Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable committee members, for affording us the time to speak.
I represent a self-advocacy group with an outreach of over 6,000 victims of IRCC's racist system. I use the word “racist” indeed, especially for families who have been separated forcefully by the Minister of Immigration and IRCC.
This system is inequitable, archaic and systemically biased. We submitted our recommendations in a petition that was signed by over 5,600 people, and it included their comments.
As a group, we have been pushing for immediate family reunification. The Minister of Immigration has proven time and time again that if there is a will, there is a way, just like the MI—the ministerial instruction—that is allowing Ukrainians into Canada within 15 days, sidelining other refugees and waiving all fees just because of white privilege. There are Afghans, Hong Kongers and victims of the Lebanon bomb blast who were not afforded the same treatment by the Minister of Immigration.
We basically deal with spouses from the outland application stream. Today I would like to highlight that systemic racism and racism exist almost at the bottom rung of this system and process.
Through a lot of crowdsourcing, we have now identified ageism in the process of outland applications. If you have an age difference, you're discriminated against. A previous marital status, a divorcee, is automatically flagged by the AI. Social, educational or economic status differences are flagged by the AI. Cultural and religious differences also flagged by the AI.
What is AI? AI is a program, and a program is as good as the person who codes it. If the person coding it is racist or is unconsciously following data over six years, they're going to bring that racism forward all the way to the bottom rung, unfortunately.
Today we are glad that victims of the spousal outland application are finally able to represent themselves today.
I bring forward a message from one of the youngest advocates, Tito. He's 10 years old and has autism. He has been separated from his dad, Carlos, for over four years. They were afforded an interview by a writ of mandamus over service standards. However, there are no panel physicians for them to be able to do their premedicals, so yet again they are stuck. In his own words he says, “Can you please tell the committee and the Minister of Immigration that families are made of love, not black, white, brown, he or she?” That is a 10-year-old saying this. He would like one day for his dad to take him to school so people can believe that he does indeed have a father.
I will gladly take questions. I will give you real-life examples of the racist hurdles that outland applications face, with proof in black and white that locally engaged staff have put in writing in GCMS notes that we can provide to you. This is the bottom rung of the racist organization. Racism is embedded deeply in the immigration system from the top to the bottom, and it is about time we address how we are going to solve these issues.
Unfortunately, the sole discretion and the use of cultural norms given to locally engaged staff are the major barriers for spouses of Canadians trying to get to Canada—