The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Who Are Ontario's Undocumented Youth?

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

It is unclear how many undocumented immigrants live in Canada. Estimates range from 20,000 up to 500,000. Many of these are youth who were brought to Canada as young children and had no choice in the matter. Youth with precarious status or no status struggle to access public services like health care and education. Who are these undocumented youth, and does our country do enough to protect them? We ask: Sarah Pole, Childhood Arrivals Support & Advocacy (CASA) Program, Director at Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic; Akil Augustine, producer and host at MLSE and the Toronto Raptors, formerly undocumented; Arlo Kempf associate professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto; and Stefan Enrique Joseph Kallikaden Youth and Access to Education Coordinator at FCJ Refugee Centre.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Many of these are youth who were brought to Canada as young children, had no choice in the matter, and have no memory of their country of birth. Youth with precarious status or no status struggle to access public services such as health care and education. Who are these undocumented youth and what responsibility does Canada have to them? Let's ask. Sarah Pohl, she is director of Childhood Arrivals Support and Advocacy Program at Justice for Children and Youth. Akhil Augustine, producer and host with the Toronto Raptors at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. He is formerly undocumented. Arlo Kempf, associate professor at OISE, the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education. He is formally undocumented. Arlo Kempf, Associate Professor at OISE, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the U of T.

And Stefan Enrique, Joseph Kalikadon, Youth and Access to Education Coordinator at the FCJ Refugee Centre. And it's great to have you four around our table for a very timely discussion here on TVO Tonight. Sarah, to you first. What does it mean to be undocumented or to have you four around our table for a very timely discussion here on TVO tonight. Sarah, to you first. What does it mean to be undocumented or to have precarious immigration status in this country? That's a good question, Steve. And I'm glad you're asking because I think there's a lot of confusion about it in Canada. For our purposes, being undocumented would mean to me that you don't have permanent resident status, you're not a citizen, and you don't have some kind of temporary status allowing you to be in Canada. So perhaps you arrived on a valid visa and that expired.

And perhaps precarious immigration status might mean that you have some kind of permit or you're allowed to be in Canada for a particular period of time for a particular reason or you're waiting for an application to be processed but that could change so there's no security in your situation. Those watching or listening may have followed this debate in the United States which gained a great deal of traction recently. People are so-called dreamers. They are the dreamers named after the DREAM Act. Again very similar in description. How are undocumented youth in Canada perhaps treated differently from the Dreamers in the United States? Well, I think the easiest answer to that is we don't have a Dream Act. You know, we don't have a national dialogue about young people who were brought here as children and have no status. We have no specific legislative protections for young people. And, you know, we don't have ways of thinking about them

as valid members of society who are worthy of respect and security. So what that means is that because there's no DACA or DREAM Act, they're often locked out of really essential services that every other young person, we know every other young person in Canada needs. So it creates a great deal of precarity

and insecurity for them. Akil, I do want to ask you about your personal circumstances, but I know everybody watching or listening is going to want me to first ask, what do you do with the Raptors? A bunch of different things. I'm fortunate enough to be a sideline reporter

for the in-game broadcast. I work sideline with NBA TV, with Raptors 905, as well as host the Raptors daily show and podcast, and a bunch of social media content. And I host Jurassic Park, and I work with the Toronto Maple Leafs hosting Maple Leafs Square. So that's kind of that part of my life. Okay. My follow-up question is, can we trade jobs? I don't know. I think you've got a nice gig here.

I do have a nice gig here, but I want your gig. Okay. For one day. That sounds like a ton of fun. You've got personal experience with this. Yes, I do. Where nice gig here, but I want your gig. Okay, for one day. That sounds like a ton of fun. You've got personal experience with this. Yes, I do. Where are you from originally? I was born in Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain. Came here at what age?

I came here first at four, but I think I finally stayed after going back for a little bit around six or seven. And how does all of what we've been talking about here apply to you? Well, I lived it. It's my lived experience. My parents and my little sister, they emigrated to the United States. And then they sent me and my eldest sister to Toronto because they felt there would be a better opportunity for us. Our visas expired and I ended up spending 20-odd years living in Toronto as an undocumented person without the ability to work or drive a car or attend post-secondary school, go see a doctor. So I've lived this experience and had to negotiate and find ways to hide, and at the same time get my education and put myself in a position to have, you know, the job

that I love so much today. For 20 years you did that? Yes. Now when you say you were undocumented, what, I mean, no passport, no birth certificate, what'd you have? So I had a passport that had expired and that was about it. Came here on a visitor's visa, I believe. I've never actually seen the visitor's visa. I was separated from my parents. There was no communication. And so I had left the responsibility to all of the paperwork to other family members who weren't as actively pursuing my status.

And so at around the age of, I think, maybe 15 or 14, when my friends started to get part-time jobs, I became super curious as to why I couldn't get a part-time job or why I wasn't going to the doctor or the dentist. And slowly the information came to trickle out that I was, at the time, they called us illegal aliens. And that's what I found out. And thankful to the people over at FCJ, I was fortunate enough to have a best friend whose parents helped start that program. And they helped me a lot. Could you get a driver's license? I could not.

So what did you do for 20 years? If you couldn't work, couldn't go to post-secondary, what'd you do? I would love to be able to say everything that I did, but I think for a lot of people who are undocumented, you had to do things to survive. And you're put in a very vulnerable position. So you have to be very careful about what you share

and what you tell. And even once you do get your papers, some of the things that you do have to stay in the dark because there aren't a lot of protections and you have to look out for yourself. You know I can't let that alone, right? You know I've got to follow up on that. Follow up. Go ahead. Can you give us a hint? Give us a hint about what you had to do.

Well, I mean, first off, there's a lot of opportunities as a young person to work under the table. So you take jobs that you can do. I was a mover. I was a bar back at nightclubs. I did things like that. And then talk about getting an education. I was very fortunate to slip through the cracks when it came to college. They didn't ask for my social insurance number.

And then when they finally came around to asking, I had to drop out and then wait for a certain amount of time to pass. So I think it took me four and a half years to finish a two-year program at Seneca College. But that was even a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to mature a little bit more. But there's a lot of hiccups, a lot of hurdles, a lot of secrets that you have to have

if you are an undocumented person trying to make your way. Amazing. Akil has basically explained his life story here, and it's absolutely fascinating. And we're thrilled that you're here today, and we're grateful for you sharing your story. I wonder, and he referenced FCJ in the middle of that, and that's where you spend your time. And I wonder how much you think the public knows about this kind of experience, which is sort of happening in plain sight, but not really in our midst. What do you think?

I think with the folks that we work with, I want to say, firstly, it's like a privilege being able to work with folks who are here with precarious status. Because you get to learn and understand the intricacies and the hardships people have to go through because of issues with the system itself. Playing off on some of my own story, too, in this circumstance of how I got connected to FCJ in the first place, I, too, had a journey of precarious status. I came here as a visitor for a family funeral, then the pandemic hit, so we didn't get to go back before applying to study here. And then I followed every step the government had set out,

but they made a mistake in every single application I had. So I had to manage my immigration status, go to school, finish it, graduate with honors in a community worker program, then get into a community setting where they made an issue again with my work permit. So I was left for six months without working status. So how do I navigate that precarious status while being an international student? Fortunately, I had family to back me up, but that's not the case for a lot of people.

And oftentimes, I think the perspective is that folks come here on a visitor status and want to overstay and have some benefit from this country, but that's not always the circumstances. Had I not had that backing up of family, I would be here undocumented and not know how to figure things out. So what did you do for six months? I had to just stay with family, volunteer, give back to the community. FCJ gave me that opportunity to volunteer, stay engaged, and as soon as I had my permit,

I became the Youth and Access to Education Coordinator. So that experience working directly with community benefited me in terms of learning the precarities of my own status, how to defend myself, and then use that voice and experience that I gained to advocate for others in similar circumstances that might not have access to that information that I did. Just take 20 seconds, Nick, because FCJ is a group that we've had members of on this program many times, and they do tremendous work. Tell us about what you do. So I'm the Youth and Access to Education Coordinator.

I work closely with the youth program that we have at the center that's been in functioning for over a decade now. And it is boasted on the fact that we welcome anyone who's a newcomer youth, regardless of their immigration status. regardless of their immigration status and all of their needs, we're able to identify and work with them to empower them to have the knowledge of how to navigate that process themselves. By giving them the tools, they're putting the power in their hands to speak and bring their own voice to the forefront of the conversation. Gotcha. Arlo, your connection to this issue is what? So I've been researching through Sarah's organization, actually, student experiences of being precarious in the secondary classroom, in secondary schools.

And so that's been research developed with students with precarious status, trying to ask questions that can only be even formulated based on a deep understanding of what students are going through and how schooling feels, looks, and sort of acts for them. Do you know, in your classes, who's documented and who's not? So most teachers will not know. And in fact, to go even further and sort of span out a bit, most teachers won't know that there may even be people with precarious status in their schools. More broadly, this isn't a professional development conversation. It's rarely a union conversation. So it's a relatively unknown, yet hugely important piece of information for teachers. We've heard a couple of examples here

about how young people try to fly under the radar when they are undocumented. What would you add to that based on your research? Well, I mean, Akil mentioned the secrets that get kept. And when we look at students' experiences, not only do we see a lot of secret keeping and, as you say, sort of flying under the radar, but I think about it as strategic hiding. So students who are having to keep secrets in order to keep themselves safe. And those secrets have real impacts, not only on student well--being but also academic engagement. So we see students, for instance, trying to avoid the honor roll because they don't want their name up in the hallway. We see students, if we think about extracurriculars, not only wanting to avoid a

field trip for, say, a track meet, even though they might know that they're a very fast runner, but also just not wanting to be known as someone who's excellent because that makes you stand out. not wanting to be known as someone who's excellent, because that makes you stand out. So there's these ways that people disengage. And then even further, I research race and education, and when we get into questions around, do you feel comfortable speaking up around social justice? If you hear something racist said in the classroom, do you feel like you can step in? If you hear a micro or macro aggression about immigrants or about undocumented people, do you feel you can say something? And we feel students have to, again, keep those secrets in a way that they feel is required to be safe in those classrooms. So the self-actualization, what it looks like to be fully

and fulsomely included for students, that pathway is just another blocked pathway for a lot of kids. If what you learned about this subject, for example, you learned by watching Fox News in the United States, you might assume that a lot of these kids who are flying under the radar are committing crimes, mayhem, not contributing to their communities, bad actors, etc., etc. How much of that's going on in fact versus the reality? I don't think there's any good data to suggest that that's going on at any rate higher in that population than any other population. And I'd go further to say that these are folks who have all of the best reasons in the world to avoid police, to avoid conversations where I.D. might be produced. So I think if there's any group you can count on to be wanting to fly under the police radar it's these folks and and having said all that there is a danger of going into a conversation

where we say well these are good people and I would suggest whether or not a student is a good person that's not really a question we ask about whether a student belongs at a high school there's really mediocre students who are supposed to belong. There's bad people. They're still supposed to belong. So even the narrative around, are these good people, we can't get stuck on that for too long. But I think statistically, data-wise,

there's nothing to suggest that these folks are involved in anything negative, I would say. Gotcha. Sarah, I want to put you back behind the pulpit here. And I'm going to ask our director, Sheldon Os Osman, to bring up, we've got a few pictures here. Your organization has been, I guess, dealing with this project, a photography project. And maybe, again, we've got people listening to this on podcast who can't see the pictures. So maybe you could just sort of describe what we are seeing.

And Sheldon, just leave them up for a bit and let's have Sarah voice this over. what we are seeing. And Sheldon, just leave them up for a bit and let's have Sarah voice this over. So this project came about really to counteract this issue of secrecy and flying under the radar and a lack of a national conversation about these issues. Really, as Stefan was saying, trying to give some power and space back to young people

who are living this to have a sense of advocacy and to have their voices amplified. So it was fantastic to work with a photographer who is very talented. And our clients at the clinic were invited to participate if they wanted to. I think this is fairly terrifying for many of our clients. Now, we should just say, these are pictures of young, so far young girls, who are holding up books or something in front of their face to disguise their identity. But what's their backstory?

All of these folks here are clients of our clinic. And if they're a client of the CASA program, there's some kind of immigration issue that they're dealing with. So the act of coming into an art project, and even with their faces hidden, standing there and taking that space and feeling like they're part of an advocacy programme has actually been huge for our clients. And for many of them saying, this is the first time I understood that there were other people like me. I've been so secret that I thought I

was the only one. So being able to see photos of other young people has been a really empowering moment. So what we're hoping with this project is that other people will see it and it can help start this conversation. Like let's have a conversation, Canada, with this project is that other people will see it and it can help start this conversation. Like, let's have a conversation, Canada, about what it is that we owe young people in this circumstance and how do we want to be as a country for young people in this circumstance. You saw we put one of the pictures in with that young person putting the Raptor jersey up over their face so they couldn't.

We put that in for you, of course. Shout out to Pascal Siakam. That was a nice little jersey there. Pascal's with Indiana now and had a real nice playoff for a while. Good player. Great player. Did a lot for us. Spicy P.

Yeah. Spicy P. Now, when you were undocumented, and as we suggested, sort of living in the shadows, did you have any sense about how many other people out there were living the same existence as you? Well, within the Trinidadian community, it's almost, not to say a common experience, but there's someone in each family who was dealing with some kind of immigration issue because, you know, we are an immigrant population. And I think I didn't really have a lot of friends or peers that shared my experience. I did have one gentleman later in high school who had a similar experience to me, but it wasn't common. It wasn't spoken about. We never saw programs like this on television. So I don't think that even if there were people who shared that experience with me,

who would have shared, told me about it or who would have been public about it. Did you have an understanding when you were going through all that, that what you were doing was, I don't know, did you think, I'm illegal, I'm breaking the law, I'm in trouble here? Yeah. You did? Yeah, you absolutely have to know that. I think one thing your family kind of reminds you of is that you are not like everyone else and you are in a precarious situation, so you need to protect yourself. You can't put yourself in a place where your friends do something wrong and you are in a precarious situation, so you need to protect yourself. You can't put yourself in a place where your friends do something wrong and you're asked for ID or to produce ID.

And the point he made about not standing out in school, it's a risk-reward thing, right? Like, is the reward of getting an A or going on a field trip greater than the risk of being deported? And sure, maybe, you know, these are things that the average student would love because it increases their potential to get scholarships or to go to a special school but for someone

whose entire family is undocumented um you know you're shining a light on your family and people can ask for more information about you and if you provide that information they'll probably find out something that you don't want them to find out so it's it's quite the balancing act of just kind of fitting in and, you know, flying under the radar. So I think most undocumented kids, once they find out about the situation, are kind of trying to do that little dance. We're going to touch on the education angle here, but one more question here. Did you purposely try not to do too well when you were in school lest you stand out? Yeah, I'm not going to say that, you know, I was this great student or great athlete,

but there was definitely an understanding that if I did excel in certain things, you know, they'd ask, I played football, I played competitive football, I played competitive basketball, I ran track, and we knew that at the end of the year, the track team was going to go to Ohio or Michigan for a track meet, or my football team was going to go on the road for a trip trip and I would usually quit the team before that event because you couldn't get over

the border. Yeah you don't want the questions you don't want people asking why aren't you coming when you're on the team so you just pretend like there's something else going on and you step back. Okay let's get this on the record here Ontario Ontario's Education Act says no one under the age of 18 should be denied access to education because they or their parents are in Canada unlawfully. That's what it says. Ontario school boards have various policies that follow this statute. And for example, here's something from the Toronto District School Board. And Sheldon, I'll ask you to bring this graphic up and I will read it for those listening on podcast. Read it for those listening on podcast. All children who are qualified to be resident pupils of the board, including those who are without immigration status in Canada, shall be entitled to admission to school. All children shall be welcomed regardless of immigration status and information about them or their family shall not be shared with immigration authorities.

Okay, Arlo, that's what it says in black and white. What's the actual practice? I think the actual practice varies, but that very same document spells out a number of things, including the expectation that any questions from immigration authorities be directed to the director of the board and that there be kind of a protective stance

taken around students within a particular school and within the board in general. I think there's a gap between the board and that there be kind of a protective stance taken around students within a particular school and within the board in general. I think there's a gap between the policy and practice as it rolls out. There's also specifications for training for our staff and teachers in that document. And to the degree to which that's happening, I can't speak. Having said that, most teachers aren't aware, to my knowledge, and certainly the students we've spoken with don't have a sense that teachers are aware that this falls into what is their expected and required work. So there's a gap there. And all of these things require resources, right? It takes money and time and training to get teachers to a place where they know how to include. And I think one of the words that's mentioned in the document you brought up is welcome. What does it mean to have students be welcomed?

And so what our research is trying to look at is, okay, you're in the door, you're in the classroom. Are you included once you're in there? How can we think about access in a 360-degree way? How can we think about access to be what gets attested to in the curriculum? How notions of citizenship get constructed in conversations? Who's made to feel welcome, not welcome. As has been mentioned, it's very easy for a lot of these students to talk about feeling criminalized and the way that gets internalized, the way that gets represented is

some sense of, even if they know they haven't done something wrong, they're made to feel they've done something wrong and that you walk around with that. So there may be a policy that says welcome, but what does it mean to actualize inclusion and welcome? Let me find that out from Stefan. In your experience, if you run into somebody who is of age to go to post-secondary, college or university, do they tend to go? Do they tend not to go? What do you know? So Steve, it really depends on what their circumstances are, what they want to do long term, and how they're navigating regularizing their immigration status alongside addressing their actual immediate needs of education. We are working on a project with newcomer youth that have had these experiences in accessing education, whether that's elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, and it's going to be published on June 14th. And the reason that

this project is being led by the newcomer youth themselves is because they've lived this experience. We've had youth who are working on this project who have been here for three years, some seven years, and some folks who we've worked with 12 years and more. And not having their status regularized means that, just like Arlo was saying, the policies exist and the Education Act outlines what's supposed to be expected of all the school boards across Ontario, but that's not actually delivered. Well, but I was going to say, that's elementary and secondary. That's not post-secondary. There is no entitlement to go to post-secondary if you're undocumented. Yes, so under the Education Act, there is no specific outline above the age of 18,

and that could even be secondary in adult school age range. So it's really navigating with the schools themselves of what they'll allow to be passed and allow folks to enter. Or at the post-secondary level, there is a Sanctuary Scholars Program that is at York University, and they started their first cohort in 2017. So just tell me, this is the Sanctuary...

Sanctuary Scholars Program. Scholars Program. At York University. So if you don't have a social insurance number, which if you're undocumented, you wouldn't have, you can still go to York? Yes. So if you don't have a social insurance number, which if you're undocumented you wouldn't have, you can still go to York? Yes. So the admission requirements for that program is outlined as folks with precarious immigration status. So they're able to speak to the program coordinator, navigate the process of getting into York,

and they have two streams if they are right out of high school to go into the direct entry. So you are able to take almost any program at York, and other than the program coordinator itself, no one would know what your status is. Do you pay tuition? You pay tuition for the direct entry program and you pay it at domestic tuition level. And you're able to work around your finances

and take a reduced cost load if that means that working, like Akhil was saying, a cash job or under the radar, you might not be able to afford going to a full semester fees. Coastal Lords, they have the workarounds and York has taken this on. And just last fall, Toronto Metropolitan University has extended a similar program. But we're trying to work on this sort of conversation at the collegiate level because a lot of folks want to have that option of getting into the skilled trades to give back to Canadian society and that option is not afforded to them right now. Sure. Yeah, I agree.

And actually there's a program at Queen's University too, which is really interesting. And my point, I raised my hand because one of the issues about the finances is even with York's wonderful program and TMU's wonderful program, there's no access to OSEP. So the financial services that most young people need in Ontario to go to post-secondary are not available to these young people. Well, OK, can I put the... Let me play the heavy here for a second. Because you know there are people watching or listening who are saying, wait a second, I mean, I'm paying taxes

to support these institutions and these folks are not. And they're... I mean, you could argue that's a pretty good deal that you're undocumented and you still could go to York University or TMU. So what do you want to say to those folks? The people we're talking about are here. They're residents. They're part of our society. And the choice of letting them access university and build their skills and expertise so they can contribute and have jobs here makes sense to me.

We're not asking for them to be in any other situation than any other young person who's grown up here, right? The option is warehousing people with massive potential. And I wanted to peel back to the high school piece too. I agree with the policy you've put up there, that we have these wonderful, we do have a Thoughtful Education Act in Ontario that says everybody should be allowed to come to school. Where we see most of the problems, and we see a lot of problems at our legal clinic about access to grade in high school, it comes down to the next part of the Education Act, which is it tells us which students have to pay fees. So there's this entry, everyone can go, but if you're a temporary resident, you have to pay fees.

can go, but if you're a temporary resident, you have to pay fees. And I think many people in Ontario won't realise that paying fees to go to a school board like the TDSB could cost a family up to $17,000 per young person. So that's where we have most of the challenges at the school board level. I think there's misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the Education Act and an ignorance about the immigration law. So we have families who are perfectly entitled to go under the Education Act to school, fee exempt, being told that they can't, and kids sitting at home for months, sometimes years, wrongly. So those are little kids. Who's got 17 grand to send someone to high school? I don't. I don't.

No, if you're an undocumented person, that would be unimaginable. So there's that fee level. I think there's all this confusion around who has to pay fees, who don't. And then even at the school level, it's hard. You know, you think schools are busy places, and I respect that they're trying to balance a million things in one go. But that front desk, there's no interpretation services, there's no translation services for families who are trying to navigate a system that might be really different from what they know, and maybe coming on the back of a really traumatic migration situation. So it's

hard to navigate in many ways. Can I ask you, Akil, the feds have been talking for a long time about having some kind of regularization policy for undocumented immigrants. They've been talking about it for a long time now. Presumably you would like to see that happen. What should that policy entail? It's got to be streamlined. I can only speak from my own personal experience, and I know that in order for me to end up here on this desk with you, it took a lot of luck being in the right place at the right time. It was serendipitous. And so a lot of hard work on your part, too, obviously. Yeah. But I do think that it's not replicatable. Like this is not something that we can expect young people to accomplish on their own. If it wasn't for me stumbling into the people at FCJ,

if it wasn't for Jack Layton's office being a block away from my house and him writing me letters because I would visit him, if it wasn't for Cabby Richards from Sportsnet, you know, allowing me to intern for two and a half years for free. There are all these instances, my guidance counselor, right, the secretary at my elementary school. And I think the most important thing is that there's a systematized approach, some infrastructure that allows for people to be protected. Because the biggest thing is in order for you to, for other people to find out that you're undocumented

is that risk of exposing yourself and exposing your family. And unless there's some kind of buffers and protections for you, it's very likely that people are gonna offer up that kind of information. So I think for me, it's just, I don't know specifically how they can execute a program like this, but I do know that it needs to be systematized and it needs to be protections for the people once they do expose themselves as being undocumented.

What would you add to that in terms of what you want to see from a regularized program? Broad and inclusive and centring children's interests. So making sure that when the government is thinking about this, how is it going to impact children? And also understanding that in some cases, children aren't going to be included in adults' applications and they need to be able to make these applications in their own name and in their own right. So really this concept of who would be included

and that it lasts, you know, it's enshrined in legislation we see some policies that are temporary they end they can be changed we really need a pathway that we can rely on and that people can access over time i'd like to add something to that because from my personal experience i think we're having a conversation in the green room about some organizations needing the parents to sign off so that the young people can apply for status. Sometimes your family can be working against you. There can be people within the family structure who are taking advantage of these young people.

And I do believe that these young people need to be able to speak up for themselves. Without parental involvement. Absolutely. I do believe it's very important because you don't know who behind the scenes is taking advantage of these young people and what they actually want for this young person. I myself was fortunate enough that I could have done

the program by myself because at 18, I started my paperwork. But for someone younger who's understanding their situation, their parents may not want this for them, right? There may be some advantage that they're gaining 18, I started my paperwork. But for someone younger who's understanding their situation, their parents may not want this for them, right? There may be some advantage that they're gaining, or their guardian may be gaining some advantage and taking advantage of them. So I think it's very important these young people have the right to work as individuals and to apply as individuals without that signature from their legal guardian. Can we get this on the record, Sheldon? Bottom page four here. We're just going to get the ministry's comments about this. This is from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada that reads, in part, this is the statement we got from them,

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is exploring options for regularizing the status of undocumented individuals who are contributing to Canadian communities. IRCC has been engaging with academic experts and stakeholders to support this work. As we advance our work, we will continue listening to experts as well as undocumented migrants themselves. IRCC will also be informing our future policy decisions based on the lessons learned through recent innovative regularization initiatives, including the Out-of-status construction workers pilot. Okay, that sounds fine. Arlo, I mean, it's a bit bureaucratic, but what do you infer from that? Well, I think there are big considerations around labour market and what work and narratives around work that Canadians will and won't do and conversations around wages that need to

happen. But ultimately, whatever that pathway looks like, I think we have to consider if the government or we or some version of Canada is extending an invitation, what is that an invitation to? Say, well, now there's a regularization pathway. What of deep racism? What of deep sort of embedded forms of discrimination and exclusion that still exists? So these things have to happen and at the same time we have

to consider the space into which regularized folks might be being invited and how to make that more inclusive and that includes schooling. Sarah, last word to you. Does this sound like we're on the path that you just described? I'm not sure it's going to be as broad and as inclusive as we need. I think it may be tied more to particular jobs or industries, which is fantastic for those people. But I don't know that it's going to meet the needs of children who are not workers.

They're not going to be able to prove these things. So I am really hopeful. The government's been talking about it for a long time. They have taken some steps recently to create some really specific programmes, specifically one that provides a pathway to permanent residence for young people who've previously been in state care, which is a huge deal, but it's a tiny group of the young people we're talking about. Gotcha. Yeah. I feel the last thing we need to do is to confirm for people that is not a British accent, that is not a South African accent, that is not an Australian accent. She's from New Zealand. There we go. Because I know people are going to

want to know. That's Sarah Pohl and Arlo Kempf on that side of the table. He from Oise. And on the other side of the table, Akil Augustine and Stefan Enrique Joseph Kalikadon. Great to have everybody here around our table at TVO tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.