Toronto: Planning for Diversity, Inclusion and Urban Resilience

Recent waves of global migration have led to profound social, cultural, economic, political, physical, and environmental effects in metropolitan regions of major immigrant settlement. As noted in the World Migration Report, more scholars are exploring the relationship between migrants and cities.1 Cities play an important role in the processes of immigrant settlement and integration. Not only do they serve as reception areas for newcomers to live, work, learn, play, and socialize like other city inhabitants; they are also important places for building diverse, inclusive, resilient, and equitable communities in the long term. It has become imperative for municipalities to understand the dynamics and complexity of the global migration phenomenon and tackle the challenges and opportunities it presents locally. This report presents the key takeaways from Toronto’s planning practices as part of the Building Inclusive Cities initiative.

Toronto: Planning for Diversity, Inclusion and Urban Resilience

Recent waves of global migration have led to profound social, cultural, economic, political, physical, and environmental effects in metropolitan regions of major immigrant settlement. As noted in the World Migration Report, more scholars are exploring the relationship between migrants and cities.1 Cities play an important role in the processes of immigrant settlement and integration. Not only do they serve as reception areas for newcomers to live, work, learn, play, and socialize like other city inhabitants; they are also important places for building diverse, inclusive, resilient, and equitable communities in the long term. It has become imperative for municipalities to understand the dynamics and complexity of the global migration phenomenon and tackle the challenges and opportunities it presents locally. This report presents the key takeaways from Toronto’s planning practices as part of the Building Inclusive Cities initiative.

Immigrant settlement patterns, transit accessibility, and transit use

Public transit is immensely important among recent immigrants for enabling daily travel and activity participation. The objectives of this study are to examine whether immigrants settle in areas of high or low transit accessibility and how this affects transit mode share. This is analyzed via a novel comparison of two gateway cities: Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada. We find that in both cities, recent immigrants have greater levels of public transit accessibility to jobs, on average, than the overall population, but the geography of immigrant settlement is more suburbanized and less clustered around commuter rail in Toronto than in Sydney. Using logistic regression models with spatial filters, we find significant positive relationships between immigrant settlement patterns and transit mode share for commuting trips, after controlling for transit accessibility and other socio-economic factors, indicating an increased reliance on public transit by recent immigrants. Importantly, via a sensitivity analysis, we find that these effects are greatest in peripheral suburbs and rural areas, indicating that recent immigrants in these areas have more risks of transport-related social exclusion due to reliance on insufficient transit service.

An evaluation of "job search workshops" program -- from Mandarin-speaking newcomers' perspective

The Job Search Workshops (JSW) program is a component program within the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP), which is funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), and offered across Ontario. About half of the JSW participants in Ontario speak Mandarin as their first language. Their settlement needs share many similarities with other immigrant cohorts, yet some of the barriers identified among Mandarin speaking newcomers are culturally specific. Generally, Mandarin-speaking newcomers highly endorse Job Search Workshops; however, there is room for improvement. Improvement of the effectiveness of current settlement programs (sucah as the JSW program) to assist this group of newcomers, will greatly speed up their social, economic and cultural integration into Canadian society.

Provincial Nominee Settlement Practices: an examination of multilevel governance, best practices, challenges and neo-liberal shifts of provisions

Settlement services for newcomers in Canada have been traditionally funded at a federal level with providers at a community level, often referred to as immigrant service providers (ISPs). But settlement provision does not stop at ISPs. A new player has joined the immigrant settlement service sector in Canada: “The Private Sector”, which includes employers and universities. This shift in provision is particularly a reality for newcomers who have arrived via the provincially downloaded Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). This research aims to examine the contemporary practices of settlement services of immigrants who have arrived via the PNP, and offers an examination of multilevel governance, best practices, challenges, recommendations and the neoliberal shift in newcomer settlement provision.

The evolution of advocacy in the Ontario immigrant settlement sector

This major research paper examines the way the Ontario immigrant settlement sector provides advocacy on behalf of newcomers. It sets out to answer three general questions: How does the sector interact with government? How does it maintain its role as advocate while under significant strain? Is the relationship between the state and the third sector underdoing change, and if so, what new opportunities for advocacy are arising? Through a comprehensive literature review and four key informant interviews, this paper discusses the history of the sector and three new developments, namely the Voluntary Sector Initiative, the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement and the formation of the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance. Recent developments indicate that the government and the third sector are beginning to work towards a system of shared governance where the third sector is a partner in policy research, development and implementation.

Immigrant settlement outside of the greater Toronto area : determinants of desirability

This paper explores barriers and opportunities to immigrant settlement in Ontario's second and third tier cities, and the potential role of Opportunities Ontario: Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The relative desirability of five Ontario cities outside of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is discussed from the point of view of skilled immigrants, through an assessment of four categories of factors which impact immigrants' successful economic and cultural integration into the communities they live in. The results of the study show that some cities are clearly better suited to immigrants' needs that others. The paper also concludes that while Opportunities Ontario's does provide incentives to employers and nominated immigrants outside the GTA, the current scope of 1,000 nominees per year precludes it from having a significant impact on the regionalization of Ontario's immigrant flow.