Citizenship and Immigration committee  Can you please repeat the question? I can't remember it. Are you talking about the mandate of the committee or the mandates of the [Technical difficulty--Editor] I suggested?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The first mandate should be to have safeguards around the use of historical data in training AI being used by IRCC; and secondly, being able to determine what aspect of the IRCC visa processing is appropriate for use of artificial intelligence technology. Thirdly, AI should not

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My number one recommendation would be to further study the issue that was raised by the Pollara report, interview individuals, more individuals in IRCC, to be able to identify the full extent of the problem of racism in IRCC, and have a clear framework for addressing the issue of

Citizenship and Immigration committee  AI is an amazing technology. It performs tasks in a fraction of the time that it would take humans to perform those tasks, so in terms of efficiency, yes, AI will make tasks efficient. It will result in greater processing of a greater number of applications in a fraction of the t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say that if we can have more visa offices processing these applications—especially localized visa offices—with more resources and more humans doing the work, rather than trying to outsource the work to technology, it will go a long way in addressing it. The humans who wou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The individuals making those decisions should be very conscious of the individual circumstances of the applicants as they relate to where they are coming from. Being able to understand the cultural and individual circumstances of the applicants will go a long way in addressing th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My number one recommendation concerns the fact that the IRCC is using and will continue to use artificial intelligence technology. That is inevitable. Therefore, we should have an independent body of experts to oversee IRCC's use of artificial intelligence technology. That woul

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As artificial intelligence is being used by IRCC now, based on internal documents obtained, we are getting to the stage where IRCC is using AI to automate visa refusals, so we have a case of block processing of visa applications. Steven made reference to this earlier, the lack of

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would agree with—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The problem [Technical difficulty—Editor] advanced analytics has been an absolute lack of transparency. Most of the information we know about these technologies is information that has been obtained through access to information requests. It's not information that was made availa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the expressions used in those reports are a clear case of outright bias, not unconscious bias. When you look at those terms, individuals from particular countries are being branded as untrustworthy and corrupt, some as coming to Canada for social security benefits, and th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I know it's very uncomfortable raising the issue of racism, but the fact is that we need to call racism out for what it is. As uncomfortable as it might be, that is the only way we can identify the problem and address the problem. Running away from or trying to whitewash the prob

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree with the appointment of an ombudsperson, but the two areas that I have highlighted are two different areas. It would be very difficult to have an individual who would be able to deal with these two areas. When it comes to issues relating to the use of artificial intelli

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We don't have data or statistics before us to be able to pinpoint whether racism is the reason, but the fact is that when you go to the Pollara report, that report is very damning on IRCC when it comes to racism. That report makes it very clear that racism plays a role in immigra

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The only recourse now seems to be the Federal Court. The problem here now is that the Federal Court is being overwhelmed with judicial review applications involving IRCC. The last time I checked, which was a couple of days ago, 72% of judicial review applications before the Feder