News Flashes From Metropolis
May 20, 1998 (Vol. 1 No. 3)
In this edition:
Federal Coordination
Metropolis ADMs Meeting
Meeting of Federal Research Programs
Metropolis Goes on the Road - Part 2
News from Montréal
Engaging the Private Sector
Domain Seminars
Web News
Conference Information
News Flashes will focus on providing
timely information (bimonthly) concentrating on results, upcoming
events, and updates on the various experiments underway at any
given time. It is your communications device, please make
use of it. To get information placed in News Flashes, or
to comment on its content or structure, please contact John Biles
at (819) 997-5791 or email to john_biles@pch.gc.ca.
Federal Coordination
One of the lessons highlighted by the Management
Review was the need for the federal funding partners to become
more active in the Metropolis Project. The Departments have taken
this lesson seriously; In the past month the ADMs or equivalent
senior managers of the funding departments met to discuss this
issue, a government wide meeting of representatives of research
programs was organized by the Multiculturalism Program, and the
federal Metropolis Project team visited Manitoba, Saskatchewan
and Alberta to encourage regional representatives of the federal
departments to become more involved in Metropolis.
Upcoming events include the June 15-17 Ottawa
visit of the centre directors and the consensus document on next
steps. The Centre directors' meeting will include meetings with
the ADMs and the IDC members. Watch for more on these activities
in the next News Flash.
Metropolis ADMs Meeting
On May 4, Mr. Greg Fyffe, Assistant Deputy
Minister Policy and Program Development at CIC hosted a meeting
of his counterparts from departments that have funded the
Metropolis Project. The major objective of the Project was to
take stock of progress to date and to discuss next steps. Mr.
Marc Renaud, President of the SSHRC, spoke to the group,
characterizing Metropolis as an extraordinary experiment which
the Council fully supports. The participants recognized the need
for their organizations to get more involved in the Project. To
this end it was agreed that the group would meet with the Centre
Directors when they visit Ottawa from June 15 to 17, to discuss
means of enhancing the links between the funding departments and
the Centres of Excellence.
Research Programs Meeting
The Multiculturalism Program organized a meeting
of representatives from many research granting programs in the
federal government with an interest in cultural diversity on
April 7. This was an opportunity for federal programs to exchange
information on their programs and ongoing research initiatives.
The ensuing networking should ensure that the lines of
communication between programs remain open, thus promoting
collaborative projects. (For further information contact John
Biles at (819) 997-5791 or john_biles@pch.gc.ca
Metropolis Goes on the Road - Part 2
During the week of April 27, Jean-Pierre Moisan,
National Project Director, visited three Prairie cities. In
Winnipeg, Mr. Moisan attended a Forum on Emerging Issues for
Leaders in the Public Sector where he participated in a panel
dealing with Partnerships, using the Metropolis Project as a
model. Participants included the Director of the Prairie Region
for CIC, Mr. Rob Vineberg, as the moderator, the director of the
Prairie Centre, Dr Baha Abu-Laban, and Mr. Tom Denton of the
Citizenship Council of Manitoba. The event, hosted by the Public
Service Commission, was attended by some 150 people from a
variety of public sector organizations.
In Regina and Edmonton, Mr.Moisan spoke to the
Saskatchewan and Alberta Federal Councils. The objective of these
meetings was to provide general information about the Project and
to improve links between regional offices of federal departments
and the Metropolis research centres. Prairie Centre researchers
participated in both meetings to provide information about the
organization of the Centre and the research now underway. Dr.
Abu-Laban, Dr. Tracey Derwing and Dr. Linda Ogilvie participated
in the Edmonton meeting while Mr. Paul Gingrich represented the
Centre in Regina. At both meetings, the Council members showed
interest in the Project and it is hoped that this will lead to
greater use of Centre resources by federal departments.
News from Montréal
The Montréal Centre has produced two important
documents in the last months: the March 1998 bulletin and an
abridged version of the proceedings of the Second National
Metropolis Conference which was produced with the assistance of
the Metropolis Project Team.
For copies of the bulletin please contact the
Montréal Centre at metropolis@ere.umontreal.ca
.
For copies of the conference proceedings please
contact the Project Team at (613) 957-5983.
In addition to the ongoing "domain"
projects, the Montréal Centre has launched three strategic
projects entitled:
"Integration of Young Immigrants
into Montréal Society. Recent and Future Trends"
"Young Immigrants and the
Transformation and Transmission of Culture and Identity:
the Role of the Family"
"Evaluation of Immigrant Family
Knowledge in the Area of Family Education"
At a meeting with twenty-six community
representatives (held December 3, 1997), the communities
emphasized four areas upon which they would like Metropolis
Research to focus:
French language education services
offered by NGOs
Employment obstacles and the means to
overcome them
The changing role of NGOs
Integration of Refugees
Engaging the Private Sector
The Centre hosted a seminar for business sector
partners on March 27, 1998 entitled "Immigration and
ethnocultural diversity: challenges for the business sector, the
state of knowledge." It was designed to discover the needs
of the corporations vis-à-vis diversity research and to suggest
to the corporations how Metropolis could be of help to them.
Domain Seminars
Domain seminars have proven to be an effective
means to bring researchers, policy makers and communities
together to consider an issue from all sides. To date there have
been seminars on justice, education, gender, housing and
neighbourhoods, health, immigrant selection, and civic
participation. Final reports are available for the justice,
education, and gender seminars. Additionally, reports on the
civic participation and health seminars are anticipated in the
near future.
Future seminars include a seminar on social
justice which the Multiculturalism Program of the Department of
Canadian Heritage intends to host in conjunction with the Third
National Metropolis Conference to be held in Vancouver January
1999. For more information, or if you are interested in
participating, please contact John Biles at (819) 997-5791 or
email to john_biles@pch.gc.ca
.
To be effective, domain seminars need to be
dynamic and not limited to isolated events. Examples of ongoing
activities which flowed from domain seminars include working
groups on education and political participation.
Dr. Yvonne Hébert recently organized a three day
think tank on Citizenship Education in Kananaskis. This think
tank grew out of both the education and civic participation
seminars and included many of the same participants. This working
group produced a draft framework for research on citizenship
education and will meet in Ottawa June 1, 1998 to discuss the
draft document and to produce plans for getting the projects
underway. With financial support from the Multiculturalism
Program and the technical assistance of the Metropolis
Secretariat, there will soon be an on-line forum for this group
and other interested parties to continue to develop collaborative
projects. For more information please contact Yvonne Hébert at
(403) 220-7361.
Another active working group which has grown out
of the civic participation domain seminar is the working group on
political participation organized by Prof. Myer Siemiatycki at
Ryerson Polytechnic University. This group will meet in Ottawa
May 29-31 to develop a methodology for a comparative study of
participation of Canadians of diverse backgrounds in six Canadian
cities. This group is also organizing a session at the Third
International Metropolis Conference to be held in Israel November
30-December 3, 1998. For more information please contact Myer
Siemiatycki at (416) 979-5000, ext. 6293.
Web News
The Metropolis web network continues to grow. At
present it consists of six sites (one for each centre, a national
site and an international site) and many pages attached to the
web sites of the Metropolis partners. The International site is
the most recent addition to the network and can be found at http://www.international.metropolis.net
. We expect to have American and Scandinavian sites in the near
future, with possible future sites for Israel and Italy.
The Canadian partners have begun to collect
research and policy materials which will soon be available in the
virtual library.
The network was recently shown off at the GovNet
98 Conference held in Hull April 20-21.
The Centre for Immigration Studies in
Washington D.C.
The Centre for Immigration Studies in Washington
operates a free Internet mailing list on immigration policy for
academics, policymakers, journalists, activists and others. The
list, CISNEWS, is a moderated list of announcements, news items,
reviews, queries, etc. (Not just from CIS, but from anyone who
wishes to submit something for consideration.) There is no
discussion or debate. There are approximately 15 postings per
week. To join, send an e-mail message to centre@cis.org simply
asking to subscribe to CISNEWS.
Conferences
Third National Metropolis Conference
The Third National Metropolis Conference will be
held in Vancouver January 14-16, 1999.
The federal Metropolis partners will build on the
successful Montreal domain model to promote networking between
policy makers and academics as well as comparative cross-Centre
research. Individual departments will participate in planning
domain workshops, in commissioning presentations and in hosting
attendance by academics and policy makers. Canadian Heritage was
first off the mark, in this regard, and is sponsoring a day-long
seminar on social justice on January 13, 1999.
The Vancouver conference will also feature a
strong contingent of American researchers reporting on work that
is taking place under the U.S. Metropolis banner.
More information will be made available in the
next News Flashes. In the interim for more information
contact David Ley at (604) 822-3268 or email to davidley@unixg.ubc.ca .
Third International Metropolis Conference
The Third International Metropolis Conference
will be held in Israel November 30-December 3, 1998.
The preliminary list of workshops includes:
"Diversity as Chance: ethnic
entrepreneurship in European cities"
Emporium (The Netherlands)
"Research-Policy Links: how to bridge
the gap at the national and local level"
UNESCO/MOST and the European arm of the Metropolis
International Secretariat
"Foreign Credentials Recognition"
Department of Human Resources Development (Canada)
"Immigrants in the Mediterranean Cities:
insertion in an informal economy and society"
The Italian Metropolis Group
"National Integration Strategies in
Europe: The EFFNATS Project"
EFFNATIS Consortium (Germany)
"L'Éducation et les villes
divisées"
Immigration et Métropoles (Canada)
"Citoyenneté et éducation a la
citoyenneté dans un contexte pluraliste"
Immigration et Métropoles (Canada)
"Comparative Research on the Meaning of
Immigrant Concentration"
Immigration et Métropoles (Canada)
"International Study of Attitudes
Towards Immigration and Settlement"
John Berry, Rudi Kalin, Richard Bouris (Canada)
"Role of NGOs in the integration process
for new immigrants and in research"
Immigration et Métropoles (Canada)
"Barriers to Employment for
Immigrants"
Government of Quebec (Canada)
"Temporary Workers Immigration: Old Wine
in New Bottles?"
RIIM and Department of Human Resources Development (Canada)
"International migration, urban
developmemnt and population policy in the traditional lands
of immigration in the Pacific Basin"
University of Waikato (New Zealand)
"Political ParticipationAcross Immigrant
and Ethnoracial Communities: Comparing World Cities"
Ryerson Polytechnic University (Canada)
"Strategies for developing suburban
areas dominated by immigrants in Metropolitan regions"
Götenberg City/University of Götenberg (Sweden)
"Health Implications of Immigration for
Cities"
Health Canada /International Organization for Migration
"Citizenship Policy: Strategies for
Integration"
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (U.S.A.)
"Immigrant Socioeconomic Mobility within
the Housing Context"
Fannie Mae Foundation (U.S.A.)
"Immigration and American Cities"
Roger Waldinger (U.S.A.)
More information will be made available in the
next News Flashes. In the interim, for more information
contact Howard Duncan at (613) 957-5916 or email to howard.duncan@9522apx.x400.cic.gc.ca
.
Related Conferences
Mass Migration Institute/Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Jerusalem, Israel May 25-27 1998)
Conference Theme: Professional Training Methods For Specialists
in Individual Absorption of People to New Social-Cultural and
Social Economic Conditions
Prof. Pogrebensky Viatcheslav
[tel] 972-9-8623795
[fax] 972-9-8625988
[e-mail] mmi@aquanet.co.il
Divided Cities and the Strategies for Undivided Cities
(Gothenburg, Sweden May 25-26, 1998)
Kristine Dosen
[tel] 46 31 61 20 6
[fax] 46 31 774 02 63
[e-mail] kristine.dosen@stadshuset.goteborg.se
The Rights to the City: Citizenship, Democracy
and Cities in a Global Age
(Toronto June 26-28, 1998)
Prof. Engin Isin
[tel] (416) 736-2100 (x20346)
[e-mail] isin@yorku.ca
7th Biennial Conference of the Israel Association
of Canadian Studies
(Jerusalem, Israel June 29-July 2, 1998)
Theme: Higher Education in Canada and Israel: Comparative
Perspectives
Prof. Arie Shachar
[fax] 972-2-582-6267
[e-mail] msariesh@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il
Diversity in Australia, Canada and New Zealand:
Challenges and Opportunities
(Sydney, Australia July 9-11, 1998)
Dr. Wendy Waring
[tel] 61 (0) 2 9850 7684
[fax] 61 (0) 2 9850 7686
[e-mail] wendy.waring@mq.edu.au
Third Turkish-German Psychiatry Conference:
Psychosocial Care in a Migration Society
(Berlin, Germany September 15-19, 1998)
Dr. E. Koch
[fax] 00-49-6421-404-431
Crossing Boundaries: German and American
Experiences with the Exclusion of and Inclusion of Minorities
(Buffalo, New York September 17-19, 1998)
Patricia Maz
[tel] (716) 645-2181
[fax] (716) 645-5954
Canada and Central Europe at the Threshold of the
21st Century
(Budapest, Hungary May 13-16, 1999)
Sub-themes: Canada's First Nations, Founding Nations, Immigrant
Heritages, Culture in Retrospect, the Future Ahead
Blaguss Volanbusz Bureau
[tel] (361) 117-7777
[fax] (361) 266-1585
[e-mail] torekya.blaguss@volanbusz.hu
6th Triennial Conference of the Nordic
Association for Canadian Studies
(Reykjavik, Iceland August 5-8, 1999)
Theme: Comparative Research on Challenges Faced by Canada and the
Nordic Countries
[e-mail] engua@hum.aau.dk
Human Rights in Europe Since 1945
(Oslo, Norway Aug 6-13, 2000)
Carole ink
[fax] (614) 292-2282
Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities
Metropolis researchers will be participating in
many societies at the Congress including:
International Council for Canadian Studies ( May 28-29),
Canadian Society for Studies in Education (May 29-31),
Canadian Sociology-Anthropology Association (May 31-June 3),
Canadian Political Science Association (May 31-June 2), and
Canadian Association of Geographers (June 2-6).
