Faced with the catastrophic refusal rates of foreign students from French-speaking Africa, immigrant associations and lawyers are calling for the creation of an ombudsman position at the federal Department of Immigration.
The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) began this week a detailed study of this problem of mass refusals. The duty revealed last November that Ottawa is increasingly refusing French-speaking students from North Africa and West Africa heading to Quebec.
These refusals are on the increase and have reached highs of over 90% in 2020 for countries such as Guinea and the Republic of Congo. Other places that are important recruitment pools see refusal rates of 87% such as Cameroon, 85% in Algeria, 88% in Benin or 80% in Senegal.
The creation of an ombudsman is the flagship proposal presented to the committee meeting on Thursday. This watchdog position would protect the interests of applicants in their immigration file, as well as those of Canada, argued in particular Thibault Camara, president of the organization Le Québec c’est nous aussi.
This organization has already drafted a bill and requested meetings with deputies to get it going, he told the CIMM and confirmed to the Duty. “An ombuds [sic] would have the mandate to investigate this kind of systemic problems, in cases that reveal selection bias and discrimination, such as international students, for example,” he explained.
The same House of Commons standing committee had already made this recommendation in its May 2021 report. Federal MPs had also made this request in 2020, because their office staff said they were overwhelmed by complaints about ‘immigration.
The issue is that there is currently no appeal following an unfavorable decision by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). When certain decisions appear “arbitrary and discretionary”, to the applicants, “their only option is to take their case to court”, said Mr. Camara.
Candidates for immigration then turn to the Federal Court to challenge the decision of an IRCC officer. And experience shows that this court welcomes challenges: for example, out of 25 of them filed for the Accra office in Ghana alone, the Federal Court ordered 23 to be re-examined, assured the Association québécoise des immigration lawyers (AQAADI).
“It’s a very expensive process. Having an ombuds would make it possible to have a faster and less expensive review process,” said the representative of Québec c’est nous aussi. This body would be non-partisan and could also “put an end to the ping-pong game between Quebec and Canada in immigration,” he says.
“IRCC offices that have higher refusal rates should be checked automatically. […] This verification could be carried out by an immigration ombudsman,” also supported lawyer Lou Janssen Dangzalan.
He documented several cases and drew public attention to a new computer tool, Chinook, potentially implicated in this increase in refusals. An ombudsman would also shed light on the use of new technologies to triage immigration files, including artificial intelligence.
Inconsistency
In less than two years, between January 2020 and September 2021, Ottawa has thus refused 35,642 candidates from the main French-speaking countries of the Maghreb and West Africa who wanted to come to Quebec.
Several study permit applicants had told us that they had received reasons for refusal that did not match their file. A couple from Brazzaville, Congo, for example, presented proof of financial capacity of more than $100,000. He was, however, rejected, “given his financial situation” according to the official reason.
Another woman from Burkina Faso recounted having received a letter telling her that the agent responsible for her file was “not convinced that the candidate will leave Canada at the end of his period of stay”.
The college that recruited her had however insisted that she would have easier access to permanent residence by studying in Quebec. Indeed, Ottawa encourages foreign students to stay in the country after their studies. Federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser reiterated last Monday in an announcement that they “make excellent permanent residents”.
All of the witnesses before the panel pointed to this glaring contradiction between the reasons for denial of study permits and immigration policies. Martin Normand, Director of International Relations for the Association of Canadian Francophonie Colleges and Universities (ACUFC) explained that the ministry itself asks to include in recruitment representations the possibility of applying for permanent residence:
“The repeated use of this reason is therefore not at all consistent with the message [qu’IRCC] asks us to transport abroad, ”said Mr. Normand before the committee Thursday.
Several witnesses asked to abandon this mandatory return criterion for granting study permits.
It was Bloc Québécois MP and vice-president of the CIMM Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe who took the initiative to study the question. “For us it’s discrimination because of where the students come from,” he summed up in an interview.
He points out that many establishments in the region survive thanks to the contribution of foreign students. International recruitment is also more active in programs in areas where there is a labor shortage, he points out. Both for “people who see their dream shattered” and “for Quebec society as a whole”, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe said he wanted to resolve the problem before the start of the fall 2022 school year.