August 12, 2021—Ottawa—Settlement services are crucial to a newcomer’s success in Canada. They help new Canadians get work, learn English or French, find a place to live and, more broadly, succeed in this country. With the pandemic exacerbating the already challenging process of beginning a new life in a new land, settlement services have never been more critical.
To help ensure that all newcomers have access to the support they need, the Honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, today announced an investment of $100 million over the next 3 years to improve the way newcomers access settlement services through the service delivery improvements (SDI) process.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) launched the SDI 2020 funding process in 2020 to 2021. As a result of this process, 78 projects have been selected. These projects will explore how to better integrate newcomers in their new communities and support the settlement sector as it recovers from the pandemic. For example:
- The University of Windsor’s Artificial Intelligence: A Rapid Response Leveraging Newcomers’ Pathway to Settlement will test whether artificial intelligence can be used to develop an effective settlement strategy for newcomers.
- The Accessible Community Counselling and Employment Services’ Connecting Canada: Employer Engagement Driving Settlement in Smaller Communities will test whether connecting newcomers with employers in smaller urban and rural communities before they arrive will lead to more newcomers choosing to settle there.
- S.U.C.C.E.S.S.’s An Anti-Oppression Framework to Combat Systemic Racism in Immigrant Services will explore service approaches designed with an anti-oppression framework.
Throughout the pandemic, many settlement services have moved online. SDI funding will help IRCC determine the kinds of services newcomers need, while taking into account the increased reliance on online service delivery.
