Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2022

[Gideon Christian]

Yes. The issue of financial requirements and documentation, if I may also refer to the IRCC report, was actually one of the issues raised in terms of discriminatory treatment of applicants.

In the case of SDS countries, all you need to show is that you have a guaranteed investment certificate of $10,000 to meet the financial requirements. In the case of the requirements under the Nigerian student express, you are required to show that you have $30,000 within a period of six months in one year's bank statement. Even if you prove that you have $30,000 today in your account, you don't meet their requirements. That $30,000 has to sit in your account for a period of six months. In the case of SDS countries, you just need to produce the GIC statement, or maybe, to make it easier, a certified cheque of $10,000, to meet the requirement, whereas the other person has to wait for six months and show $30,000 in a six-month period over 12 months. That is clearly discriminatory. I mean, asking one person to show $10,000 and asking another person to show $30,000—there is no justification for that.

We are asking that the requirements at least be harmonized. What's even worse is that when the person who has the higher burden of proof meets that proof, there is nothing to show for it in terms of the approval rate. They still have a worse approval rate than even the other countries with a lower standard of proof when it comes to the financial requirements.

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

Mr. Rahman, would you like to add something about this discrimination that many students, including those from Bangladesh, are facing when they want to study here?

[H.E. Khalilur Rahman]

I just heard it in French, but from what I understood—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, I've stopped the clock. Could you repeat your question?

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

I think we have an interpretation problem.

That's okay, I will continue with Mr. Christian.

You may not be well placed to answer my next question, but you do represent an association among others from Africa. We'll see what happens as we hear from you, but we feel that there is some sort of bias against study permit applicants from French-speaking Africa. We realized it when we saw the refusal rates in some West African countries, including Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon.

Could the location where applications are processed and the resources allocated to them also be fuelling this bias?

[Gideon Christian]

There are many problems [Technical difficulty—Editor] for the low approval rates. Some of the problems may be attributed to resources. For example, for most of these countries that have low approval rates, the study permit applications are not processed in those countries. They are processed in other countries. Of course, the IRCC has attributed that to resources. If the study permit application can be processed in the source country, individuals in those countries will have a better understanding of the unique circumstances of the applicants in their country to be able to make decision. That is a problem that could be taken care of by having the processing localized.

At the same time, we must also be conscious of the bigger problem. That is why I keep referring to the IRCC report. Even if you bring the processing to the local countries, and we still continue to have those problems that were highlighted in that anti-racism report, resources will not solve those problems. Issues of bias and discrimination are embedded, are systemic, based on that report. That is why it is very important, and we are recommending, that the minister take steps to address those fundamental issues raised in those reports, in addition to the one you have highlighted, which of course is resources.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Christian.

That means you would support creating an immigration ombudsperson position in Canada, among other things, to ensure that people are better protected. Can you answer quickly?

[Gideon Christian]

Absolutely. I agree 100% on the creation of an independent ombudsman to oversee activities of IRCC.

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

Thank you, Mr. Christian.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan, for six minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the witnesses for their presentations, as well.

I am going to go to Mr. Christian first. It is very striking, especially when you highlight the differential treatment for SDS countries where the requirement is $10,000 in terms of [Technical difficulty—Editor], and then with the Nigerian stream the government introduced the requirement of $30,000, three times the requirement of other SDS countries.

Do you have any idea of why there would be such a differential treatment in terms of the dollar amount being applied?

[Gideon Christian]

I have no idea. I did an access to information request through IRCC, trying to get information with regard to the Nigerian student express program. I got the documentary disclosure from IRCC. I went through every page of those documents to find the justification. I found none.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Would you mind submitting those documents to the clerk, so all committee members could receive them as well?

[Gideon Christian]

Absolutely. I will do that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

In your presentation, you were just about to talk about the artificial intelligence system, the Chinook system. Based on the Pollara report, the report you cited, where there were issues of discrimination, bias, and stereotype attitudes among IRCC officials, if IRCC officials then go to produce these artificial intelligence systems, what are your concerns?

[Gideon Christian]

Let me quickly state that in addition to being the president of African Scholars Initiative based in Canada, I am also an assistant professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary, and my field of specialization is artificial intelligence and law. This is one area in which I have a professional expertise.

I have researched the implication of race with artificial intelligence. That's the major focus of my research.

On what is artificial intelligence based? Artificial intelligence technology is trained with data, and the problem is with garbage in and garbage out, where a new user raises data to train an artificial intelligence technology. That technology simply regurgitates that racism or discrimination, and that is the concern I'm having with regard to the use of that technology by IRCC.

The data in statute six of the report has shown a low approval rate for African countries. The racism and discrimination is evident from a human review of this application. If we train artificial intelligence technology using this data, we're going to have a regurgitation of that same problem, this time not by humans but by technology.

The IRCC has not even made things easy, because the entire use of Chinook technology and artificial intelligence is embedded in secrecy and a black box. I have made access to information requests for these documents, and they have been pushed back. The last response I received was to provide a 160-day extension. I don't even have access to this to be able to tell you, MP Kwan, whether this technology is amazing or discriminatory. I can't do that, because I don't have access to the data.

It might also help if members of the committee...You probably have more access to that data than I do, as well as to those technologies, so take a look at it, and you will probably come to the same conclusion.

There is a very serious risk if those technologies are used by IRCC now, because of the problem with regard to this dismal approval rate, and, of course, the black box behind those technologies.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Perhaps we could get from you the access to information questions, forward them to the chair to submit them to the officials, so that we can get the response for this committee, because that information would be critical for the purpose of this study.

Related to this issue, we also had witnesses in the previous panel who raised concerns around the findings in the Pollara report, and what the implications were for artificial intelligence systems. They were proposing that the government halt the use of Chinook at this time, and that there be an independent assessment of the artificial intelligence system.

Would you support those suggestions, and do you have additional suggestions to add?

[Gideon Christian]

Based on my dealings with IRCC so far, and general information pertaining to IRCC, I would be in support of any third party oversight of activities by IRCC. This is where we have a problem, because there has not been that third party oversight. That is why this problem keeps getting worse and worse. The Federal Court is there to oversee a decision if, and only if, members bring a judiciary review of the application.

We have seen cases of study permit refusal. We have members who have gone to Federal Court and succeeded in over 20 decisions. The Federal Court consented to send the application back to the visa office, and the visa office refused the application again for the same reason or for some other bogus reason. The Federal Court doesn't have the capacity—or has a very limited capacity—to be able to make the kind of direct advantage, which they have been very reluctant to use, because of the principal of separation of judiciary and executive power.

If there is an independent third party, an ombudsman to oversee activities of IRCC, whether it is the use of Chinook.... That would be a very good way [Technical difficulty—Editor] IRCC is facing now.

As long as that independent oversight is not there, we will continue to have these problems. It is the same people who are making this error and who continue to make the mistake without any attempt to get out of it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Your time is up.

I've been able to check with the services and we can extend the meeting a bit.

We will have a shortened second round before we proceed to the second panel. We will have two minutes each for Mr. Hallan and Ms. Kayabaga, and then one minute each for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe and Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to Mr. Hallan for two minutes.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. Christian, thank you so much for everything that you've been contributing. Thanks to Your Excellency as well.

We've been having the same concerns, Dr. Christian, and a lot of the same frustrations that you mentioned, like when you have been reaching out to the minister's office and there have been no replies. This has been a very frustrating process, especially, to address such a serious concern of racism.

Can you please elaborate a bit more on the steps you have taken to address these issues and what kind of responses you have been getting?

[Gideon Christian]

We've taken many steps. In November of last year, a group of Canadian professors of Nigerian descent wrote a letter to the minister. That letter is part of the exhibit that I submitted to this committee. That was shortly after the IRCC report was released. We drew the attention of the minister to this report. We urged the minister's office to take steps to address this concern, especially as it relates to Nigeria. Specific references are made to endorse reports in Nigeria.

We got a response, after many months, from the minister's office. The response that we got was denial, denial, denial. Even things that were very clear from the report were met with denial in that letter—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

These are not allegations. These are facts.

[Gideon Christian]

We are not making allegations. We are stating the facts on this report, as well as files from other access to information reports. We have the Nigerian student express and the requirement that the applicants have to write the English-language examination, even though the primary language of instruction in Nigeria is the English language.

We raised this concern. There has never been any serious response to the concern other than denial, which I will send in later to the committee on this matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kayabaga for two minutes.