Juno News - Canadian city wants federal funding to combat “rumours” about immigrants

00:00:00.000 A Canadian city is looking to the federal government for money to help combat

00:00:10.560 rumors about immigrants. This comes on a City Council agenda in Sault Ste. Marie,

00:00:16.560 Ontario. The city is pitching to the federal government a proposal that would

00:00:20.940 get it $33,000 in what Sue today calls anti-blabbermouth measures, an

00:00:27.400 initiative that the city is running called Change Starts Here which has noble

00:00:32.080 intentions. It's to combat racism, to ensure better cohesion, interfaith and

00:00:37.280 intercultural dialogue. These are all very good things but there's one 1.00

00:00:41.380 particular caveat of this and the city does not seem to know how it's going to

00:00:46.180 accomplish it and that is to combat rumors that are being spread in society

00:00:51.760 about people of different ethnic identities. According to the document put

00:00:56.640 towards the City Council in Sault Ste. Marie, the initiative is proposing a

00:01:01.360 strategy to foster peaceful coexistence and cohesion among all community members

00:01:06.540 through engaging activities that reduce the quote lack of knowledge of the other

00:01:11.900 as well as current rumors, stereotypes and prejudices about the other unknown

00:01:17.400 person. That's from a source document called Cities Free of Rumor, How to Build an

00:01:23.040 Anti-Rumor Strategy in My City. Now this is inspired by a European program and in

00:01:29.460 Europe the models have very much been about not protecting free speech which

00:01:33.840 is why I get very leery of any proposal like this. Remember it was not that long

00:01:39.180 ago that the UN Global Compact on Migration which Canada signed had this line

00:01:44.500 in it. Promote independent objective and quality reporting of media outlets

00:01:49.300 including internet-based information including by sensitizing and educating

00:01:54.180 media professionals on migration related issues and terminology and it

00:01:59.440 specifically takes aim at outlets that it says systemically promote

00:02:03.280 intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants. We

00:02:09.740 also know that the Justice Department in Canada and the Justice and Human Rights

00:02:14.240 Committee of the last Parliament put together a proposal that basically would

00:02:18.440 call for the regulation of online speech if it was meeting a definition that

00:02:23.480 hasn't yet been determined for hate speech that falls short of the criminal

00:02:27.080 definition. Now again there's nothing wrong with a local city council saying we

00:02:31.280 want to combat racism. I think that's very good. The problem is when this at all has a

00:02:36.200 whiff of being anti-free speech and we have to be on guard for that given all the

00:02:40.780 proposals and policies that are being entertained and enforced by governments

00:02:45.140 that do have that impact. For example in that European document I spoke about

00:02:49.700 cities free of rumors, one of the policies that has been employed by 11 European

00:02:55.340 cities is dispatching anti-rumor agents. Agents is their word to diffuse

00:03:01.600 prejudicial comments. The strategy says it's not about blaming but seducing the

00:03:07.420 majority and this is incredibly important to note here that we're talking

00:03:11.620 about importing from Europe what is one of the most dangerous parts of European 1.00

00:03:16.840 governance which is a lack of protection for freedom and free speech and

00:03:20.320 saying that this is going to help ease racial tensions that exist here. Now I

00:03:24.980 don't know much about the culture of Sault Ste. Marie. I've been there once it's a

00:03:28.720 lovely city and again I'm sure that the city councillors are trying to do the

00:03:32.440 right thing here. But like a wolf in sheep's clothing a lot of these global

00:03:36.460 initiatives are far from being noble or pure intentioned. In fact they take

00:03:40.780 advantage I think of the good graces of those in local communities to ram these

00:03:46.120 things that are part of these larger picture discussions down their throats.

00:03:50.680 And this is what we see here so you have to look at the UN Global Compact on

00:03:54.600 migration in the same context as the government's online hate. In the same

00:03:59.160 context of Canadian cities wanting to bring an anti-rumor strategy to combat

00:04:04.320 anti-migrant or anti-immigrant sentiment. Which is to say focus very much on how

00:04:09.660 they aim to accomplish it not just what the stated outcome is. Unless there's a

00:04:14.640 roadmap anything like this should be a firm no. For True North I'm Andrew Lutton

00:04:24.600 226

00:04:26.400 14

00:04:28.440 15

00:04:30.240 a

00:04:33.000 16

00:04:33.720 22

00:04:34.340 15

00:04:35.500 23

00:04:36.440 26

00:04:37.440 33

00:04:39.520 28

00:04:40.620 23

00:04:42.260 23

00:04:43.440 23

00:04:45.000 24

00:04:47.240 24

00:04:49.360 24

00:04:50.300 24

00:04:51.260 24

00:04:51.840 24

00:04:52.620 25

00:04:53.380 24

00:04:53.820 24

Juno News - January 08, 2020

Canadian city wants federal funding to combat “rumours” about immigrants

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript