Defenestrate Them All: Canadian Politics 2021

wtf I love the Tories now

I was tbh shocked to see Isabelle Hachey retweet this call (by an Ottawa-area journalist) for UOttawa to reconsider a prof's position bc of an opinionated tweet about QC health care and racism, considering what seemed like her v principled liberal defence of Véronique Lieutenant-Duval. Is academic freedom less important now?

Ce prof est digne de votre institution, @uOttawa ? https://t.co/j0mXRqtZzg

— Louis-Denis Ebacher (@ldebacher) March 15, 2021

I find Attaran's takes eye-rollingly simplistic and deliberately provocative but that seems very deux poids, deux mesures on Hachey's part, I agree. Criticize him if you want, but to imply that he ought to lose his job over such tweets is about as self-contradictory as it gets.

tbh I appreciate her making explicit who she thinks deserves academic freedom and why.

find Attaran's takes eye-rollingly simplistic and deliberately provocative

I agree but, here, wasn't he basically reacting hyperbolically to a legitimately shocking recording of an aboriginal woman dying after being ignored and then insulted by nurses?: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/sante/2020-09-29/mort-d-une-femme-autochtone-a-joliette/une-infirmiere-qui-a-tenu-des-propos-racistes-congediee.php

This seems more offensive, if anything:

Lots of Albertans mad at me. Don’t give a damn.

I’m not the one killing you. YOU Albertans are killing yourselves by refusing to lock down or wear masks. But instead of fixing the problem’s source, you beg Ottawa for field hospitals to warehouse more dying! Grow up already.

— Amir Attaran (@profamirattaran) December 4, 2020

I agree but, here, wasn't he basically reacting hyperbolically to a legitimately shocking recording of an aboriginal woman dying after being ignored and then insulted by nurses?

Of course, but the implication that no one is taking this issue seriously in Quebec is ridiculous:

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2021-03-16/autochtone-discriminee-a-joliette/un-autre-cas-qui-ne-passe-pas.php

At least that's how I read his 'Alabama of the North' comment.

also similar things happen everywhere in canada

there was a case in bc that in at least one emergency room the staff played a game of guessing the blood alcohol level of indigenous patients

"grow up and quit dying" is an interesting approach to politics

OK, I agree that the tweet was characteristically rash and unfair but not with the claim, quoted by the journalist above, that the absence of a response to AA from 'authorities' is evidence of widespread anti-Quebec bias at UOttawa or the country (as per Attaran's tweets about other provinces).

Oh totally, that claim is absurd. Def not defending Sivis Pacem (whoever that is), Ebacher or Hachey here.

Here comes the obligatory hand-wringing:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2021/03/17/quand-le-racisme-est-a-geometrie-variable

Ha, based on the tweets he quotes, you could just as easily argue that Attaran is racist against Americans (although he is one).

I mean, maybe that's flip but, while I strongly disagreed with the suspension of Lieutenant-Duval, comparing one prof's ill-judged actions in the classroom to what another prof writes on a personal Twitter account (where he makes clear in his bio that it is not affiliated with the university) seems specious to begin with. And taking his tweets about Quebec in isolation from his equally vicious tweets about Ontario or Alberta and claiming that this is evidence of a broader oppressive colonial mentality (esp when talking about a child of Middle Eastern immigrants) is OTT - but the disturbing part is when the author essentially attributes any Canadian criticism of racism in Quebec to this imperialistic contempt. I question why one of the only fully bilingual universities in English Canada, and the largest, seems to have been chosen as a target for outrage.

otm

Le Journal de Montréal is chockfull of such bullshit. I'm surprised Mathieu Bock-Côté has yet to enter the fray.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/no-doubt-experts-warn-third-wave-is-upon-us-1.5350751

Legault's newfound strategy appears to be 'let's vaccinate our vulnerable populations asap and let the new strains do their thing among the young and healthy'. Curfew in Montreal just got pushed back to 9:30 and a semblance of normalcy is resuming in orange zones across the province. We'll see where this goes.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/reports-of-anti-asian-hate-crimes-are-surging-in-canada-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-1.5351481

Hardly surprising, alas. It's only gotten worse since the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, we need to keep talking about the *real* victims here:

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2021-03-18/l-alabama-du-nord/le-pq-portera-plainte-contre-un-professeur-de-l-universite-d-ottawa.php

Wow

I didn't even read that because I was immediately distracted by this headline: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/sante/2021-03-17/hopital-de-saint-eustache/dix-offres-d-emploi-pour-femme-blanche-seulement.php

Their justification for it is quite bizarre, to say the least:

A spokeswoman with the authority said the job posting, which La Presse said was distributed to external placement agencies, was exceptional and connected to a patient at the St-Eustache hospital suffering from dementia who was disruptive in the presence of racialized staff.

"So it seems that the choice to ask for a white employee was more about ensuring the safety of the staff of colour, whom we do not wish to place in risky situations, and not to respond to a patient's racist preference, which is very different," Julie Lemieux-Cote wrote.

"On the other hand, this is absolutely not the right way to resolve such a problem, and we will see that other options are considered instead in the future."

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-health-officials-investigate-job-posting-requiring-applicants-be-white-women-1.5351247

I mean, this doesn't exactly pass muster when set against Occam's razor.

yeah I mean this can't possibly be the first time a hospital has had to confront a situation where a patient "was disruptive in the presence of . . . staff"

Our ministre responsable de la lutte contre le racisme, ladies and gentlemen:

"So be careful before you cry racism, but, yes, the posting was clearly, clearly inappropriate, the choice of words was utterly inexcusable," he said in response to a question from the opposition.

is this sort of like when you fight fire with fire?

Those HR employees were probably just having a bad day.

am I being an ignorant American here? why are they talking about whether or not this was appropriate -- surely this isn't even remotely legal?

The Gazette article on this quotes Charette in full:

“An investigation is underway to find out exactly what happened. What we suspect now is that it is clearly a lack of training at the human resources level. They wanted to take care of a man who is very sick, with significant cognitive issues who can be violent.

“But at the same time, they clearly violated the civil rights of employees who could not apply for this job offer. It is a troubling situation, with completely inappropriate acts, but before concluding it was a racist act we need to wait for the results of the investigation. If it is true, trust me, my actions will be swift.”

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/saint-eustache-hospital-posts-job-offers-for-white-woman-only-report

It's cool, we've only got, like, seven more years under this government at the very least.

I could totally see the hospital staff always using a white person with a patient such as this just because it causes less trouble, but that does not seem like any kind of reasonable justification for potentially denying employment to a person of colour. I don't know, this is a weird one and I'm trying to give some benefit of the doubt but surely this kind of stuff has happened elsewhere and must have been dealt with in a non-racist way.

surely this kind of stuff has happened elsewhere and must have been dealt with in a non-racist way

Exactly.

that's the sticking point

I suspect the unspoken, not-at-all-racist-I-swear underlying situation here is that care-giving jobs are largely staffed by people of colour and/or immigrants. That does not explain or justify management's actions of course.

Rob, IANAL but I think this would violate section 8 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, although idk where provincial jurisdiction comes in here, nor what QC's specific human rights law is: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/page-1.html#h-256800

Also section 15 of the Charter: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

Same thing in Quebec: http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fr/showdoc/cs/c-12 (see chapter I.1, esp. 'Nul ne peut exercer de discrimination dans l’embauche, l’apprentissage, la durée de la période de probation, la formation professionnelle, la promotion, la mutation, le déplacement, la mise à pied, la suspension, le renvoi ou les conditions de travail d’une personne ainsi que dans l’établissement de catégories ou de classifications d’emploi').

Ah, thanks, I was sure there was something similar at the provincial level but wasn't sure what it was exactly for QC - that does make Charette's response seem especially curious.

He stated that 'the civil rights of employees who could not apply for this job offer' were 'clearly violated', so he's aware of the legal stakes, yet he believes that it's not necessarily indicative of racism.

thank you both

"The civil rights of non-white employees were violated due to racial discrimination but let's not be hasty to call this racism"?

I assume his argument has to do with intent. This is eerily reminiscent of debates across the border as to whether the Atlanta shootings were racially motivated or not. Is it bad faith or sheer obliviousness or both?

Well, with the Atlanta shootings, the shooter didn't afaik explicitly state that he meant to target a racial group (although we can take it as implicit given his choices - even if it is the case that those just happened to be the massage parlours he frequented, one could question why he selected those in the first place for an act he considered sinful enough to justify murder). In this case, the ad explicitly excluded, i.e. discriminated against, non-white racial groups - in order to cater to a patient who was being explicitly racist. I realize (or am guessing) Charette's point is most likely that the provincial employees themselves do not harbour ill will towards non-white people in their hearts and were just trying to accommodate the situation by practising racial discrimination - for all of its problems, I think this is the sort of thing the term "systemic racism" was meant to describe but I suppose that concept has been taken off the table? I'm not sure what Charette would even do differently if he could prove 'racist intent' by his definition. What sort of "swift action" is he thinking of?

(Tbc, I do think the Atlanta shootings should be seen as racial violence. I just don't think there's any grey area in this case as to whether the discrimination was based on race, since it was spelled right out in the ad, where I can at least see how someone could see grey in the Atlanta case.)

I just don't think there's any grey area in this case as to whether the discrimination was based on race

I very much agree, but from Charette's perspective, there *is* a grey area here: the ad itself was indeed discriminatory, he admits, but it was not necessarily racist per se, since the intent may not have been to harm non-white candidates but rather to protect them (see the spokeswoman's statement, quoted upthread: 'it seems that the choice to ask for a white employee was more about ensuring the safety of the staff of colour, whom we do not wish to place in risky situations, and not to respond to a patient's racist preference, which is very different').

Yeah it seems consistent with his view, discussed above, that racism is a matter of the prejudices an individual harbours within himself or herself, so maybe it's not bad faith wrt your question. But, ok, let's call this racial discrimination and a civil rights violation instead of racism (as far as provincial employees are concerned) - what does that change on a policy level? Does it just mean that it no longer concerns him since he's the Minister responsible for fighting racism? What if we could somehow prove racist intent - what would he do in that case? I think that's what I'm wondering.

The very existence of his ministry implies the need to tackle racism from a systemic angle, or so it seems to me, but I imagine Charette would retort that this doesn't mean racism in Quebec is itself systemic, which strikes me as convoluted. Publicly acknowledging systemic racism appears to be a greater challenge for the CAQ than claiming something needs to be done about it (and setting up a new portfolio for this very purpose!), weirdly enough.

But yeah, I have no idea what he would actually do if racist intent was legally averred in this particular instance. Read out a strongly worded statement?

Re: verbally abused indigenous woman in Joliette, the plot thickens:

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2021-03-19/infirmieres-renvoyees-a-joliette/c-etait-un-congediement-politique.php

There might have been an overreaction after the previous, genuinely awful, case but it does still seem incredibly condescending for a nurse to ask an adult patient "can you sing a song in your language"? If that's what they learned to do in their training session, there might be some kind of, uh, systemic issue. (That said, I've been patronized lots of times without anyone getting fired.) And why would they tell someone named Jocelyne that they are going to nickname her "Joyce", even if they somehow didn't remember the scandalous death of a Joyce in their hospital?