Reasonable men and election

Everybody says that they don’t want one. Everybody talks about it. First, it was Michael Ignatieff’s turn. The leader of the Liberal party and the official Leader of the Opposition in one promised to deliver his verdict on the government’s economic report card on Monday. This was expected to be also the verdict on the future of the Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

The former happened, the latter too. Sort of. A semantic decomposition of the Harper’s report card was rather brief – if the funds for infrastructure investments had been authorized, committed and flowing it didn’t necessarily mean that the money were already there. A clear message was sent on the employment insurance too.

The political part of the message was less plain. Sticking to his trademark, Ignatieff was as direct as two fighting pretzels when it came to answering the question whether he’s willing to bring the government down in the Friday’s vote and trigger an election.

Despite that, the message to the other side of the House of Commons was loud and clear: I don’t want an election, but your report is not adequate and I do have responsibility. But rather than threatening Harper with an early election and being the one who initiated it, Ignatieff played the ball to the other side leaving it up to Harper to decide. That left Harper with the only reasonable option. To react and, in the same pretzel fashion, agree to talk to the leader opposition.

Harper is apparently coming to terms with the idea that the leader of a minority government has a very limited set of options available to keep the job. And Ignatieff made that clear. It’s Harper’s responsibility to make sure the Government has the confidence of the House and it’s the Harper’s responsibility to seek the support of the opposition. Had he chosen to ignore Ignatieff, he would have turned himself into the man who triggered an election nobody wanted.

By the way, Harper made a big deal out of the fact that Ignatieff didn’t ask those question during the Question Period in the House. In fact, pretty much everybody expected the Leader of the Opposition to do so. But by refraining from triggering a fierce showdown over a two-sword-length wide demarcation line in the House, Ignatieff forced Harper, who simply had to react, to go the National Press Theater, which is an environment the Prime Minister doesn’t really like.

I’m a reasonable man, said Ignatieff to avoid being the one who triggered an election. I’m a reasonable man, said Harper to avoid being the one who triggered an election. Nobody wants it. But apparently, Harper doesn’t want it more. Which gives a tiny little edge to Ignatieff. Let’s see how the expected meeting between the two goes.

Nomen est omen at the Canadian jobs marketplace

Last year, Ottawa public transport facilities sported ads urging employers to employ immigrants. They featured a photo of a member of visible minorities* and their job application, foreign sounding name, various levels of academic degrees and foreign experience. Jobs poster immigrants applied for were low paid and low skill.

High educated and skilled immigrants often face incredible difficulties finding a job that would properly reflect their education and professional and language skills. For one thing, they are admitted to Canada on the basis of the government’s point system but employment is often governed by private organizations such as chambers, unions etc. which specifically require either Canadian education or experience or both. That practice would be in itself an interesting topic for research since foreign educational standards and professional requirements are often much higher than Canadian ones. Very often the only purpose of these chambers is not as much as to protect standards as to protect the members and the chambers’ existence.

However, even non-organized jobs are often off-limits to immigrants. Even their Canadian-born children may struggle on job markets.

One of the reasons could be their names. They sound, look and are foreign. Nomen est omen According to a research conducted by Philip Oreopoulos, professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, applicants with English names are 40% more likely to receive an call back for an job interview than foreign-named applicants who submitted identical resumes for the identical job. Matthews Wilsons and Gregs Johnsons would be selected over Arjuns Kumars and Chaundrys Mohammads. The rate dropped to 20% when the name contained both English and foreign parts, such as Vivian Zhang or Jennifer Li.

The research method was devised in a way that made a name the most prevalent feature determining whether a person received a call back. At the same time, it allowed the team of researchers to determine the effect of other individual categories such as foreign versus Canadian education and foreign versus Canadian work experience. The research concludes that “overall, the results suggest considerable employer discrimination against applicants with ethnic names or with experience from foreign firms.”

According to Professor Oreopoulos this apparent name-based discrimination, while contravening anti-discrimination regulations, may or may not be intentional. For example, jobs requiring specific language or social skills may induce higher non-call back rates for bearers of ethnic names since, statistically or based on experience, their level of English may not.

Statistics, however, cannot explain a 40% difference. Professor Oreopoulos stayed clear of drawing far reaching conclusions and limited his reasoning to admitting “an element of unfairness”.

The report, albeit conclusive, has few shortcomings. The research took place in Toronto, where a half of the population is foreign born. Not just of foreign descent. Foreign born. Is Toronto less immigrant-friendly? Is it based on statistical experience? Other regions of Canada can produce different results.

The researchers only evaluated Indian, Pakistani and Chinese names. What about less visible minorities? There are many distinctly non-English names in Canada of say, Russian, Italian, Polish, Slovak or Czech origin. Ignatieff and Gretzky may be anglicized but their original is distinctly Russian (Ignatiev and Greckij). London (Britain) based HR agencies are very careful to avoid accusations of discriminating against South Asian job seekers but often feel free to discriminate against job-seekers from EU countries, especially those coming from Central and Eastern Europe.

Still, the outcome of Professor Oreopoulos’s research is rather conclusive. Is the observed state of the affairs triggered by immigration-related issues only? Or is it a fear of foreign elements?

* I use the term for the convenience’s sake and not to determine a category or social status. The UN describes the term as “racist”.

Asylum assault?

Visa regimes that regulate or restrict movement of citizens of two countries appear to live their own lives sometimes. Unfortunately, the necessity to get that visa sticker usually complicates lives and travels of people who were in no way the reason why the visas were introduced in the first place.

The Czechs travelled to Canada freely until 1997 when Ottawa slammed the door due to the high number of asylum seekers. The same issue marred Prague’s relationships with Britain in the past. Apparently, former federal ties were stronger in a certain demographic, as Slovakia had the same problem with Britain, Finland and Belgium – influxes of asylum seekers prompted the harsh response, sometimes in the form of introducing visa requirements. There was an era when keen asylum seekers quickly found a replacement country – sometimes with the help of even more keen for-profit “helpers”. Once the visas were lifted, exodus re-started with varied degree of intensity. Fortunately, within few years it all became pointless since both Slovakia and the Czech republic joined the European Union.

In October 2007, Canada lifted the restriction for Czech citizens and since March 2008, Slovaks could travel to Canada without visas too. Following the pattern known from the past, the Czechs flooded Canada again. And, following all previous exoduses, it’s mostly the Romas who apply for asylum. Or so the Czechs claim, but given their and the Slovaks’ previous experience, it can be taken for granted.

Exodus may sound like an exaggeration, but the word is rather appropriate when things are put into a proper context. In 2008, 861 Czechs sought asylum in Canada. The first quarter of 2009 saw 653 asylum applications (34 succeeded), mostly claimed on the minority related issues. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s more than asylum applications put forward by the Afghans (488), the Iraqis (282) and the Cubans (184). In fact, Czech asylum seekers placed fourth behind the Mexicans, the Haitians and the Colombians. Indirect threat that the visa regime could be reinstated is not entirely out of place.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged that the current state of the affairs might not be entirely Czech government’s fault. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who used what was perhaps a less diplomatic language, called Canadian asylum system “soft” and suggested that the two countries wouldn’t be discussing the issue if Canada reclassified the Czech republic as a safe country of origin. If that was a case, Czech citizens wouldn’t be eligible to apply for asylum. More on that later.

The Lidove noviny (Czech daily newspaper) reminded that Mr Harper had already admitted that the influx is organized. The daily also mentioned a secret expert report that claimed the mass emigration is coordinated by former Czechoslovak citizens living in Canada. If so, this would not be entirely new situation, since similar “agencies” were suspected to be behind past exoduses of Slovak and Czech Romas to European countries. Profiteers or “employment mediators” operate on both sides of the Atlantic which means that both Prague and Ottawa need to cooperate to eradicate their operations or, at least, limit their influence.

The Czech government cannot restrict the right of Czech citizens to travel – to Canada or any other country. However, as Mr. Topolanek noted, the solution would be to find jobs for the asylum seekers in the Czech republic. Another good thing might be to make sure the message “don’t believe the scams” gets across to those who need to hear it the most. Apparently, an abundance of people who lost a great deal of money to the profiteers is not enough to deter new victims.

The Czech side feels that Ottawa should reclassify the Czech Republic’s safe country of origin status. The problem is, the safe country of origin status is a tricky concept, and, according to Canadian ambassador to Prague Michael Calcott, every applications are considered on a case-to-case basis and everybody can apply (source: Czech Television). If so, a change of attitude is necessary. Sure, Czech republic has its problems, but the country is perfectly safe, certainly no less safer than Canada. It’s Canada’s NATO ally. If Ottawa needed any further assurance it should have found it in 2004 when the Czech republic joined the EU, or at the very latest, in 2007, when it joined the Schengen Area, a part of Europe (26 countries) with no border controls, open for the free movement of more than 400 million Europeans.

When politics seals the cause

If you really want, you can come up with evidence to support or justify any theory, objective or cause. Inventing a suitable euphemism for a rather unpleasant activity is a good start. Traditional seal hunt becomes a “seal harvest”, for example.

Name aside, seal hunt is a controversial activity but, unfortunately, both sides of the debate often support their respective causes with less then honest arguments and ways of putting them forward. Those campaigning for the ban of seal hunt and the related merchandise tend to use heartbreaking imagery, including pictures of the techniques that are no longer used and the species (e.g. whitecoats) that can no longer be “harvested”. However, that doesn’t relegate the fact that there are wild-life animals being killed en-masse for profit.

The pro-hunt defense is more complex though hardly sophisticated enough to pass successfully through both thorough scrutiny and opponents’ review. The latest initiative came in the form of the “Universal Declaration on the Ethical Harvest of Seals” prepared by Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette, and endorsed by Gerry Byrne, MP, the Liberal fisheries and oceans critic.

Prepared by the team of, and I quote from the Senator’s press release, “eminent scientists and experts”, it does have a feel of serious document and undoubtedly a solid scientific substance including data from environmental protection groups. The only trouble with politicians hastily harvesting expert opinions under the agricultural moniker is that their activity will very likely backfire.

And as such an activity, the Declaration has very little credibility.

It’s not universal, as it claims in its title. It’s Canadian. Canada accounts for most of the seals killed worldwide and therefore has the greatest interest in promoting the cause. Other countries that practice seal hunt were not consulted. The Declaration is aimed solely at the European parliament members who are about to vote on ban of seal products.

Another issue was presentation. During the introduction of the Declaration to the media, words such as “lies”, “misinformation” and “propaganda” were uttered with rather unsettling regularity in connection with the anti-hunt side of the argument. European parliament members could vote for the ban to “appease animal rights groups”. The same groups whose numbers are being used to justify the sustainability of the harvest. By the way, the use of the word “harvest” is an ammunition material for the anti-hunt camp and they often use within inverted commas. In other words, “harvesting seals” is a linguistic and euphemistic equivalent of the Japanese whaling for scientific purposes.

Canada usually emphasizes the “native” part of the seal hunt, portraying the activity as a natural part of lives of the northern communities. And rightly so, hunt and fishing has been their traditional way of life and source of nutrition, that’s why the proposed EU ban would exempt Inuit hunting. Seal hunting is vital for survival of many northern communities. But again, there is significant difference between traditional seal hunt and industrial, for-profit, activity that is, somewhat ironically, called “seal harvest”. In this context, shifting attention to the historic and native heritage of seal hunt plays on emotions in the same way as a picture of slaughtered whitecoat and, frankly, can be easily, although perhaps unjustifiably, dismissed.

Which is not surprising given the fact that the presentation of the Declaration simply dismissed arguments of the dissenting parties, many of which are valid in the same way as those used in the Declaration itself. The document, scientific as it is, coated in environmental and sustainability furs with a hint of universal pedigree, remains a political initiative of the pro-harvest Canadian political scene.

Scrap ’em all

With most attention turned to General Motors and Chrysler respective falls, and the unions, new car dealers fell to obscurity, at least in the mainstream media. Canadian dealers struggle with the credit, or lack of thereof, as the banks are not very keen on financing the shop window of a failing industry. A side but important note: the current situation is not specific to the Detroit manufacturers’ dealers. “Despite record-low interest rate reductions from Bank of Canada, commercial banks have not been open for business for months for our dealers. Thais is not acceptable or sustainable,” said Bill Taylor, the chairman of Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA).

Canadian dealers are now pushing Ottawa to introduce national scrappage program. To be more specific, a program that would actually work because the current fleet-renewal incentive worth $300 will not make a difference. There is still a market for old bangers so why would anyone give up one for $300 if they could sell it for $400. Not to speak that one doesn’t have to spend $300 towards a new car.

CADA is looking for a $3,000 per scrapped car program, which is comparable to incentives run by several European Union member states. CADA made actually a very good case presenting detailed outlines of EU scrappage plans. These all worked, with German and Slovak programs being particularly successful. CADA hopes that the available credit combined with scrappage incentives will revive automotive retail trade. There are 6.8 million cars older than 10 years in Canada, 2.8 million are older than 15 years so there’s plenty of room for renewal.

It remains to be seen what will be the federal government’s response. Ottawa has already provided loans (bailout) to the Detroit manufacturers operations in Canada and it may look as it already did its share. However, it’s questionable to input money into manufacturing when the second piece in the chain, the dealers, have no resources available to buy what’s manufactured, and the third piece, consumers, are thinking twice whether to buy a new car. What dealers are asking for is the environment that will allow that often trumpet and much touted concept of “keep the money flowing in times of crises” actually work.

Unholy CAW

Unions have become an easy target for those looking for who to blame for the quagmire US automakers ended up in. Some say that Detroit Three have become major pension funds with car making as a side business. Sure, to the most of the automotive world, most of US cars indeed do look and drive as if a bunch of accountants designed them, but that’s not the point.

Both UAW and CAW has been through series of tough negotiations with the Detroit Three during past year or so in a desperate bid to lower the overall costs of running the companies. Hard times didn’t stop Buzz Hargrove, now former CAW leader, to humour members of the general public with claims that it’s the imports that were killing car manufacturing in North America, a state of the affairs for which he blamed the respective governments.

The results achieved in the talks looked good at the time, but with GM on it’s way to Chapter 11 and some serious restructuring being worked out to save what there’s to save, and Chrysler looking half-doomed, calls for even more union concessions intensified. Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement had to say just few key words to get the message across, such as April 30, taxpayer money and “I cannot do that”.

The warning came essentially only few hours after Fiat, generally regarded as the one and only possible salvation force, said it would walk off the taking over Chrysler if the labour costs in Canada are not slashed to $19. What Clement called a “logical position”, current CAW leader Ken Lewenza deemed “unreasonable” and said it was not going to happen. Buzz Hargrove had something to say, too. He trashed Fiat’s CEO Sergio Marchionne and said something along the line that CAW negotiated costs are already lower than costs of Japanese car makers’ operations in Canada because Japanese manufacturers’ costs are higher in Japan. If you think that doesn’t make sense, Mr. Hargrove failed to realize, among other things, that FIAT is not about to take over Honda nor does the Toyota’s fate depend on Italian investment.

Chrysler tried to blackmail Ottawa and conditioned keeping its Canadian operations alive with a bailout. CAW’s stance is similarly arrogant, the only difference is they have nothing to win and nothing to offer. CAW can only lose. Slashing costs and keeping what’s left of Chrysler running is the highest price they can get. Fiat can act from the position of powerful. CAW cannot.

Unions for the RCMP? Good idea.

Most of those who dismiss the very idea of unionized workforce usually do not fail to utter word communism in the same sentence. Some of those who didn’t forget to grow up mentally tend to associate unions with strikes capable of polarizing and paralyzing if not whole countries then certainly at least cities or industries. And even those who realize the importance of properly run unions often disregard the notion of unions being established within law-enforcement agencies where regulations and ranks are orders and orders are no supposed to be questioned.

But police unions do make sense. It always makes sense where power and politics often mix up. That’s why even Formula 1 drivers form their own unions. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s court victory has given the officers the right to form their unions, as judge deemed the restriction unconstitutional opposing generations of RCMP commissioners who, as The Globe & Mail kindly reminds, were afraid that “police unions would expose Canada to everything from creeping Bolshevism to politicized police”.

Paranoia crept in long ago, surely, the question is where does it originate now. Of course, Cold War thinking is alive and well within certain demographic defined more by mentality than sociological stratification. Even strikes are not a problem. The modern-day reasons for opposing unions in the RCMP stem from different soil.

There’s nothing wrong with the command chain within the RCMP, or any other police force for that matter, on the contrary, it’s perfectly logical within the scope of tasks and the nature of law enforcement or military organizations. But the very nature of a command chain makes it very difficult to raise valid objections even outside the immediate line of duty, such where safety, security, administration or filing and reporting are concerned. What can be even more disturbing, any otherwise sensible command chain can quickly turn into a very effective mechanism protecting higher and/or highest ranks at any given stage on any given level.

It’s not only about whistleblowers or scapegoats. The ongoing British Columbia inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski revealed several instances of RCMP’s own regulations being sidestepped or violated. RCMP unions will not only serve to protect the force’s officers but will also bring more transparency and public control of Canada’s most iconic and internationally recognized police force.

Linguistically flammable

Canadian minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism Jason Kenney sparked a controversy when he suggested that people without a satisfactory command of English or French should be denied citizenship. Let’s put aside the official bilingual farce, although, to be fair, speaking both languages does make sense in certain circumstances, for example, if a person happens to be an immigrant or wants to pursue a career in government.

Back to language tests. To demand a satisfactory command of the official and/or prevalent language is legitimate. Immigrants, in any major migrant destination, can spend their lives without the knowledge of English in some areas. Florida and China Towns are the most obvious examples. But the living is often reduced to survival as any involvement with the authorities requires help of other people. As a result, not knowing the language of majority confines individuals to their communities, limits their opportunities and fosters “ghettoization” of neighbourhoods.

On the other hand, authorities often make their announcements or application forms available in minority languages. The London borough of Tower Hamlets offered voter registration form and other documents and in many European and Asian languages. But while that can be viewed as a form of help and support, it also takes away an important opportunity for the new and old immigrants with poor majority language skills to become active members of the community beyond the borders of their language and culture.

Many of immigrants in Canada come from countries where even basic education is scarce and the opportunities to learn languages may be non-existent. The only way to learn English or French is to take a language course in Canada.

But the quality of teaching staff in various immigration centres is often questionable. An immigrant I know in Calgary went to English classes shortly after their arrival to Canada. Educated in Europe and fluent in three languages, they kept asking more profound grammar related questions such as “why is that”. The ubiquitous answer was “it’s like just that, English has no logic”. Which is a) rubbish, b) proof that the “teacher” was not really a teacher of English but merely an English speaking person without necessary qualification and lack of pedagogical skills.

It’s not an isolated case. In Canada and Britain, English language is not a part of standard school curriculum. English is reduced to teaching spelling and stylistics but it is not the same as teaching a language. People learn their mother tongue only by means of its everyday use. Asking an educated Briton or Canadian questions about an accusative or a plus quam perfectum (pluperfect tense) usually results in a pretty accusatory, i.e. dumb, look. Not to mention frequently misunderstood and thus potentially explosive “genitive case”.

According to the Conference board of Canada, about 40% of adult (working age) Canadians “do not have the literacy skills to cope with the demands of everyday life and work in modern society”. In other words, they are functionally illiterate. UN statistics from 2000 put Britain’s illiteracy rate to approximately 20%. UK government says that 42% of children leaving school at 16 “fail to achieve a basic level of functional English”. According to Daily Telegraph, one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year old.

A friend of mine spent two years teaching biology at two prestigious private boarding schools in Britain. That was her main assignment. As a secondary one – she taught overseas students English as a foreign language. In Britain.

This emphasizes the fact that teaching English to people who grew up in a non-English environment requires different methods, qualifications and skills which, apparently, most of the native speakers do not possess as they had no opportunity to acquire them.

If the federal government in Ottawa wants to make the command of official languages a condition for granting an applicant citizenship, it must reconcile its two often contradictory policies – granting substantial semi-autonomous language-related cultural and religious rights on the one hand and its integration policies. Second task would be to improve language learning programs for both immigrants and the Canadians.

Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Even if immigrants do speak perfect English or French and can present official diplomas from their home countries, they are often required to pass language tests because Canadian authorities or private companies chose not to accept their foreign qualification in a given language. But that’s a different story.

Amazing polar discoveries

It’s not clear who ought to be more happy. Polar bears or environmental activists? Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Norway, Russia and the United States declared that the global warming is the single largest threat to the remaining population (20-25,000) of polar bears.

A modest fanfare of the domestic press and WWF heralded Canadian signature on the updated version of 1973 Polar Bear Agreement for acknowledging both the global warming and the threat to polar bears: “The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change.” So far so good but not new. Changes to a particular species’ natural habitat, no matter how induced, do affect the species’ ability to prosper and survive. But then, it’s better than nothing, and it’s certainly newsworthy.

What’s not so praiseworthy is the lack of a proper, concrete real-world follow-up to the declaration, there’s not even an obligatory call to the UN. Signing up for monitoring and controlling industrial activities in the region is a matter of common sense not a Polar Bear Agreement update. Having said that, as nobody can say ‘no’ to a non-committing declaration interweaving the bears’ survival with the global warming, the declaration makes polar bears, in a rather specific way, very lucky creatures. Unlike seals…

Women International, Inc.

Gender equality is one of the greatest myths of the modern-day mankind… sorry, humankind, nope, that doesn’t work either… But irony and differences stemming from obvious physiological differences aside, gender equality is still an objective. Or is it?

Countries around the world have been adopting pro-equality legislation for decades but with few notable Scandinavian exceptions, the results were mixed at best. Some countries, Canada for example, are actually taking steps back. Green Party leader Elizabeth May, speaking at the press conference on the heels of International Womens’ Day on Monday, reminded that the Conservative government refused to accept recommendations of the Pay Equity Task Force to introduce pay equity legislation which would bring Canada in line with its both national and international human rights obligations. The Conservatives removed mandate to promote women’s equality from the mandate of the governmental Status of Women Canada.

Another way how Canada, and many other western countries, roll back women’s rights is through either allowing elements of alternative legal systems to sneak in or by not being tough enough in combating religious and/or cultural customs that often deny women basic human rights. Few Canadian provinces already recognize immigrant’s polygamous marriages and there is a real possibility that it could become legal across Canada. There is evidence of Canadian doctors performing the so called female genital mutilation surgery. So called “honour killings” are a major problem in Britain’s South Asian community.

International Women’s Day has pretty colourful history. Despite rather universal values it stands for. In the USA and Canada, it used to be associated with communist propaganda, as a great deal of other UN sanctioned days. On the other hand, The Day was an important one in the feminists’ diary. Communist countries, which, at certain point of history, took gender equality in many ways to much higher standards than Western countries, managed to turn the celebration into a huge party where men would get drunk in the workplace and (finally!) would leave women to enjoy few hours of male-free freedom. Apparently, self-titled neolibertarian kinder-capitalists in the post communist countries forgot to grow up out of propaganda and stereotypes and are still ready to shoot down or at least ridicule any political figure who would dare to publicly say something positive about The Day.

In Canada, they would run out of the ammunition in about two minutes because every major political party issued a statement emphasizing the importance of the gender equality. That doesn’t change the fact that there’s a gap the size of Atlantic between declarations and male reality shaped by politics dominated by personal attacks and ambitions that thrive in the undemocratic first-past-the-post system.

International Women’s Day may have lost its feminist emphasis over the years but as our understanding of human rights changes and becomes more inclusive, so should our approach to women’s rights. Ultimately, it’s a political issue. And why no-one can force women to enter politics, there are ways to make politics a place that would be less hostile and would attract not just more women but more people which politics is about making their countries better places to live.