Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 26th, 2022

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

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

We have an amazing panel of witnesses here today. I'm not going to have enough time to ask all the questions I'd like to ask.

Having said that, I thank you for being with us. Your testimony will be helpful as we draft the report on this important study.

Mr. Shorifuzzaman, you were responding to the question from my Conservative Party colleague, Mr. Redekopp. You were saying that you saw evidence of racism at IRCC, but you didn't have time to finish your response. So I'd like to give you the opportunity to complete it and give us an example.

[MD Shorifuzzaman]

I'm very sorry. I didn't hear anything. Can you please repeat?

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

From the top, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, please repeat your question.

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

Okay.

Can you hear the interpretation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Can you hear the interpretation, Mr. Shorifuzzaman?

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

I can hear the interpretation, but I don't know if Mr. Shorifuzzaman can.

[MD Shorifuzzaman]

Yes, I can hear you now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, please go ahead.

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

Are you going to start my time again from the beginning, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'll restart the time.

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

You're the best.

I'd like to thank the witnesses. Honestly, we have an outstanding group with us today. This study is extremely important to many of our fellow Quebecers and Canadians. So I thank you for being with us.

Mr. Shorifuzzaman, you were responding to my colleague, Mr. Redekopp. You were saying that you saw evidence of racism at IRCC. I'd like to give you the opportunity to continue responding.

[MD Shorifuzzaman]

Thank you so much for the opportunity again.

I see racism in many different ways, especially, as I said, for the applicants or students who are applying from Bangladesh. The data shows that the performance of the Bangladeshi students in Canada—the academic performance and their commitment to the Canadian economy—is significant and remarkable. Despite the fact that when students are applying, we have sufficient evidence to prove that they have the ability to come to Canada and study, the reason we always see in the refusal is basically that the visa officer has a doubt that after finishing their studies they may not go back to their home country.

As I said, that's even though we spend a whole lot of money to make them stay in Canada and be part of our economy when they come to Canada. I understand the law.

The second thing is that, even if you see that a specific visa officer has the capacity to assess visa applications, some applicants from a very specific country who are eligible for student registration programs are getting decisions in two weeks or three weeks. The whole family can live in peace knowing that they will be able to go to Canada and study. Whereas the students who are applying from Bangladesh are applying five or six months before their expected starting class date and still can't take the decision because the visa officers are very busy with so many other applications. Sometimes those applications are transferred to other visa officers, such as in Vietnam or other different countries. Definitely they have their priorities, and they don't want.... I assume, I'm not 100% sure, but the way they refuse the applications, it feels like they don't even spend five minutes to read the whole application. The refusals literally talk exactly against this admission.

That's why I feel that this is a very clear example of discrimination when it comes to study permits for us.

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

Thank you.

That brings me to a question for Professor Ghaffar‑Siddiqui, who is here with us today.

Professor, in your opening remarks, you said that we need to know how to find the problem. However, IRCC is talking about unconscious bias. At a previous meeting, one witness told us that we need to call a spade a spade. As the last witness just said, there is racism within IRCC.

In my opinion, we need to name the problem or we'll be unable to fix it. Do you agree with that statement?

[Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui]

I do agree with that statement, but being a professor, I've been trained to always say, “maybe, perhaps, possibly”. That's why I respond in that way.

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

In your opinion, studies within IRCC should be done by racialized researchers. Since you said you have more to say about this, I'm going to give you the opportunity to do so.

[Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui]

The reason I say that is.... There was a book released a few years ago called Points of Entry: How Canada's Immigration Officers Decide Who Gets In. It was written by my Ph.D. supervisor. I read it because I had to, because he's my supervisor. However, I found a lot of flaws in his methodology and his regions. He was looking at visa officers around the world. He went there. He sat with immigration officers to determine whether or not bias and racism takes place in these departments. His aha at the end was that there was no racism.

When I read that book as a racialized researcher, there were a lot of things I was picking up on: Does he have the ability to see something that he has no experience with himself? This question of insider-outsider researchers has come up for years. Racialized researchers are always frustrated with the fact that we're not really given the funding to do research about our own communities and our own cultural backgrounds because of this question of objectivity—are we going to be objective?—which is offensive. We've been trained to be objective.

The point I'm trying to make is that white researchers come with a certain set of assumptions, ideas, a certain set of eyes and world views. I believe they are not capable of understanding a situation in its entirety in the way that maybe a racialized researcher would. That's why it is very important, from that critical race theory lens, to come in and produce that research.

Another point to make, because I'm a professor, is that I don't discard that research. All I'm saying is, let's have a balance of—

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

In other words, diversity is needed.

[Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui]

—some research from white scholars and some research from racialized scholars so we can say, okay, we have a range of ideas here.

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

Absolutely, thank you.

Do I have any time left, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 15 seconds.

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

I'd like to thank the witnesses. I might get the opportunity to ask them one last question.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. Please proceed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. I really do appreciate hearing from all of you.

I want to ask this question because every witness has raised this, both in this study and in the previous study as well. It is the question of systemic racism embedded within IRCC. The question then is how we get at it. There are different streams that we can always cite. In the caregiver stream, definitely the government's approach is inherently biased and racist and discriminatory, in my view, because it's the only temporary foreign worker stream where they cannot bring their families to come until after much lobbying. Why can't they have landed status on arrival, as an example, when it has been proven that we actually need caregivers here in Canada?

From that perspective, what I think needs to be done—and I would love to get the perspective from all the witnesses—is that the government should bring in an independent ombudsperson to examine all of IRCC's policies and their application so that we can address the systemic racism within IRCC once and for all.

I will start with Mr. Shorifuzzaman first, then we'll go to Rainbow Refugee and then we'll come back to our witness here in person.

[MD Shorifuzzaman]

Thank you.

I would say, yes, I entirely agree with this, but we cannot forget that the whole process may take a long time and this program can't wait that long. The people who are affected, the applicants, the temporary residents who are affected by this discrimination, they need immediate support. Definitely, yes, we can work through that, but on top of that we need immediate attention by the IRCC to address this problem and solve it as quickly as possible.