CIMM – Disaggregated Data and Analytics Framework – March 24, 2022

Key Messages

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recognizes the presence of racism in Canada and within our own organization. As part of the Government of Canada’s commitment to anti-racism, IRCC is actively working to promote racial equity for our employees, clients and Canadians. One of the ways we are addressing this challenge is by working to ensure the availability of disaggregated data.
Disaggregated data means breaking down individuals’ policy-relevant attributes such as gender, language and ethnicity, thereby enabling a more comprehensive understanding of the experiences and outcomes of specific population groups.
IRCC is developing a Disaggregated Data and Analytics Framework (DDAF) to support evidence-based policymaking and enhanced service delivery to reveal and address systemic biases, inequities, and outcomes gaps for equity seeking groups.
The DDAF focuses on leveraging existing and potential new data sources to better understand institutional bias and the outcomes of IRCC clients and employees, including racialized individuals, by their socio-demographic attributes. For instance, disaggregated data will be made available on Black Francophone recent immigrant women between the ages of 25 and 54 who are living in Ontario.

Disaggregated Data and Analytics Framework (DDAF) has three core components: establishing disaggregated data standards, identifying existing and potential data sources, and leveraging innovative data foundation projects. As an evergreen plan, the Framework will start delivering results in 2022-2023.
IRCC data standards are applied to the collection, integration and use of disaggregated data, including racialized categories, in support of consistency and interoperability between data sources. These data standards are developed in alignment with Statistics Canada and the Government of Canada-wide approach to disaggregated data.
The DDAF maps internal and external administrative and survey data sources that enable the disaggregation of equity seeking groups. The Framework’s data foundation component is focused on addressing key data gaps by leveraging new data sources and enhancing existing ones.

IRCC is committed to ethical and unobtrusive ways to collect data on an individual’s racial, ethnic and religious background, while protecting clients’ privacy in compliance with the Privacy Act.
IRCC Data Principles, identified as part of its Data Policy, include the principles that data is trusted, used ethically, and is interoperable and accessible.
IRCC administrative forms are aligned with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act’s (IRPA) requirements, which is why information is currently collected on categories such as gender, age and country of residence.
IRPA does not require the collection of data on racialized, ethnic and religious identity categories in IRCC administrative forms. However, clients may choose to provide this information as part of their application submissions.

The 2021 Census will provide an opportunity to examine disaggregated outcomes based on individuals’ self-reported racialized, linguistic and ethnic background categories. The DDAF will establish a linkage between the 2021 Census and the Longitudinal Immigration Database (i.e. IRCC administrative data linked to tax form information), making it possible to examine the attributes of immigrants upon arrival in relation to their attributes and outcomes reported on the 2021 Census. For instance, for the first time we would be able to examine individuals who are selected as Francophone minority immigrants in terms of their self-reported racialized category, the settlement services they received, and their key labour market outcomes in Canada such as their income, occupation, industry, highest level of schooling.

IRCC is working closely with other federal organizations and Statistics Canada as they move forward with their Disaggregated Data Action Plan.
The 2011 National Household Survey and 2016 Census provided IRCC with an opportunity to access disaggregated data on immigrant admission categories and complete inter-sectional analysis on ethnocultural categories.