Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 29th, 2022

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses who are joining us today. They will help us write our report and make recommendations as part of this extremely important study.

Ms. Rayale, I would like to come back to what you just said.

During this study, a witness, Mr. Christian, recently told us when talking about racism at IRCC that a cat is a cat, even if talking about it is uncomfortable. No one in this committee is comfortable with racism—that goes without saying—but we must be able to call it by its name. Right now, IRCC is talking about unconscious biases.

Do you think there is racism at IRCC? If so, should we call it by that name?

[Dr. Siham Rayale]

Yes, we should be using the word “racism”. We can define what kind of racism it is. Anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are very common forms of racism directed at particular groups.

My colleague, Nadiya Ali, also directly works with IRCC and other federal agencies to look at these issues, so I'll refer to her on some other strategies.

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

Thank you.

So you're telling me that, to address an issue, we must be able to call it by its name. I think we agree on that.

Mr. Kals, you said earlier that the Canadian economy was suffering because of prejudicial treatment of some applicants.

So while Canada is suffering from a significant labour shortage, is it not counterproductive for discrimination to exist or for applications to be treated differently? Canada needs people who want to come work here.

For many people, immigration is one of the solutions to the labour shortage. Isn't what is currently happening counterproductive? What do you think?

[Gurpartap Kals]

There is a worker shortage in Canada in every province that we are witnessing and reading about in the reports. If that shortage has to be addressed there's only one way. The immigration system has to be polarized or made in a better way so that every application is treated equally without prejudice about the point of origin of that application.

I work very closely with the provincial nominee programs. Once an employer here nominates a person to be in Canada and join their workplace, the responsibilities lie with the federal government to issue them the work permit.

However, if you see the reports and data of different VACs around the world, there is a huge difference in the refusal rate of different countries. As I mentioned, the New Delhi office in India has a refusal rate of 66% compared to Australia at only 17% refusal. Therefore, a person who's applying from India may have hurdles that Australians would not have.

This is impacting the economy back here because employers won't have their people from India. Now they have to pick and choose where they should be getting their employees from.

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

Thank you very much Mr. Kals.

Ms. Ali, you have not yet commented. You may not be able to answer my question, but I would like to hear your opinion.

A number of witnesses have told us that the proposal to create the position of immigration ombudsman would change a lot of things at IRCC. It would help better protect applicants, and IRCC officers would know that an independent body is overseeing their work, in a way. Right now, there is no independent body at IRCC to deal with litigation.

Wouldn't the creation of the position of immigration ombudsman be a good thing, in your opinion?

[Nadiya Ali]

The short answer to that is yes.

The full answer is that in many ways, the way we thought about the potentiality of employee resource groups is connected to this ombudsperson. What does it mean to create safe, inclusive spaces? Having a person who independently focuses on that will open up different avenues and take the conversation to another level.

Tying in what you said earlier, in many ways having a person who does that work will be able to explicitly tackle what needs to be tackled through an anti-racist perspective. Explicitly naming the work that needs to be done is the real work of anti-racism, not unconscious bias.

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

You are basically saying that it would be good to create an ombudsman's office where a number of people work, but that the ombudsman should have the power, resources and money needed to do their job. A position of ombudsman should not just be created to improve the image; its creation must leads to something concrete.

Is that indeed what you are telling us?

[Nadiya Ali]

That's exactly what I'm saying: a well-resourced office has the ability to move things forward.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Ali.

Testimony has shown us that there is outright discrimination at IRCC. It must be called by its name. It affects many people, in a number of countries. This has not been discussed a lot, but it affects African francophone students, among whom the refusal rate is very high.

Unfortunately, I am out of time, but I may have an opportunity to come back to this.

Thank you, respected witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for their presentations.

I want to follow up on a question to Ms. Ali. Based on the Pollara report, it was indicated by staff who did the interview that those racist attitudes could have an implication for refusal rates. When you look at the refusal rates for certain countries—particularly from African countries from the global south—it really does indicate that there's a huge discrepancy in terms of approvals and rejections.

I'd like to ask what your thoughts are on this concern playing out with the racist attitudes that are embedded within IRCC, for some of the processing officers, and the end result of the refusal rates. Given this reality, what recommendations do you have for the committee to address this concern?

[Nadiya Ali]

In many ways, building from what was discussed earlier, the big piece is racism moves across levels. There's the interpersonal dimension, there's the institutional dimension that creates the policies and programs, and then there's the systemic dimension all stacked on top of one another. Thank you for bringing up this piece where the report did clearly show how these different dimensions, layered to such an extent, impact application refusal in a real way, not only from the attitude level, but also thinking about what systems are in place to be able to disrupt that, disrupt the attitude-driven racism.

Part of our full recommendation that we want to submit includes a focus on how we are approaching the training and anti-racism education being delivered to employees, managers and staff. Across the board, how are we thinking about that education and training, and do the education and training move to such an extent that we're covering those various grounds so there's an accurate foundation of understanding of how racism operates on multiple levels, including individual beliefs and attitudes?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Should IRCC be ensuring that race-based data be collected and made public? Until we actually get to the depth of the issue, we won't actually really know how deep the problem is.

[Nadiya Ali]

Yes, I would completely agree with that. In many ways, the way these conversations move is with continuous research. The research and data collection has to move in tandem with the work of implementation and developing systems and strategies of intervention and combatting racism.

I would completely agree. Race-based data and continuous research and auditing will be necessary for this work to have a real footing.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

One of the issues that has been raised with respect to the ombudsperson is for the government to put forward an independent ombudsperson to review the policies and their implementation within IRCC so that we can get at the details and the implications of what policies may even exist that are discriminatory and biased.

Would you support the call for an independent ombudsperson to review the policies of the government within IRCC?

[Nadiya Ali]

Yes, and in many ways that review taking on an explicit kind of anti-racist and anti-oppressive lens is the way to really move this conversation forward.

Anti-racism work requires audits and reviews across the board, including which policies are [Inaudible—Editor] and taken for granted and move as an everyday practice when they're not effectively audited and reviewed regularly.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

One of the issues that surfaced is that the government uses e-tools, as they call them—spreadsheets, if you will—to help them with processing. In other instances, they use AI systems.

If the people who are creating these e-tools or these AI systems have discriminatory or racists attitudes, would it not be the case that those tools that the IRCC utilizes to process applications will also potentially have embedded racist points of view that would impact the decision-making in the process?

Witnesses are calling for the government to do an independent audit of these e-tools and AI systems. What are your thoughts on that?

[Dr. Siham Rayale]

With respect, I can certainly answer that.

Yes, countless studies have shown that the development of algorithms to support AI are biased because the individuals behind the development of these systems themselves come with their own belief systems, values and perspectives.

We can't see AI as less biased than the individuals themselves. Rather, we need to see them in tandem with one another and recognize that anyone who is developing AI systems is oftentimes reflecting their own world views or beliefs in that as well.

An independent review of that is necessary. We would certainly welcome that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I want to touch on a last issue.

You opened your comments to say there is differential treatment in the government's special immigration measures for Afghans versus the ones for those in Ukraine.

Can you advise if you are saying that the government should immediately have the immigration measures for Ukraine apply to Afghans as well?

Please give just a quick yes or no answer because my time is up.

[Dr. Siham Rayale]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Now we will go to our second round of questioning. Based on the time, we will have three minutes each for Mr. Benzen and Ms. Kayabaga and then 90 seconds each for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe and Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Benzen, you can please begin. You will have three minutes.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses.

I'd just like to follow up on some of the questioning we just heard.

Last week we had a professor here, Gideon Christian, from the University of Calgary. He was talking about the AI. He has documentation that says the IRCC is actually using AI to automate visa approvals and there are plans to use AI to also automate visa refusals, without human review at all. It's just the AI making a decision.

Can you comment on that? I assume you would be against that and that you would want some human interaction in making these decisions. Is it yes or no, in terms of the human interaction part of that?

[Dr. Siham Rayale]

Yes, absolutely.

There has to be human oversight for AI algorithms. Somebody has to be a part of the processing piece. We can't leave AI to do the work independently because these systems themselves don't function as accurately as we would like.

On top of that, the refugee experience is so diverse across so many different communities. The consequences of visa refusals based on a broad set of criteria without taking into account certain nuances.... For example, if the criteria is mothers and children before young men, for example, AI can't understand where vulnerabilities exist. In some instances, particularly in conflict contexts, young men are targeted significantly for their ethnic background or for other issues that affect their identity.

I think leaving it to AI independently leaves a lot of room and expands the window on bias.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Kals, do you have any thoughts?

[Gurpartap Kals]

If somebody is embedding the code and their belief system is racist, we cannot take care of one set of belief systems. I think proper training procedures would help up to a certain point. Human oversight is necessary for AI systems, but we always need a a fair audit process to address these issues.

Also, we need data and research to be published publicly on IRCC. The data for the different VACs all around the world were published under 2016. After 2016, we had to make a special request to get the data on how many refusals have been done in different VACs.

Yes, we need a proper training mechanism for the people who are dealing with AI outcomes. To oversee those oversights, we need measures and a system to take care of this.