Thank you, Minister. I really appreciate that.
I know a week is a relatively short amount of time in terms of turning around correspondence, and I'm not always that efficient myself, but given the nature of the case and its urgency, I did want to highlight it. Thank you for committing to looking into it and following up on those issues.
I found it interesting that in response to my colleague Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe's question about racism at IRCC, you referred to racism as a “sickness”. I would be more inclined to describe racism as a moral evil, as opposed to a sickness. I suppose the difference is that one implies that it's something that just happens, whereas another implies that there are specific people who are responsible for the things they do and should be held accountable for them.
I was thinking of that description in the context of my colleague Mr. Hallan's pointing out that there have not been consequences for individuals who engage in racist behaviour. I'd like to know if you would agree with my description of racism as a moral evil as opposed to a sickness—maybe it's both—and then also speak to this issue of whether you believe individuals who have engaged in racist behaviour should be held accountable and should be reassigned or removed. What is appropriate in terms of identifying actors and consequences?