Ottawa’s community and protective services committee passed a major report on the city’s immigration plan on Sept. 19, endorsing the new municipal blueprint for attracting, retaining and integrating immigrants in Ottawa.
Three core goals shape the report: Easier access to programs and services, better communication of helpful information, and improved access to jobs. Titled the “City of Ottawa Municipal Immigration Strategy,” the report also outlines strategic actions that can be taken, within the existing budget, to reach these goals.
“The immigration strategy is important in Ottawa because communities are diversifying. It’s in our benefit and it’s in our repertoire to help as many individuals and residents as we can,” says Stittsville Coun. Shad Qadri, vice-chair of the community and protective services committee. “There are many, many benefits to this policy.”
Internships for immigrants as well as targeted career fairs are two new initiatives of the immigration strategy that are intended to improve access to jobs and foster the economic integration of immigrants. Failing to address immigrant unemployment and underemployment could result in an annual loss of up to $3 billion to the Canadian economy, according to statistics listed in the report.
The report also cited Ottawa as one of the most attractive Canadian cities for immigrants, with more than 12,000 people immigrating to Ottawa in 2012. These numbers include permanent residents, international students, temporary foreign workers and refugees, who have collectively accounted for 80 per cent of Ottawa’s population growth since 2011.
“Immigration is critical for our economic development and for our social and cultural well-being, now and into the future,” says Clara Freire, the manager of client service strategies in the city’s community and social services department. “With a growing aging population and a shrinking labour force, we count on immigrants for labour and skilled talent.”
Unusually high numbers of immigrants in Ottawa have university degrees – 82 per cent, as stated in the report. Freire said that this number translates to a valuable source of skilled talent in Ottawa.
“Immigration benefits all of us in terms of its economic benefits and its social benefits and cultural benefits. It makes our communities healthier and more prosperous,” Freire says. “(Immigrants) build our communities in terms of our cultural and social fabric. They contribute artistically, culturally and linguistically.
“We’re very proud of (the immigration strategy) as a first step to contributing to the overall community goal of integration.”
The Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership and the City of Ottawa Immigration Network played key roles in developing the report. OLIP, in particular, will be integral to translating the report into action. Several of the new immigrant integration initiatives involve OLIP’s support, such as entrepreneur awards to recognize and promote immigrant business leaders in Ottawa.
“OLIP is a community-wide collaborate initiative which was born in 2009 with the mandate of helping the city – not the municipality or corporations or the municipal government, but the city, the geographic space,” says Hindia Mohamoud, director of OLIP. Mohamoud added that OLIP’s ultimate goal is to “plan the attraction and total integration of immigrants and to build, gradually, our capacity for succeeding in immigrant integration.”
Multiple city departments collaborated to develop the municipal immigration strategy, with each department contributing initiatives that are within their capacities, Mohamoud explained. The report will provide long-term direction for successfully integrating immigrants into Ottawa.
“Nobody wants to be in a city where we have a monochromatic approach to life,” Mohamoud says. “We all will benefit if we can maximize the contribution of immigrants to our lives.”