A new paper by the Northern Policy Institute (NPI) is focused not only on the importance of immigration to Northern Ontario, but also ways in which the city of Sudbury can live up to its name as a Welcoming Community for newcomers using anti-racist policies and procedures that add understanding and accountability.
The report was created by Larissa Yantha, a prior policy analyst at NPI who now acts as special projects coordinator for the Municipality of West Nipissing and the findings of the series will be used by Sudbury’s Local Immigration Partnership.
“Achieving a prosperous Northern Ontario relies heavily on the ability of its regions to effectively attract, settle, and retain immigrants, refugees, and the existing population,” states the paper. “Unfortunately, immigrants and diverse groups still face significant barriers to success and are ultimately falling behind their non-immigrant counterparts.”
Some findings of the paper state that in order for a community to be welcoming, there must be ongoing dialogue, anti-racism policies that are continuously developed and renewed, participation from Indigenous people and others who are marginalized, accountability in cases of racism and victim support, as well as larger institutions and systemic change.
The Local Immigration Partnership, part of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, focuses on the development of different initiatives to ensure that Greater Sudbury can attract the newcomers it desperately needs to prosper in the future. A report released by the Come North Project in February of last year stated that in order to maintain a “historical and healthy ratio of dependents to workers,” the North must retain its current population as well as attract 1,700 new residents a year minimum for 20 years just to keep pace. It will need 162,000 new residents over two decades to halt ongoing population decline. The Local Immigration Partnership released statistics that show that adding even 500 newcomers to the city would generate $41 million in new spending.
For this reason, the City of Greater Sudbury has been working to make Sudbury a more welcoming city to newcomers, and the purpose of Yantha’s Welcoming Communities Paper is to acknowledge the need for anti-racists policies, especially as many of the Francophone newcomers are people of colour.
The paper uses initiatives in other communities in Ontario as case studies for what Sudbury could do, and includes information about Hamilton, London and Toronto, as well as other Canadian cities like Vancouver and Saskatoon.
The Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion developed the #HamiltonForAll campaign, a public awareness campaign to help Hamilton reach its goal of becoming a “socially inclusive city,” said the paper. It was launched in 2017; in 2016, Hamilton had the second-highest number of police-reported hate crimes in Ontario, with over 115 being reported. In 2019, though still high, reports went down to 85.
Saskatoon opted for its ‘I am the Bridge’ campaign, which focuses on individuals and their role in preventing racism and discrimination. A platform was created to allow minorities to share their experiences with racism in the community and how they proposed the community could deal with it.
Vancouver focused on ‘dialogue circles.’ The circles had more than a 100 people in them, some youth, and discussed issues with racism in the community. Not only did the dialogues create better relationships between the participants, but allowed the city of Vancouver to see the gaps in their programming.
This hunt for gaps will also be on the City of Greater Sudbury’s list, said the Greater Sudbury Economic Development’s Immigration Development Officer, Enrique Paraco. Paraco himself was a newcomer to Sudbury, arriving in the city from Venezuela when he was 16. Paraco said the immigration partnership will be working towards several projects over the next few months, including a campaign, asset mapping, and working with Indigenous communities to ensure that the racism they face does not continue either. It is a plan not just for newcomers, but to make Sudbury a more welcoming place for everyone.
The “asset map” will come first, said Paraco. By evaluating the existing services for newcomers to Sudbury it will allow local immigration partnership to the gaps that exist in the community.
“That will allow us to plan ahead and be able to identify, tackle and reduce the gaps that might be in the community,” said Paraco.
He offered Sudbury.com what he called a “teaser” of an upcoming campaign, which Paraco said will be coming out in the next few weeks, highlighting the importance of immigration in the community by profiling newcomers that have made Sudbury as their home and that are “significantly contributing to the social structure, but also to the development and sustainability of our local economy.”
Paraco said the city is also working on the development of a tool kit.
“It’s to educate locals on how to support other neighbours, friends, family, and locals on how to tackle a situation where they or somebody is experiencing racism and discrimination,” he said. “How we could educate allies in the community to report cases of racism and discrimination,” which would help with reporting and ensuring there is accountability, he added.
He also said it is important to the community that the experiences of Indigenous people in Canada are honoured. “Indigenous communities have a lot of knowledge and experience that will support the development of strategies,” said Paraco. “The Indigenous communities have suffered from racism and discrimination for hundreds and hundreds of years, and they are a fundamental part in the work that the local immigration partnership is doing in developing strategies for welcoming communities to newcomers.”
He said the partnership has begun planning meaningful ways to engage with Indigenous communities.
“In this process, we want to ensure that these dialogues and these relationships with indigenous communities are meaningful and long lasting.”
They are also working with newcomers to help them understand behaviors they do not need to experience, and how to report when necessary.
“A lot of newcomers, don't have they don't have knowledge on how these things should be approached, or may be a little scared of immigration status, or things like that,” said Paraco. “We are working to ensure that newcomers are educated and can get knowledge on how to tackle these issues so that they don't become unreported. I would say in Canada, United States, hate crimes seem to be underreported. So accountability is very important. And that's why I think this toolkit would help the situation.”
Paraco told Sudbury.com that because immigration is so important to Sudbury, it needs to be a part of an ongoing conversation about anti-racism, and that they will be continuing to redevelop and reassess programs as they continue.
“Immigration is very important for our community,” he said. “And I am really proud to work on a project that embraces the importance of anti-racism in our community.”
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com. She covers the diverse communities of Sudbury, especially the vulnerable or marginalized, including the Black, Indigenous, newcomer and Francophone communities, as well as 2SLGBTQ+ and issues of the downtown core.
