The Switchboard Confluence event in June 2025 brought together technology innovators and refugee resettlement professionals to reimagine newcomer support through emerging technologies. Participants shared practical tools, techniques, and examples of how ethical and affordable technologies can address current resettlement challenges, with an emphasis on reaching and serving clients who are not located in proximity to services and resources.

The weekly roundup includes research, stories, and events of interest to the Canadian immigration and settlement community. Includes: Canada’s most valuable import is talent – we need more of it, 2025 mid-year review: major immigration policies and changes implemented, Immigrants ‘in limbo’ after Quebec suspends pathway to permanent residence with little notice, Palestinian students say visa delays have stranded them despite admission to Canadian schools (CBC), and more.

It's true that I often write about the upside of using technology in Settlement work. I do focus heavily on ethical issues and safeguards in my writing. Perhaps I don't spend enough time sharing useful resources to help guide us in these areas. Especially resources that take a deep dive into the underbelly of the tech world to remind us that we need to be creating not just consuming technology in our work. Tactical Tech is an organization whose work you should be aware of and following. This essay is part of their Digitized Divides series, a multi-part series about technology and crisis.

This research report provides a review and analysis of online and distance education language training in Canada. The report provides a set of recommendations for the implementation of online and distance education language training, including the need for increased access to online and blended learning opportunities, the need to address integrating culture in language learning, the need to provide robust learner orientation and professional development for instructors, ongoing and multi-modal communications, technical support and the development of a centralized repository of learning objects.

This environmental scan provides a detailed, sector-specific overview of AI adoption in Canadian settlement services, highlighting both the promise and the challenges of integrating AI in a human-centered, ethical, and collaborative manner. It provides actionable recommendations for organizations, policymakers, and researchers, and sets the stage for future work in this evolving area.

The research explores ongoing and emerging digital literacy gaps among newcomers in the Toronto South area, with a focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the sector’s shift to online and hybrid service delivery.

OTEC, a sector-specific training, consulting, and workforce development organization, teamed up with Magnet to launch ALiGN, a “psychometric-based talent-to-role fit assessment and job-matching model” to connect unemployed youth to job vacancies.

Immigrant and refugee-serving agencies provide important services, they also coordinate with and refer to other human service providers. Coordinating complex services can be challenging. In Windsor, Ontario, community agencies are tackling complex system navigation with the goal of creating more effective and client-centred services.

In this P2P Promising Practice, New Language Solutions provides an overview of their venue-LearnIT2teach Project,m which includes two key components: a Canada-specific learning management system (LMS) built on Moodle, and a structured training program for instructors that is hosted on the platform.