Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[Beba Svigir]

Yes, absolutely, for many of our clients. The Filipino community has been very unique in terms of trepidations and concerns about being engaged with any kind of social system and, certainly, government supports, because of their inherent experiences with the system.

Our primary focus of the Filipino program is to work with the school boards in Calgary and with the Filipino community, including faith establishments, to ensure the comfort—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Your time is up, Ms. Svigir.

We will now proceed to Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Lalonde, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much.

I first want to say thank you to all our wonderful witnesses who are here today. I really want to reinforce how extraordinary your work has been, and actually quite challenging, I know, in particular because of COVID impacting you and all your staff. On behalf of this committee, I want to say thank you for everything you've done.

My question is for the three of you, and I would certainly like to have this conversation. It's very specific to when you're working with your clients. Does anything stand out as recurring barriers to racialized newcomers specifically, and how can IRCC address these barriers?

[Anila Lee Yuen]

I can begin.

Just very quickly, in terms of recurring barriers, one of the things we saw, of course, recurring through COVID, was really around a disconnect among the multiple levels of government. Whenever we have anything coming from IRCC, because of the way our system is built in terms of the federation, there needs to be a really big connection with the provincial governments as well. When that isn't necessarily there and there isn't as much communication happening, this potentially can become a big issue.

In terms of barriers, we see not enough language support specifically for newcomer communities and racialized communities. Also, there's a lack of infrastructure, like I said, specifically when people are brand new and they are not permanent residents yet, even though we do have multiple pathways and we know they're going to become permanent residents.

I will leave it to my colleagues to continue.

[Beba Svigir]

I can continue.

When it comes to barriers and racialized populations, our agency can add gender to the context of this discussion. I'm quite sure that Fatima can support it, and Anila, obviously; they also serve women. When you add those three components and connect them with the value of equity and fairness we should be utilizing when supporting our clients, from the funding decisions to all of us who work with clients directly, you can appreciate that there is a huge quantity issue and quality issue when working with racialized immigrant women.

When I talk about quantity, I'm talking about the number of services that exist and that are being funded by IRCC specifically for women. In line with that, there is the quality component, which is the value of equity and customized adjusted services, from child care to all kinds of other issues, including family violence issues that we have been increasingly dealing with. There is the fact that there are a limited number of organizations that exist to provide services for the most vulnerable women who are racialized as well, and the full understanding of that fairness component that every individual IRCC brings to Canada should deserve and should receive as part of their successful integration and how that affects the well-being of those children they bring up to be responsible citizens of this country.

That issue in itself speaks about a huge lack of attention to the gender issues. Globally, all women and in particular [Technical difficulty--Editor] on IRCC funding decisions. We are probably the biggest settlement agency with a gender-specific focus in Canada, and we have tons of different bridging programs that support immigrant women for equitable employment. We have offered those program models' outcome measurement frameworks—vetted programs models—to IRCC to spread across Canada, so that all the other centres can use those programs. However, very few of them have been reciprocated.

What can you do with 30 clients you serve through any of those bridging programs when there are 3,000 women who should have access to those programs, and that's maybe even in the city of Calgary—forget about other cities?

So race, coupled with gender, is a big issue that has been very poorly dealt with by IRCC historically.

I will allow Fatima to....

[Fatima Filippi]

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.

When you talk about the differential treatments in terms of funding, for example, the funding cap at 15% for administrative costs in an organization doesn't go very far when you have a budget of a $1-million grant. When you have an organization that has a $10-million budget under IRCC and 15% administrative costs, you can see the difference in how that's going to impact on the capacity of the organization to be effective in addressing the administration of the contract and being able to serve clients, because the dollars are going to be able to serve clients.

What I'd like to add is on the digital divide that we've seen existing, particularly with women who are in the lower-income brackets in my community. We are having high-speed Internet access to services that are available through the processing program, on the applications, or even, for example, citizenship testing, and we've had to create a special citizenship—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Filippi. The time is up for Ms. Lalonde.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for six minutes.

Please begin.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Yuen, Ms. Svigir and Ms. Filippi, it's so important that you are here with us today. What you are telling us will help us write up our report and recommendations. I'm extremely humbled by what you have told us today.

I would like to hear from all three of you on what I am about to say.

IRCC tells us that there is unconscious bias within the department. Do you agree that if we want to get to the root of the problem, we need to be able to properly identify it? I see a difference between saying that unconscious bias exists and saying that there is outright racism and, as you have told us, sexism within IRCC. Do you believe, as I do, that these things need to be called out?

[Anila Lee Yuen]

Thank you so much for speaking to that, because I think that is one of the problems. Often in polite society we will talk about unconscious bias. We will talk about cultural competency. We will say all of these kinds of words that we make sound very nice and very flowery but really what we are experiencing and what we have seen and what the Polaris report has stated and what we have heard in incidental conversations with IRCC staff and other colleagues is that there is real racism. There is real discrimination, and if we don't name it and we don't utilize the appropriate measures..., just as for any other type of action, if we want to change it, we absolutely need to be able to have those people in the room.

When we look at things through an equity lens, we're not asking for proportional representation. We're asking for equitable representation, which means in all levels of IRCC there needs to be much more proportional and equitable representation of the BIPOC community. There also needs to be, in my humble opinion, a lot more anti-racism training and discussion of something that everybody is scared to name. It's really interesting—back in the 1990s nobody was scared to say this, but now nobody wants to talk about white privilege anymore. Back in the 1990s it was something we could talk about and we could see as something real that we needed to address, but these days it's very difficult to talk about that.

I'm really grateful for the question that you asked, because I agree with you 100%.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd like to quickly hear from the other witnesses.

Then I will ask all three of you one final question.

[Beba Svigir]

I will jump in and add very quickly that unconscious bias is a phenomenon about which we all need to have knowledge. It comes from a lack of education and understanding of the issue. Some of us are more educated in one area and more experienced in one area and some of us are not as well informed in some areas.

The problem is that the last entity of the federal government that should ever claim the benefit of or the right to exhibit unconscious bias is IRCC. IRCC exists to work with us, the settlement sector and all the other partners, to provide equitable services for newcomers. I would say they do a very good job of talking to us and of asking about our experiences. I would like to believe that they appreciate our feedback. However, they have to take responsibility for their own lack of knowledge and the message they are sending through this report. The core of Canadian philosophy about newcomers—equity and acceptance—lies in their ability and proficiency to understand the issue, and they are making decisions about millions of people who have come to Canada over the years. I don't think anybody can be excused for not being well aware of the issues of racism, discrimination and sexism, gender issues as they relate to immigration, and the benefits this country receives from immigration in terms of both nation building and labour market needs.

Immigration is essential to this country. In the third quarter of 2020 there was zero population growth in Canada, so those who make tough decisions about immigration cannot allow biases.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I believe my time is almost up, but Ms. Filippi, since you didn't have time to answer, I'm going to ask you another question directly.

In meeting after meeting, we're told that there is a huge lack of transparency in this department. We're also seeing racism and sexism within IRCC. Is that not a disastrous combination for immigrants?

[Fatima Filippi]

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. You're saying, “Welcome to our Canada. We're an open society. We're multicultural” and then—surprise!—when you walk in and you hit the reality, when you hit the ground running, it's very different, and people experience differential treatments and begin to question the dynamic and ask themselves whether they have made the right decision—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Filippi. The time is up for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. You can please proceed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations and for the work they do in our communities.

In terms of the differential treatment, embedded racism and explicit racism that exist within IRCC, and therefore in the policies that are associated with it, do you feel that there are any concerns with racism and differential treatment within IRCC policies?

For example, a lot of people get their rejections from IRCC on the basis that it is not believed that they will return to their home country, and when you look at those home countries, you see displayed certain countries that are particularly heightened in terms of that kind of refusal—the African countries, the global south countries.

Do you think embedded racism, as well as implicit and explicit racism, exist in those policies that result in those kinds of outcomes? I'd like to ask all the witnesses that question, please.

[Beba Svigir]

Maybe Fatima could start this time.

[Fatima Filippi]

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?

We've seen it. We've had people denied their visas to visit dying family members because IRCC was afraid that they were not going to return to the country or were going file an inland claim for refugee status or somehow disappear into the system.

I think those are grave concerns when you have families who are dependent, who need that support to care for someone who is here in Canada, for example, someone who is very ill, and who are being denied that visa or being denied that entry into the country. We are concerned. Also, this grows when you're having denials and having to provide more data. We've talked about the DNA testing, the security clearances and sometimes, where an office doesn't exist, having to travel to where that office exists to make sure that we can get the application process.

There are all those things, as well as not having access to Internet in certain countries where it's unaffordable, so yes, disproportionately, communities that are racialized and that tend to be low-income are being greatly impacted by this. It is concerning for us. As women, we know that our reliance on being able to support our families is really important. Not having those support systems creates additional family problems and additional societal issues here in Canada as well as in other places back home.

Go ahead, Beba.

[Beba Svigir]

I can add a little bit to that.

The notion of policies is very important, because they guide all of us, right? They guide the funding decisions, and they guide the funding implementation for all of us.

However, the world is not black and white, and this might be an unfortunate.... Weddings and funerals are not happening every day in our lives. The grey, complicated circumstances that affect those days are the reality of our lives, so policies in relation to vulnerable populations should always be accommodated and evaluated based on the number of—for lack of a better word—intelligent exceptions that have to exist when working with humans.

Whenever I see the notion of IT and processing and everything in relation to vulnerable populations.... Some women who come to us have never held a pen in their lives, and then we are responsible, as the agencies, to transition them to [Technical difficulty—Editor] life in Canada, so sometimes the number of exceptions to the policies when you're working with humans should be the measure of our ability to understand the life around us and should be the measure for the politicians in high positions to actually position their policies towards acceptance.

We exist, the settlement sector, and the government purchases our services because they cannot serve all the newcomers they bring to Canada. Our services are equitable, culturally sensitive, immigrant based and understanding, so that people receive customized supports if they need customized supports.

Policies have to be based on the knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. It's a huge context, and the government, to a high level, appreciates that they should depend on our advice, all of us—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Sorry. I'm going to interrupt. I have only one minute left, and I really want to get at the heart of the question. Now that we have established that there are policy issues embedded with discrimination within IRCC, what can we do about it? What needs to be done about it?

Would you support the call for an ombudsperson to review government policies so that we can address the issue of racism within IRCC? I'd like a quick yes-or-no answer from all three witnesses.

[Beba Svigir]

Yes. I'm absolutely in favour of that.

[Anila Lee Yuen]

Yes. Absolutely. I'm in agreement with that.

[Fatima Filippi]

Yes. It was one of my recommendations. An ombudsperson would make a great resource.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to our second round. Based on the time, we will have three minutes each for Mr. Benzen and Mr. Ali, and one and a half minutes each for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe and Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Benzen, you have three minutes. Please begin.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today and for all the great work that you do.

We've had an interesting conversation here today. I'm interested in the balance between the human resources and technology. We're talking about immigration, and we know that we don't have enough human resources. In some cases, those human resources are biased. So we bring in technology to help us out and speed up the files, thinking that it won't be biased. We have online applications. We have artificial intelligence. But we've heard today that the artificial intelligence is somewhat tainted also. So it's not perfect. It's somewhat biased.

How do we get the right balance between human resources and technology to eliminate any bias at all in our immigration? If all three of you could give me your perspectives on that, I'd really appreciate it.