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
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
The work and expertise that OLIP brings to our community is so important as it helps us to build bridges and break down silos.  I look forward to our continued work together. 

Jim Watson, Mayor 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 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
We are very pleased to have done the “Opportunity Cost of Not Investing in Interpretation” report – it is so important to have clarity on these challenges and…

Hindia Mohamoud, Director, OLIP
The Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre is so happy to have joined the OLIP Health and Wellbeing Sector Table. It is clear that OLIP cares about immigrants and refugees and…

Wendy Tang, Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre
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
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
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

Keynote Speech by Gerry Clement

July 18, 2013

The forum keynote speech was delivered by Gerry Clement, former Assistant Deputy Minister of Manitoba Labour and Immigration; and one of the principal architects of Manitoba’s highly successful strategy for attracting and retaining newcomers.

The speech, named after the Forum theme: “The Building Blocks of a Welcoming Community: The Manitoba Blueprint- Shared experiences” focused attention on the relationship between the quality of the welcome that a community extends to newcomers, and its projected future as an exciting, innovative, cosmopolitan, and prosperous place.

Drawing from the Manitoba experience, which has successfully quadrupled its immigration levels between 2000 to 2011, Clement highlighted the importance of inter-jurisdictional collaboration and integrated community efforts to welcome and help newcomers integrate in their new country. The Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs) have evolved from this rationale and have a crucial role in catalyzing horizontal and vertical partnerships, through bottom–up planning and leadership development.

The Forum audience was highly engaged with the presentation made by the Keynote Speaker, and posed good questions aimed to find out more on replicable best practices of Manitoba to enhance immigrant attraction and integration work in Ottawa.

View here Gerry Clement’s presentation at the 2nd Annual Ottawa Immigration Forum.

The full coverage of Clement’s speech and Question & Answers with the audience are provided in the following videos.