Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you're talking about the situation within IRCC for us—and I support Ms. Lee Yuen—I would recommend having a comprehensive racial equity review of Canada's immigration and refugee system, including the legislation, regulations, policies and practices, and how those apply across all levels within IRCC and not just within one department.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Look at what's happening in Yemen, for example. A war has been raging on there forever, and they're not being allowed in. We have Afghan refugees displaced in Pakistan who are going through enormous challenges to file their applications and not having them approved, even though they've found a safe haven out of Afghanistan.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It seems that the system is focusing more on catching. It's focusing on the negative as opposed to the positive. It's concerning how much energy is being put into that as opposed to the opposite.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I think it avoids an extensive process for both the client and the government, number one. It's an independent body. It's difficult to have an independent review within the department itself, and it's hard not to get an independent review, given the circumstances and the interrelationships with staff and supervisors and with government and so forth within the system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Questions are being developed by humans. We have to vet those questions. We have to ask, “Are there inherent biases in the way we're asking the question, or the words we're using as part of the question? Is that the understanding that we're trying to get at?” We need to talk to IRCC staff who are racialized, or communities through focus groups, and say, “This is our intent.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It was one of my recommendations. An ombudsperson would make a great resource.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely it is disastrous. It speaks to how funding is allocated based on that, and, of course, it has disastrous impacts and effects on the communities that are potentially being served by the organizations that are under-resourced to provide those services. I think we have to recognize that there is a relationship between the two, and when you think about all of that, yes, it is disastrous.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. Thank you. Yes, that is a concern for us. We know it exists. We've seen it repeatedly. We have studies that have shown it. We have reports that have shown this. Their own IRCC staff has stated that this is a problem, yet we haven't been able to begin to address it. How do we start to address that?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I support that. I think one of the concerns we've had for the women-serving community is that there are no disaggregated data on the level of funding for women's organizations across Canada. We've been asking this of IRCC for the last two years, almost three years, and still don't have it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The concern for our clients is that if they don't start soon enough in that process, their children will outgrow the time and become independent.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certainly. It's inherent in the fact that we've heard that these groups are just trying to scam the system, they're liars, or they're trying to jump the queue. We've heard comments such as this. It becomes problematic when we're dealing with certain officers within certain regions, within Ontario, trying to get them to overcome those bias issues that they bring with them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I won't go into great detail. I'll just give the recommendations and not the background. We recommend the collection of data disaggregated by race, ethnicity and faith, as well as gender and other demographic factors on which IRCC currently collects data. Third, we recommend an independent review and ongoing oversight of IRCC's Chinook system, and any future AI or technology use for pre-screening and processing, as well as full sharing of case-processing data disaggregated by race, ethnicity and faith, as well as other demographics currently collected by IRCC.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Where we're working with families, bringing in children primarily or their parents or grandparents, it becomes really difficult in terms of the process for applying, asking for additional requirements for the DNA testing and security clearances. If children are nearing the age when they're no longer going to be considered dependants, that becomes an additional problem for the family.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you're talking about which countries that comes under, certainly; if you're asking for DNA data, if you're talking about proof from African countries, that's another issue. We have Somali clients who have to provide proof about their children. We saw a bit of it with the Syrian refugees, but not too many.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for having me here today. I'm a little bit nervous, so please bear with me. I just wanted to talk on a little bit of a more personal level about my experience with the organization and IRCC. Our organization was established in 1978. We assist newcomer, immigrant and refugee women and their families to overcome the challenges they face when integrating into Canada.