OLIP Partners Shared Vision and Priorities

The following are the Ottawa Immigration Strategy Priorities, refreshed by OLIP partners and endorsed by the OLIP Council at its June 9, 2016 Meeting.

Partners’ Shared Vision:

To work together across jurisdictions to build a vibrant, prosperous, and inclusive national capital, strengthened by the contributions of immigrants.

A prosperous city attained through greater participation of immigrants in Ottawa’s economy and labour market.
A vibrant city achieved through diverse and cohesive cultural, intellectual, and civic perspectives.
An inclusive national capital that upholds our tradition of public service and the Canadian values of multiculturalism and bilingualism.

Priorities:

Health & Wellbeing

To improve newcomers’ access to health care, including preventive services, primary health care, and dental services.
To improve newcomers’ access to mental health care, through: a) greater access preventive services and mental health promotion; b) training of counselors, and c) establishment of culturally relevant trauma counseling.
To enhance health literacy among immigrants and refugees, and to build capacity to support this goal.
To enhance intercultural competencies, diversity, and other related capacities among health care providers, as well as promoting the hiring and retention of racialized medical professionals and lay health workers.
To elevate the importance that health organizations attach to the provision of immigrant and refugee health services and to improve service coordination by agencies.
To improve the quality and accessibility of local health care data bearing on the health and service outcomes of newcomers, and to stimulate related research.

Economic Integration

To extend and improve the strategic alignment among institutions and initiatives concerned with newcomer economic integration.
To help immigrants navigate towards employment opportunities in a changing labour environment.
To reduce barriers that impede small and medium-sized enterprises from hiring immigrants.
To promote and support entrepreneurship among Ottawa newcomers.
To enhance Ottawa’s ability to recruit newcomers by projecting itself, and the national capital region, as a diverse, world-class capital that welcomes skilled immigrants and international students.
To clarify misconceptions and myths about immigrant capabilities and contributions in order to improve receptivity.

Education

To improve the cultural competencies of teachers and staff as well as the “fit” between schools, teachers, immigrant students and communities, particularly in neighbourhoods with high immigrant concentrations.
To work with schools to foster greater involvement by immigrant parents in school activities, in student academic participation, and in school governance.
To build trust among schools, immigrant students and minority communities, raising awareness of newcomer educational successes, and promoting a shared understanding of newcomer educational challenges and solution pathways.
To develop neighbourhood and school catchment area plans that complement and support school boards’ mandates.
To build evidence regarding the challenges that exist in neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants and to create multi-sectoral partnerships in support of students’ academic success.

Language

To further improve the planning, deployment and quality of federal and provincial language courses so they are complementary and better matched to the needs of Francophone and Anglophone immigrants.
To improve newcomer access to specialized language training that supports broader community and learner needs.
To improve, raise awareness of and extend access to interpretation services for a broad range of legal, justice, health and social related services.
To promote special language programming for populations at risk of exclusion and ensure language instructors are sensitive to the complex challenges faced by this category of learners.
To strengthen the capacity of Ottawa language training providers to advocate for improvements in language training, including additional training options, such as on-the-job language training.

Socio-Civic Integration

To create bridging opportunities and multiple pathways for new immigrants and established residents to connect socially, culturally, and intellectually.
To expand the capacity and appetite within mainstream organizations for equity and inclusion of immigrants.
To strengthen the ability of immigrants and racialized communities to participate in civil society and institutions (voting, strengthened and common voice on concerns).
To promote and strengthen partnerships between settlement service provider organizations (SPOs) and institutions in all sectors addressed by OLIP.
To expand the capacities of settlement counsellors to provide information, referral, and orientation to newcomers on multiple domains.

OLIP Partners Vision and Priorities (PDF)