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
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
My nomination is an indication that our hard work in building Canada is recognized. All we do is to serve the community in return for embracing us when we needed it.  

Mehdi Mahdavi
Ottawa Immigrant Entrepreneurship Awards Nominee
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
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
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
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
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
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

Keynote Speech with Catrina Tapley, Deputy Minister at IRCC

December 30, 2021

To response to the challenges of the pandemic, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been agile and innovative in updating internal systems, introducing one-time immigration pathway, and advancing their commitment to anti-racism work. In this keynote session, Catrina Tapley spoke about IRCC’s efforts to support the post-pandemic recovery, facilitate settlement and integration amid the pandemic, the Municipal Nominee Program, Afghan refugee resettlement, among other pertinent issues. In this session, Catrina explored how the election results might impact federal immigration policies and Ottawa’s efforts to welcome newcomers.

Speaker: Catrina Tapley, Deputy Minister at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

Moderator: Deborah Tunis, Acting Chair of the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership

 Selected Highlights

  • Catrina highlighted the important role of community organizations. Throughout the pandemic, organizations, such as OLIP, have continued to demonstrate resilience and ingenuity as they adapted to changing public health landscape. To support these efforts, there will be additional funding focused on service delivery improvement projects, a total of 110 million in funding will be available over the next three years (2021 to 2024). Many of these projects have been approved and will be launched in the coming weeks.
  • The deputy minister also outlined IRCC’s commitments to anti-racism to ensure our department is working to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society including an Anti-Racism Taskforce and value statement, an anti-racism advisory board, an employee survey to understand the impacts of racism on the workforce, in terms of psychological safety, organizational culture and productivity, a multi-tier effort to normalize discussions about racism and promote anti-racism work across the department, and a pilot racial impact assessment tool for policies to examine how different racial and ethnic groups could be affected by proposed IRCC actions and decisions.
  • An additional important update was the revised wording of the oath of citizenship in response to the Truth and Reconciliation commission 94 calls to action to recognize Indigenous People’s rights. Despite these actions, the deputy minister recognized that for many these actions are not happening fast enough and are long overdue.
  • To support the central role of newcomers in addressing labour shortage during the pandemic, the deputy minister mentioned IRCC has modernized their digital platform to serve an increasing number of clients more efficiently, and to leverage data and analytics to better inform the design of our policies and programs.
  • Furthermore, Canada has launched a one-time pathway to permanent residents for tens of thoughts of essential workers and international students. In conclusion, the deputy minister emphasized the value of OLIP and other community partners across country who are integral to building a stronger and more inclusive country.