Dear colleagues,

You are cordially invited to join us at the 7th Biennial Ottawa Immigration Forum on October 13, 2023, from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm. With the theme Building Newcomer Integration Infrastructure: Networks, Knowledge, and Policy, the forum is organized in collaboration with the Building Migrant Resilience in Cities research partnership, at York University.

During this day-long event, expert speakers will reflect on new opportunities and challenges in the integration of immigrants in the context of rising immigration levels, structural challenges to newcomers’ economic integration in new labour market context, and settlement policy and services for temporary residents.

The Forum will consist of 24 speakers at six sessions, including two keynote panels in the morning. There will be two concurrent sessions in the afternoon so participants will have to choose one. A pre-forum webinar on newcomer housing, will be held virtually on October 12, at 3:15 - 4:45pm. All Forum sessions will be moderated, and participants will have the option to ask questions.

Key Topics

Immigration Levels, Settlement Policy & Nation / City Building: What happens to Canadian society, national identity, and immigration and settlement policies as we increase immigration levels? What is needed to secure successful integration of a lot more immigrants?

Reconciling Skills Shortages & Chronic Underemployment: What is behind the on-going co-existence of skills shortages in key industries and chronic underemployment of qualified immigrants? What can we learn from academic researchers, employment service experts, and executives of key industries in Ottawa? What levers might be available to us to improve immigrants access to good jobs and to drive economic development and inclusive prosperity?

Settlement & Integration Services for Temporary Residents: What services do temporary residents need? What does the research on international students and temporary foreign workers show? How are services currently provided to temporary residents in Ontario and Quebec?

Building Newcomer Integration Infrastructure: After 14 years of active partnership, community-based strategic planning, and a strong collaborative leadership across five sectors through OLIP, what has been accomplished? Does Ottawa have strong enough infrastructure to welcome and integrate a growing number of newcomers? What is good? What is weak? and What is urgent to build?

Forum Agenda will be sent to registered participants.

Forum speakers include:

• Marc Miller, Minister, IRCC

• Mark Sutcliffe, Mayor, City of Ottawa

• Dominique Dennery, Chair, Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership

• Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants

• Katheryn Dennler, Research Associate, Conference Board of Canada

• Jelena Zikic, Associate Professor, York University

• Myriam Mekni, Executive Director, Catholic Centre for Immigrants Ottawa

• Jill Hanely, Professor, McGill School of Social Work

• Soukaina Boutiyeb, Executive Director, Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne

• Kareem El-Assal, OLIP Senior Research Fellow & Director of Policy and Digital Strategy at CanadaVisa

And more...

About OLIP

The Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership (OLIP) is a multi-sectoral partnership involving 60 local organizations working on a shared vision and common priorities designed to build local capacity to attract, settle, and integrate immigrants. Learn more about OLIP’s work at www.olip-plio.ca.

About BMRC

Established in 2016, Building Migrant Resilience in Cities (BMRC-IRMU) is a research partnership and a multi-sector collaboration. It draws on over 20 years of experience in bringing together a range of key actors working on issues of immigration and settlement through CERIS, a leading Ontario network of migration and settlement researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Learn more about BMR at https://bmrc-irmu.info.yorku.ca/.