Publications, Research & Reports

This study found that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owned by immigrants were more likely than similar enterprises owned by Canadian-born individuals to implement a product or process innovation (2020).

When asylum seekers and refugees are displaced, how do they use communication technologies to maintain links with friends and family during flight and forced migration? When they are detained, what role does technology play in the ways asylum seekers communicate with the "outside"?

In this study, the researcher sought to answer these questions: What motivates immigrants to use information and communication technology (ICT)? What are the factors that influence immigrants’ ICT behaviors?

This report discusses the implications of adding messaging apps to the range of communications channels currently used by humanitarian organizations, which includes face-to-face communication, print materials, SMS messaging, social media, radio and television.

The authors' intention is to shine a light on the emerging field of public interest technologists in government (2018).

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) contracted Open North to conduct a small study to better understand the needs of existing and potential users of open data as released by IRCC on open.canada.ca, and to inform ongoing efforts to unlock the potential applications of open data to support newcomer settlement and integration in Canada.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with Syrian refugees who settled in Vienna, Austria.

This report examines the theory, research and measurement frameworks informing evaluation strategies in the nonprofit sector and considering their impact on resilience related to immigrant settlement in Canada (2020).

This article analyzes the experiences of refugee claimants in Toronto’s everyday healthcare places, like walk-in clinics, doctor’s offices, and hospitals, in the aftermath of the 2012 Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) revisions (2019).

This study explores the effect of human rights violations in countries of origin on migrants' mental health. Findings indicate that high levels of human rights violations in countries of origin have long-term effects on migrants’ mental health (2020).

The evolution of the Canadian labour market threatens to aggravate the challenges facing resettled refugees. This report proposes six recommendations for the Government of Canada to better support Government Assisted Refugees (GARs) to succeed in the labour market (2020).

This study sought to better understand the needs of existing and potential users of open data as released by IRCC on open.canada.ca, and to inform ongoing efforts to unlock the potential applications of open data to support newcomer settlement and integration in Canada.

For anyone interested in innovating with LINC blended learning, the report has useful information about what LINC leaders are encountering as they try to put LINC blended learning to work in their institutions. The result is a summary of important lessons for the sector about learning technology innovation (2018).

This article discusses social media use by asylum migrants prior to and during migration. This study is based on in-depth  interviews with 54 Syrian asylum migrants who recently obtained refugee status in the Netherlands.

Since 2014, millions of refugees and migrants have arrived at the borders of Europe. This article argues that, in making their way to safe spaces, refugees rely not only on a physical but increasingly also digital infrastructure of movement.

This paper provides a small contribution to supporting the further development and delivery of programs for refugee youth prior to their arrival in Canada. How to leverage technology securely and safely to provide additional support for refugee youth coming to Canada, taking advantage of the pre-arrival time, and current and future partnerships with government agencies and other involved organizations.

There are wide-ranging lessons that can be shared across sectors and regions on the challenges and opportunities of providing mobile connectivity and services to this segment of the population which will be explored in this report.

This report is a synthesis of recent literature on how information can be used to address settlement and integration barriers experienced by newcomers to Canada.

In this paper, the authors examine the role of social media in facilitating and building transcultural communication and connections for forced migrants in today’s contexts of resettlement. The authors' focus is on recently resettled Syrian refugee youth in Ottawa, who arrived in Canada as part of a federal government resettlement initiative in 2015-2016.

Due to the unprecedented dependency of refugees on ICT, the authors investigate how e-learning can be used to support refugees in the integration process and contributes to their social inclusion into the host country.

This paper argues that instead of trying to make ICTs fit with a linear conceptualisation of impacts and an often economistic view of development, the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) should be used as a prime example of a development process which has to be analysed in a systemic and holistic way.

The goal of this paper is to ensure that settlement agencies have the capacity to fully partner with governments in designing policies and programs to meet the emerging challenges facing newcomers and the communities in which they settle. This is not, presently, the case.

By linking current research and relevant policy implications, this paper also provides a comprehensive picture of the potential role that technology (both existing and emerging) can have in improving child and youth mental health (CYMH) services in Ontario.

This report focuses on the work undertaken by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Committee of the Agency of the Future (AoF) Project. The AoF Project is a national initiative being developed collaboratively by the Pathways to Prosperity research consortium, settlement service providers and settlement umbrella associations.

In this Research Snapshot, a couple of University of Victoria students looked at the use of mobile technology in Canadian social work.

World Education Services (WES) conducted a survey-based study to examine predictors of skilled immigrants’ career success. They examined the demographic characteristics of skilled immigrants as well as their experience and education, and studied how these factors affect their labour market outcomes.

Choices about post-secondary education (PSE) launch individuals onto their future educational and career paths. These decisions are vitally important to Canada’s economic prosperity as well to many individual and social outcomes. Against this backdrop, this joint LMIC-EPRI report provides extensive new evidence on the labour market earnings of PSE graduates.

This study asks two sets of questions. First, are refugees more likely to leave their initial destination city than economic immigrants when group differences in sociodemographic and contextual characteristics are taken into account? Among refugees, are GARs more likely to leave their initial destination city than PSRs? Second, to what extent does the impact of unemployment on secondary migration vary by admission category? Among refugees, are GARs more likely than PSRs to leave their initial destination city when they experience unemployment?

This research study examines what it means to be a multicultural counsellor, including their perception of challenges and outcome expectations in developing a multicultural framework to situate their practice, and cultivation of professional resilience in their work with diverse clients.

The authors call for greater attention to this critical population and make nine recommendations that would contribute to solutions in each major issue area impacting the education of Canadian immigrant youth and their entry into the workforce.

International education has become a policy sector of growing importance to Canada. With increased government regulations, disconnect is often observed between the intended policy outcomes and practice. This study aims to explain this disconnect by analyzing the heterogeneity among stakeholder interests.

Examining the strengths and weaknesses of objective and subjective measures of language proficiency is crucial for good integration policy, as is understanding the relationship between these measures and earnings, a key indicator of economic integration.

The inflow of refugees to Calgary fluctuates widely over time, and varies considerably by country of origin. Social agencies must adapt to a continuously shifting kaleidoscope of people, cultures, languages and needs.

The report focuses on the dynamic relations between the two communities in the present context of Winnipeg. Following insights and stories gathered, we suggest several wise practices for the relationship-building process as recommended by participants. In so doing, the report seeks to inform a framework related to the development of an orientation toolkit for newcomers.

This report, along with thematic reports on immigrant women, youth,and seniors, is an output of Phase 2(2018–2019) of a research and knowledge mobilization project that aims to document the settlement and service experiences of the three groups, as well as proposing new intervention strategies.

This paper uses 2016 census data to paint a portrait of income inequality between racialized and non-racialized Canadians. It also looks at the labour market discrimina­tion faced by racialized workers in 2006 and 2016. Racialized workers are more likely to be active in the workforce than non-racialized workers, either working or trying to find work, but this does not result in better employment outcomes for them. From 2006 to 2016, there was little change to the patterns of employment and earnings inequality along racial and gender lines in Canada.

The rate of working poverty in Canada, Ontario, and the Toronto region is increasing. The growth in precarious employment and the gig economy have all come together to increase the number of people who are working for wages that cannot sustain them and drawing incomes too low to lift them out of poverty.

This study highlights two main themes that illustrate the implicit and complex mechanisms that can structure migrant agricultural workers’ workplace climate, and ultimately, endanger their health and safety: (1) authorities that silence; and (2) ‘I will not leave my body here.’

This MPI Europe policy brief takes stock of sponsorship programs worldwide - from the well-established Canadian private sponsorship program, to much newer and smaller-scale initiatives in countries such as Argentina, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom - and lays out a variety of ways private philanthropic actors can support these programs.

This study proposes a cooperative strategy with the aim of sustaining a coherent border-migration compact between Canada and the United States.

This study examines the importance of access to information about health and health-related services as an enabler of access to health care, in a highly multicultural setting.

Jangles Productions was contracted by Citizenship and Immigration Canada Ontario Region in August of 2009 to conduct a print campaign to promote three settlement services.

Based on the 2016 Census data, the study ‘Skill Utilization and Earnings of STEM-educated Immigrants in Canada: Differences by Degree Level and Field of Study’ compares the likelihood of immigrant and Canadian-born workers with a degree in a STEM field to be working in a STEM-related occupation.

This Scoping Review discusses the effective use of the Internet for the provision of integral information to new immigrants.

As a point-­‐in-­‐time snapshot, an environmental scan is intended to explore and capture current trends, successes and challenges at the immigrant sector’s system level, generate a coherent narrative supported by facts, and set the foundation for dialogue, strategic planning, and stakeholder influence.

The authors examine factors that may influence technology use: asking if organizational culture is related to uptake in the professional context, and if self-reported individual resistance to innovation and change can explain voluntary adoption of ICT tools.

Using comparable data and three measures of over-education, this study found that university-educated recent immigrants in Canada were much more likely to be over-educated than their U.S. peers.

The primary focus of the project is to make available on-line the highly successful pre-employment workshops offered through MISA’s Employment Services Unit.

This report focuses on the impacts of automated decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system from a human rights perspective.

The goal of the report is to explore promising practices based on programs and resources that have been successfully offered elsewhere in Canada. As such, the report offers a possible roadmap that may be considered by service providers working in Guelph-Wellington.

OCASI’s MICE-2 project provided an opportunity for managers of CIC-funded agencies in Ontario to share their perspectives on technology in the sector through on-line discussions and at a conference in St. Catharines on June 12 and 13, 2002

In 1997, Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Ontario Administration of Settlement and Integration Services (OASIS) initiated a Computerization Project to build the capacity of funded agencies. This report provides an evaluation of options for future support.

While empirical studies find that border and interior enforcement serve as deterrents to illegal immigration, immigration enforcement is costly and carries unintended consequences, such as a decrease in circular migration, an increase in smuggling, and higher prevalence of off-the-books employment and use of fraudulent and falsified documents.

This pan-Canadian research report identifies eight critical competencies that could form the basis of training to help settlement counsellors be successful as the job is redefined and the range of work is extended.

Mobilizing Global Knowledge brings together academics and practitioners to reflect on a global collaborative refugee research network.

This report looks at income trends between 1980 and 2015, as well as the income gap between young people, immigrants, racialized groups and the rest of the population in Peel, Toronto and York regions. The findings paint a stark picture of who has access to the opportunities to succeed, and who is being left behind because of circumstances they can’t control. 

This research focuses on the role of Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs) in Syrian refugee resettlement through a case study of an official refugee reception centre in the Waterloo Region of Ontario and a series of interviews with key informants from multiple sectors involved in resettlement.

The aim of this research initiative is to explore online client intake and service models of Canadian human service organizations to distil best practices to share across the sector.

This report finds that many new tech tools for migrants have failed to live up to their promise, in part because of extensive duplication in the sector, limited understanding of refugees’ needs, and funding and organizational limitations.

The Public Policy Forum, in partnership with Pathways to Prosperity, conducted research to determine how newcomer attraction and retention could be enhanced to contribute to the success of smaller centres and less densely populated regions across Canada.

This chapter documents changes from 2006 to 2016 in the number of physicians, registered nurses (RNs) and practical nurses (PNs) in Canada. It identifies those working in each occupation as well as those reporting relevant educational credentials but not working in the occupation.

Migration studies have developed rapidly as a research field over the past decades. This article provides an empirical analysis not only on the development in volume and the internationalization of the field, but also on the development in terms of topical focus within migration studies over the past three decades.

We investigate how economic immigrants in Canada negotiate their identity in the process of “becoming Canadian” through an analysis of public texts. Drawing on the master narrative framework, we examine the interplay between individual and societal narratives as immigrants grapple with the tension between notions of “desirable” immigrants as those that are well integrated professionally and the reality of facing career related barriers.

This report examines the varied forms start-up visas take and their role within national (and occasionally regional) immigration systems. Though many of these visa programs are only a few years old, the report offers early insights into whether they are meeting their aim of attracting immigrant entrepreneurs, as well as some lessons learned for policymakers—among them, the value of involving industry experts in evaluating visa applicants’ business ideas, of embedding start-up visas within broader innovation strategies, and of supporting risk-taking.

Hiring temporary foreign workers has become a widespread practice to compensate for the lack of available labour in the agriculture sector. Statistics Canada studied the presence of these workers in the population, employed for agricultural operations in Canada, by cross-referencing and comparing data from the Temporary Foreign Worker Program with 2016 Census of Agriculture data.

The IOM Glossary on Migration is the result of a lengthy process of consultation within the Organization and with external academic and partner organizations and institutions. It is meant to reflect the way IOM understands a wide range of terms relevant to migration and to clarify how migration-related terms are legally defined or commonly used.

While a growing body of literature in HCI [human-computer interaction] is focusing on the initial needs of the refugees soon after their migration, most challenges associated with the long-term process of their integration with the host communities using technology have still remained understudied. This work builds on a 3 year-long fieldwork with the refugees in Canada, extended observations, and interviews with 26 participants (19 refugees, 4 refugee sponsors, and 3 refugee workers) to illustrate how refugees encounter various challenges in accessing necessary services in Canada through its computerized infrastructures.

The Syrian Outcomes Report provides a thematic overview of the outcomes of the Syrians who were resettled in Canada between November 2015 and December 2016. This report provides a comprehensive overview of Syrian integration outcomes to date for this group of newcomers.

Between January and May 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration studied the current state of settlement services to determine how they could be improved. This report highlights actions the federal government can take to improve settlement services in the different communities across the country, including in rural areas, as well as some initiatives on the international scene.

This paper provides a summary of the EMPP, the partners, and government branches involved in its implementation, and the lessons that have been observed thus far. It explores the policy dimensions and implications of merging two distinct, and traditionally separate worlds, and the innovative partnerships integral to the successful implementation of complementary labour pathways in the long term.

This report provides a profile of immigration in Waterloo Region by presenting data on both recent and established immigrants as well as temporary residents. The purpose of the report is to increase the understanding of immigrant populations in Waterloo Region to ensure that as a region and community, appropriate services and strategies are planned to include the broader needs of this population.

Migrants and refugees have important health needs and face inequalities in their health status. Health care delivery to this patient group has become a challenging public health focus in high income countries. This paper summarizes current knowledge on health care delivery to migrants and refugees in high-income countries from multiple perspectives.

The report, published by FCJ Refugee Centre with support from Maytree, examines challenges faced by refugee claimants and precarious migrants in accessing shelter in Toronto in three distinct early phases of the settlement process.

This report explores the implication of the changing world of work for immigrant selection systems, highlighting key challenges such as figuring out how to anticipate future labor-market needs, balance employer demand with human-capital considerations, and build an element of regional variation into selection processes.

This narrative study, sponsored by the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, captures key milestones, representative stories and observations about a unique time in our history as a multicultural community, both to salute those involved and to glean insights that may inform our collective future.

Immigration, Discrimination, and Trust: A Simply Complex Relationship

The purpose of this report is to summarize the findings from ARI’s Environmental Scan, conducted between July 2018 and February 2019. The results of the scan will form our baseline understanding of the current settlement-sponsor relationship.

While there is considerable literature on the settlement experiences of refugees, relatively little is known about the experiences of Syrian families, especially in rural Ontario. This brief engages with existing literature to consider the recent arrivals of thousands of Syrian refugees and particularly the roles and needs of Syrian women who have settled in rural Ontario.

The objective of the report is to define the nature of front-line settlement work, the context in which it is carried out, and to review what research and work has been undertaken toward strengthening the capacity of front-line settlement practitioners.

This article discusses social media use by asylum migrants prior to and during migration. This study is based on in-depth  interviews with 54 Syrian asylum migrants who recently obtained refugee status in the Netherlands.

This Environmental Scan research & report represents one component of a multi-year and multi-phased project: to foster development of an active online community of practice for settlement sector practitioners across Canada.

This thesis investigates how refugees in Rome, Italy, use smartphones to improve their well-being and whether, according to the Capability Approach, smartphones can expand refugees’ capabilities, choices and freedoms.

Based on the capability approach, study findings reveal dependencies between properties of ICTs and their use, ICT-enabled capabilities relevant for refugees, and the corresponding contribution of ICTs to the processes of social inclusion.

This research project conducted for IRCC was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the digital capacity and needs of service provider organizations that serve newcomers in Canada and inform support recommendations for the sector.

This analysis examines the role of agency policy and supervision in the decision-making of child welfare workers about their work-related social media use.

With a challenge of integrating refugees into hosting societies comes the question about the role that ICTs could play in the ongoing integration efforts. Indeed, unprecedented reliance of refugees on technology, especially smartphones, is an important distinction of the current refugees’ crisis.

This article reviews current social media policies and conceptualizes their key elements. A review of current social media policies is reported, pointing to the need for further policy development. Six domains of a social media policy are identified.

This paper reportson a pan-Canadian study to examine innovative and promising practices by settlement service provider organizations.

In order to assess the occupational integration of immigrants, this report asks whether immigrants and the Canadian-born have equal access to jobs that incorporate high levels of occupational skill.

With cyber technology having permeated the ways in which individuals seek support for a wide range of issues, the purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examined practitioners’ experiences and views of whether and how online communication has entered their face-to-face practice and of the implication for the therapeutic work.

What are the labour market outcomes – in this case defined as average hourly wages – for currently employed immigrants, based on the source of information used to find their job?

This research report studies the feasibility of an e-matching/e-mentoring component for the Host Program Network of Ontario, and particularly its applicability as a pre-departure strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the social support networks of recent professional Chinese immigrant women with young children who have settled in London, Ontario.

The purpose of this study is to examine the information needs, sources, and barriers to accessing information experienced by those who immigrate to Canada. In particular, we examine how both information needs and strategies for finding information change during the settlement process.