The Project Team operates at the nerve centre of
the Metropolis Project. From this vantage point it is clear that the
Project owes its success, in large measure, to the unflinching commitment
by its members to learning and to continual improvement. Meyer
Burstein and Howard Duncan will assess the last five years, highlight key
lessons and set out directions for the future. The Ottawa conference plays
a crucial role in the Project’s renewal.
The four Metropolis Centres of Excellence have
established themselves, in the brief span of five years, as the premiere
think tanks in Canada on issues pertaining to immigration, citizenship and
the study of diversity. In this session, the leaders of the four
Centres will report on their outstanding academic and organizational
accomplishments and on their vision for the future of their Centres and
how they will contribute to the development of policy and practice across Canada.
Chair:
Susan Scotti, Assistant Deputy Minister, Human Resources Development
Canada
Speaker: David
Miller, Councillor, City
of Toronto, and Chair of the Working Group on Immigration and
Refugee Issues
The City of Toronto enjoys an unparalleled
reputation as an outstanding example of how a dynamic, multicultural city
can be forged by immigrants from diverse backgrounds. As Chair of
the city’s Working Group on Immigration and Refugee Issues, David Miller
has had ample opportunity to appreciate the benefits that accrue to
Toronto as a result of its rapidly growing diversity. He has also been in
a position to reflect on the challenges that this poses. In his
presentation, Mr. Miller will share his perceptions of how Toronto is
managing the changes wrought by migration and diversity and what the
future holds.
Through its impact on migration and growing diversity, public policy
has played a vital and positive role in reshaping Canada’s social, economic
and cultural landscape. Policymakers and practitioners cannot,
however, rest on their laurels. The process of social change is ongoing
and past lessons are not always apt for the future. New economic and
technological forces, vastly greater mobility and new domestic and international
challenges await. In this session, the moderator will ask the panel
to examine the challenges these emerging developments pose to Canada’s
prosperity and harmony and to their implications for federal policy,
specifically, and governance, generally, in respect of migration and
the management of diversity.
A variety of constitutional, legislative and
administrative arrangements govern the authorities and responsibilities of
the provinces and of the federal government across the broad terrain of
immigration, integration and the management of diversity. Whatever
arrangements currently prevail, or are anticipated, all provinces are
facing enormous challenges in responding effectively and equitably to the
changes occurring in their social, religious and ethnic make-up. The
moderator will explore these changes with the panelists, seeking out
emerging issues, probing common concerns and delineating differences.
Le Corbusier wrote of New York that “a
considerable part of New York is nothing more than a provisional city, a
city which will be replaced by another city.” Although speaking of its
architecture, he may well have spoken of its people, such has been the
influence of immigration in its history. Immigration has transformed New
York in dramatic ways, forcing its expansion and maintaining its essential
cosmopolitan character. New York is once again in a period of
regeneration. Joseph Salvo’s work on New York’s demography provides
powerful insights into the role that immigration plays and has played in
the building of this great city and in its current wave of prosperity.
Canada takes a keen interest in the increased harmonization amongst
European Union member
states on numerous fronts. A current debate in the EU concerns the
harmonization of policies with regard to asylum, immigration, and
the rights accorded to workers and minorities. Canada does not exist
in a state of isolation and we, too, will need to assess the benefits
of harmonizing various aspects of migration policy with those of other
countries. The European experience will be of considerable value in
this assessment. Mr. Hatwell will speak to the challenges and the
benefits of international policy harmonization.
Speakers:
A panel of Canadian and American academic researchers will speak to
major research initiatives that hold a potential for collaboration
with the Canadian Metropolis Centres of Excellence.
Speakers:
Fairborz Birjandian, Calagary Catholic Immigration Society, Alberta
Stephan Reichhold, Directeur, Table de Concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, Québec
Lillian To, Executive Director, United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society, British Columbia
Francisco-Rico Martinez, President, Canadian
Council for Refugees
Christine Nassrallah, Association Multiculturelle de Fredericton, New Brunswick
There is increased interest worldwide in the role that organizations
of civil society can and ought to play in social development and in
governance at all levels. This panel will feature representatives of
Canadian non-governmental organizations who will speak to their experiences
and suggest best practices for how government and non-governmental organizations
can work together to manage immigration and the resulting diversity
within Canada to achieve the best results possible for both the newcomers
and for the rest of Canadian society.
The Metropolis Project looks to the academic community not only for
solid objective research but also for the insights that come from an
independent point of view and a serious quest for new phenomena and
new, more powerful explanatory frameworks. Often, it is those
who are in their graduate careers who identify these phenomena and develop
the novel explanations that become tomorrow’s research paradigms. In
this session, we will highlight the work of some of the graduate students,
affiliated with the Centres of Excellence, who are at the cutting edge
of their field of inquiry.
