Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

As an older person I tend to take a longer view of things. As far as many of the socially progressive issues are concerned, there seems to be pluses and minuses in their application. With our changing world, I see these as societal struggles that will swing from left to right and back again with time, until hopefully society finally gets it right.

There is no more swinging. This might be the last election the Reform Party had a chance to win.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by indes

IMO the DEI initiatives are the same as the female higher education initiatives, they worked, but what's the end goal? If DEI was abolished, would we just see a mass firing of women/POCs that are crushing their jobs? I guess for me I'm just not sure DEI actually achieves equal opportunity, it seems to just guarantee equal outcomes based on demographics.

It's not just about achieving quotas. It's also about making sure those jobs and industries are equally accessible, attractive, and safe for everyone.

If as a company, you're only receiving applications from straight, white, able-bodied men, what would that tell you about your company?

Also, most DEI initiatives are only "enforceable" within government agencies. There's nothing requiring private companies to have those questions in place if they don't want to. If I'm wrong about this, please feel free to correct me, but I believe most large companies have them in place voluntarily.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

There isn't a political home in the left or center left for many men. A big reason Trump won in this US in November is that the democrats omit even trying to gain their vote. If you explicitly call out 'serving' groups who total almost 70% of the populace are you really 'serving' all those groups or are you really just excluding the primary group that makes up the remaining 30%?

Maybe those men could stop being such snowflakes and actually pick up a history book or two? Or you know, understand that they are being served by default and that's why they're not explicitly mentioned.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Maybe those men could stop being such snowflakes and actually pick up a history book or two? Or you know, understand that they are being served by default and that's why they're not explicitly mentioned.

This is what I am talking about, how would a young man 18-29 read this and want to agree with you?

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

That's exactly what DEI policies are about: they're not about taking away positions from more qualified white men, they're about making sure more qualified minority candidates aren't passed over for unfair, biased reasons.

That's 100% the noble intent of those policies. The issue isn't intent but rather how it gets put into practice. In most companies what gets measured is typically what gets managed.

How typically do companies measure that their DEI policies are working? Most of the time it's some derivative of 'x% of workforce, leadership, directors that are female, visable minorities, etc. The extent to which the noble goal is achieved in practice is only a byproduct of the practice of meeting the KPIs.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

This is what I am talking about, how would a young man 18-29 read this and want to agree with you?

Brother, do you think I wasn't an 18-29 year old male at some point in the last 15 years when most of this stuff was becoming more commonplace?

You know what I did? Some critical reflection, reading, educating myself, etc. Why do so many men young men need coddling? Isn't one of the tenants of masculinity supposed to be self-sufficiency?

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Also, most DEI initiatives are only "enforceable" within government agencies. There's nothing requiring private companies to have those questions in place if they don't want to. If I'm wrong about this, please feel free to correct me, but I believe most large companies have them in place voluntarily.

I work for one of the Top 5 largest publicly-traded companies in the world. My organization's DEI policies are in place solely as part of a ruthless pursuit of profit. They are not about altruistically improving society for minorities; they're there to make sure that as a company we seek out, find, and hire the best candidates regardless of their gender/race/sexual orientation/etc.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Maybe those men could stop being such snowflakes and actually pick up a history book or two? Or you know, understand that they are being served by default and that's why they're not explicitly mentioned.

That's a wonderful campaign slogan. "Served by default!"

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Nancy

That said, I think the GenX cohort on this board is out of touch of the realities of this age group. Comments in other threads like "students should be able to earn $20,000 a year and not take student loans" are mind-blowingly out of touch of the both the employment prospects and housing costs this generation faces. Even my very socially liberal and progressive vegan daughter was desparate to see Trudeau gone by the end of last year.

Canada’s labour market has been flooded with young, low-skill workers. Last summer was the toughest for youth employment in over a decade.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10614844/...job-hunt-tips/

My kids have each applied for 30+ jobs this upcoming summer, and have gotten no replies so far. Not a sniff. And they’re not aiming for the moon - we’re talking dishwashing and other entry-level jobs. Why would employers hire 17 and 18 years olds to a seasonal position when they have a huge pool of low skilled 21-26 year olds willing to work permanent full-time?

[opendoor]

I think people tend to have pretty short memories when it comes to demographics and voting patterns.

For instance, in the last US election Harris got the exact same percentage of the overall vote as John Kerry did in 2004. If you took the current narrative at face value, you'd assume that she did that by overperforming among women and non-whites relative to Kerry to make up for whites and men shifting to the right, but that's not the case at all. Harris got just us much support from men as John Kerry did, and she performed better among white men and whites overall than Kerry did. And she did better among young people than Kerry, which sort of belies the notion of younger voters shifting to the right.

Trump won on the backs of the middle aged, winning the 45-64 age group by 10 points (Bush only won that by about 3 points).

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Contrary to popular belief, DEI policies are not about filling an arbitrary quota nor are they about giving roles to lesser qualified minority candidates over more qualified white male candidates. In fact, it's just the opposite: the purpose of DEI policies is to ensure that more qualified minority candidates are not unfairly passed over in favour of lesser qualified white male candidates due to individual or institutional biases.

In the end, does that mean that fewer white men will be hired/promoted/accepted into university programs/etc.? Maybe, but if someone is losing out to a minority applicant for a limited slot because of the existence of DEI policies, it's because the only reason they would have otherwise been accepted is because of systemic discrimination that would have formerly unfairly elevated them above more qualified minority candidates.

Here's a sports example: when Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in Major League Baseball in 1947, he opened the floodgates to many more Black players earning spots on MLB rosters over the next decade as the league became racially integrated. As a result of this, many white players lost their jobs or were demoted to the minor leagues. But here's the thing: those white players were not good enough to be MLB players anyway and the only reason they had a roster spot in the big leagues was because of discriminatory systemic racism in baseball that unfairly barred more qualified Black players. The best white players had nothing to fear. Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio and Warren Spahn and Mickey Mantle all kept their jobs because they earned their roster spots through performance, not systemic biases, but some scrub white player who could barely hit above .200 and had suspect defensive skills was replaced by a better Black player...and that's the way it should be.

That's exactly what DEI policies are about: they're not about taking away positions from more qualified white men, they're about making sure more qualified minority candidates aren't passed over for unfair, biased reasons.

As mentioned earlier the problem is the KPI's and how to measure it, combined with potential hiring bias (conscious or subconscious) . It is very hard if not impossible for the majority of companies to hire the "best candidate"

If I have a team of all white men (even if they are the most qualified) that is seen as bad. My team isn't diverse. I am racist/sexist. I am hiring based on personal bias.

Now these reasons MAY be true and are true for some companies/managers for sure, but it also may be true that the best candidates who applied were white males (and in some industries almost all of the candidates will be white males , males, white , etc)

So what ends up happening is companies and managers are mandated to hire X people of X minority - Gender, Race, etc - Because that is easy to measure in the short term.

Your baseball example isn't a great analogy for a few reasons - Firstly sports is very binary for measuring results - Especially baseball. Teams had to start hiring black players or they could not win. The color barrier was broken down, but teams were not told they had to hire X amount of black players. It happened naturally as they were often the better athlete.

In theory - In a perfectly free market, any company not hiring the best candidate regardless of race , gender, etc would eventually lose / go bankrupt. Just like MLB teams would lose if they only had white players in 1950.

Baseball was effectively a monopoly on paid baseball, and this monopoly decided to be racist. I can not think of scenario in todays world that would compare - MAYBE if all of silicon valley decided to only hire white males (or another group).

In corporate america we have actually seen the opposite. Companies scrapping their DEI programs. If these programs were leading to 'winning' they wouldn't be scrapping them. (Yes there are political and optics reasons as well). If they are working well, why do companies not want them? Why do they have to be mandated ? Public companies only care about profit as everyone here loves to point out - But they are going to jeopardize that to also be discriminatory?

So the real problem/question is how do you open the door for these traditionally marginalized candidates and/or get them the training and education they need to be qualified to compete for these positions, and how do you teach/train hiring managers/processes to be better at actually unbiasedly identifying the best candidates (Go AI Go)

I don't have the answer to that as it is different for every industry and minority situation, but mandating hirings based on race , gender, etc doesn't solve the problem. It puts underqualified candidates into roles and alienates properly qualified candidates

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

That's a wonderful campaign slogan. "Served by default!"

I'm more than willing to change the discourse to one primarily based around class, but conservative men tend to freak out even more about that because "communism."

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

So what ends up happening is companies and managers are mandated to hire X people of X minority - Gender, Race, etc

Who is mandating this?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I work for one of the Top 5 largest publicly-traded companies in the world. My organization's DEI policies are in place solely as part of a ruthless pursuit of profit. They are not about altruistically improving society for minorities; they're there to make sure that as a company we seek out, find, and hire the best candidates regardless of their gender/race/sexual orientation/etc.

Yeah, it's not the left that's "doing/mandating DEI." It's capitalism. Companies are doing it because it benefits their bottom line to do so. Once that no longer applies, they will stop doing it.

EDIT: Sorry for the triple-post.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I work for one of the Top 5 largest publicly-traded companies in the world. My organization's DEI policies are in place solely as part of a ruthless pursuit of profit. They are not about altruistically improving society for minorities; they're there to make sure that as a company we seek out, find, and hire the best candidates regardless of their gender/race/sexual orientation/etc.

How does your company measure this / that this is being adhered too.

I agree almost all companies just want the best talent and policies are needed because hiring managers have conscious or unconscious bias and /or untrained at proper hiring and interviewing to identify the best candidates.

And if it's not measured it's not really a policy, but more of a guidance.

[MarchHare]

Who is "mandating" that private corporations have DEI programs and hire x% minority candidates? There's no law in place that forces this. As I wrote above, my company voluntarily has DEI initiatives solely for profit-motivated reasons to make sure that hiring managers aren't choosing lesser qualified white men over more qualified minority candidates, and there is no corporate policy dictating that any individual team must have a certain number of non-white male employees.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Brother, do you think I wasn't an 18-29 year old male at some point in the last 15 years when most of this stuff was becoming more commonplace?

You know what I did? Some critical reflection, reading, educating myself, etc. Why do so many men young men need coddling? Isn't one of the tenants of masculinity supposed to be self-sufficiency?

"educate yourself and be self sufficient" isn't winning rhetoric. I am a life long socialist and environmentalist, but I am not dumb enough to think that left wing rhetoric does anything to win over the hearts and minds of young men. Not the last 10 years.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Who is "mandating" that private corporations have DEI programs and hire x% minority candidates? There's no law in place that forces this. As I wrote above, my company voluntarily has DEI initiatives solely for profit-motivated reasons to make sure that hiring managers aren't choosing lesser qualified white men over more qualified minority candidates, and there is no corporate policy dictating that any individual team must have a certain number of non-white male employees.

I'd also like to know how many people here work for a company they believe hired a woman or minority over a more qualified white male candidate, and what their proof of this is.

The only studies I've seen on this topic have suggested that resumes with traditionally black, hispanic, or other foreign names tend to receive less callbacks and interviews than traditionally white, western-European names.

[MrButtons]

As the resident 30 year old - this isn't how I feel but the sentiment I think others have.

I realllllly think the big thing here is money. People my age want money. They want money to do things they see online, buy nice things, live the life they dreamed of. And frankly, we want it to be easier than it is. It's not as easy now as it was to dream up big ideas and make them into reality, and people spent time going to school, volunteering, and checking all the boxes just to have the world change right when we entered it.

I mean, even living in Calgary we've had the 2008 crisis, 2015 oil slowdown, COVID. All the work that was done feels like it was never enough. If I can turn a blind eye to the things that dont impact me in an effort to live the life I think I "Deserve" or will be happier with, however misguided, I'll do it.

I also think my generation takes for granted how good things have been and how much we've benefited from good education, a strong economy, and still yearn for more.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Brother, do you think I wasn't an 18-29 year old male at some point in the last 15 years when most of this stuff was becoming more commonplace?

You know what I did? Some critical reflection, reading, educating myself, etc. Why do so many men young men need coddling? Isn't one of the tenants of masculinity supposed to be self-sufficiency?

Now imagine that statement being expressed by an Indigenous or Black man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

A lot of Indigenous and Black men have no trouble getting university degrees, secure employment, and stable families. Why can’t those who fail to achieve those things just get their #### together?