Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am presenting today from the traditional, unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Qayqayt nations, in Burnaby, B.C.
In my five minutes today, I will highlight the key points that I put forth in my written brief, focusing on expanding on my three recommendations.
Like Minister Fraser and a few years behind, I've only just started my French studies, but it's important for me to say the following.
We must not forget the intersectionality of French‑speaking Africans. In other words, there are elements of a racial, linguistic and geographic nature, and often gender and age, which have an impact. We can't forget the importance of these problems for Quebeckers and for French‑speaking Canadians, since they have disproportionately affected those communities.
My thesis statement today is to summarize that we have broken links between a history of anti-Black racism and discrimination, which are embedded today in a system that disproportionately discriminates against applicants from the global south. This threatens to codify itself in tomorrow's artificial intelligence-driven system.
In my paper, I discuss the historical context, but I'll first begin by emphasizing how important it is for this committee to understand the present-day context for applicants, to counterbalance IRCC's narratives of privacy, security and efficiency.
African and global south applicants have greater barriers to proving their cases, higher documentary requirements and higher rates of refusal, as my colleague Lou has just presented. Refusals are rendered on obscure financial grounds or prejudiced assumptions that applicants will not return to their home countries after their studies.
To be clear, as idealistic as I am, I do not believe we can entirely eliminate discrimination in immigration, as immigration is a process of state-endorsed discrimination based on nationality and travel document requirements. Acknowledging this, I do believe such a system needs additional safeguards and increased transparency.
Also, to expand on what Minister Fraser was asked in a recent press conference, IRCC is utilizing a tool called Chinook. We have learned so far that Chinook is being applied most frequently in the global south's high-volume visa offices. It allows for bulk refusals by the hundreds where applicants are sorted via an Excel-based tool by country of nationality, age, gender and marital status. Officers' working notes, where individual factual assessments are often performed, are deleted. Risk flags and local visa office word flags that are not vetted by any independent expert become quasi-law.
Applicants are left with these templated refusals and have recourse only to the Federal Court which, while successful, is often cost prohibitive.
Applicants from Africa and the global south also do not have any other access to options to immigrate, either temporarily or permanently. Study permits have become the only hope, but it is one that is simultaneously being taken advantage of by recruiters and agents acting as unauthorized immigration practitioners.
This is the backdrop for IRCC's move to artificial intelligence, which threatens to further codify, make less transparent, and subject to even less scrutiny the biases and flaws of our human-created foundation. This system will have the greatest impact on applicants from Africa and the global south. The stories of suicide, financial harm and students unable to cope with Canadian immigration requirements will worsen if we are not proactive.
To this end, I have three recommendations.
First, ensure that Chinook, which I believe runs on automated processes and is artificial intelligence, goes through a proper algorithmic impact assessment or AIA and other safeguards, such as an independent race-equity review.
A more public-facing and transparent AIA process also needs to be performed before we roll out expansion of AI, which is currently used in—