Official Languages Committee on Feb. 28th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

The problem, Mr. Beaulieu, is that I can't break down the speaking time equitably among the four groups.

Nevertheless, I'm going to ask a second question, as I mentioned in my introduction. A chair can always invoke privilege. I want to go back to Mr. Serré's question and address the IRCC team.

There's been talk of applications from Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. In crisis situations like these, are special teams chosen from among members of the regular team, or are they new teams?

In other words, are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?

[Corinne Prince]

Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Chair.

When there's a crisis like the one in Afghanistan and the one emerging now in Ukraine, we at IRCC work together.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Ms. Prince, excuse me for interrupting. I just want to know whether these are special teams or if you simply draw upon people from the regular teams to deal with specific cases like the Afghanistan crisis.

[Corinne Prince]

The answer is that we are currently putting together teams to process applications from Ukraine on a priority basis . They are existing IRCC employees.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Thank you, Ms. Prince.

If everyone is in agreement, I'm going to give the final minute to my colleague Mr. Beaulieu so that he can ask a quick question.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'll be very brief.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

There are no objections, so you have the floor now, Mr. Beaulieu.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Sixty seconds.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Otherwise, we could allow the NDP to ask a final question.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Go ahead, Mr. Beaulieu.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I think that you got onto something useful when you said that you had been conducting studies to see whether there might be a form of unconscious racism or discrimination, because I have experienced it. Recently, there were unilingual English positions to be filled at IRCC offices in Montreal. I've already argued on behalf of allowing a lawyer to plead in French before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Nothing unconscious about that.

So it's essential to look into that to see whether there is some form of francophobia or something else that's not working at IRCC.

[Corinne Prince]

Thank you for that question.

I will now give the floor to Ms. Kingsley.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Michèle Kingsley]

Thank you.

Yes. Absolutely. Combatting all forms of discrimination, whether based on language or anything else, is a priority at the department. We have a zero-tolerance policy against any discrimination, and that applies to the corporate culture, the workforce, the teams, the programs, the policies and the decision-making. It therefore applies to the entire continuum of activity sectors, but also to the culture and employees.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kingsley.

I'd like to thank the three representatives from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Ms. Corinne Prince, Ms. Alexandra Hiles and Ms. Michèle Kingsley, for having answered questions from the committee members. We're looking forward to receiving from you the documents requested by the committee members.

I would now like to mention that the next meeting will be held on Wednesday, and that it will be on the same subject, namely francophone immigration to Canada and Quebec.

I'd like to conclude by thanking the technical staff, the clerk and the interpreters.

I would also like to thank all the committee members. I hope that your acting chair was up to the task.

The meeting is adjourned.