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.
