City of Toronto's Role in Immigration and Settlement
City of Toronto’s Role in Immigration and Settlement Jessica Praznik (MA, Public Policy & Administration, Ryerson University) & John Shields (Professor, Ryerson University) October 1, 2018 This research is part of the sub-grant “Critical examination of settlement sector discourses and practices of resilience: a comparative study of three Ontario cities”, and was funded by Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada - Immigration et résilience en milieu urbaine (BMRC-IMRU), a SSHRC funded project. CITY OF TORONTO’S ROLE IN IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT 2 Introduction This report examines the role of the City of Toronto in immigration policy and settlement and integration programming. Toronto continues to be the most significant centre in Canada for newcomer settlement and a leading factor behind the rapid population growth of this global city (the fourth largest centre on in North America). Fully 35.9% of the total immigrant population in Canada call Toronto home and the city continues to be a powerful magnet for secondary migration. 46.1% of the city’s population, based on the 2016 Census, is made up foreign-born residents (Praznik and Shields, 2018, p. 4). Toronto is truly a ‘world a city’ (Anisef and Lanfphier, 2003) and is profoundly shaped by the impact of mass migration and the immigrant experience. While there has been considerable study of the role of higher levels of government regarding immigration and settlement, much less is known about the role of the municipality, especially more detailed information about the range and depth of supports that positively impact immigrants. Consequently, we document the many different policies, programs and actions adopted by the City of Toronto up to the period before the 2018 municipal election, and frame this by placing these developments in the context of a critical literature review.
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