Citizenship and Immigration committee  So far, the announcement focuses on economic immigration, so it's not really a humanitarian application or program. Canada should look at it more from the humanitarian perspective. We have made some suggestions to the minister. For those who are here in Canada right now, there are pro-democracy activists.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I do believe that a large number of people are left out. Not even all the young are included. There are a lot of young activists in Hong Kong who are still in high school. Many of them will not be able to afford the international tuition fee to come to Canada to study. They would not qualify for the open work permit program that is only for post-secondary graduates.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. On behalf of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. The pandemic has dramatically changed the way governments carry out their businesses and has led to some positive outcomes in the context of immigration, including much faster processing times for certain types of applications, as well as fewer detentions and removals.

Canadian Heritage committee  —we used to be able to get multiculturalism funding to do community capacity building. One of the first ones that Colour of Poverty-Colour of Change got was from Canadian Heritage's multiculturalism program to do community consultation, to do impact studies looking at racism as it affects different communities.

Canadian Heritage committee  You are allowed to ask.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, I guess it's up to the defence counsel to say they want to raise this question as a challenge for cause. I can see that a defence counsel should be able to raise the question. If the accused who stands trial is a Muslim man, they may want to ask about the potential jurors' view about Islam and that sort of thing.

Canadian Heritage committee  I have two suggestions. One is, as you mentioned earlier, that in the old days, maybe during Dr. Fry's time—

Canadian Heritage committee  In the Criminal Code there are only two ways in which hate is taken into account. One is in hate speech or hate propaganda. The other is that hate is considered in sentencing once a crime has been proven. You would require the Attorney General's authorization before you could prosecute someone for hate propaganda.

Canadian Heritage committee  Can I answer this question? According to the Supreme Court of Canada, you can challenge a jury for cause based on their racial bias. That's already a decision that is made by the Supreme Court and also confirmed by the Ontario court.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think there are two responses to it. First of all, the action plan must come with a plan to also collect disaggregated data because you want to make sure that whatever action you come up with will benefit different communities and not just benefit some communities. The only way that you will know is if you collect data that is disaggregated, looking at different communities.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll give you three examples, but they're not complete examples. For instance, in Ontario, the Ontario government started an anti-racism directorate, which has an anti-racism strategy for the next three years. They have passed anti-racism legislation which we helped to draft. That's one model.

Canadian Heritage committee  One of the issues with hate crime stats is.... Well, if you look at Statistics Canada, its source of information is police reports, so only hate crimes reported to police will show up in the Statistics Canada report. It's the same with the RCMP. As Ayesha just mentioned, many people will never file a report.

Canadian Heritage committee  I guess I'll use economic employment as an example. Because of discrimination, they are unable to access good-paying, decent jobs. You are trapped in precarious employment situations where your income tends to be lower and you tend to be living in poverty. Your life chances are lower.

Canadian Heritage committee  I will give you an example of the opposite of that statement where the economy improves, but then lives of certain groups are not improved. There was a study by the United Way of greater Toronto. It looked at the poverty rates in Toronto between 1981 to 2000, so you see the trajectory of the economy changing over time, improving over time.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Maybe I can provide you with some statistics. If you look at the different communities, Somali, Chinese, Vietnamese, or whatever, in the 2006 Statistics Canada census, you have information there that you can see the different poverty lines for different communities, and you can see the different income levels.