Highly racialized areas designated as “ghettos”; a manager who describes Aboriginals as “lazy”, Latin Americans as only wanting social assistance, or colleagues who portray Nigerians as “particularly corrupt”. These situations all occurred in the course of the work of officials at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) according to a recently released report.
The strategic consulting firm Pollara was mandated by this federal ministry to conduct ten focus groups last March with racialized and non-racialized IRCC participants. The allegations of the 54 participants in this process are anonymous in the report. This was delivered to the ministry last June, but made public in October.
It shares overtly racist stereotypes conveyed in conversations, prejudices in hiring and promotion and even in the delivery of programs to clients.
The most striking statements are classified as “micro-aggressions”, that is, acts which express a prejudicial attitude towards a marginalized group. Implicit prejudices can influence these actions unconsciously, note the authors of the report.
In addition to the cases already listed, there is also a person in a position of power who would have made derogatory and lewd comments about the physique of “black girls”, in front of a black employee. A manager would also greet all employees of a unit by name, with the systematic exception of black employees.
A team leader is also said to have said quite loudly on one floor “that if the natives wanted to have the land, they should have defended themselves”.
In addition to more individual experiences of racism, it is also systemic racism that was described in these focus groups. The number of racialized employees is experiencing a “dramatic decrease” as one moves up the hierarchy, it is reported, for example.
Finally, several said they were not considered for promotions or training opportunities. One person also mentioned that “a disproportionate number of Aboriginal applicants appear to drop out of the hiring process at the interview stage”.
An increasingly documented problem
IRCC says it has already taken steps to correct the situation, but these initiatives are “greeted with skepticism,” the report notes: “It will take bold and decisive action to convince employees that management is truly committed to getting things done. change ”, continue the authors of the document.
Several comments also state that there are currently no consequences for racist behavior at IRCC. A Working Group on Eliminating Racism was launched in July 2020 by IRCC. This ministry had not answered the questions of the To have to at the time of this writing.
The concern does not seem new, since a survey on the subject had already been organized in 2020 as well as a forum in February 2021. CBC obtained a summary of the results of the survey: 65% of black employees and 55% of visible minorities mentioned micro-attacks, according to this media. This proportion fell to 13% among non-racialized employees.
Perceptions of the existence and nature of racism within this ministry thus vary considerably according to the ethnic and racial origin of the respondents, notes the Pollara firm.
Several participants in these discussions also underlined being attached to IRCC’s mission and feeling with more depth and disappointment these observations on racism. Staff have expressed “concern” that certain manifestations of racism – even subtle ones – may have an “impact on the processing of immigration cases”. The refusal rate, which differs from one country to another, was given as an example.
In Quebec, the Legault government’s Action Group against Racism recommended in December 2020 to increase the presence of members of visible minorities in the public service, to the same level as the population of the province in general, i.e. 13%. This representation was 6.3% in 2019, according to a report by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse.