The City of Ottawa will continue to play a lead role in the implementation of the Ottawa Immigration Strategy, just as we did in the founding of OLIP.

Steve Desroches
City Councillor and Deputy Mayor of Ottawa
Canada has been shaped by people who came from all over the world to build this country. WOW offers a platform for us to celebrate this history and the future it will help…

Alex Munter, Chair of the OLIP Council and President and CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre
All the WOW events that I went to were great – WOW does give a sense of a community trying to improve its attraction and retention!

Caroline Andrew
Professor, University of Ottawa
In our city’s history, immigrants have always played an important role. They build our economic prosperity, diversify our culture, contribute to our social vitality.

Jim Watson
Mayor of Ottawa
The WOW seminar on immigrant women’s nutrition and health was a step in the right direction towards closing the gap between academic researchers and service providers.

Josephine Etowa
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa
OLIP helps to unite and share scarce resources for greater impact by working together in the field of student education.

Walter Piovesan
Associate Director of Education, Ottawa Carleton District School Board
I’m really impressed with the level of energy and commitment around the Health and Wellbeing table and look forward to continuing collaboration between OLIP and OPH.

Marcela Tapia
Ottawa Public Health
The OLIP Council is committed to leadership.  In only a few years, we have a common vision and priorities, and are up to the task of implementing the Ottawa Immigration Strategy.

Salimatou Diallo
OLIP Council Vice Chair, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
I was happy to see integration to Algonquin territory and indigenous culture related programming in 2014 WOW. Please continue to involve local Aboriginal organisations and…

Linda Manning
WOW 2014 participant, Senior Fellow, University of Ottawa
The target beneficiary of the work of OLIP is the whole community. In this short period we have planted together important seeds for Ottawa’s development.  

Dick Stewart
OLIP Council

Dr. Valerie Preston, Department of Geography, York University and Principal Investigator, Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada

November 14, 2017

Valerie Preston is the Principal Investigator of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada partnership titled Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada. She is a professor in the Department of Geography at York University where she teaches urban social geography. Valerie has published extensively on issues related to migration and settlement in Canada.

She has been the director of two research centres, the Institute for Social Research and the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS). Valerie has also served as the Co-Chair of the CERIS Management Board, co-applicant for several research partnerships, and consultant, collaborator, and advisor with not-for-profit organizations and government. This experience has collectively provided her with the expertise to lead the Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada partnership in developing a robust body of evidence for policy development and program innovations that improve migrant resilience.

Collaborating with academics, researchers and community partners, Valerie leads the Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada partnership’s research programs and provides advice about knowledge mobilization. Through exchanging knowledge between academic institutions and government and non-governmental organizations, she looks at how to improve settlement outcomes, enhance well-being in the face of economic, political, social and cultural challenges and pilot strategies that facilitate the efforts of social institutions to promote resilience.