University of Windsor, Ontario: Open Journal Systems
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Freedom of Religion in Canada – The Principled and the Pragmatic
No full textWhile much of Canada’s early commitment to religious freedom was simply a pragmatic compromise to ensure social peace and political stability, the Supreme Court of Canada in a series of judgments that pre-dated the Charter sought to articulate a principled account of religious freedom as an “original freedom” that is an important “mode[] of self-expression” and “the primary condition[] of the community life”. This understanding of religious freedom shaped the Supreme Court of Canada’s initial reading of freedom of conscience and religion protected by s. 2 (a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the story of religious freedom in Canada is not simply that of a linear progression from the pragmatic tolerance of religious minorities to the principled protection of the individual’s religious freedom. In its subsequent s 2 (a) decisions, the Court began to read freedom of religion as a form of equality right that requires the state to remain neutral in religious matters. The state must not prefer the practices of one religious group over those of another and it must not restrict the religious practices of a group unless it has a substantial public reason to do so. Underlying the Court’s commitment to religious freedom is a recognition of the deep connection between the individual and her/his spiritual commitments and religious community and a desire to avoid the marginalization of minority religious groups. Concerns about inclusion and social peace that lay behind the extension of religious tolerance in Canada’s early history continue to be important in the contemporary justification and interpretation of religious freedom. The Court’s commitment to state neutrality in religious matters requires it to distinguish between the private sphere of individual or group spiritual life and the sphere of public secular life. However, the line between these two spheres is contestable, moveable, and porous.Les premiers engagements du Canada en faveur de la liberté de religion résultaient majoritairement d’un compromis pragmatique visant à assurer la paix sociale et la stabilité politique, mais, dans une série de jugements antérieurs à la Charte, la Cour suprême du Canada a tenté de formuler une définition juste de la liberté de religion en tant que « liberté primordiale » qui constitue un important « mode […] d’expression » et la « condition fondamentale de [l’]existence au sein d’une collectivité ». Cette conception de la liberté de religion a façonné l’interprétation que la Cour suprême du Canada a initialement adoptée quant à la liberté de conscience et de religion protégée par l’alinéa 2a) de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Cependant, l’évolution de la liberté de religion au Canada — de la tolérance pragmatique de minorités religieuses à la protection raisonnée de la liberté de religion individuelle — n’a pas suivi une courbe linéaire. Dans ses décisions postérieures portant sur l’alinéa 2a), la Cour a commencé à assimiler la religion à une forme de droit à l’égalité qui exige que l’État demeure neutre en ce qui a trait aux questions de religion. L’État ne doit pas privilégier les pratiques d’un groupe religieux par rapport à celles d’un autre et ne doit pas restreindre les pratiques religieuses d’un groupe à moins d’avoir un motif majeur d’intérêt public de ce faire. La mission de la Cour en matière de liberté de religion tire sa source de la reconnaissance de l’attachement profond qui unit une personne à ses engagements spirituels et à sa communauté religieuse, ainsi que du désir d’éviter la marginalisation de groupes religieux minoritaires. Les préoccupations liées à l’inclusion et à la paix sociale à l’origine de l’élargissement de la tolérance religieuse dans les débuts de l’histoire du Canada occupent encore de l’importance dans la justification et l’interprétation contemporaines des libertés religieuses. Le mandat de la Cour concernant la neutralité étatique dans les questions religieuses exige qu’elle fasse la distinction entre la sphère privée de la vie spirituelle d’un individu ou d’un groupe et la sphère de la vie séculière publique. La frontière entre ces deux sphères est toutefois contestable, fluctuante et perméable
Le droit constitutionnel aux communications et aux services publics fédéraux dans la langue officielle de son choix
No full textAccording to the Supreme Court of Canada, the right set out in subsection 20(1) of the Charter to communicate with and to receive services from a federal institution in English or French must be interpreted broadly and liberally in light of its cultural and remedial purpose in order to change the status quo and foster substantive equality on this subject. With this in mind, an analysis of the relevant case law makes it possible to better define the content of this right, but also to appreciate its scope and full potential. To this end, this analysis reveals that this constitutional right extends along a spectrum ranging from identical services to different services for each of the official language communities, in order to fully achieve substantive linguistic equality.Selon les enseignements de la Cour suprême du Canada, le droit d’employer le français ou l’anglais prévu au paragraphe 20(1) de la Charte pour communiquer avec les institutions fédérales et pour en recevoir les services doit s’interpréter de façon large et libérale en fonction de son objet culturel et réparateur afin de modifier le statu quo et de favoriser l’égalité réelle en la matière. Dans cette optique, une analyse de la jurisprudence pertinente permet de mieux définir le contenu de ce droit, mais également d’en apprécier la portée et le plein potentiel. À cette fin, cette analyse nous révèle que ce droit constitutionnel s’étend le long d’un spectre allant de services identiques à des services différents pour chacune des communautés de langue officielle, et ce, afin de réaliser pleinement l’égalité linguistique réelle
Development of an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Curriculum Initiative for Undergraduate STEM Students
No full textEquity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) gaps persist in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, as demonstrated by the discrimination, stereotyping, and inequities that historically and persistently marginalized groups face. Recognition of this gap led a transdisciplinary team to develop foundational-level e-learning modules, titled Foundations for Inclusive and Respectful Engagement (FIRE) on EDI capacities to be delivered in STEM undergraduate classes at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. FIRE consists of online, asynchronous, self-study modules delivered through the learning management system, Canvas. Feedback from pilot testing the FIRE modules has demonstrated that STEM students find the modules to be relevant and beneficial. Throughout the development of FIRE, we learned the importance of aligning the course with our institution’s values, working in a transdisciplinary team, and revising iteratively. This documentation of the development and preliminary feasibility of the FIRE modules aims to assist other institutions or organizations who are in the process of developing their own EDI teaching and learning materials
“Everyone here [is] a customer”: Implementing Housing-Based Harm Reduction for Older People with Experiences of Homelessness in a Canadian City
No full textThis article examines the implementation of a harm reduction pilot project in a Canadian permanent supportive living facility for older people with experiences of homelessness (OPEH). Nearing the conclusion of the intervention, two nominal group technique (NGT) sessions were facilitated to identify key learnings from the project. The key learnings informed a secondary analysis of qualitative interviews with stakeholders from health and social services as well as with residents and staff at the intervention site. Participants stressed the positive impacts of their participation in co-designing the harm reduction programming throughout the intervention lifecycle, which enhanced the relationship between frontline care providers and OPEH residents. A major identified barrier to implementation of the programming was the underlying organizational accountabilities to funding bodies, which were perceived to be influenced by business decisions that emphasized maximizing efficiency and minimizingCritical Social Work, 2024 Vol. 25, No. 2 institutional liability. The competing priorities of the organization and OPEH care recipients resulted in a breakdown in communication and trust. We situate these tensions within the broader neoliberal policy framework that shapes organizational decision making and priority setting. The findings of this research will be useful for frontline care providers (of both health and social services) and program administrators in harm reduction settings looking to enhance harm reduction service delivery for OPEH. The findings point to a disconnect between the policies currently governing public service provision and the ethics in which harm reduction is grounded, while speaking to opportunities to challenge these conditions in research and practice contexts
Is “Good Social Work” Anti-oppressive practice? : The mainstreaming of critical discourse
No full textAnti-oppressive social work practice (AOP) has been advanced as a key progressive methodology for some decades. Standing in critical social work, it is founded on clear assumptions and includes several key strategies for implementation. At the same time, however, two factors, namely the alignment of the discourse of good (dominant) social work with social justice, and AOP theorists themselves not consistently distinguishing differences, has led to a blurring of what constitutes good social work versus AOP. In this article we rely on a critical perspective to remind of these essential distinctions. We also establish that this failure to clearly distinguish the essence of AOP has allowed for the disciplining of AOP, thus rendering it largely without any force. We encourage social work educators, students, and practitioners to reclaim the progressive, critical edge of AOP to become effective agents of social change
À la mémoire de Michael Scriven
No full textIn Memoriam for Professor Michael ScrivenÀ la mémoire du professeur Michael Scrive
Systemic Means of Persuasion and Argument Evaluation: Insights From the Corpus of Competitive Debates
No full textThe paper discusses the role of systemic means of persuasion in argument evaluation. The core class of systemic means of persuasion is regress stoppers, whose fundamental function is to halt the infinite regress of justification by making claims, premises, or overall position expressed in a persuasive message more acceptable to a recipient. The paper explores how systemic means of persuasion contribute to the structure of arguments in the Toulmin model and serve as cues for heuristic processing of persuasive messages. It also presents the results of the stylometric analysis and statistical data on the usage of systemic means of persuasion in three corpora which suggest that systemic means of persuasion constitute strategies independent of the strategy based on explicit argumentation marked by inference indicators
Long-term impacts of COVID-19 on stress and depression among teachers: Differences by gender
No full textThis article explores the impact of changes in teaching modalities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of K-12 teachers, by gender, during the first year of the pandemic. Teachers from a random sample of K-12 schools in North Dakota and Minnesota were surveyed in April 2020, October 2020, and March/April 2021 about their current levels of stress and depression, as well as the frequency with which they experienced certain physical conditions. One-way analysis of variance and multiple regression were used to compare time points for each of the outcomes by gender. Female teachers were more likely to experience higher levels of stress than male teachers, while male teachers were more likely to experience higher levels of depression than female teachers, with spikes in stress and depression levels experienced by both males and females in Time 2. Additionally, physical symptoms were more likely to be experienced by female teachers, with Time 2 respondents overall reporting significantly higher proportions of physical symptoms than Time 1 or Time 3 respondents. Consistently experiencing heightened levels of stress and depression can lead to burnout for teachers. School districts need to monitor stress, especially among females, and depression, especially among males, to recognize the difference in experience for each gender in the teaching profession, as well as provide supports and resources to their teachers to help them in coping with these mental-health issues
Decolonizing Higher Education Pedagogy: From Theory to Practice
No full textWhile the notion of an anti-racist curriculum is not new, many higher education instructors have not made the transition from a decolonized curriculum to an equally decolonized pedagogy. From a conceptual standpoint, the transition is understood but the actualization of this cyclical process is at times, not as smoothly executed. Deconstructing delivery is a daunting prospect for faculty, especially for those most invested in the content of their practice. As a result, this paper draws upon both evidenced-based practices and the practical application of decolonizing tertiary-level instruction. Utilizing a Transformative Learning lens, this article details the experiences of a college curriculum renewal project and the subsequent considerations and changes in practice that ensued in the adoption and delivery of an anti-racist curriculum
Can Sovereign-Owned Enterprises Be Prosecuted in National Courts?
No full textSovereign-owned enterprises – corporate entities owned or controlled by a state – are an energetic and growing presence in the world economy. Their rise coincides with an entirely separate phenomenon, at least in some countries, of corporate criminal prosecutions – that is, efforts to obtain convictions of non-human actors under national criminal laws. The confluence of these two trends will inevitably lead to prosecutions of corporate entities where a national state may claim that the corporate defendant should be protected by the principle of sovereign immunity. A case now pending in the United States, including a recent decision of the Supreme Court of that country, offers an interesting insight into the many different components of this important problem