Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recognizes that it discriminates against French-speaking foreign students applying to study in Quebec or the rest of Canada, particularly against students from French-speaking Africa. But the ministry does not take offense at the situation.
Applications from international students wishing to study in the country are reviewed using a computer system called Chinook which uses artificial intelligence. This software reproduces the “biases” that IRCC agents maintain towards African students who want to study in French and even seems to accentuate them.
Speaking to the Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, Assistant Deputy Minister at IRCC Marian Campbell Jarvis said the department was “aware of the risk of discrimination and ‘bias’ in the IA system. [intelligence artificielle]. But we are comfortable with the instructions of the Treasury Board Secretariat”. It must be believed that this software generates savings since it is approved by the body that holds the purse strings.
We know that IRCC refusal rates for foreign students are much higher for French-language universities and colleges in Quebec. For example, Laval University has a refusal rate of 50% of applications from foreign students it selects, while for McGill University, this rate is 8%. English universities in Quebec are clearly favored by Ottawa: while they welcome 25% of university students from Quebec, they receive almost as many foreign students as all French-speaking universities.
As The duty reported in its Wednesday edition, just like Quebec, French Ontario suffers from this systemic discrimination, as evidenced by the high refusal rates suffered by its colleges and universities.
The federal government’s International Education Strategy wants to make Canada one of the top learning destinations in the world, but it seems to be mostly in English that it’s happening. Overly ambitious, the Trudeau government’s immigration policy relies heavily on the arrival of foreign students, many of whom are called upon to obtain their permanent residence to become landed immigrants. On the one hand, we attract foreign students to whom we dangle the possibility of immigrating, on the other hand, we reject others, especially if they wish to study in French, under the pretext that they might want to install here.
Lord Durham could not have done better. But while its assimilating aims were assumed, it is a form of unconsciousness that seems to guide IRCC’s discriminatory practices towards Francophones. We should perhaps say to ourselves: Forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing. Or to note that the Quebec nation cannot afford to let English Canada manage large parts of its immigration.