an alliance of university, community, and government partners dedicated to fostering welcoming communities and promoting the integration of immigrants and minorities across Canada
The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
Ottawa Citizen – Starting Over in a New Country Means New Ways to Stay Healthy
Recent immigrants often come from countries where preventive health care was not available, and once they resettle, traditional prevention messages pass them by. As a result, many health agencies have made reaching specific cultural communities a top priority. In Ontario, the Heart and Stroke Foundation has programs for four: South Asians, First Nations, African and Chinese. Firdaus Ali is the “community mission specialist” in charge of reaching South Asians, whose risk of cardiovascular disease is much higher than the average Caucasian Canadian. Ali organizes health fairs and sends Hindi or Urdu-speaking community ambassadors to Diwali or Eid festivals to talk about tweaking traditional dishes to be heart-healthy.
Globe and Mail – Western Canadian Employers Court the Irish
Faced with a massive skills shortage and a surge of job openings, Western Canadian employers are looking to an old source for new workers: hard-up Ireland. This week, two delegations of employers – one from Saskatchewan led by Premier Brad Wall, the other headed by British Columbia and Alberta construction industry representatives – are making a push to entice Irish citizens to leave their economically devastated country and come to Canada, as the ancestors of more than one in eight Canadians did generations earlier.
Ottawa Citizen – From the Margins to the Mainstream
[…] Canadian Guidelines on Immigrant Health, a cutting-edge resource covering a wide swath of clinical topics related to immigrant and refugee health. Released last year, the guidelines reflect an effort by some Canadian practitioners to push immigrant health from the margins to the mainstream. There’s recognition that if something is amiss in how our system cares for immigrants, it needs to be addressed at the most basic level. Whether it’s an obstetrician developing new ethnicity-specific growth curves, a nurse adjusting the way she takes someone’s medical history, or a family doctor learning who to test for what, front line doctors and nurses are stepping up to meet the needs of their increasingly diverse practices.
Globe and Mail – Bring on the Skilled Workers and Sharpen the Competitive Edge
Given the shortage of skilled workers, and the pending retirement of thousands more across the country, Canadian businesses and governments should view every person as potential contributor to the work force. With that in mind, improving immigrant integration services should be a high priority. Many immigrants gain entry to Canada on the basis of needed skills yet languish in low-skill jobs due in part to the lack of national standards for assessing qualifications.
Ottawa Citizen – Why Canada is Hazardous to Their Health
Since the 1990s a growing body of data has suggested that most newcomers arrive in Canada healthier than the native-born population, only to have that advantage erode over time. New immigrants tend to live longer than the Canadian-born population, but within a decade of resettlement, their mortality rates creep up, as do their rates of chronic disease.
Globe and Mail – Canada’s Pattern of Immigration Spreads East and West
Immigration into Canada is nothing new. There are now more than seven million first generation immigrants in the country and some four million of them have come to Canada in the past 20 years. What is rapidly changing is the distribution of new immigrants within Canada.
