IRCC’s Anti Racism Strategy for 2021-2024

By CIC News |

In 2020, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) began looking deeper into the departments’ internal environment through an anti-racism lens. An employee survey found that significant proportion of racialized employees considered racism to be a problem. In response to this, focus groups were held to gain greater insight into the problem. A total of 54 employees participated in the focus groups.

The findings of the focus groups can be summarized as:

Experiences of racism at IRCC include microaggressions, biases in hiring and promotion as well as biases in delivery of IRCC’s programs, policy and client service.

IRCC is fraught with challenges at the level of workplace culture, with unclear guidelines or training on how to handle reports of racism, a history of racism going unchecked and a deep imbalance on racial representation in management.
In response to this report, IRCC launched their Anti-Racism Strategy for 2021-2024. During the first few months of 2022, suggestions were gathered from IRCC employees about the direction of the Strategy.

IRCC’s Strategy first proposes overarching suggestions regarding the new Strategy compared to its first version. It then puts forward thematic pillars of its action plan.

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