Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes.

My question is with respect to a mandate for a review of the AI system as it relates to the Pollara report and to try to get at inherent discrimination as well as discrimination within IRCC. What should the mandate of that review be?

[Gideon Christian]

The first mandate should be to have safeguards around the use of historical data in training AI being used by IRCC; and secondly, being able to determine what aspect of the IRCC visa processing is appropriate for use of artificial intelligence technology.

Thirdly, AI should not be making immigration decisions. AI should be providing visa officers with information they need to make the decision themselves, but that decision should not be made by AI.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Professor Christian, on the issue around overall discrimination within IRCC, with the information that has been provided from the Pollara report, what is your number one recommendation to the government in terms of taking action to address this situation?

[Gideon Christian]

My number one recommendation would be to further study the issue that was raised by the Pollara report, interview individuals, more individuals in IRCC, to be able to identify the full extent of the problem of racism in IRCC, and have a clear framework for addressing the issue of bias in processing of immigration applications in IRCC.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Meurrens, could you answer the same question?

[Steven Meurrens]

Especially when it comes to the processing of visas from Africa, my recommendation is for complete new training or some sort of review of staffing to figure out why the approval rates are as low as they are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. With that, our first panel comes to an end. On behalf of all members of the committee, I will take a moment to thank all three witnesses for appearing before the committee as we start an important study.

I see our second panel is here. I will suspend the meeting for a few minutes so the clerk can do the sound checks for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

For this panel, I would like to welcome Beba Svigir, chief executive officer for the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association.

We are also joined by Anila Lee Yuen, president and chief executive officer for the Centre for Newcomers.

Our third witness for this panel is Fatima Filippi, executive director for the Rexdale Women's Centre.

Thank you for taking time to appear before the committee.

All the witnesses will have five minutes for their opening remarks and then we will proceed to our round of questioning. We will begin with Ms. Svigir, the chief executive officer for the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. You can please begin.

[Beba Svigir, Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association]

Thank you.

The Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association has worked with a total of about 23 officers over the years. I believe about 27% of them were racialized. We believe that as a settlement agency, the highest level of helpfulness that we can provide in relation to the study is the extent of differential outcomes for our racialized clients.

The IRCC survey report indicates that many of the surveyed employees were in Canada by virtue of immigration, and were grateful to be able to contribute to the work and mandate of IRCC. This is in line with our agency's experiences as well. Over 90% of our clients are racialized, as are 76% of our staff and leadership team. By extension, when working with CIWA, IRCC is working with approximately 12,000 racialized immigrant women annually. Our statements on differential outcomes are based on decisions around program funding, client service and policy.

On the issue of discriminatory rules for processing immigration applications from some countries that are different than for others, this has been observed and voiced by some CIWA clients on study permits through different streams. The student direct stream takes up to 20 days for the currently listed 14 countries on IRCC's web page, while processing times under the regular study permit can take from anywhere between 90 and 300 days.

We have observed that clients who come on a student visa from Nigeria typically do not bring their children with them, as there is a higher rate of refusal when children are included in their study permit application. They access CIWA for supports with applications to bring their families to join them after they themselves make their way to Canada. As a result of such delays caused by differential processing times, we have to deal with additional stressors arising from delayed family reunification, including parenting challenges and family conflict, both of which have far-reaching effects on families.

An extreme example around the notion of regional experiences is the case of a Sudanese CIWA client who sought private refugee sponsorship for her daughter and eight children. The application has been in the queue in Nairobi since December 2020, and will cost the private sponsoring group $80,000. The sponsoring group already spent over $15,000 last year on food, medicine, a mud hut home and schooling for children during that wait period.

While some VISA offices in other countries processed applications throughout COVID, Kenya's office was closed. Private refugee sponsorship, a point of Canadian pride, will falter under these high costs caused by uneven times.

An example of differential funding decisions by IRCC is the federal government's decision at the end of 2018 to invest in specialized employment programs for racialized immigrant women across Canada. Agencies were invited to apply for a 28-month project to facilitate employment bridging programs. After the federal election in 2019, the same government that enacted the funding decided to rescind the funding decision, cutting the project after only 16 months. Widely perceived as an election promise to attract voters and capture the ears of newcomers at that time, we felt that this decision could be perceived as hugely differential. Due to our capacity and other funding supports that we had to access at that time, we did complete the project in line with our original time frame of 28 months.

In relation to the increased automation of processing embedding racially discriminatory practices in a way that will be harder to see over time, this is really close to our heart, because we believe we know a lot about the risks associated with this. High-level decisions by IRCC in relation to service delivery improvements directly affect service provider organizations and clients. These decisions should be executed after formal consultation and research with stakeholder engagement. Unanticipated outcomes need to be heard and mitigated. Negative outcomes of rushed automation decisions will definitely affect highly barriered newcomers, including those who are racialized.

We recognize that process- and analytics-driven approaches are necessary to deal with backlogs. However, automation in processing vulnerable populations should be called an improvement only if it has well-defined exceptions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Svigir. Your time is up. You'll get an opportunity to talk further when we get to the round of questioning.

We will now turn to Ms. Yuen.

Ms. Yuen, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please begin.

[Anila Lee Yuen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Newcomers]

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate being here today from the traditional land of Treaty No. 7 in Calgary, Alberta, whose Blackfoot name is Mohkinstsis.

I am the president and chief executive officer at the Centre for Newcomers. I have five points that I want to bring up in relation to racism, discrimination and systemic barriers in terms of IRCC. Although some really wonderful things have happened over the last few years, including our indigenous education for newcomers as a priority, and more priority on LGBT+ and racialized communities and other things, I thought I would use this time to speak to some of the things that we see as barriers and where we would like to see some changes.

The first is what is true and also perceived in the general public as differential actions for displaced peoples that are dependent on where they come from. We see this much more broadly, especially right now, where we are still reeling, as settlement agencies, from the acceptance of and assistance to Afghan refugees. That has been, of course, as it is for all displaced people in war, very difficult in terms of that, in terms of the community—but we're seeing much easier ways of coming to Canada for Ukraine and for Ukrainian citizens. That is problematic in what we say to our clients and what we say to the community in terms of why there was a difference between racialized communities—whether they were Syrian, whether they were Iraqi, whether they were coming from Colombia in South America or from anywhere else, or Punjabi if they were coming potentially as political refugees from India—and all these different places that are racialized.

As much as we do support the Ukrainian community, and support every community, there is a huge difference. The only one we can see visibly is race. That is really problematic in terms of the work we do.

The other piece that's related to that is differential treatment based on immigration status. We have a very legal mechanism of claiming asylum once people come to Canada, yet they are not allowed any of the services or any of the settlement support while they are going through their process of becoming permanent residents. This also has detrimental effects on their longevity. Many studies show that children and grandchildren will continue to be in that trauma state because their parents did not receive the kinds of services...until a few years in, when they received their refugee status. That is also problematic.

We see this also in terms of what we're going to do with those Ukrainians. Currently, they are being marked as temporary residents. What are we going to do if they seek asylum and they choose to stay, or if they cannot go back? What kinds of services will we be able to offer? Currently, IRCC does not allow us as settlement agencies to offer services to temporary residents or refugee claimants. This is problematic in terms of how these communities are going to be able to get assistance.

One of the things we learned during the COVID response was that we were the group that was responsible for a 99% vaccination rate, the first in Canada, and most certainly in Alberta, from the lowest to the highest in northeast Calgary, which is a highly racialized newcomer community space. We were able to prove that for people in times of crisis, whatever that crisis is, even if they speak English or French fluently, you provide them with dignity when you provide them with the ability to speak in their first language. That is another thing that we think is extremely important in terms of all the services that are offered. They should not only be in English and French. We should make a concerted effort, especially in times of crisis, to be able to give first language support.

One thing we saw through COVID was that IRCC officers were not designated as essential workers. The offices were closed. If they had been essential workers, we wouldn't have seen such a disparity between the services offered for newcomers and immigrants as compared with other communities.

Finally, in maybe the last decade, funding has typically excluded ethnocultural community groups. In terms of being natural supports to our community, we think we really need to look at more funding options for ethnocultural community groups.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Yuen.

We will now proceed to Fatima Filippi, executive director of Rexdale Women's Centre.

Ms. Filippi, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please begin.

[Fatima Filippi, Executive Director, Rexdale Women's Centre]

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. Last year, we provided services to well over 8,000 individuals during the pandemic.

I would also like to state that since 2019, I've been the co-chair of the women's caucus of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, which is an umbrella organization of immigrant-serving organizations in Ontario.

Like many of our sector colleagues, we were angered and saddened by the findings of the Pollara report, yet as much as we are angered, we are not surprised by the findings.

I would like to start off by relating some of my organization's experience in working with racialized women's communities and IRCC.

We have experienced differential treatment in budget negotiations. Ms. Yuen talked a little bit about funding options being more open and that's one of the things we wanted to talk about. As a women's organization working with racialized women's communities, we have been asked to provide additional details that other sector providers have not had to provide. An example is a detailed breakdown of administrative budget costs when other sector providers were not required to do so. We were also asked for this information to justify the administrative percentage being requested under IRCC even though the contracts clearly state that we can claim up to 15%.

We now comprehend that if the settlement officer was from a racialized community—in this case this officer was—they needed to provide additional due diligence in order to substantiate their recommendation and to provide proof of effectively managing our contract agreement and our file.

I have heard from one settlement officer who has now left the department that upon returning to the office from visiting my agency, he was chided and was asked how it felt to work with a women's organization, as though our portfolio was somehow demeaning and of lesser value in comparison to managing other portfolios.

It is concerning for us how we see that racialized staff are being passed over for promotions and having to work harder to justify their decisions. Their decisions are being questioned when working with sector service organizations. Thus, we are equally concerned for how this reflects on decisions on how racialized communities are being allowed into Canada.

I have heard from our agency settlement counsellors that our racialized clients must undergo additional steps in order to fulfill the requirements in the application process. I know Dr. Christian spoke at length about that in the Chinook process.

We've seen a great many clients being requested to do DNA testing for family members, which is a costly process that is often difficult to obtain in some countries. It causes extraordinary delays. Security clearances are also expensive and difficult to obtain. Specific countries having visa requirements is an additional financial burden.

We have also now started to hear from our female Muslim clients that they are being asked questions of sexual nature with regard to their relationship with male spouses and to provide proof of marriage under the family sponsorship program.

We ask ourselves whether these procedures and questions are being asked of all potential newcomers and immigrants or whether it is only a select few.

I would also like to take this opportunity to present some recommendations in my role as the co-chair of the OCASI women's caucus.

First, we recommend a comprehensive racial equity review of Canada's immigration and refugee system, including legislation, regulations, policies and practices.

Legislation, regulation and policies are written carefully with a view to eliminating racial bias. Meanwhile, even racial bias regulations can have a disproportionate impact on certain people and communities because of a deeply rooted global history of colonialism and patriarchy, the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and genocide, as well as the ongoing colonialism and systemic racism within Canada.

For example, Canada has visa requirements for countries primarily in the global south. These are also countries with racialized populations. The visa requirement makes family visits from parents and grandparents and family reunification more difficult for racialized residents of Canada.

In practice, IRCC has reportedly hyper-scrutinized family sponsorship applications primarily from racialized applicants. We've heard that from Dr. Christian. Spousal sponsorship applications for India are hyper-scrutinized for the existence of marriage fraud. Child sponsorship applications for China and many African countries are scrutinized for genuine parent-child relationships. Applicants are often asked to provide a DNA proof of relationships.

While laws, regulations and policies are neutral, their application is subject to bias and prejudice. These concerns were highlighted by the IRCC employees in the 2021 focus group and IRCC employee groups.

Two, we recommend collection of data disaggregated by race, ethnicity and faith, as well as gender and other demographic factors on which IRCC currently collects data.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry for interrupting. Your time is up. You will get an opportunity to talk further when we get into the round of questioning.

With that, we will now proceed to our round of questioning, starting with Mr. Redekopp for six minutes.

Mr. Redekopp, please begin.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all three witnesses. You're doing amazing work in the organizations that you run. Congratulations on that.

I also want to point out, Ms. Lee Yuen, that your Centre for Newcomers is actually in Calgary Forest Lawn, the riding of my colleague Jasraj Singh Hallan. That's interesting.

Ms. Filippi, could you just continue and quickly give us the second and third recommendations? You got cut off there.

[Fatima Filippi]

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.

Lastly, we recommend that anti-racism training with a gender-based lens be mandatory for all employees; the establishment of an independent, adequately resourced ombudsperson office for IRCC; and anti-racism legislation for Canada, which would give the anti-racism secretariat a legislative foundation and strengthen its work and as part of the act subject all government legislation and regulations to a racial equity review similar to what was undertaken under the Canadian Gender Budgeting Act of 2018.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

I want to continue with you on the issue of family. I know in my own riding we've often had cases where people aren't able to reunite their families and it can be a very stressful thing.

Are you seeing some trends there in terms of genuineness of the relationship? What are the factors that are used? Can you comment more on that?

[Fatima Filippi]

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. If they don't start soon enough within the process, and it takes a long time given all the hurdles and barriers that they have to overcome, they outgrow the time. Then they have to come as independent applicants, and families are despondent by that whole process and it becomes very difficult.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Those things are typical of all, but can you point to any racism in that? Are there certain countries or—

[Fatima Filippi]

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. I'm not sure if the situation is similar with the Afghan refugees who are coming in right now. There are highly scrutinized women coming from India, needing proof of relationship in their marriage. These are racialized women.

You have Muslim women now having to provide information about the sexual nature of their relationship with their spouses. That's not something that people are comfortable talking about. Of course, that's happening with certain racial communities. We're seeing that happening more and more often.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Right.

[Fatima Filippi]

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.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

One of the other things I've witnessed in my riding is when the IRCC makes decisions about a client, about a person, it's often the CBSA that has to enforce that. I've had issues in my riding of Saskatoon West where I had to intervene with a minister to stop the deportation of a Ugandan man. He was a refugee fleeing because he was gay. It seems like the CBSA only saw a Black person.

In your experience, can you correlate racism to some of the actions that are then taken by the CBSA?

[Fatima Filippi]

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. Yes, these become problematic.

It's not just one point of the system; it's somehow within the whole gamut of the system where things become problematic. Differential treatment doesn't start just in one place and stop at another level. It goes right through the system and we're seeing that happen.

When you have people then getting lawyers, it becomes an expensive process for Canada. I can certainly talk about the AI example. They often lose their cases. It becomes very expensive to administer that, in having to overturn and going through the court system, and so on, but it's also expensive for the client. The concern is why certain groups are being asked certain levels of questions throughout the whole system, and not others.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Ms. Svigir, I notice that you have a Filipino program in your organization. Of course, we have a big Filipino community in my riding. I had a case where a woman with terminal breast cancer ended up getting deported. She was trying to seek sanctuary but she wasn't.... Have you had experiences with this as well, with deportation and racism going together?