The Department of Justice has committed $16,260,000 over five years to pay for Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, the pre-sentencing reports that ask judges to weigh the racism a black or other 'racialized' offender has experienced, according to the federal grants disclosure database.

The record, titled "Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCAs)" with agreement number "IRCAs 2026-2031", runs from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2031 under the department's Legal Aid program. It covers "Seven beneficiaries in total", none of them named. The description says the money reimburses legal aid plans and jurisdictions for preparing IRCAs and related training, and that the reports "assist courts in considering the effects that racism and other unique circumstances experienced by Black persons and other racialized minorities have contributed to their contact with the criminal justice system".

Justice Canada's own page on IRCAs describes "funding of $6.64 million over five years, followed by $1.6 million of annual ongoing funding", and says the reports "have been used primarily for Black offenders, both adults and youth". The new five-year figure is about two and a half times the original envelope, and roughly double the $1.6 million a year that was supposed to follow it. The first agreements were signed in 2021-22; Ontario's was $1,400,000 for 2021 to 2026. 

Not every province takes it. The Canadian Press reported in September 2025 that Quebec was not part of any agreement because, according to Justice Department spokesperson Marie-Hélène Mercier, it did not subscribe to the program's premise of systemic racism. The same report said the legal aid funding had been raised in 2024 to $16 million over five years, that there were then no active agreements in Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nunavut or the Northwest Territories, and that in the first IRCA case before a Quebec judge, the drug trafficker's lawyer said the Crown sought 36 months and the judge gave 24.

Rebel News has reported a Nova Scotia case where a judge said a sex offender's sentence would have been "much higher" without one of these reports and other mitigating factors.

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