Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, there isn't enough transparency. I think transparency should be embedded throughout all the internal review and audit processes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This is further evidence of the disconnect between certain government policies and the commitment to bring in a certain number of refugees and the inability, the bureaucratic and administrative gap, to be able to do that. In between all of that are decision-makers who, frankly, a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, really quickly, thank you for that, and I think the first point of contact should always be a person. It should be a visa processing person. I think AI in many ways, algorithms aside, works better in the host country as they are able to do that sort of final check of approva

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With respect, I can certainly answer that. Yes, countless studies have shown that the development of algorithms to support AI are biased because the individuals behind the development of these systems themselves come with their own belief systems, values and perspectives. We c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, absolutely. There has to be human oversight for AI algorithms. Somebody has to be a part of the processing piece. We can't leave AI to do the work independently because these systems themselves don't function as accurately as we would like. On top of that, the refugee exp

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Unfortunately, at NCCM, we don't work directly with immigration or refugee intake processes, but we do consultations with communities that are affected. When we talked to the Afghan community, for example, when the 40,000-refugee commitment was made, we started hearing from the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we should be using the word “racism”. We can define what kind of racism it is. Anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are very common forms of racism directed at particular groups. My colleague, Nadiya Ali, also directly works with IRCC and other federal agencies

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for the opportunity. You're right. I had said most of what we wanted to get across, but we wanted to emphasize that given the challenges that IRCC employees are facing, and the marginalization and disturbing reports that have come out because of the Pollara report, we s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We can. Thank you for that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can certainly take that question. Part of our submission outlines how IRCC makes its decisions by sourcing information and websites from known Islamophobes. Much of that work targets Muslim-majority countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Iraq. Fundamentally, ou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to offer our thoughts on—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to offer our thoughts on this study. My name is Siham Rayale and I am the director of foreign affairs at the National Council of Canadian Muslims. I am joined today by Nadiya Ali, the diversity, equi