été en vain.

Pour l’instant, on continue donc officiellement à dénoncer l’islamophobie, du moins sur papier, laissant de son côté le racisme anti-palestinien se déployer au Canada. Ce n’est pas suffisant. Voici pourquoi.

D’abord, tous les Palestiniens ne sont pas musulmans. De larges pans du mouvement nationaliste palestinien ont toujours cherché à se rassembler autour d’une identité culturelle et d’une situation politique — et non d’une religion. Le keffieh, par exemple, est un symbole à la fois culturel et politique, selon le contexte, mais pas un symbole religieux. Le foulard blanc et noir a pris la signification qu’il a aujourd’hui après avoir été porté durant des décennies par le leader palestinien Yasser Arafat.

Lorsque le parlement provincial ontarien prend la décision de bannir le keffieh de sa chambre législative, comme il l’a fait le mois passé, on empêche l’expression culturelle et politique du peuple palestinien dans son enceinte. Parler vaguement d’« islamophobie », ce serait ici très mal nommer les choses.

En fait, pour bien comprendre le racisme anti-palestinien, il faut savoir qu’il se déploie notamment comme une forme de racisme anti-autochtone. Et ici, je fais très attention à mes mots et aux explications que j’en donne.

Être autochtone est une catégorie politique, et non pas seulement ethnique. Ce n’est pas simplement un terme qui réfère à « qui était là avant ». Il est important de le comprendre si on veut éviter de remonter aux temps bibliques. Le mot « autochtone », dans nos instances internationales, réfère notamment à une catégorie de personnes qui se retrouvent sans État qui parle en leur nom dans le système des Nations unies, parce qu’un État s’est construit « par-dessus » leur territoire ancestral, en quelque sorte. Si le mot référait seulement à de vieilles racines dans une terre, tous les Français chez qui on décèle une forme d’ADN gaulois pourraient participer au Forum des peuples autochtones des Nations unies, pour donner un exemple grossier. Le terme « autochtone » prend une grande partie de son sens à l’intersection de l’« ancienneté » et de la dépossession. C’est en ce sens que je m’exprime.

Lorsqu’un État assied sa souveraineté sur un territoire en dépossédant un autre peuple de ce même territoire, il doit déployer un récit national et un appareil idéologique qui normalise cette dépossession. L’âge d’or du colonialisme correspond avec l’invention de l’idée de terra nullius, par exemple, qui veut que lorsqu’un territoire n’est pas occupé — et par occupé, on veut dire occupé à l’européenne, sujet à des activités économiques « productives » dans une perspective européenne —, il est considéré comme vacant et donc disponible pour la prise de possession coloniale.

C’est aussi en pleine expansion coloniale que Friedrich Hegel et plusieurs autres penseurs européens ont développé leurs idées sur la téléologie de l’Histoire. D’abord, on a tracé une ligne arbitraire entre la « préhistoire » et l’« Histoire », puis on a posé l’État-nation comme l’aboutissement de l’« Histoire » et ainsi hiérarchisé les peuples selon leur « stade de développement ». On a, en quelque sorte, inventé la catégorie de « primitif » — une autre manière de naturaliser qui a le droit d’exercer sa souveraineté sur des terres, et qui peut en être légitimement dépossédé.

Ces idées continuent d’être mobilisées jusqu’à aujourd’hui un peu partout en Occident. Elles permettent notamment à certaines voix pro-israéliennes plus radicales de nier jusqu’à l’existence même de la Palestine, puisque le peuple palestinien ne disposait pas d’un État-nation indépendant avant la fondation d’Israël.

Ces notions nous permettent aussi de mieux comprendre, par exemple, les commentaires de Selina Robinson, qui était ministre de l’Éducation postsecondaire en Colombie-Britannique, lorsqu’elle a affirmé, en janvier, que la Palestine était un « morceau de terre merdique » (crappy piece of land) sur lequel « il n’y avait rien » avant la fondation d’Israël. Ses propos n’étaient pas « islamophobes ». Ils étaient un parfait exemple du racisme anti-palestinien ordinaire, appuyés sur une forme d’actualisation de la doctrine de la terra nullius. Finalement, Selina Robinson s’est excusée, a perdu son poste de ministre, puis a quitté le caucus du Nouveau Parti démocratique provincial.

Le maire de Hampstead, Jeremy Levi, nous a offert un autre exemple de dérapage anti-palestinien. La semaine dernière, il a encore déclaré sur X que le gouvernement canadien devrait « reconsidérer son plan d’immigration pour les Gazaouis », puisque « leurs valeurs semblent incompatibles avec les nôtres ». Il faut savoir que l’idée des « valeurs incompatibles » a été mobilisée durant l’histoire coloniale pour justifier le statut subalterne, « non intégrable » de certaines populations. Le discours est encore souvent employé à l’égard des Palestiniens, notamment dans les espaces médiatiques israélien et américain, pour justifier certaines inégalités ou violences structurelles.

La liste d’exemples pourrait être encore longue. Pour repérer le racisme anti-palestinien dans l’espace public, encore faut-il le comprendre. Pour le comprendre, il faut d’abord le nommer clairement.

Source: Chronique | Racisme anti-palestinien

Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

Of note. What struck me the most was the speed of the government response, focussing on the essential, rather than process. But like in Canada, it took media interest to provoke a response:

Sometimes wonder Last month the 55-year-old was informed by Home Affairs that he had no Australian citizenship or visa, due to a law that was repealed more than 20 years ago.

When the father-of-two told his employer about the situation, he was initially stood down from work without pay.

“I’m no longer Australian and apparently I haven’t been for the last 33 years,” Mr Keogh told Raf Epstein on ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings.

“It’s not a situation I expected to find myself in. I’m mid-50s, I’ve paid my taxes … I’m very grateful to be Australian.”

Applying for Irish citizenship had unintended consequences

Mr Keogh’s grandparents were Irish and, proud of his ancestry, he decided to register his heritage with the Irish government when he was 22.

He didn’t understand that would automatically be treated as an application for Irish citizenship or, crucially, that he would immediately lose Australian citizenship as a result.

Mr Keogh received Irish citizenship and a passport, which he held alongside Australian identity documents which technically were not valid.

It was never flagged as a problem until he came forward late last year.

When Mr Keogh shared his story on ABC Radio Melbourne today, the office of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, said they were looking into Mr Keogh’s case.

Three hours later his citizenship was restored.

He said he was “absolutely elated” to have his citizenship restored after going to the media, but the problem was not solved.

Source: Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

Elite Colleges Walked Into the Israel Divestment Trap

Valid contrast:

…But there’s a key difference between avoiding fossil fuels and shunning Israel. The institutions that divested from oil and gas made sure to describe it as financially prudent, albeit sometimes with shallow investment logic. This time, Israel’s social license is the only thing that is on the table. And if Israel is on the table, what other countries should lose their social license? How many years must pass since what some believe to be a country’s settler colonialist period or messy wars that kill innocent civilians to make it investable?

And if divestment against Israel is carried out, when should it end? Oil and gas divesting is meant never to end; oil and gas consumption is meant to end. Divestment from South Africa ended with apartheid. So university leaders will be forced to ask an often heterogeneous group of students what would earn Israel its social license back. A cease-fire? A new Israeli government? A two-state solution? The end of Israel as a Jewish state?

The effort to identify every investment with ties to Israel is also fraught. Columbia activists could find information only on pocket-change-size ownership of certain companies, such as $69,000 of Microsoft stock. So protesters are also demanding that colleges disclose all their investments, presumably so students can research the morality of each one. However, some firms that manage parts of an endowment’s money, particularly hedge funds, don’t report individual holdings to investors: asking them for it is like asking for the secret recipe for Coke.

But even if an endowment could provide a list of every underlying investment, it would likely then be inundated for more calls to divest, for more discovered connections — however small — to Israel, and for reasons related to other offenses discoverable with an online search. Why would there not be a Taiwanese student group demanding divestment from China, to dissuade an invasion? Other students demanding divestment from Big Tech, citing students’ mental health? Others demanding divestment from all of it, the hedge funds and private equity funds whose asset managers are not exactly healing American income inequality?

The answer, of course, is that endowments can’t be in the moral adjudication business — and they should never have headed this way. This does not mean that investing should be a returns-at-any-cost exercise. But it does mean that the real world does not always provide objective answers to how to balance benefits and consequences of companies providing products and services: Carbon emissions are bad, but energy consumption is necessary. Microsoft software for the Israeli government may displease you, but Microsoft saying it won’t sell software to Israel would displease others — and probably get itself banned from working with New York State agencies.

Listen to the protesters on divestment. They will not stop. They will not rest.

But neither will the markets. They open every morning, Monday through Friday, and university budgets’ demands on endowments never go away. Tuitions are rising. Costs always go up. Colleges should debate deep moral issues and discuss the hard compromises to solve the world’s ills. But we should move those efforts to the lecture halls, away from the investment offices. Divesting is an easy chant. Investing is hard enough as it is…

Source: Elite Colleges Walked Into the Israel Divestment Trap