The ��says Canada’s system isn’t optimized to assist the unemployed – and underemployed – in finding meaningful work with good wages.

"Helping the unemployed is the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments, and neither government is doing a good job,” says 91��ɫ political science Professor Thomas Klassen (right), who co-authored the report with Donna Wood, a postdoctoral fellow at the��University of Victoria.

“In terms of our unemployment rate and our overall economic outlook, Canada appears to be in a relatively good position. The problem at the core of this report is whether we have the best system in place to get unemployed Canadians into meaningful, high-paying jobs. Yes, we could have very low unemployment rates with many people working at low-skilled and low-paying jobs, but that is not a long term solution,” Klassen says.

A major problem, he notes, is that business, labour and other groups have limited input into decision making.

“To date, each level of government has been focused on its own objectives and programs, rather than on the needs of the unemployed and potential employers. The federal government decides how much money to transfer to provinces and territories, along with general guidelines as to how the money should be spent. Any negotiation that occurs is solely between the two orders of government.

“There is a lack of ability for all governments in Canada to learn from each other and for pan-Canadian policy to be developed. Each province and territory does the best for its citizens, but there is limited means to ensure strategic labour market policy for Canada as a whole,” he says.

Klassen notes that job programs remain fragmented with a myriad of rules governing how provinces can deliver services to specific groups of clients. “There are four distinct sets of federal-provincial agreements that govern labour market policy, each with its own targeted client group and set of accountability rules. In some cases, provincial and federal governments have programs for the same set of clients, such as for youth and persons with disabilities,” he says.

Klassen and Wood propose the following solutions to these issues:��

• Create a national agency charged with improving the quality, transparency and usefulness of labour market information, reporting and analysis on a pan-Canadian basis.
  ��
• Revitalize the existing federal-provincial-territorial Forum of Labour Market Ministers to act as a multilateral, pan-Canadian intergovernmental body responsible for the determination of employment and training policy in Canada. This forum would consolidate existing separate federal-provincial agreements into one comprehensive master agreement between the federal government and each province or territory.
  ��
• Hand over responsibility to the provinces and territories for the programs it still delivers for youth and persons with disabilities. In this way, provinces could create integrated programs for all those who need job training and upgrading regardless of their age or other characteristics.

“Increasing human capital and returning the unemployed to the workplace is critical for Canada's economy,” Klassen says. “With these reforms, Canadians – both workers and employers – will be well prepared to compete in the global economy in the years to come.”.

The report is published by the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation. To download a PDF version, .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Left: David Dewitt

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the�� is an independent, nonpartisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements.

“I congratulate David on his new role as vice-president of programs at CIGI,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. “David has served the University so well as associate vice-president research, bringing an important blend of academic excellence, strategic thinking and administrative efficiency to this challenging role. His new role draws on his expertise as a first-rate academic administrator and his widely recognized career as a scholar in international affairs. I invite the 91��ɫ community to join with me in wishing him every success in this new adventure.”

Under its , CIGI seeks to identify and address areas of major global governance that will be challenged over the next decade. Its research and work will focus on four program themes: the Global Economy, Energy &��Environment, Development, and Global Security.

“In a few short years, CIGI has emerged as a pre-eminent source of innovative thinking about international governance,” Dewitt said. “I am excited about the opportunity to work with CIGI’s staff, fellows and partners in building significant new programs of research and policy development. Our goal is to advance better ideas for promoting global prosperity and security.”

About David Dewitt

Dewitt is a specialist in international affairs with expertise in security and conflict, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and comparative public diplomacy. He earned a BA at the University of British Columbia and an MA and PhD from Stanford University.

Prior to assuming his current position within the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, he served as director of the 91��ɫ Centre for International��& Security Studies (YCISS) from 1988 to 2006. He is the author or contributing editor of books, chapters and peer reviewed articles as well as commissioned reports on Canadian foreign, security, and defense policy, international and regional security and conflict management in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, arms control and proliferation, and human security.

In the early 1990s, Dewitt co-directed the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue, a Foreign Affairs sponsored multilateral track-two diplomacy initiative, and has been involved in various track-two initiatives on security in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Dewitt has been a visiting scholar at Tel Aviv University and an international research fellow of the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis. He served as founding chair of the Canadian Consortium for Asia Pacific Security and as a co-chair of the Canadian Member Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific. He also was a co-director of the Canadian Consortium for Human Security, national chair of the Canadian Professors for Peace in the Middle East, and has served as chair of the Partnerships for International Strategies with Asia��now based at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of CIGI.

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Universities can play a critical role in confronting the democratic deficit pervading politics at every level, 91��ɫ’s will��argue in this year’s Giambattista Vico Lecture Feb. 15.

What is to be done, Fallis will ask, about declining voter turnout, strident and polarizing debate, public decision-making dominated by business elites and experts –��all signs of a democratic deficit at local, national and international levels. He will argue that the problem must be confronted not just by political parties and parliaments but by universities. Universities are not just institutions of teaching and books, not just institutions of the economy, but institutions of democracy.

Left: George Fallis

Fallis delivers his lecture, “Democratic Deficit: Universities and the Future of Democracy”, in Founders Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College, at 7:30pm.

In his essay “” published two years ago in Academic Matters, Fallis made a similar argument��that a university’s responsibility to contribute to democratic life is just as critical as its role in economic development.

Fallis is professor of economics and social science who has published widely on housing, urban policy and constitutional reform. His current research focuses on universities: their roles and responsibilities in the 21st century; the value of undergraduate liberal education; and the role of university-based research in national innovation. His most recent book is .

At 91��ɫ, the Princeton-educated Fallis has served as chair of economics, dean of the former Faculty of Arts and chair of the Senate Academic Policy & Planning Committee. He has been academic colleague on the Council of Ontario Universities and an auditor of degree programs at Ontario universities.

The annual Giambattista Vico Lecture was named after an 18th-century Italian philosopher of history, culture and myth whose ideas had a profound influence on the humanities and social sciences. 91��ɫ’s former Faculty of Arts launched the Vico lecture in 2000 in memory of Fred Zorzi, late partner of the Toronto law firm DelZotto, Zorzi LLP, which helped endow the annual event.

American social researcher Nancy Fraser gave the��2009��Vico lecture on “Marketization, Social Protection, Emancipation: Toward a Neo-Polanyian Conception of Capitalist Crisis".

This year’s lecture is sponsored by the 91��ɫ Foundation, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Founders College.

To attend the lecture, register online.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Released in December, the volume of essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explores issues of race and ethnicity, culture, media, gender and migration.

The collection is edited by , associate dean external of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Halleh Ghorashi, a professor at VU University Amsterdam.

In previews, London-based scholars say the essays “illuminate a rich mix of issues that shape and define the everyday experiences of diasporic Muslims,” address “some of the egregious stereotypes used about the Muslim diaspora” and show how “homogenization of diverse communities may serve political expediency but has a negative effect on the quest for meaningful integration.”

Moghissi, who teaches women’s and equity studies at 91��ɫ, has written the introduction and contributed one essay – “Changing spousal relations in diaspora: Muslims in Canada”. Other essays look at Muslim youth culture in Europe, radicalization of Muslims in Sweden, discrimination against young Muslim French women, and home and belonging for Moroccan-Dutch Muslims.

The essays grew out of a four-year international research project, "Muslim diasporas: Heightened Islamic identity, gender, and cultural resistance". Started in 2006, the project involved scholars in Canada, France, Sweden, Britain��and the Netherlands and was funded by the Ford Foundation.

Moghissi is��the author of��, released in 1999 and still considered timely and relevant. It was translated and reprinted in 2010 by a South Korean publisher. In 2009, she published a monograph, , co-authored by 91��ɫ political science professors and .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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An excerpt from Klassen's original article follows:

South Korea (henceforth Korea) faces a challenge quite distinct from any other: the world’s most rapidly ageing population. The speed of population ageing in Korea is unprecedented in human history. From a population profile that resembled a pyramid (with many younger individuals and few older individuals) in 1990, the profile is now diamond-shaped (with a large middle-aged population). In another couple of decades, the country’s population will be an inverse pyramid: few young people and many older ones.

By 2050, the median age of the population of Korea is projected to be 57 years, making it the most elderly nation in the world. In contrast, at present, Japan has the oldest median age at 43 years, while Korea’s stands at 37years.

Population ageing is not unique to Korea. Many European nations, and Japan, have faced it. However, as Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director-General of the World Health Organization, noted: “While the developed countries became rich before they became old, the developing countries will become old before they become rich.” That is the dilemma for Korea, and for other rapidly ageing nations such as China.

For Korea, things were never meant to turn out this way. Its government and people never aimed for the distinction of the world’s most rapidly ageing country. Indeed, Koreans were not supposed to stop have babies, especially since there was never a one-child policy as in China. Rather, as the economy grew and consumption increased over the past several decades, couples making their individual choices began to opt for fewer and fewer children. By the mid-1980s, the fertility rate (the average number of births per woman) dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1, and by the mid 1990s below 1.5. For nearly the past decade, it has not exceeded 1.3 giving Korea the distinction of having the lowest fertility of any country.

Klassen's complete article is available on .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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In a push back against international efforts to save a 45-year-old woman from death by stoning, an Iranian justice official insists that “Western media propaganda” will not prevent him from carrying out the execution as soon as he gets final judicial approval.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the judiciary chief of Iran’s East Azerbaijan, says the crimes committed by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani were so heinous that “if she had only cut [off] the head of her husband, it would have been better than what she has done.”

. . .

Government officials, celebrities and ordinary citizens from around the world have joined international human-rights organizations in a growing campaign against the stoning sentence given to Ms. Mohammadi Ashtiani. She was first convicted on May 15, 2006, of having an “illicit relationship” with two men, for which she received 99 lashes. At a subsequent trial of a man accused of murdering her husband, Ms. Mohammadi Ashtiani was charged with “adultery while being married.” It is for that crime that she has been sentenced to death by stoning.

. . .

On the weekend, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, lashed out against the international campaign to spare Ms. Mohammadi Ashtiani, while pointing out that stoning is rarely used.

“The commotion that the Western media has started in connection with this case will not affect our judges’ views,” he said, noting that the West is fixated on the form of capital punishment, not on the crimes. “The execution of Islamic religious laws on [such things as] death by stoning, hijab and inheritance, has always faced their audacious animosity and, basically, any issue which hints of religious law is always opposed by them,” he said.

He also stresses that stonings are infrequent. “I must point out that, first of all, the punishment of death by stoning exists in our constitution but the esteemed judges issue this verdict on very rare occasions.”

It’s rarely used for a reason, says Saeed Rahnema, a professor of political science at 91��ɫ in Toronto. “It’s not at all popular with the people of Iran, and it gives the country an international black eye.”

“The regime is really trying to rein in their number,” Mr. Rahnema said.

The sentence is so unpopular, he added, “the authorities often resort to a rent-a-crowd to carry them out … promising the 20 or 30 people heavenly rewards, as well some financial inducement.”

The complete article is available on the Globe and Mail's .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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, a sociology professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies who specializes in social movements, says dissent has trended toward creativity and away from aggression in recent years, a phenomenon she attributes to heightened security measures in the past decade.

"I think overall, post-9-11, you're seeing people saying, 'What can we get our message out doing that isn't quite as risky?' Protesters are a little bit scared," Wood said. A total of 12,000 police officers have been assigned to the summit.

"Protesters always have to find a balance between getting noticed and being legitimate, and there's a risk if you start being too theatrical because you get written off as not serious," Wood said.

The full article's available on .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The clip runs 4:30 and is available on .

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Here, 91��ɫ humanities Professor , English Professor and PhD student Elena Basile offer an appreciation of Prof. Godard and her tireless work:

It is with great sadness that the Department of English at 91��ɫ announces the death of Professor Emerita Barbara Godard, a professor of English, French, social��& political thought and women’s studies. A pillar of the 91��ɫ community and one of Canada’s pre-eminent literary scholars, Prof. Godard broadly influenced the fields of Canadian and Quebec studies, translation studies, feminist poetics, semiotics and cultural studies.

Right: Prof. Barbara Godard

She was a generous supervisor and mentor who trained and influenced a contemporary generation of cultural workers, including academics, writers and artists. The scope of her mentorship was fully recognized in 2002 when she became the recipient of teaching awards from 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools. Prof. Godard retired from full-time teaching in 2008, but continued a full intellectual and pedagogical life until her sudden passing.

Prof. Godard was a prolific and influential intellectual. An extraordinarily sharp and encyclopedic thinker, Prof. Godard’s interests encompassed semiotics, translation, gender, textuality and the body, as well as archives, memorials, and the history and changing politics of cultural production. With a keen eye for detail and a unique capacity for breadth of vision, she catalyzed interdisciplinary connections among culture, language, gender, politics, poetics and meaning.

After completing her doctorate at the University of Bordeaux, Prof. Godard began teaching at 91��ɫ in 1971 as a visiting assistant professor and was hired into a tenure-track position in 1976. She published eight books, 80 book chapters and 115 articles and catalogue entries. She translated the major writers of Quebec feminism, including Nicole Brossard, Yolande Villemarie and Louky Bersianik. She also served as editor or on the editorial board of no less than 22 journals. She was a founding co-editor of the feminist literary periodical , a contributing editor of and , and the book review editor for Topia: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. She also made long-standing contributions to , s and ECW among others.

Prof. Godard was committed to and passionate about her graduate students across the Departments of English, French Studies, Film and Visual Arts,��the School of Women’s Studies and the Program in Social & Political Thought, supervising over 35 PhD candidates. She built bridges between people and modes of inquiry because of her genuine enthusiasm for ideas. She worked between and across languages which so often divide. Prof. Godard inspired her colleagues and students through her critical creativity and her unwavering commitment to interrogating and producing the conditions for full civic engagement in the University and in the public sphere. We will miss her greatly.

Funeral arrangements

A funeral service will take place at 11am on Friday, May 21, at St. James-the-Less, 635 Parliament St., Toronto. A reception for friends and family will follow at Prof. Godard’s house at 217 Major St.,Toronto.

Prof. Godard’s family has requested no flowers; in light of her earlier struggles, donations to the Canadian Cancer Society would be greatly appreciated.

As there may be other causes to which you might wish to make a memorial donation, the agency can inform Prof. Godard’s sister Elizabeth Cox at ecox27@sympatico.ca and her son Alexis at lex_o_matic@yahoo.com.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Gill is��at the University of Helsinki in Finland as the institution’s inaugural Jane & Aatos Erkko Visiting Professor in Studies on Contemporary Society. As part of his role with the Finnish university, Gill has organized an international conference titled The Helsinki Discussions, which will examine critical perspectives in global governance.

Left: Stephen Gill

"This one-day landmark event brings to Helsinki some of the world’s leading critical thinkers on global political economy, law and international relations," says Gill. "They will address the challenges of achieving sustainable and democratic governance in the 21st century."

Gill has asked the international contingent of thinkers and theorists to��develop a dual perspective on the nature and future of global governance.

First, they will consider global governance as the practices associated with enduring forms of international rule beyond the purview of individual nations – that is, as it has been normally understood in politics and diplomacy since ancient times. In this sense, global governance involves consideration of the main mechanisms that have emerged to stabilize, modify and legitimate the global status quo, such as the G8 or the G20. Consequently, global governance is mainly evaluated from the perspective of the most powerful states and economic interests. Global governance today involves devising durable methods, mechanisms and institutions – including those of peace and war – to help sustain an international order that is premised on the primacy of capitalism and the world market as the key governing forces of world politics.

Second, participants will also develop critical perspectives on global governance – involving not only a demystification of the power relations between leaders and led, but also an assessment of the potential for changes in those relations. Conference participants will analyze global governance not just from the vantage point of dominant power, but from the perspectives of subaltern forces. Participants will question the necessity, desirability and sustainability of existing institutional arrangements in light of global economic, social and ecological crises and challenges.

Joining Gill in The Helsinki Discussions��are some of the world's most��distinguished thinkers and theorists. They are:

• 91��ɫ political economy Professor��.��A��Trudeau Fellow (2009-2012), Bakker is��a visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and a consultant on gender and human security issues to the United Nations (UN).
• Author and University of Warwick Professor Upendra Baxi, who teaches law in development and was previously a professor of law at the University of Dehli in India and its former��vice-chancellor.
• University of Cape Town Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Dr. Solomon��Benatar, now a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and�� a��founding member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. He is��an elected foreign member of the United States National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts��& Sciences.
• University of Victoria international relations and international law Professor Claire Cutler, a researcher��interested in advancing critical theory in international relations and developing a radical political economy critique of both public and private international law.
• Hilal Elver, a��Distinguished Visiting Professor in global & international studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was founding legal adviser to the Turkish government’s ministry of environment and general director of women’s status in the prime minister's office. In 1994, Elver was��appointed��chair in environmental diplomacy by the UN Environment Program��at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta.
• Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice��at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in global & international studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
• Adam Harmes, a professor of��political science at the University of Western Ontario whose work deals with��global political economy, global finance and global governance. His current research examines the competition between neo-liberalism and social democracy over multi-level governance in federal, regional and global contexts.
• Political science Professor Mustapha Kamal Pasha is the chair of the��Department of Politics & International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Previously, he taught at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC (1993-2005).
• 91��ɫ political science Professor , whose��current research examines the political economy of inequality and difference in world affairs from the perspective of Gramscian political theory.
• University of Helsinki world politics Professor Teivo Teivainen, director of the��Program on Democracy��& Global Transformation at the San Marcos University in Lima, Peru. As a representative of Network Institute for Global Democratization, he is a founding member of the International Council of the World Social Forum.

The conference speakers will address a variety of contested political issues including such noteworthy topics as��the legitimacy of global institutions; social justice, taxation and redistribution; privatized security governance; gender, race and equitable development; environmental issues and climate change; global health; the rights of subordinated peoples in an era of globalization; Islamic conceptions of justice and leadership; corporate social responsibility and public-private partnerships; and various mechanisms of regulation in finance, the workplace and in trade and investment.

The event has been organized under the auspices and sponsorship of the Jane��& Aatos Erkko Chair on the Study of Contemporary Society at the��Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Other sponsors are the��Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada;��the Finnish Institute of International Affairs; and the University of Helsinki's Office of the Rector, the Centre of Excellence in Foundations of European Law��& Polity, the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research and the Faculty of Law.

For more on The Helsinki Discussions, visit the Web site.

About Stephen Gill

Gill is the inaugural Erkko Visiting Professor��in Studies on Contemporary Society at the��Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and a Distinguished Research Professor of Communication, Culture and Political Science at 91��ɫ.��His publications include The Global Political Economy (with David Law, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge University Press,1991); Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge University Press,��1993); Globalization, Democratization and Multilateralism (UN University Press & Palgrave Macmillan, 1997); Innovation and Transformation in International Studies (co-editor, Cambridge University Press 1997); Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy (co-editor with Isabella Bakker, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and Power and Resistance in the New World Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 & 2008).

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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