IRCC dived deeper into its internal ambiance from an anti-racism perspective in 2020. According to an employee survey, it was observed that certain employees facing racism felt that this was a problem. Several focus groups were created to provide a different perception of the entire problem. The focus group comprised 54 employee as its participants.
The focus groups comprise the following:
- There are several Racism experiences including biased behavior in terms of hiring and promotion, microaggressions, IRCC program delivery, client servicing, and policy.
- IRCC is full of challenges because of the workplace culture, with ambiguous guidelines, the process of managing the racism reports, an unchecked history, and an extreme disparity in the management’s racial representation.
When the report was released, IRCC took the initiative and launched the first Anti-Racism strategy between 2021 to 2024. Initially, in 2022, IRCC asked for suggestions from its employees regarding the direction of the strategy.
IRCC has some new suggestions compared to earlier strategies. It then introduces the strategic pillars that will be executed.
The new suggestions include the following:
- The new strategy must be motivating and must invite new ideas and expressions.
- There must be a deliberate stop on the use of any comments that are indicative of racism.
- There must be sufficient resources dedicated to keeping track of the progress of strategies, and it must be ensured that the racism issue simply doesn’t stick to conversations.
- It is essential to define clear objectives and take gradual and substantial steps to achieve the strategy’s goals.
- The timelines to achieve these goals also need to be addressed.
- Historical significance must be attached to the past of Canadian immigration such as the continuous immigration impact on indigenous people.
- Defining Canada’s role in the global context of racial equity. Is IRCC under an obligation to act supportive of racial equity in different countries, particularly from specific countries through which Canada welcomes immigrants and refugees, or those through which it doesn’t.
- Paying heed to the already existing multiple forms of racism, including Islamophobia, and Anti-Semitism.
- There must be more clarity on the working process of the anti-racism staff and the process through which they will be institutionally affirmed. Also, who among the employees could ask for guidance.
- Anti-Racism file owners must be taken into consideration for accessing sectors to gather data and measure their progress.
Additionally, IRCC has carved out five significant pillars for the strategic action plan. It is noteworthy that each of the pillars is identified with a work-stream that will be acknowledged as a priority in the short term.
Consider the following five pillars:
Pillar 1- Leadership must be held responsible
The senior management must be held responsible for ensuring that the anti-racism work is deeply incorporated into the structure of IRCC. This pillar wishes to introduce mechanisms associated with official accountability for anti-racism objectives.
Pillar 2- Promoting an inclusive work culture of equality
The people management must ensure that their work culture is based on equality where all the employees will experience respect and warmth. The primary objective is to remove obstacles regarding their career growth and adopt an inclusive approach to the work culture.
Pillar 3- Developing new program and policy designs
This pillar focuses on developing new designs for programs and policies to address the ongoing bias and racism as per IRCC’s designs.
The main objective is to reduce gaps existing in the policy and programs by adopting a new approach to anti-racism.
Pillar 4- The system of service delivery
IRCC’s implementation and execution of policy and programs are somewhat partial and also have characteristics of racism concerning the external partners and applicants. The objective of this pillar is to confront the existing racism and partiality within the functioning of the program delivery and the decisions of the IRCC’s officers. Therefore, it is essential to look into the development and integration of tools for the smooth operation of service delivery to avoid bias.
Pillar 5- Research data supporting anti-racism
The pillar’s main objective is to induce and present more data supporting the government’s standards of anti-racism. IRCC acknowledges the presence of racism within Canada and also inside their own department. They aim to represent the increasing advantages of IRCC programs by completely removing racism from the existing programs, policies, service delivery, and people management.
