The New Canada: Free to be, Just Like Me

This means that if we are employers, we can be forced to hire niqab-wearers in order to comply with the law, even though our natural inclinations might be to avoid such applicants.  And we may have to accommodate other demands that they claim are connected to their religion, such as time off to pray, or space to pray in, even though it makes them less productive than other employees and costs us money.

Either Karen Selick didn't get the memo that the CPC is focusing in TTP, or this is actually something that's been eating at her - demonstrating just how effective a wedge-issue Lynton Crosby found with the niqab.

Let's unpack what she has to say a bit, shall we?

"Employers may be forced to hire niqab-wearers... even though our natural inclinations might be to avoid such applicants."

This is perfectly logical and rational, right?  If you're going to be working with someone, you want to be comfortable with them, right?  You need to know that they think like you do, that there's no chance of any awkwardness that detracts from the bottom line?  It's not enough to weed out the people who's names you don't like on CVs, you need to freedom to exercise the same discretion in person.

Whether it's a woman wearing a niqab, a man with black skin, someone who's got a tattoo, or is in a wheelchair, or is gay... if they make you feel uncomfortable, you don't have to give them your money. Or let them in your store, for that matter - it's yours, right?

If we are landlords, we can be forced to rent premises to niqab-wearers, even though we'd rather shun them.

Consistency of language here - natural inclination... would rather shun... we're talking about emotional reactions.  Like feeling anxious at Pride parade, or worried the black boy on the subway probably wants to rob you or is carrying a gun.  Our feelings are our instincts and, rational actors that we are, our instincts are what matter most - right?

They can hold their employers, their landlords, their storekeepers and their garage mechanics in contempt for not sharing their religion, while nevertheless forcing all those people to deal with them and conceal their own antipathy towards face coverings.

Indeed.  By simply being themselves in public, they are expressing contempt for everyone else.  It's the same thing with those gay people holding hands, mocking the natural order of things, or groups of young coloured kids, clearly relishing the discomfort they cause the Karen Selwicks of the world.

And if a store keeper feels that the South Asian kid coming to buy a guitar from them is just scaring away real customers, it's okay for them to kick those people out, n'est ce pas?  Or if it's a man with cerebral palsy - he just makes everyone feel uncomfortable, and clearly someone like him can't be buying anything, so out the door he goes.  Heck, you could even extend the argument to people with positions you don't like - if you don't like what they have to say, you should have the right to exclude them, too.

(Sidebar: Of course smoke breaks are okay - it's not the same at all as alleged Muslims allegedly praying during the work day; it doesn't feel like the same kind of productivity loss as a costumed freak bowing to the floor.

The point here is that employers should have the right not to hire people they find undesirable. Business owners and landlords have the right to reject people that "make them uncomfortable".  Really, people on the street (the majority, obviously) who don't like to see women wearing niqabs, or men wearing thawbs, or girls or boys holding hands and kissing on the street, or groups of brown kids together, or black boys in general - it's their right not to be exposed to any of that, right?

That whole "judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" thing is just one of those socialist impositions to the free will of rational actors, eh?

Heck, if I as a man feel that women are too emotional to make good executives, or politicians, or columnists, that's my call too.

Selick's bottom line is this: 

It's a pity I'm not legally free to act upon my conviction and show niqab wearers by my conduct towards them what I expect them to do in order to gain my acceptance.

Gain her acceptance.  Not add value to society, not be good citizens, good neighbours or any of that - gain her acceptance.  Be accepted into the club by the Old Stock members.

Except does Selick qualify as an Old Stock Canadian?  Almost as justification for her position, she tells us about her immigrant Jewish grandfather:

There were no phony human rights laws back then, so he did what most Jewish (and other) immigrants did in order to become accepted in society: he assimilated and conformed to Canadian customs.  He adopted an anglicized surname for a while.  He worked on a farm and even went to church with the farm family to avoid being conspicuous.

Take note, immigrants - don't come here expecting to apply your degrees and ideas to new tech, economic development or social solutions.  Especially if you aren't willing to adopt standards Canadian dress, values, religious practices, etc.  If you won't be like us - if you can't be like us - you're not welcome.

And if you're from Canada?

After Sana returned, the officer let us go.  We drove off, overcome with silence until my father finally exploded.  "You realize everyone in this car is black, right?" he thundered at Sana.  "Yes, Uncle," Sana whispered, his head down and shoulders slumped.  That afternoon, my imposing father and cocky cousin had trembled in fear over a discarded Kleenex."

See, Desmond Cole and his family are black.  It matters not what their education, social contribution or whatever is - the pressure is on them, as black people, not to draw negative attention to themselves from the people who's natural inclination is to dislike black people.

This isn't systematic racism or oppression, of course - it's freedom of expression.  For real Canadians, anyway.  The ones with proprietary ownership of what it means to be and sound and think and look like a Canadian.

Not First Nations - they're the minority, they have to get over the whole colonization thing.  The residential schools were probably the best thing that happened to them, because the goal was forced conformation.  

Not "minority" Canadians like Chinese, or Somali, or Jews - it doesn't matter how long their families and communities have roots in Canada, if they make the garage owners and landlords and lawyers like Karen Selick feel uncomfortable by speaking a language "the majority" can't understand or wearing clothes that don't conform or heaven forbid, aggregate in imposing groups, they are actually impeding the freedom of comfort of the "majority."

What else?  What other people, or perspectives, make Selick feel uncomfortable?  Poor people on the street?  Environmentalists?  Tree-huggers?

And if you can't gain the acceptance of people like Karen Selick... well, there should be protections for their freedoms from stuff like that, right?  

The new Civil Service Law was the German authorities' first formulation of the so-called Aryan Paragraph, a kind of regulation used to exclude Jews (and often by extension other "non-Aryans") from organizations, professions and other aspects of public life.

If she's a legit lawyer, Karen Selick has some education.  One would hope she has some inclination as to why we have certain laws and the context in which those laws were created.  She makes it clear, however, that her feelings - her discomforts and antipathies and natural inclinations - are her compass, not her training nor logic.

The sad truth is that Karen is a moderate voice for a seething underbelly of hatred in this country.  

Racism became a prominent, ugly feature of Toronto's last election, in no small part due to the legitimacy then-Mayor Rob Ford gave to being openly bigoted.  We're seeing more and more manifestations of this in places like Montreal and Toronto.

There's an uncertain economy, legitimate foreign conflicts fought by groups claiming ethnic and religious legitimacy (though it's the White Supremacists CSIS says we should be worried about, until a political staffer starts telling them to change the emphasis of their reports).  There are lots of reasons for people to be scared, to be angry, to be uncomfortable - and to look for someone to blame.

Instead of calling out some of the comments coming from his supporters as unacceptable, Team Harper has actively fanned the flames of hatred - the niqab, "barbaric practices" tip lines, etc.

When it's all about winning, you go with what works, right?

Karen Selick is, by her own definition, a bigot.  She focused on the niqab but, through the course of her piece, she emphasizes that which makes her feel uncomfortable as bad and conformity as desired.  She can justify to the ends of the earth why she's right, though much of her arguments would focus on proving you wrong rather than discussing context.

Finding solutions, adapting to change - these aren't her priorities.  Being right and being comfortable are.

There's an increasingly high level of cortisol in Canada, and it's not being addressed.  Instead, political opportunities are pouring gas on the problem with wedge-issues they know will serve them well.

This, sadly, is how it begins.  

On Public Interest

No political party in the 1980s or 1990s, except the occasional fringe one, was actively whipping up antipathy to the French minority in Canada. You can’t make a country work that way, even if it does yield some crucial votes.

Of course, making the country work isn't the point.  That's too much like committing sociology.  

The point is to win.  When you win, you can do what you want, and what you've done to win gets validated.  Everyone else is thinking the same thing, you know.  It's survival of the fittest - that's all the validation you need.

And because there's no such thing as society, there's no such thing as societal consequence.  Right?

Each to their own - that's all there is.

Why the Bloc Should Love Lynton Crosby

"A campaign is simply finding out who will decide the outcome, where are they, what matters to them and how do you reach them and how do you monitor the impact of what you're doing when you're communicating with them," he says.  "Who is the target for you?  Who matters?"

There's no magic in what Crosby does - it's just math.  What makes him stand out is his simple, calculated way of using wedge-politics on the "what matters to them" piece.  With political manipulators like Crosby, what matters is as much about what you fear as what you believe in.

Hence, the niqab thing.

It's blown up of late to become the latest defining issue in a campaign that's gone through several (Duffy, the Syrian Refugee crisis, etc).  It's also one of the least significant issues in Canadian politics right now - things like, I dunno, youth employment, the silver surge, mental health, our economy, etc. are kinda more crucial to the big picture.

Winning elections isn't about solving problems, though - it's about motivating people to vote for you and not vote for the other guy, with a sub-set of divide-and-conquer of the other parties and community groups.

People like Lynton Crosby aren't paid to worry about the big picture - their job is to get their people across the finish line with the most seats, period.

So, while the niqab issue is a tempest in a teapot impacting a fraction of a fraction of the population, the Harper Conservatives have managed to spin it into a fundamental test of Canadian values and whatnot.  It's demonstrably working for them.

The basic frame is this - covering one's face during a swearing-in ceremony is the moral equivalent of wrapping baby Jesus in the Canadian flag along with your passport, lighting everything on fire, putting the flaming bundle into a car with a cup of pee and driving that car into the War Memorial.

Shocking, ghastly stuff that stands against everything Canada stands for.

What people are really taking away from it, of course, is simpler and more emotional - them people that think differently and dress differently have something to hide, a secret agenda, and that's dangerous.  We need to push back.

It's firewall mentality; it's pure laine mentality.  It implies there is a set old stock Canada that people are yearning to desecrate; the only ones who can stop this tide and keep troubles from lapping at our shores are, you guessed it, Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney and the CPC.

There's clearly an appetite for this kind of message.  If the Tories can keep it up, they will effectively wash away the taint of the Senate Scandal and broader criticism of Harper's increasingly authoritarian rule.

Yay for Crosby; job well done, pay his fee and pour the Scotch.  His reputation as a campaign wizard remains intact.

The spin-off repercussions of this play aren't his problem; he collects his cheque and goes home.

Meanwhile, the pushing of ethnic/cultural issues to the fore of the election for wedge-political gain is pouring gas on already-existing xenophobic sentiment in this country.  CSIS itself has clearly stated that ISIS presents less of a threat to Canada than White Supremacists, yet pushing this button helps them to push their agenda as well.

Meanwhile, Quebec has a history of seeing itself as a culture and value-set under threat; language laws, religious garb bans, etc. have defined its relationship with Canadians as much as the separatist movement has.

By pushing the niqab issue into the limelight, Crosby and co. have reinforced the emotional narrative of values and community under threat by culture-usurping outsiders that clearly has some appeal inside Quebec.

That probably has something to do with the Bloc's bump in popularity, as they frame themselves as protectors of traditional Quebec in much the same way Harper presents himself as champion of Old Stock Canada.

If the Bloc sees this is working, they may very well double-down on Crosby's position to stir up more support for themselves.  For their part, Crosby and Team Harper should be delighted by this - a stronger Bloc in Quebec bleeds support potential from the Liberals and/or NDP, strengthening their lead.

It's a numbers game, remember.

What does a resurgent Bloc bolstered on a xenophobic message of foreign values and customs threatening traditional culture mean for Canada - especially with a wave of Syrian refugees, many who might end up in Montreal, on the way?

Who else might seize upon this carefully-constructed wedge-issue to push their own agendas which may not align with what most see as traditional Canadian-ness?

Again, none of this is Crosby's problem; he's just a hired gun.

It's the rest of us that will have to deal with the consequences of these short-sighted moves.

What Canada Should Be Ready For:

Look at this picture - what do you see?

I'll tell you what I see:

A wicked-smart, no-nonsense municipal policy advisor (and the genius mind behind CSLabs) elegantly raising points about the functioning of Westminster Parliamentary democracies and how we don't elect governments.

She's raising that point with an intelligent, informed panel put together by a remarkable think/do tank that is leading the way on two of Canada's current hot-button issues.

And all of this happening in a well-recognized Canadian institution - note the Sears name on the wall.

Smart people who understand how the system works and how the game is played dedicating themselves to positive solutions, and with the support of "old stock" Canada.

This election has largely been about emotions and emotional story-telling.  This picture mobilized the country (for a time) over an issue that has been going on for ages and shows no signs of stopping.

Scratch the surface, though, and a different picture emerges - the war room folk are no longer the only ones framing the narrative using data and behavioural economics.

The face of Canadian politics is changing; the power is shifting.

It is a revolution, of sorts, happening right out in the open.

So have hope, folks - winter is around the corner, but spring isn't far off either.

Canadian Winter

The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life.

Indeed...

If Harper wins a Majority

“Canadians know that this election presents a serious choice between experience and dangerous risk. A choice between our Conservative low-tax, balanced budget plan, and the Liberals’ dangerous approach that will raise taxes on all workers, cancel benefits to families, and (plunge) our country into permanent deficits.”

Under our First Past the Post electoral system, a majority win for an incumbent party serves as both validation of everything they've done before and dismissal of any past sins.  As there's no way (other than polls, ahem) to know exactly what the electorate voted for or against, the incumbents can claim that Canadians like everything they have done, don't care about the scandals they have perpetrated and have flatly rejected the other parties and everything they stand for as dangerously risky.

Stifled Members of Parliament and Oppressing science?  Canadians are cool with that!

Partisan ads using public dollars?  Canada doesn't mind!

Senate scandals, PMO cover-ups?  Nobody cares!

Dangerously inexperienced young voices like Justin Trudeau's?  Gotta remind them where there place is.

Having a firm grip on power and validation for all the things they've done to stay in power, the Harper Conservatives will be justified in doing more of the same (because it worked); by the same token, the other parties will take a serious second look at the tactics used by Team Harper to win (because in politics, winning trumps values).

Meanwhile, barring some massive shake-up at the top, Team Harper will continue to look at the courts as an opponent to their agenda/straw man to use in getting their low- to middle-income base to place more of their hard-earned cash in the Tory coffers.

Picture less public and media access to a government increasingly comfortable in reducing transparency and doing what they feel they need to do without scrutiny.  Imagine even less useful data being collected for policy-crafting purposes, more Minister's Office pressure on the public service to tell only those stories that favour the Conservative narrative yet more monitoring of so-called foes of the public interest, including social justice advocates, First Nations groups, environmental activists, scientists, etc.

That would clearly be what Canadians want, right?

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality..."

How might those Canadians who feel Harper's style of governance is increasingly anti-democratic and dangerous to Canada's public interest respond to this?  Ads in the media?  Those can be spun as union-backed attempts to undermine Harper's Canada's Government.  Critical pieces in the press? That damned media party again.  Protests?  Dangerous attempts to undermine the elected governing party at best, foreign-backed or infiltrated opportunities for civic unrest and cover for terrorist acts at worst.

Even if the government uses those lines strictly as pokes for fundraising campaigns, their loyal base will accept the emotional truth of these attacks and internalize them.  

I'd point out that CSIS feels that ISIS is less of a threat to Canadian security than domestic anti-immigrant groups, but hey - it's just the lefty media talking.

How about the political staffers weaned on the tactics and attitudes of the current crop of Harper cronies?  What entitlements will they feel are theirs for the taking?  What lengths beyond the norm may they go to so as to impress the boss and climb the ladder?  What of a caucus with little to do and, therefore, little sense of personal accountability?

The picture painted is a pretty grim one, but it's one we're rather likely to encounter.

It's not all bad, though.  

As we've seen already, an oppressive government with reduced capacity loses the ability to back its bluster with substantial action beyond turning off the taps.  Despite protestations that ignoring federal laws is not an option for the provinces, they're increasingly doing so anyway - and filling in where the feds have backed off on everything from healthcare to pension plans to boot.

Government can take money and charitable status away from advocacy groups, but they have a harder time impacting collective impact funding and grassroots-based initiatives that require only dedicated time and the use of free digital platforms to mobilize.  Beyond this, there's the growing movement of Virtuous Schemers working for the public, even if it means working against the government.

And all these groups are increasingly working together in coordinated fashion.

Despite the closing of Canadian government (and, to an extent, the Canadian mind), there is hope emerging from beneath the veil of Harpernian control. 

Harper promised us we wouldn't recognize Canada after he was done with it.  I agree - but I don't think the end product is going to be at all like he expected.

Trudeau, Mental Health and the Public Service

Good for Trudeau (text from his letter below).

Sad reality is that a growing number of Canada's public servants don't have job stability or benefits (renewed contracts replacing permanent positions) and for those who do, the culture, accommodations and design of government work is sorely lacking.  The stress, uncertainty, low morale, unclear direction, conflict of what they're supposed to do and what partisan staff pressure them to do is taking a toll.  Presenteeism is rampant, as are prescriptions (and claims) for depression and anxiety medication.  

Mental health issues in the civil service is a big thing.

It's a problem the private sector is twigging on to and, in fits and spurts, taking steps to address. They have realized that saying "get over it" and punishing people with the cognitive equivalent of carpal tunnel syndrome doesn't solve the problem, it only exacerbates it.  If the bottom line dictates better employee support, so be it.

Does it not make sense for government to do the same?  Should government not be leading by example?

Were I team Trudeau, I would talk about this a lot more in the coming weeks (and to a certain Trudeau advisor: I told you this was coming!); it's an issue that impacts Canadians at all levels deeply, ties into the values Trudeau speaks to and highlights the cognitive dissonance in Harper's stance on mental health vs. occupational mental health.

Sad part is, this could and should have been a win for Harper.  That's what happens when you're functionally fixed and unable to adapt though.

Mental Health

Canada is facing a growing mental health crisis; during their lifetimes, one in five Canadians will experience a mental health issue. It is crucial that we foster a welcoming environment for free and frank discussion, and the federal government has a vital leadership role to play in improving mental health support for Canadians. As the country’s largest employer, it must begin by tackling the challenges of mental illness, which account for almost half of its disability claims.

 I was encouraged earlier this year when a Joint Task Force on Mental Health was created by the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the federal Treasury Board. I fully support this type of collaborative process and commit to implementing the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. Supporting this standard is good for the employee, the workplace, and the employer.