A bottom-up immigration strategy

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is to be congratulated for the urgency with which he is moving to transform the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of Canada’s current immigration system.

However, abdicating the immigrant selection process to the private sector is not the solution nor is it the remedy to overcoming a sclerotic immigration bureaucracy.

Reforming the whole continuum of Canada’s immigration and integration process needs to be undertaken and must involve many more partners. The following are some preliminary steps to strengthen a bottom-up, community-driven and owned process to create a more coherent, joined up and effective immigration system.

Community partnerships: The broad range of roles and responsibilities played by local agencies in the private, public and voluntary sectors who provide essential immigrant and settlement services needs to be strengthened. Immigration involves many local players and this is an opportunity to release the many existing (but under-resourced) place-based, bottom-up innovations that involve not just employers but a whole range of other important local stakeholders who are directly impacted by immigration. Immigration is an area that cries out for meaningful collaborative partnerships. For example, local stakeholder organizations are ideally placed to work with government to implement local, targeted immigrant attraction strategies in response to local labour market supply needs which can then be tied into custom designed post migration settlement and integration efforts.

Addressing institutional barriers: The dilatory way in which international education and professional qualifications are assessed and addressed in Canada is inexcusable. If Canada is to compete and succeed in the global marketplace of the 21st century, the present endless discussions with professional and trades associations must be replaced with robust and time-limited work to eliminate exclusionary barriers in the workplace and the implementation of professional and organizational practices that are inclusive and equitable.

Intergovernmental relations: The present climate of federal-provincial ambiguity regarding Ontario’s role in immigration has severely hampered the ability to respond to the changing dynamics around immigration in this province. The current inertia in intergovernmental negotiations must be saved from its low-level, bureaucratic backwater and given priority and profile. Given the huge impact and significance of immigration on towns and cities across the province, rather than the current token tickbox exercises, these negotiations need to formally involve municipalities in immigration matters.

Public education: The receptivity of the receiving society is a key determinant in ensuring the successful integration and participation of newcomers. The quality of local interactions in employment, schools, health care, housing, public transportation and so on is the glue that retains and keeps immigrants. If it is a hostile environment, it becomes that much more difficult to attracting immigrant and provide effective settlement services. Efforts are required to not only reduce public anxiety and apprehension about immigrants and immigration, but to promote the positive realities and benefits.

Local planning: Much stronger structural planning and co-ordinating mechanisms need to be put in place at the local level. In addition, much more useful and up-to-date information needs to be collected and analyzed that can actually increase our capacity to make informed decisions at the local level. This body of knowledge needs to be disseminated widely and in forms that are accessible to a wide range of audiences.

These preliminary suggestions offer a way by which we, as Canadians can begin to assume more involvement in making immigration work at the local, community level. An effective immigration system will be only be successful as a dynamic two-way process in which newcomers and we, as the receiving society, can work together to build secure, inclusive and prosperous communities.

Tim Rees is the former manager of immigration strategy with the City of Hamilton and has been involved in immigrant integration issues for the last 30 years.