IRCC Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0 (2021-2024) – Forward: Message from the Acting Deputy Minister

In 2020—2021 , Canadians experienced a reckoning: We took stock of the disconnect between our values of equality and the entrenched reality of racism in our everyday lives and workplaces. Our lives will be forever marked by the inequities that could no longer be ignored given the differential impacts of COVID-19, the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, and the rising voices of Indigenous Peoples, Black, racialized and marginalized people in Canada who reignited the global movement against racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in the United States in May 2020. These events gave new impetus to efforts being made in the federal government as in other spheres of Canadian society, to reflect, re-think and decisively stand up against racism.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) was among the first organizations in Canada to set up a dedicated team to provide Anti-Racism guidance to senior management and employees during this time. IRCC’s Anti-Racism Task Force, established in July 2020, outlined a strategy (subsequently articulated as Anti-Racism Strategy 1.0) to launch the Department on the path to building the foundations for the generational work required to eradicate racism in our policies, operations and people management practices. From the outset, we acknowledged that our work would require nothing less than a paradigm shift in the mindset of employees and senior management alike in how we foster and safeguard a culture of equity. We also knew that we would have to expand circles of discussion and engagement across multiple venues of dialogue within IRCC in order to empower employees and equip them with the required resources and tools, while simultaneously establishing mechanisms of management accountability for effecting long-lasting culture change. The employee-driven transitioning of IRCC toward a hybrid workplace also heightened the need to listen to some employees’ concerns about returning to workplaces due to fears of micro-aggressions and made us take additional steps to ensure our workplace is welcoming. We centered our reflections and actions on the crucial linkage between Anti-Racism in our workplace and Anti-Racism in our policies and program delivery to demonstrate, not only in words but also in actions, that “Anti-Racism is as Anti-Racism does”; that we are not content with merely setting an objective of “not being racist”; we are committed to being actively, creatively and tirelessly anti-racist.

Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0 (2021—2024) is part of our commitment to step up the initiatives for building an equitable and inclusive organization to benefit all people in Canada. With the proportion of Indigenous, Black and other racialized people projected to reach more than 40 percent of the working-age population in Canada by the end of the decade, the Strategy is an initial step to moving the Department to the forefront of fulfilling the promise of Canada as a truly diverse and inclusive country. It brings into focus and complements the burgeoning Anti-Racism actions spearheaded by senior management and employees at all levels of the Department since Strategy 1.0 was first released in Spring 2021. This iteration of the Strategy builds on extensive consultations with a broad spectrum of policy-makers, employees and allies across the Department and Government of Canada. It strengthens the overarching structure of the multiple departmental actions to create more strategic organizational change and to ensure that the applied principles and frameworks are consistent and sustainable.

The Anti-Racism Strategy Action Plan, the Anti-Racism Accountability and Transparency Framework and the Equality and Anti-Racism Systems Change Framework that drive our Anti-Racism work are the key elements that will clearly identify measurable goals, timeframes for results, key responsible departmental stakeholders, accountability mechanisms, change agents and processes to implement the Strategy. Our objective in sharing this iteration is to invite broader circles of government and non-government stakeholders and partners into the conversation on our shared Anti-Racism journey. We look forward to incorporating their feedback as we continue to improve and refine our strategic approach to the transformative changes of the Department.

At the early stages of this journey, we are mindful that there is no room for complacency; combatting systemic racism will require all the resources and attention we can collectively muster. Together, we are ready to actively listen, rigorously self-examine and decisively act to reduce and ultimately eliminate systemic racism in our workplace practices, policies, program outcomes and service delivery.

Caroline Xavier
Acting Deputy Minister
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Unceded territory of Anishnaabe Algonquin Nation / Ottawa, June 2022