Human Rights Each Day.com: Diversity

Diversity

February 07, 2012

What do these numbers mean to you? From skin colour to atheists.

Statistics Canada starts releasing their first data from the 2011 census tomorrow (February 8th). Since we will likely get population and age data first, a lot of attention will be given to the question of pension and/or old age security reform as it becomes obvious we continue to grow older (not just me and you, but as a national average).

       This debate will go on for a long time, but in addition to this important issue, we need to look beyond it…in fact we need to look beyond our noses and immediate self-interest.

       Canada is no different than other Western countries or countries where there is increasing prosperity. In fact, throughout the world, the number of births per woman is declining. It’s just that in our country this decline has been going on for a number of decades and there’s no indication it will change.

       The census data takes quite a while to compile and it’s not just a matter of crunching numbers. So we’ll be seeing data and analysis coming this year and even into next. And deep analysis will take longer. Over this time, I’ll be interested in finding out a number of things that are going to have a huge impact on our economy, our culture and how open we are to change. For example:

•    Will the trend continue where recent immigrants continue to fall further behind in pay and jobs suited to their skills? Many skilled immigrants realize it takes a while to match the level of job and relative wealth they left behind, but too many are surprised that it takes a long, long time, or that they in fact never reach it. So far the data shows that newer immigrants to Canada are doing much worse than immigrants who came to Canada just three decades ago.

• Will the number of people who are dark-skinned continue to fall even further behind immigrants who are light-skinned? (“visible minority” is so insulting…and condemned by U.N. bodies.) So far, this is what is happening. Since I am the world’s “visible minority”, and since Canada continues to attract more dark-skinned people than light-skinned people, this means we’ve got a problem if we aren’t properly integrating people for no other reason than the colour of their skin or other “different” attributes.

•    What will be the religious make-up of our country? We haven’t had data about religion since the 2001 census and these days, a decade is a long time. It’s not just the make-up of religious people, but also the non-religious people. In 2001 16.5% of Canadians responded that they had “no religious affiliation”. By province, that was a low of 2.5% in Newfoundland and Labrador and a high of 35.9% in British Columbia. While “no religious affiliation” doesn’t automatically mean atheist, in this last decade there has been an explosion of people coming out of the atheist closet. The books of the “Four Horsemen of New Atheism” – Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens – have all been best sellers. Since our courts and tribunals have been very strong in accommodating religious beliefs at work, I wonder what will happen when non-religious people start asking for their own accommodations.

       Canada’s population make-up is changing rapidly. Statistics Canada said in 2011 all our net employment growth came from immigration. They expect that by 2025 to 2030, all our net population growth will come from immigration. Since most of the people coming to Canada don’t look like me, have different cultures than me and have different religions than me, this means we’re either going to be battling over many things, or we’re going to learn how to accommodate differences.

       In the next few months, let’s find out how different we’ve become and without being too corny, how we can have these differences, but still love the fact that we live in Canada. Some people like me were born here and some people looked around and thought, “That’s a damn fine country you got there. Can’t wait to join ya.”

Stephen

Winner of last skill testing question: Bill Wickson from Vancouver gave the correct answer that on January 25, 2007 Herouxville, Quebec set "standards" for immigrants, including don't "kill women in public beatings" and you have to leave your birth country's lifestyle at home. Congratulations Bill and eventually you'll get a copy of my book Managing Human Rights at Work (we forgot to mail it - oops)

Today's skill testing question: On February 7, 1971 this country's men finally voted to give women the vote. You may be surprised which country and I'll give you a clue - many men felt women's roles should be "kinder, kirche und kuche". The first person to tell me the name of the country will win a copy of my book, Managing Human Rights at Work.

Related Resources:

This blog: http://www.humanrightseachday.com/

My website: http://www.stephenhammond.ca

My Podcast: Type in “HumanRightsaDay” to the iTunes store and listen to each day's event from my book, Steps in the Rights Direction (the easiest way is to go to the homepage of www.StephenHammond.ca )

My Twitter: http://twitter.com/Rightstoday (each day has historical human rights info)

Stephen Hammond, B.A., LL.B., CSP, is a lawyer-turned professional speaker. He’s written two books, Managing Human Rights at Work: 101 practical tips to prevent human rights disasters and Steps in the Rights Direction: 365 human rights celebrations and tragedies that inspired Canada and the world. Both can be purchased on his website www.StephenHammond.ca

copyright - Stephen Hammond - What do these numbers mean to you? From skin colour to atheists.

Posted by Stephen Hammond on February 07, 2012 at 10:21 AM in Changing face of Canada, Current Affairs, Diversity, Human rights, Immigrants, Immigration, Inclusion, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 25, 2012

More than pain in the dentist's chair

So last week I’m in the dentist’s chair. I’ve got cordless headsets on, watching Rick Steves Europe while Ken and his assistant are doing their best. I can’t help but notice the rail-spike sized needles he’s pushing into various parts of my mouth, but no pain during that, because he’d numbed my gums already.

       Then, somewhere during 15th Century Spanish history, I just happened to notice that Ken was literally sewing part of the roof of my mouth onto the side of my gums. Now I’m not sure what I expected, but I didn’t think it involved quilting.

       So while I’m enjoying the wonders of the Catalonia region, I’m thinking, “Ooooh, this is going to hurt when the freezing wears off”, but to my surprise – and this is now ten days later – no pain. Ok, I can’t let anyone punch me on that side of the mouth as the gums are healing, but other than that, virtually nothing (not even the “pizza burn” Ken said I’d get).

       I spoke to others about this and I realize I’m not the only one who recieved grafting for my receding gum line. In fact there’s this whole secret society out there that don’t come out of the gum-closet, unless you mention it (I think there’s a handshake, but I don’t find out till the stitches are removed). And every person who’s gone through this procedure has said they’ve gone through great pain, or they know someone who’s gone through great pain. Everyone. But not me.

       Two things I’ve learned from this. One – we really must visit Barcelona, and Two – some things that are painful for some people aren’t painful for others.

       You can’t swing a fake-fur coat around without hitting someone who’s felt some pain, not from something physical, but from mere words. There are those who say, “No big deal” or “I can handle it” while others are so devastated, they start a very formal process or take stress leave.

       I try not to judge, but I’m human and sometimes think a person is “milking” some situation when it’s really not a big deal. And in rare situations, that’s the case. But most of the time it’s not and I have to get rid of my judgement and try to understand what’s bugging that person when others let it roll off their backs.

       For a long time in Canada, our courts and human rights tribunals have spoken about reasonableness when it comes to determining if harassment and discrimination has taken place. They don’t talk about one “reasonable man” but instead talk about reasonableness for a person in their particular circumstance. Hence a “reasonable man” might care less about a sexist joke, while a “reasonable woman” could take great offence. The same would hold true if your skin is not white, or you’re not part of the majority of heterosexual Canadians.

       But this isn’t ground-breaking. We know there are differences for people, even when we’re out at night. If you’re walking home from a movie, a couple guys might part ways as they head off in different directions. However if there’s a woman with you, you’ll often walk her to her home or to her car.   It’s sad that this is the case, but we know that circumstances are different, even in our relatively safe Canada.

       So words, jokes and actions will be different for different people, based on their circumstances. It’s not always going to be easy to know, as we’re not in people’s heads, but if we start out by being a bit more sensitive to the things we say, we listen when someone speaks up, and we learn from past experiences…it gets easier. Pain, discomfort, offence, whichever word you use, people are going to respond differently and that’s just part of life.

       For now, wish me luck (knock on wood). If all goes well, even when the stitches come out, I hope I don’t feel pain. But if I do and I complain a little, I hope you’ll understand.

Ole!

Stephen

Winner of last skill testing question: Holly Guran from Saskatoon gave the correct answer that Robert Latimer was sentenced to 10 years by the Supreme Court of Canada for killing his daughter who was in pain from many forms of disabilities. Many of you had many things to say about the case, with personal stories. Thanks for sharing.

Today's skill testing question: On January 25, 2007 a town council in Quebec let immigrants know they are welcome to move to their town, and they adopted a set of "standards" to help them out. One of the standards said you can't "kill women in public beatings" and you have to leave your birth country's lifestyle at home. The first person to tell me the name of the Quebec town will win a copy of my book, Managing Human Rights at Work.

Related Resources:

Posted by Stephen Hammond on January 25, 2012 at 10:01 AM in Diversity, Harassment, Human rights, Language/Words, Sexual Harassment, Violence against women, Workplace behaviour | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

January 18, 2012

Sex, Religion, Abuse - The Usual Media Frenzy

Since I’m in the business of human rights and helping people “behave” for lack of another word, I sometimes think items jump out at me from the newspapers that others wouldn’t notice. Hence I tend to see that human rights, whether workplace based or just plain life based are pretty big in our world. But then there are times, I think, “come on, it’s not just me” as seems to be the case of ringing in the new year of 2012.

We were greeted early this new year with banner headlines about whether same-sex couples married in Canada, but living outside Canada, were in fact still married. It caused such a stir that our Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson had to make a pronouncement that the laws would be changed. Even though his department’s lawyers had taken the opposite stance, he was going to ensure that all gay or lesbian couples who got married in Canada would have their marriage protected. This way, even if they couldn’t get married in their state or country, they would be considered married and if they wanted to get divorced, they would be able to do that, without the normal residency requirements.

       Don’t you find this odd? I don’t mean the whole same-sex stuff and the legal wranglings. I mean that the world economy is still on the brink of collapse, we have whole industries that are in big, big trouble, our unemployment rate is going up and our country is on the verge of huge cut-backs in government spending to deal with our growing deficit. Yet gay marriage gets centre stage.

       If our Prime Minister had his way, all the headlines would have been about him flying from one end of the country to the other, praising the $33 billion we’re about to spend on military ship building. You might have missed it even though he actually held a press conference in Halifax last Thursday, flew 4,500 kms and on that same day held another press conference in North Vancouver.

       There were a lot of people quite upset that the same-sex news item, which possibly only affects perhaps 5,000 “foreigners”, trumped the news about a big, big expenditure that will certainly have a boost in some economies. In fact, when a reporter asked the Prime Minister at the Halifax event about the same-sex foofarah, the proud ship building workers in the photo-op booed the reporter. There was nary a mention of what the PM was doing in Halifax in the first place.

       Whether we like it or not, our hearts will often win-out over our heads. The issues of human rights will continue to get massive coverage in our country and they will often greatly over-shadow other more cerebral issues of the day. Over the holidays and into the New Year, these were just a few of the items that got people’s attention:

• Dutch Queen Beatrix spoke out after being criticised for wearing a head scarf in a mosque on a visit to the United Arab Emirates. This queen, like others, rarely comments openly especially when it comes from a Dutch politician, but she said his criticism of her was “nonsense”.

• A poll found that while most Canadians trust RCMP officers, they have misgivings about the leadership of the force. This on the tail of months of headlines about allegations of sexual harassment and abuse at work.

• A federal government worker won a ground breaking court case that expands human rights protection of “family status” to ensure that when she’s on maternity leave, she doesn’t miss out on job opportunities.

• The head of Canada’s Human Rights Commission, Shirish Chotalia, was found to have harassed some of her staff and other complaints are proceeding. It was also revealed that in the short time Ms. Chotalia has been on the job, more than half her staff left, took sick leave or retired.

• A judge in the States released a letter that had been sent to Hewlett Packard which led to the firing of its former CEO Mark Hurd in 2010. The letter from a lawyer made all kinds of allegations of sexual harassment by Hurd. The company’s stock is down $20 from where it had been before the scandal and it doesn’t seem the issue is going away.

If you want some predictions for 2012, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll see...

• The integration, or lack thereof, of Muslims in Canada and world-wide will get lots of attention. Muslims are the fastest growing religious group in Western countries and these countries are struggling at work and in their communities to see them as real citizens (unless you lose the scarf);

• Despite all the education and seminars, sexual harassment will bring down or greatly affect a number of prominent men in Canada and around the world. Many of their humiliated wives will stand next to them as they claim their innocence or explain they had a brain tumour (which miraculously has just been cured);

• The Supreme Court of Canada will address a number of issues related to human rights. I could do my homework and check the roster of cases likely to be heard or decided in 2012, but I’m not even going to do that. Take my word for it – the Supremes will be doing some of the work that politicians aren’t willing to do (and then get blamed for making the tough decisions).

So folks, it’s not just me. As a species, we’re struggling with differences. So in countries where the rule of law doesn’t exist or is tenuous, these struggles will be resolved with deadly conflict. In those countries where the rule of law works a bit better, these struggles will be resolved in the courts, the media, the government and in the coffee-shops. Watch for them.

Stephen

Winner of last skill testing question: Penni Kiss from Lethbridge gave the correct answer that it was Linus Van Pelt who said, "That's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown." Penni won a copy of both of my books.

Today's skill testing question: On January 18, 2001 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a second degree murder conviction and ordered the sentence of at least 10 years in prison. This decision was controversial, with some seeing the act of killing as compassionate for the suffering of a daughter while others saw it as plain murder against a defenseless person with severe disabilities. The first person to tell me the name of the man convicted of murder will win a copy of my book, Managing Human Rights at Work.

Related Resources:

Posted by Stephen Hammond on January 18, 2012 at 08:45 AM in Bullying, Current Affairs, Disability, Disabled, Disabilities, Diversity, Harassment, Human rights, Inclusion, Religion, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Orientation, Workplace behaviour | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 18, 2011

Standing up to Bullies even when they aren't Bullying (now)

While in New York, I made my way to the George Washington Bridge – it connects New Jersey to Manhattan. That’s the bridge Tyler Clementi jumped off, killing himself after being bullied in a rather unique way by his roommate at Rutgers University, the state university for New Jersey. He was merely 18 years old. It was after his death, and the death of a number of other US teens that the internet campaign of “It gets better” began. It certainly inspired me to talk more about my sexual orientation to ensure I wasn’t part of the process telling kids it’s not ok to be gay.

       The week before, I was horrified regarding a news item about my own province and the response of our premier and at least one cabinet minister, B.C.’s Tourism Minister Pat Bell. While on a trade mission to China and India, it was discovered that a booklet put out by the province stated this:

“In alignment with the Canadian Tourism Commission, Tourism B.C. will also require that any partner operator agrees to…prohibit the promotion of casinos, gambling and gay tourism per the China National Tourism Administration.”

       At first Mr. Bell said it was a directive from the Canadian federal government and/or the Chinese government. However, shortly afterwards Bell admitted that it wasn’t either of those and therefore it came as a directive from his own government. He said it was a mistake, it would be corrected and he seemed sincere in his apology.

       But here’s the thing - when he and the premier first found out about the directive in the booklet, they were not apologetic at all. In fact, these are some of the things they said:

Minister Bell: “It could have beeen that we could have worded it better, but it is important that people know what those rules are if they want to market to China.”

Premier Clark: “One of the things we want to do in our relationship with China is engage more…That will help further some of the ideals we hold dear in Canada.”

Minister Bell: BC is acting in a manner “consistent with all other nations” when marketing in China.

       For those of you, especially from other parts of Canada, who don’t know all about Premier Clark, her last job was a radio talk show host, and one of her big issues was bullying kids. She was real big on “wear pink” days and spoke eloquently about standing up to bullies.

Funny that.

       If she really thought the Chinese didn’t want any part of gay tourism, here was her chance to stand up to bullies. But the funny thing is that China, at least formally, didn’t even require it. So in fact she was defending a practise (or not being outraged) that wasn’t even required. So she was tippy-toeing around an issue not wanting to offend the wonderful Chinese government. After all, money was involved. Forget about the kids who are bullied and commit suicide due to reinforcements that they aren’t as good as straight kids.

       When I first heard this, my mind raced to a book I read this past summer by Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. The book is about the American ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, between 1933 and 1938. He was appointed right after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. What was evident throughout, with many passages from Dodd’s letters and diaries, is how the American government tip-toed ever so gently around the known atrocities the Nazis were inflicting on their people. Other governments were doing the same thing.

One would think, with all the information we have about the rise of Nazism, we would have learned one thing: Stand up to bullies.

For years, we know about the horrors coming from the Chinese government. Here are just a few:
•    They killed thousands at Tiananmen Square for daring to ask for democracy
•    They throw people in jail at the slightest sign of dissent
•    Their political prisoners work in slave factories to make cheap goods for Westerners
•    When they know of a deadly virus, they supress the information, causing the deaths of people all over the world
•    They allow products to be made that poison our pets and our children
•    They force women to have abortions against their will
•    Any labour standards on paper are useless when up against bribery and party members

I could go on, but you get the point.

       When we do business with China, we do it with eyes wide open. As long as there is a buck to be made, we’ll throw out our principles in a nano-second. But if we really want to stand up to bullies, we won’t cow-tow to them (and it’s so ironic that on this issue the Chinese didn’t ask for the ban on gay tourism – it was just the mere possible chance that they might not like it).

       If Premier Clark really cared about bullying and the events that are documented to lead to the suicide of young people, she would have said something like, “I’m not sure what the Chinese government wants about gay tourism, but in Canada, gay people are the same as straight people and we don’t discriminate. I apologize 100% for that being in any document of my government.” Imagine what message that would send to all Canadians, especially gay youth who take their lives in greater numbers than straight kids.

That’s why I was standing by the George Washington Bridge this week.

Stephen

Related Resources:

This blog: http://www.humanrightseachday.com/

My website: http://www.stephenhammond.ca

My Podcast: Type in “HumanRightsaDay” to the iTunes store and listen to each day's event from my book, Steps in the Rights Direction (the easiest way is to go to the homepage of www.StephenHammond.ca )

My Twitter: http://twitter.com/Rightstoday (each day has historical human rights info)

Stephen Hammond, B.A., LL.B., CSP, is a lawyer-turned professional speaker. He’s written two books, Managing Human Rights at Work: 101 practical tips to prevent human rights disasters and Steps in the Rights Direction: 365 human rights celebrations and tragedies that inspired Canada and the world. Both can be purchased on his website www.StephenHammond.ca

copyright - Stephen Hammond - Standing up to bullies even when they aren't bullying (now)

Posted by Stephen Hammond on November 18, 2011 at 10:07 AM in Bullying, Current Affairs, Diversity, Harassment, Human rights, Inclusion, Sexual Orientation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 21, 2011

Up North for National Aboriginal Day

       Here I am in Northern Alberta doing work for a client. Being that it’s National Aboriginal Day today (June 21st) I find it fitting that I’m in a part of the country where there are a lot of First Nations and Metis people. The last big count of our population in 2006 revealed that while Alberta’s Aboriginal population was 5.7%, in this part of the province – Wood Buffalo (includes Fort McMurray) – it was over 10%.

       And the Aboriginal population, especially in Canada’s West and North, keeps growing. Take for example here in Alberta. When everyone was moving here for Alberta’s hot economy between 1996 and 2006, the province’s population grew by 21.8%. However, during that same period, Alberta’s Aboriginal population grew by an amazing 48%.

       Whenever we have light competitions in my training sessions for educational purposes, and there’s a tie, since I only have so many chocolate bars, I have to break the tie to declare a winner. I almost always ask “when is Canada’s Aboriginal Day?” If I said 1 in 20 people know the answer to that question, I’d be lying. So here’s a bit of history for you…

…Canada’s aboriginal population has experienced many hardships, and typically found its own celebrations ignored by most non-aboriginals. Thus, a day that celebrated aboriginal culture and history was in the works for years. First suggested by the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations) in 1982, then recognized by the Quebec legislature in 1990, it finally became reality when Canada’s governor general proclaimed June 21, 1996 as National Aboriginal Day. The event celebrates the cultures of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. Aboriginals, now celebrate their heritage on this official day, which is also the summer solstice.

       While I will be taking part in the celebrations later today, I know there are so many things still holding these Canadians back. Let me give you just three examples that come to my mind:

1.    I’ve worked with a number of universities across Canada and at one of them, they told me how they have identified one area for growth – encouraging & supporting more First Nations students to become teachers. With such a growing population, it makes sense to have more teachers reflected in the population. Knowing there are huge roadblocks to reaching this goal, including fewer young First Nations graduating from high school, there was one roadblock I never would have considered. When the university looked to house the students who usually came from other locations, they couldn’t get people to rent their homes or apartments to them. Getting off-campus housing for the young Aboriginal women was tough, but impossible for the young Aboriginal men. And while we know that some young men might be less than good with property (Stanley Cup riots come to mind??), the fact is that white young men have a much better chance at housing than First nations young men.

2.    Years ago during a casual conversation with my cousin, who was then a Winnipeg police officer, he spoke of the gangs and the aboriginal gangs in particular. We both agreed that going to jail or prison would be about the worst thing that could happen to either him or me. But he said that for these aboriginal youth or young men, it was no big deal. He wasn’t saying people were lining up to volunteer to move into prison, but he said that their lack of hope was so pervasive, that prison didn’t seem that bad compared to parts of their lives. This was just reinforced on Saturday where the Globe and Mail had a four page article about Daniel Wolfe, a First Nations man who was one of the founding members of the Indian Posse criminal gang. He was 12 at the time. I’d highly recommend you read it. The author of the article, Joe Friesen, even makes reference to a study revealing that among organized criminals, while gangs are at the “bottom rung” aboriginal gangs are down further, due to discrimination.

3.    Last year right about this time, I was in Winnipeg observing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work as we try to move forward after the results of the horrible abuse of trying to “kill the Indian in the child” when First Nations youth were taken from their homes and put into residential schools. I hear people grumbling all the time about how much time has gone past and that it’s time to “move on.” If you listen to the stories from First Nations Canadians about what they went through, you won’t ask that question. It’s going to take a long, long time for many, and the ripple effect to their families continues.

       The fact is, our prejudice will likely be the greatest barrier for Aboriginal Canadians. It’s not easy to overcome the words and ideas that pop into our heads, but we can work on it. And certainly some progress has been made. As of last Saturday, June 18, 2011, on-reserve status Indians now get protection under federal human rights legislation. While some see this as interference with the traditions of a communal society, it is hoped that any discrimination on-reserves will be addressed by this change to the legislation. Now we just have to hope that funding for human rights protections won’t be slashed.

       This day – just like the previous 15 celebrations – is not that well known across Canada. It’s not too late to Google “National Aboriginal Day” to find out what’s going on in your community. I think you’ll be surprised….unless you’re reading this on your cell phone at one of the celebrations. If you find anything you want to share, drop me a line.