CIMM – Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination – November 29, 2022
Key Messages
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has zero tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind. Yet that’s not enough – we must actively fight racism and continue to work tirelessly to foster a culture of inclusion, openness and respect.
IRCC organized an anti-racism employee survey in November 2020. Shortly after, the Department procured an impartial and unbiased third-party organization to conduct employee focus groups in March 2021, in order to gain greater insight into the realities underlying the information shared in our first Department-wide anti-racism survey.
In October 2021, IRCC published the focus group report on Library and Archives Canada to ensure that we stay accountable and transparent in our anti-racism efforts.
IRCC has taken a number of steps to make real and lasting change within the Department, to ensure our actions speak louder than our words. These include creating a task force dedicated full time to guiding the Department in eliminating racism in all of its forms at IRCC. In addition, sector-level commitments have been established to hold the Department accountable for progress and change. These are listed online on IRCC’s intranet web page for all employees to see. This is in addition to our Departmental Anti-Racism Value Statement posted on our IRCC internet site.
IRCC has also established a three-year anti-racism strategy, anti-racism sector commitments, sub-committees, mandatory bias training, mentoring and sponsorship programs, leadership development programs for underrepresented groups, employee trust circles, racial impact assessment tools for policy development, and additional supports to our diversity, equity and inclusion employee networks to collaboratively empower cultural change in the workplace.
In addition, IRCC is also focused on targeted recruitment processes to help us meet higher representation levels, anti-racism training for leaders, hosting learning events for employees, and implementing anti-racism commitments into our leaders’ performance agreements.
IRCC is proceeding with an employment systems review to further our commitment to addressing systemic barriers and adhering to our obligations under the Employment Equity Act.
The Department is initiating a new three-year hiring and retention strategy to address gaps in our workforce diversity to better reflect Canadian demographics.
IRCC has taken additional measures to ensure all existing managers must complete the mandatory courses on unconscious bias, as a pre-requisite for obtaining their sub-delegated authority for staffing decisions. This new requirement has been in effect as of April 1, 2022.
Departmental efforts to eliminate racism have been made in the following areas:
Introduced evaluation criteria for competitive solicitations; promoting diversity now increases likelihood of being awarded contracts.
Conducted reviews of our service delivery models in the following areas:
Through an analytical methodology that compares immigration trends, policy and programs outcomes, IRCC’s outreach, and socio-economic drivers, reviewed departmental program integrity / risk management tools to identify and analyze varying outcomes for racialized populations to assess how bias impacts processing times and approval rates for Black populations from Africa and the Caribbean, especially for students.
Similar reviews have been underway for the citizenship program using an Anti-Racism lens
Developed the ‘Racial Impact Assessment Tool’ (RIAT)
This new tool provides policy makers at IRCC with the understanding of how to analyze and interpret the impacts of decisions on marginalized groups.
The department continues to invest in data and research through surveys and focus groups with employees. These resources provide us with insight on how we are improving, and highlighting areas to focus on.
As part of IRCC’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0, we developed a transparency and accountability framework to measure progress against its anti-racism commitments.
We have also mandated that all executives have anti-racism objectives in their performance agreements.
Supplementary Messages
IRCC has been using data from surveys and focus groups to make informed decisions on addressing organizational challenges related to diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.
The first survey took place in November 2020.. Earlier this fall, the Department came out with a second iteration of the survey, the results of which are currently being analyzed.
IRCC’s Anti-Racism Taskforce has been a strong guide in the Department’s approach to refining its people management strategy and service delivery practices, and aiding lines of business to conduct policy reviews with an anti-racist lens.
It is important to note that our work doesn’t stop at looking at the impacts of systemic racism on employees. We have also started to explore potential barrier entry points in policy and program delivery. This reflection is happening internally, but we are also engaging external stakeholders on how to identify and address systemic barriers to ensure we consistently keep committed to quality service delivery for Canadians and our clients.
The Integrity Risk Management Branch is responsible for identifying and addressing institutional bias in decision-making and risk management, including automation practices, across IRCC business lines, as part of IRCC’s ADM’s operations Sector Anti-Racism Commitments.
IRM has developed a methodology to identify institutional bias and racism in IRCC’s Operations and Risk management activities including the following:
Institutional Bias and Racism Identification Method (IBRIM): a comparative, analytical methodology that consolidates statistical findings, immigration and risk trends, policy and program outcomes and socio-economic drivers to identify and analyze varying outcomes for racialized populations. This produces comparative case studies and recommendations to better improve program outcomes for Black populations. A case study of the Nigerian caseload was completed in October 2022.
Renewed Risk Management Framework: A baseline assessment of Integrity Management practices, opportunities & approaches that explores areas where there is an influence of bias in Operational Decision-Making. It provides concrete actions to improve cross-sectional understanding of Risk Management & Program Integrity. A pilot assessment of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) was completed in 2022.
Anti-Racism Considerations for Risk Management within Digital Platform Modernization: A paper that examines the risk of bias and racism within automation and proposes a way forward for the implementation of IRCC’s Digital Platform Modernization Phase 3.