Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui.
Thank you for your time and thank you for what you do for the community.
Immigrants worldwide start life in one culture and, after immigrating, spend the rest of their lives in another generally quite different culture. They start off as an insider in their culture of origin, with an understanding of its norms and mores. After immigrating, they're outsiders in the new culture and are able to maintain some insider status in the subculture communities of their fellow immigrants from their country of origin.
Is there any type of training we can offer the immigration department personnel that would be effective in allowing them to share in the culture of origin insiderness of the applicants whose cases they're considering? Or can that only be achieved by hiring immigration officers from among Canadians who are from those same ethnic and national subcultures?