Matlow: Jew-hatred has never stopped evolving. Antizionism is its latest iteration

2026/09/14 2 Comments

Good commentary:

…It’s easy to chant “Free Palestine” or imagine a single democratic state where everyone has equal rights and lives happily ever after. But seven million Israeli Jews aren’t disappearing. Neither are Palestinians. That’s the trouble with reality: it’s messy, painful and terrible at slogans. The only paths are compromise and co-existence – or forever war. 

Meanwhile, Jews are once again feeling the walls closing in. In Canada, reported antisemitic incidents are at record levels, but stats don’t capture the Star of David tucked under a shirt, the kippah left at home, the Jewish artist dropped from an event after failing a Zionism purity test, or the many Jews pushed out at school or at work. For me, queer spaces used to feel safest. Now they’re where I feel most anxious.

And what recourse do Jews even have when our institutions see us as too powerful – or too deceptive – to deserve the same anti-racist protections as other minorities? Why speak up when you’ll just be accused of “weaponizing antisemitism”? Eventually, a lot of Jews shut up. But silence doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say. It tells you the price of saying it. 

Jews need allies. Nobody wants to be called a “genocide apologist” for standing up for Jews. But that’s how antizionism persists in plain sight: fear of looking racist has become a pretty ingenious way to get people to tolerate Jew-hatred. 

Politicians keep denouncing antisemitism without confronting where the “scourge” is coming from. The answer is uncomfortable because, as the old horror-movie line goes, the call is coming from inside the house. 

Jew-hatred has always been a good stress test for society’s values. So yes, this is about protecting Jews. But it’s as much about protecting a culture where facts still matter, words still mean something, people are allowed to disagree, and minorities deserve solidarity even when they’re politically inconvenient. 

The real divide isn’t pro-Israel versus pro-Palestine, Jews versus Muslims, or left versus right. It’s between reality and ideology, curiosity and certainty, and actually being anti-racist rather than just looking the part. 

Because the real test of our values isn’t how we treat the people we’ve decided are the good guys. It’s whether we apply them to the people we’ve decided are villains.

Rachel ‘Archie’ Matlow is a journalist and author.

Source: Jew-hatred has never stopped evolving. Antizionism is its latest iteration

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Christopher Dummitt: Racism accusations can’t stifle the truth about diversity

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Of note (and having read both the Usher and Kaufmann pieces, Kaufmann did control for career length and discipline:

…To be fair, there are real criticisms to make of the report. Usher’s point that the MLI press release foregrounds numbers more dramatic than what the full report supports is a legitimate complaint about framing. But it is definitely not evidence of “the worst piece of social science” anyone has ever seen.

What the MLI report is doing is useful: engaging openly with a debate that much of higher education won’t admit is a debate at all. My guess is plenty of academics privately entertain the possibility that equity doesn’t automatically produce excellence, but they don’t publicly say so because it means risking your reputation. As a result, the only people left asking are on the political right, who can then be dismissed, as Usher shows, simply with an accusation of racism, a charge that delegitimizes the question before it’s even considered.

Usher did exactly this to another MLI report four years ago, one I co-authored with Zachary Patterson of Concordia University. That report surveyed ideological conformity and self-censorship in Canadian universities, including whether professors believed diversity should be valued over their discipline’s core intellectual standards.

For asking that question, we too were accused of racism. Usher published a critique alleging assorted methodological problems; when we replied, showing he’d missed the sections addressing every one of them, he simply didn’t respond.

In the case of my report, and again now with MLI’s “The Equity Excellence Trade-Off,” Usher didn’t fact-check the report. He fact-checked the room — and the room agreed with him. Why wouldn’t it, given what we know, on average, about the ideological make-up of the profession?”

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Racism accusations can’t stifle the truth about diversity

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He’s been in Canada for 27 years. Now a former refugee faces deportation over trips back home

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Well, if you have gone back repeatedly to your country of origin, hard to claim still being a refugee. Time should count less than behaviour:

…An obvious response is that permanent residence is not citizenship. Legally, that distinction matters. Permanent residence can be lost on statutory grounds that generally do not apply to Canadian citizenship.

Yet that does not make time irrelevant. One year of residence compared to 27 years of residence may be connected to the same immigration status, but they’re not socially or emotionally equivalent. Over decades, people become embedded in families, communities and workplaces in ways immigration categories alone cannot capture.

Slepcsik’s case is also striking because some of the conduct considered in the reavailment analysis involved family obligations. A journey undertaken to care for an injured sibling or attend a funeral can become part of the evidence considered under refugee law, while the person making that journey may understand it primarily as an obligation to someone they love.

Migration does not require people to stop caring about where they came from in order to become attached to somewhere new. People can sustain relationships and responsibilities across borders.

None of this means permanent residence should be treated as citizenship, or that the conditions attached to refugee protection should cease to matter with time. But when legal rules point one way and nearly 30 years of work, family and attachment point another, what weight should each carry?

Slepcsik’s case does not provide an easy answer. It asks something more basic: when immigration law decides whether someone may remain after decades of residence, how much should time count?

Source: He’s been in Canada for 27 years. Now a former refugee faces deportation over trips back home

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Ottawa ends permanent residency exemption for refugees with undeclared family

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Of note (H&C approval rates are about 50 percent according to latest public data):

…A department spokesperson said in an emailed response that affected people can now apply instead for an exemption on humanitarian or compassionate grounds. The spokesperson said this is an “appropriate” way to provide accommodations that ensures the integrity of the immigration system.

The policy was last extended in September 2023. A memo drafted for the immigration minister at the time said about 2,000 applications had been received and that there was “minimal risk” to program integrity. The memo reported a 90 per cent approval rate.

Most of the applications received over the first two years of the policy found family members were not declared “through no fault of the clients,” according to the memo.

Jamie Liew, a University of Ottawa law professor, co-authored a 2017 study on the gaps that existed before the exemption was created. She said the end of the policy came as a shock and she was under the impression it was working “pretty well.”

“Now, this avenue has been pulled. And it will leave a lot of families separated indefinitely and possibly permanently,” Liew said.

Liew said humanitarian and compassionate applications are not sufficient remedies because their estimated processing time currently stands at more than 10 years. 

“The wait period for these applications (is) unforgiving, and then the grant rates themselves are very low. Humanitarian and compassionate applications are not known for being very easy to get status with,” Liew said.

Sreenivasan said the Canadian Council for Refugees was informed of the policy’s end on Wednesday. The organization sent a letter to Immigration Minister Lena Diab Friday saying they are shocked and deeply dismayed by the lack of consultation.

Sreenivasan said she wants Diab to reconsider the decision, release information to show whether there were problems with the program, and launch consultations aimed at fixing any problems….

Source: Ottawa ends permanent residency exemption for refugees with undeclared family

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9/11

2026/09/11 2 Comments

25 years ago, I was working in the LA consulate, waking up to the attack and glued to the TV to follow events, sending local staff hope while Canadian-based staff worked on various consular and related issues in a very uncertain context.

Driving to the downtown consulate, the 101 was deserted, a 10 minute drive rather than more typical 30 minutes or so.

And when air traffic slowly restarted, worrying about the few aircraft in the air.

Gradually, things “returned” to a new normal.

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Trump’s Census Overhaul Would Exclude Some Immigrants and Remove Questions on Race

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising. The Harper government’s replacement of the Census in 2011 by the National Household Survey represented a similar tendency to reduce data-based discussions on equality and equity in addition to a general ideology against what it viewed of government intrusiveness:

The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed to no longer count immigrants without green cards in the 2030 census or ask about race and ethnicity, part of an overhaul that would redefine who counts as a U.S. resident in the eyes of the federal government.

The sweeping measures would upend a process that helps determine the allotment of congressional seats, billions of dollars in federal funding and policies to address systemic disparities.

The proposed regulation, published online on Wednesday, would not count noncitizens without green cards in the 2030 census, a significant departure from the process stipulated by the Constitution to occur every 10 years. Historically, the census has asked Americans about their race and ethnicity and counted all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status.

The overhaul also would bar the U.S. census from asking Americans about their sexual orientation.

While the proposal is likely to face legal challenges, the changes would not only remove undocumented immigrants from the official population count used to determine congressional seats, but also immigrants who are in the United States legally and have yet to secure green cards or citizenship. As a result, areas with more immigrants, which tend to vote Democratic, could lose representation and federal funding….

Source: Trump’s Census Overhaul Would Exclude Some Immigrants and Remove Questions on Race

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PISA 2025 Results (Volume I) – Immigration Aspects

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

Most of the articles on the latest PISA have focussed, understandably, on on continuing decline in scores across most jurisdictions. This section contrasts immigrants and native-born, showing that immigrants outperform the native-born. Unfortunately, not able to access the relevant data tables:

A fair education system gives students with an immigrant background an equal opportunity to thrive at school and realise their full learning potential compared to those without an immigrant background. PISA defines immigrant students as students whose mother and father were both born in a country/economy other than that where the student took the PISA test. Non-immigrant students are students who have at least one parent born in the country of assessment. This section examines the extent to which the countries and economies that participated in PISA 2025 ensure that all students are on a level playing field, regardless of their background. 

Overall, the results presented in this chapter show that non-immigrant students tend to outperform immigrant students in all PISA subjects in many, though not all, countries and economies. However, this raw performance gap is rarely a function of immigrant status alone. Instead, these students often navigate intersecting layers of disadvantage (Bowleg, 2012[48]; Cerna et al., 2021[49]) In some countries and economies, students with an immigrant background are disproportionately likely to come from socio-economically disadvantaged families compared to non-immigrant students (OECD, 2023[3]). Furthermore, a significant proportion of these students face the additional challenge of navigating an education system in a language different from the one they speak at home, a challenge that is particularly acute for first-generation immigrants and for those who arrive to a new country/economy later on in their educational trajectories (OECD, 2023[3]).

Once socio-economic status and the language spoken at home are taken into account, the picture often changes. In many education systems, immigrant students actually outperform their non-immigrant peers, demonstrating remarkable academic resilience and a strong drive to succeed (Cerna et al., 2021[49]; OECD, 2023[3]). This reversal suggests that the educational vulnerabilities associated with an immigrant background are not inevitable, but are instead largely shaped by features of education systems, as well as linguistic barriers.

Moreover, several countries and economies combine a large share of students with an immigrant background (i.e. over 30% of students) with high average levels of performance (Australia, Canada*, Macao (China), New Zealand* and Singapore) (Tables I.B1.2d.1 and I.B1.2d.10). PISA results support the view that policies aimed at dismantling cultural and linguistic barriers – through targeted language support, intercultural education, and the promotion of inclusive school climates that value diversity – can improve the outcomes of immigrant students (Cerna et al., 2021[49]; OECD, 2023[3]; Tarozzi, 2012[50]). At the same time, these results should be interpreted in light of differences in immigrant student profiles across countries and economies. In some systems, immigration policies and selection mechanisms may shape the socio-economic background, language proficiency and other characteristics of immigrant populations, and may partly explain the positive outcomes observed among immigrant students.

Education systems around the world vary greatly in terms of how large their immigrant student population is (Table I.B1.2d.1). In almost half of the countries and economies in PISA 2025 (42 out of 87), the share of 15-year-old students with an immigrant background is small (less than 5%). But in 24 countries and economies, the share of immigrant students is higher than 15%; in 14 countries and economies it is higher than 25%; and in Luxembourg, Macao (China), Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, more than half of students have an immigrant background. On average across 29 OECD countries with available data, 18% of students have an immigrant background. The composition of immigrant student populations can also vary considerably within countries and economies, with students differing by country of origin, language spoken at home, socio-economic background, and cultural proximity to the host country. As a result, average outcomes for students with an immigrant background may mask important differences between immigrant sub-groups within the same education system.

Students with an immigrant background can be distinguished between first- and second-generation immigrants. First‑generation immigrants are students born outside the country of assessment and whose parents were also born outside the country of assessment. Second-generation students are students born in the country of assessment but whose parent(s) were born outside the country of assessment. The share of second-generation immigrants is 10% and the share of first-generation immigrants 8% on average across OECD countries in PISA 2025 (Table I.B1.2d.1).

These differences in the size and composition of immigrant student populations provide important context for interpreting performance gaps between immigrant and non-immigrant students across education systems.

Source: PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

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La chute du nombre d’étudiants internationaux se poursuit dans les universités québécoises

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

As designed and expected:

Le nombre d’étudiants internationaux continue de chuter dans plusieurs universités québécoises, montrent des données compilées par Le Devoir. Une situation qui compromet sérieusement les finances de certains établissements, dans les grands centres urbains comme en région, en plus de miner la recherche universitaire et l’avenir de certains programmes.

Sur la dizaine d’universités contactées, sept ont fourni au Devoir des données préliminaires qui confirment une baisse marquée du nombre d’étudiants internationaux entre leurs murs cet automne, par rapport à la même période l’an dernier. Celle-ci atteint notamment 12 % d’une année à l’autre à l’Université du Québec à Montréal, 25 % à l’Université de Sherbrooke et plus de 30 % à l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). Une situation qui préoccupe le recteur de cette dernière, Christian Blanchette.

« C’est majeur », indique M. Blanchette, qui rappelle que cette baisse des inscriptions s’ajoute à celle, déjà marquée, notée l’an dernier. En somme, « la tendance se maintient », et « elle n’est pas bonne », poursuit celui qui est également président du conseil d’administration du Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire, qui regroupe les 18 universités québécoises.

Cette situation survient dans un contexte où les décisions politiques prises par Québec pour limiter l’accès à la résidence permanente aux étudiants internationaux ont fait chuter les demandes de permis d’études dans la province en deçà des plafonds établis par Québec et Ottawa….

Source: La chute du nombre d’étudiants internationaux se poursuit dans les universités québécoises

The number of international students continues to fall in several Quebec universities, according to data compiled by Le Devoir. A situation that seriously compromises the finances of certain institutions, in large urban centers as well as in the region, in addition to undermining university research and the future of certain programs.

Of the ten universities contacted, seven provided Le Devoir with preliminary data that confirm a sharp decline in the number of international students within their walls this fall, compared to the same period last year. This notably reaches 12% from one year to the next at the Université du Québec à Montréal, 25% at the Université de Sherbrooke and more than 30% at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). A situation that worries the rector of the latter, Christian Blanchette.

“It’s major,” says Mr. Blanchette, who recalls that this decrease in registrations is in addition to the one, already marked, noted last year. In short, “the trend continues,” and “it is not good,” continues the one who is also chairman of the board of directors of the Interuniversity Cooperation Office, which brings together the 18 Quebec universities.

This situation comes in a context where the political decisions taken by Quebec City to limit access to permanent residence to international students have caused applications for study permits in the province to fall below the ceilings established by Quebec City and Ottawa….

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Connelly – Qualified but overlooked: How bias keeps Indigenous job seekers from getting hired

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

Comparable to studies regarding visible minorities:

…The patterns varied significantly by region. In Ontario, callback rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous applicants were nearly identical. In Saskatchewan, however, the gap was much larger: non-Indigenous applicants received callbacks 13.2 per cent of the time, compared with 8.1 per cent for Indigenous applicants.

To better understand these differences, we conducted interviews with hiring managers and workers in both provinces. These interviews suggested that hiring decisions involved more than formal qualifications and experience.

Instead, it was governed by an unwritten standard of “fit” — one shaped by racialized and gendered expectations about who represents an ideal hospitality worker.

Our quantitative findings showed that Indigenous women received more callbacks than Indigenous men (11.6 per cent compared with 8.3 per cent), reflecting broader patterns in hospitality hiring in which women are perceived as being especially suited to customer-facing roles….

Source: Qualified but overlooked: How bias keeps Indigenous job seekers from getting hired

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Olivia Chow opts out of antisemitism debate

2026/09/08 Leave a comment

Pattern:

…Moderator has criticized Chow

Tuesday’s debate was to be moderated by Jesse Brown, editor and founder of the Canadaland media outlet, who has publicly accused Chow of endangering the Jewish community. In a post to X in July, he wrote that she had “allowed this city to become a global capital of antisemitism,” and described her statements about not tolerating hate as “dangerous gaslighting that keeps Jews unsafe.” 

In a post after his role as moderator was announced, Brown said Chow would “be treated fairly” if she decided to take part.

Rezvany did not respond to a question about whether Brown’s participation was a factor in Chow’s decision, and the lawyers association declined to comment.

In an email, Brown told the Star that Chow’s team hadn’t asked for a different moderator, and if they had, he would step aside. “If she chooses not to attend, that’s between her and the Jewish community as a whole and it’s not something I’m willing to be scapegoated for,” he said.

“I just don’t think it’s acceptable to sit this one out,” he added.

Not unusual for candidates to skip debates

Unlike at the provincial and federal levels, there is no centralized group responsible for organizing municipal leadership debates in Toronto. Instead, individual organizations stage their own, often leading to a high number of debates each election season. It’s not unusual for candidates to turn down invitations. Chow has confirmed she will attend a Sept. 14 debate hosted by the Daily Bread Food Bank, which is also expected to include Bradford and Alexander and which the organization is billing as the first debate of the 2026 campaign.

However, Tuesday’s debate has political significance for Chow, who since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel has faced criticism from some for how she has handled local fallout from the conflict….

Source: Olivia Chow opts out of antisemitism debate

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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