LANG – Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination – March 28, 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 had already become aware of many of the concerns outlined in the anti-racism employee survey results that we collected in November 2020. IRCC procured an impartial and unbiased third party organization to conduct employee focus groups in March 2021. The objective was 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 delegated managers must complete the mandatory courses on unconscious bias, as a pre-requisite for obtaining their sub-delegated authority for staffing decisions. As of April 1st 2022, this new requirement came into effect.

Supplementary messages

• IRCC has been using data from surveys and focus groups to make informed decisions on combatting organizational challenges related to employee experiences as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.
• The first survey took place in November 2020, and we are anticipating another survey to be delivered in the coming months.
• 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.