bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 4–7
DURING THE LAST TWO YEARS ALONE, destabilizing events have come at us fast and furious: a global pandemic, the triumphant re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Each, on their own, could be described as “era-defining” yet they have cascaded one upon the other, upending geopolitics, and the global economy. Government departments have had to adapt far more quickly than they are used to, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is no exception, as each of these three events have impacted migration flows into Canada.
IRCC has been forced to respond in unprecedented ways, improvising, taking risks and re-organizing its operations. But has it been enough? If we are entering an age where “era-defining” events are a semi-annual occurrence, it is worth asking: Is Canada’s Immigration department prepared? An analysis of its structure and staffing indicates that the answer is not entirely clear.
Though the events described above are in many ways unprecedented, they hardly represent the first crises to impact IRCC. During the past 20 years alone, it has responded to multiple emergencies, including the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), the war in Lebanon (2006), the earthquake in Haiti (2010), and the resettlement of 25,000 Syrian refugees in three months (2015-16).
Yet, surprisingly, IRCC lacks a permanent home for Emergency Operations. While this has not crippled IRCC’s ability to respond to emergencies, it has slowed it down. There is organizational chaos at the beginning of a crisis while precious time is spent figuring out who is in charge — something that often takes weeks to work out — when the department needs to be focused on setting up operations on the ground.
For example, for Afghanistan IRCC has created an entirely new sector focused on that country and Canada’s commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghans in the coming years. Essentially, the department has decided to implement a re-org in the middle of a critical operation. However, an unfolding crisis is hardly the best time to set up a sector with a new Assistant Deputy Minister, new Directors and new analysts pulled from all corners of the public service, some of whom may lack in-depth knowledge of Afghanistan, Canada’s immigration programs, or, indeed, emergency operations. Inevitably, the result is organizational confusion as the sector struggles to define its precise role despite the best intentions of all involved.
Emergencies are chaotic enough in their own right without the bureaucratic nightmare of a reorganization thrown into the mix. While a “popup” sector may appear to be the best way to respond to the specific complexities of Afghanistan, IRCC cannot keep creating sectors and senior manager positions for each new crisis. This is neither a strategic nor sustainable approach for a world where each emergency is different.
Instead, the department should consider creating an Emergency Operations branch or directorate. This would include staff with specific skill sets including crisis response training, Overseas processing experience, and the ability to manage data flows and produce reports; communications and IT equipment ready to use that work in Canada, overseas, and across various departmental networks; and a database of staff who can be accessed immediately for Temporary Duty, minimizing the need for last-minute “call-outs” for staff to support the new critical event. An early warning system fed by the best classified and open source intelligence should be developed This is not to minimize the scale of IRCC’s response to recent events which has brought out the best in staff both in Canada and across its global network. Employees have worked long hours implementing unfamiliar and ever-changing program guidance, taken on dangerous assignments (including in Kabul), adapted to challenging work environments and interacted with countless clients by phone, Whatsapp, email, and in person, many of them desperate and distraught. Throughout these emergencies, IRCC worked to resettle thousands of Afghans, met historically high permanent resident admission targets for 2021, and made agonizingly difficult decisions while assessing the applications from clients seeking COVID-related travel ban exemptions. These required smart, flexible immigration and visa policies and arguably, Canada has the best in the world.
But it also required nimble and effective operations: at its essence, IRCC is in the business of managing the movement of people from across the globe into Canada. It is in the business of logistics.
However, recent events have exposed the department’s operational weaknesses even beyond the lack of an emergency response team. Many of these were already known: outdated IT systems, cumbersome application processes oblivious to user-centric design that disregard lived realities on the ground, a heavy reliance on temporary duty officers (including a large number of retirees), and ineffective client communication, amongst others.
To improve, IRCC needs to embrace its logistical essence and establish excellence in operations at the heart of the department’s mandate. Until fairly recently, the department had multiple career Foreign Service Officers peppered throughout the ranks of senior management, right up to the ADM level. These executives combined years of on-the-ground experience in everything from spousal sponsorship interviews to emergency hiring practices to biometrics collection, with prized access to the Deputy Minister and Minister’s Office. This powerful combination gave FS executives the ability to caution against ideas that may have appeared brilliant when cooked up in the theoretical climate of a Laurier Street boardroom but would crumble once confronted by the complex operational realities inherent in running a global people-moving network that stretches from Bogota to Beirut.
But though the department has nearly doubled in size since 2015, FS representation at the executive table appears to have shrunk. At the ADM level, for example, even in the Operations Sector itself, it appears, somewhat perplexingly, that operational experience is barely required for the job. Whether by neglect or design, this sends a signal that IRCC is devaluing operational experience just at the time when the delivery of its programs and policies has become more complex — and logistical — than ever. The ongoing logistical challenges of the Afghanistan operation alone — which involves the resettlement of thousands of Afghans stuck in a country without any Government of Canada presence run by a designated terrorist organization Canada does not even recognize as the legitimate governing authority — would severely test even the most hardship-seasoned Migration Officer.
The bureaucracy must structure itself in a way that maximizes the quality and breadth of real-world advice it can provide to the Minister. To that end, IRCC hiring competitions and staffing strategies need to be adjusted to reflect the fact that nitty-gritty, roll-up-your-sleeves operational know-how is adequately reflected in the upper echelons of IRCC.
Simultaneously, Foreign Service Offi-cers (FS) at IRCC need to self-reflect on why their stature appears to have diminished in recent years. A specific strategy for identifying and developing future EX’s may be in order. FS often spend most of their careers abroad. When they eventually return to HQ they find themselves lost, feeling less at home in the bureaucratic culture of the country they represent than they did at post. Drifting, demoralized, and suffering from reverse culture shock, they stare longingly at their expired diplomatic passports overflowing with the exotic visas that symbolize the globetrotting career they’re used to; within months they begin thinking about the next overseas assignment and after just two, maybe three years, they’re gone again.
More can be done to help FS with adjusting to HQ: there needs to be recognition that it represents a specific work “culture” to which FS have to adapt in order to be effective and have their unique operational skill sets recognized. Mentoring and “buddying up” with colleagues familiar with HQ can help ease the transition. De-briefings with management — where recently-returning officers are asked to provide insights on their experiences abroad — can make officers feel valued while providing Ottawa with a fresh perspective.
Training is another area where IRCC can look to for solutions. Newly recruited IRCC Migration Officers benefit from the lengthy and rigorous Foreign Service Development Program that includes classroom training, headquarters and overseas assignments, and written and on-the-job assessments. There’s pressure to perform and not everyone successfully completes the approximately three-year development program. It’s long and expensive, but those that make it through will be equipped with an impressive skill-set: the ability to make decisions on almost all categories of permanent and temporary resident visa applications; a strong grasp of the Global Case Management System (GCMS) IT platform; experience supervising staff, including intercultural management skills; the ability to manage the workflow of thousands of paper and digital applications running through an office; and the ability to interview clients, write reports, and represent their country when meeting with external stakeholders. So why not have a rigorous, months-long development program for non-FS?
Instead, IRCC has attempted to hire its way out of the challenge it faces with cascading emergencies and historic admission targets for permanent residents. The department has ballooned in size since 2016, with a large ecosystem created to manage the endless flow of briefing notes, decks, briefing books, one-pagers, meeting agendas, meeting readouts, placemats, and other assorted items the bureaucracy specializes in and senior management adores. This is not to minimize the complexity of this work: managing a temperamental ministerial staffer or intractable Central Agency analyst can require formidable skill and fortitude. It makes sense to have a strong corporate secretariat in an Ottawa of endless spin where the centre has a voracious appetite for the minutiae of how departments function. But if it comes at the expense of an effective operations sector, that’s where things can go off the rails, especially when a crisis hits: as much as it may try, government cannot spin its way out of crises on the scale of COVID, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. A stylish PowerPoint presentation or video advertorial won’t cut it. It must perform. It must deliver.
IRCC must invest in the training and development of a larger proportion of its own staff with the specific aim of improving the delivery of its programs as opposed to the quality of its briefing products. It must sharpen the pointy end of its stick. It is unfair to both staff and clients to expect newly onboarded staff to “hit the ground running” in an era where — overnight — the ground can shift dramatically.
IRCC needs more decision-making officers, more operationally savvy data “air traffic controllers” to manage workflow and pull stats, and more logistics specialists. It should also look at the language skills of its staff: it is shocking that a department that deals with the most diverse clientele imaginable places so little emphasis on foreign language ability in its hiring, training, and HR management practices.
In parallel, it desperately needs to improve client service; as a start, the department should reverse the long-standing trend of discouraging direct interaction with clients, including interviews. IRCC will not be able to improve operations if it does not understand its clients’ needs, and it will not be able to understand its clients’ needs if hardly any of its staff meet with them, even those involved in front-line operations. I have been in meetings where officers are actively discouraged from meeting with clients, including refugees, as these interactions are considered an inefficient use of officer time.
IRCC can’t look to others to address its challenges. The bill for outsourcing has ballooned since 2016 and the added value of this spending on service delivery is unclear. Instead of boosting the profits of the Big Four consultancies, why not invest these millions in the public service, demonstrating a commitment to employee excellence instead of an admission of inadequacy? Instead of loudly repeating sexy but empty buzzwords (“Modernization!” “Digital Transformation!”’) why not quietly devote resources towards a revitalized training program that emphasizes operational excellence and actually delivers?
A meeting convened in August soon after Canada had pulled out of Afghanistan illustrates the chasm between IRCC HQ and the clients it serves: during the meeting, staff expressed frustration after the Minister’s Office rejected the convoluted wording in a letter meant for Afghan refugees still stuck in Afghanistan.
“Well, I understood the letter,’ one staff member complained to nodding heads, all failing to grasp the fact that the letter was not meant for public servants with inside knowledge of departmental programs, but desperate clients abroad. This one statement crystalized how out of touch the department had become.
The department’s website includes a page titled “Canada: A History of Refuge”. It lists various waves of immigration to Canada, emphasizing the persecution and hardship these migrants were leaving behind in their country of origin, though failing to describe the prejudice and discrimination they often met with in Canada. Despite this critical oversight, the page crystalizes how important Canada was to the lives of millions, right up to today’s refugees fleeing persecution from a list of dangerous and violent countries that remains depressingly long.
Canada is important to many others as well: international students from dusty towns and villages who have made Canada the first country they have visited outside their own; the parents who then visit them a few years later to proudly witness their child’s graduation from a Canadian college; young men and women from Cochin or Warsaw or Port au Prince, aching to be reunited with the Canadian who captured their heart; the ambitious fruit-picker from Latin America, determined to maximize the few months they are permitted to perform backbreaking work under the West Coast sun in order to save enough to build a new home for their wife and newborn child.
They, in turn, are important to Canada as well: replenishing our aging population, enriching our culture, and expanding our knowledge of the world, staffing our hospitals, farms, greenhouses, warehouses, elder care homes, hotels, restaurants, and countless other businesses we depend on.
Evidently, IRCC’s mandate is simply too important to Canada to be managed by a department that is not fully cognizant of the strengths it can build on and the weaknesses it must repair. It must recognize that the effective management of migration operations — both emergency and day-to-day — is a specialty that must be planned for. It must recognize that it is unfair to both staff and clients for it to be treated as something that can be learned on the fly.
The bigger picture is no less stark. The pandemic has demonstrated how important government service delivery can be in a crisis. But it has also exposed operational weaknesses that have undermined not just confidence in government but also trust. Traditional sources of information are shunned, leaving the playing field open to purveyors of misinformation, disinformation, and fraud. A critical part of the response to these new, often sinister sources of messaging, must be to demonstrate that government departments — including IRCC — can act in response to citizens’ needs. Government must re-focus and prioritize; it must regain the public’s trust with a simple message that cannot be conveyed via tweet, promotional video, or annual report, but by actions on the ground: that when needed it can get things done.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 4–7. Read the rest of this issue →
