Juno News - January 08, 2020Canadian city wants federal funding to combat “rumours” about immigrants
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Summary
A Canadian city is looking to the federal government for money to help combat rumors about immigrants. This comes on a City Council agenda in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. In this episode, Andrew Lutton talks about the pros and cons of the proposal.
Transcript
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A Canadian city is looking to the federal government for money to help combat
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rumors about immigrants. This comes on a City Council agenda in Sault Ste. Marie,
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Ontario. The city is pitching to the federal government a proposal that would
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get it $33,000 in what Sue today calls anti-blabbermouth measures, an
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initiative that the city is running called Change Starts Here which has noble
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intentions. It's to combat racism, to ensure better cohesion, interfaith and
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intercultural dialogue. These are all very good things but there's one
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particular caveat of this and the city does not seem to know how it's going to
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accomplish it and that is to combat rumors that are being spread in society
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about people of different ethnic identities. According to the document put
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towards the City Council in Sault Ste. Marie, the initiative is proposing a
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strategy to foster peaceful coexistence and cohesion among all community members
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through engaging activities that reduce the quote lack of knowledge of the other
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as well as current rumors, stereotypes and prejudices about the other unknown
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person. That's from a source document called Cities Free of Rumor, How to Build an
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Anti-Rumor Strategy in My City. Now this is inspired by a European program and in
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Europe the models have very much been about not protecting free speech which
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is why I get very leery of any proposal like this. Remember it was not that long
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ago that the UN Global Compact on Migration which Canada signed had this line
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in it. Promote independent objective and quality reporting of media outlets
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including internet-based information including by sensitizing and educating
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media professionals on migration related issues and terminology and it
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specifically takes aim at outlets that it says systemically promote
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intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants. We
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also know that the Justice Department in Canada and the Justice and Human Rights
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Committee of the last Parliament put together a proposal that basically would
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call for the regulation of online speech if it was meeting a definition that
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hasn't yet been determined for hate speech that falls short of the criminal
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definition. Now again there's nothing wrong with a local city council saying we
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want to combat racism. I think that's very good. The problem is when this at all has a
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whiff of being anti-free speech and we have to be on guard for that given all the
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proposals and policies that are being entertained and enforced by governments
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that do have that impact. For example in that European document I spoke about
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cities free of rumors, one of the policies that has been employed by 11 European
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cities is dispatching anti-rumor agents. Agents is their word to diffuse
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prejudicial comments. The strategy says it's not about blaming but seducing the
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majority and this is incredibly important to note here that we're talking
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about importing from Europe what is one of the most dangerous parts of European
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governance which is a lack of protection for freedom and free speech and
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saying that this is going to help ease racial tensions that exist here. Now I
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don't know much about the culture of Sault Ste. Marie. I've been there once it's a
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lovely city and again I'm sure that the city councillors are trying to do the
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right thing here. But like a wolf in sheep's clothing a lot of these global
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initiatives are far from being noble or pure intentioned. In fact they take
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advantage I think of the good graces of those in local communities to ram these
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things that are part of these larger picture discussions down their throats.
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And this is what we see here so you have to look at the UN Global Compact on
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migration in the same context as the government's online hate. In the same
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context of Canadian cities wanting to bring an anti-rumor strategy to combat
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anti-migrant or anti-immigrant sentiment. Which is to say focus very much on how
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they aim to accomplish it not just what the stated outcome is. Unless there's a
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roadmap anything like this should be a firm no. For True North I'm Andrew Lutton