International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Maytree Foundation, and the McConnell Foundation. The National Mentoring
Initiative provides three services in the same manner as Mentoring Partnership:
coaching, online self-development resources, and assistance in networking. Career
Bridge and Mentoring Partnership are examples of the services that have been
developed to improve the ability of immigrants to access labour market information
in Canada. These two programmes began in Toronto, but now, many provinces
administer similar services in partnership with, or by funding the activities of, SPOs
(Carter et al., 2010). Because of the local nature of settlement services, directories
and listings are maintained by provincial governments 152 as well as by Service
Canada. As in the case of EI-linked training programmes, each province has a
different model and approach to providing settlement services to newcomers.
Box 11.1: The Toronto region immigrant employment council (triec) in focus
trIec emerged out of the toronto city summit held in 2002, a conference designed to bring
together various stakeholders in the city to develop solutions to the city’s challenges. the city
summit led to the development of a working group, the toronto summit city Alliance (tcsA),
and an action plan, which recommended the creation of the toronto region Immigrant
employment council, or trIec, in April 2003. trIec was officially launched in september
2003 with support from the maytree foundation, an spo that had previously argued that
immigrant employment is an important part of poverty reduction in canada (Wayland, 2007).
trIec began by focusing on three goals: increasing access to services that support integrating
skilled immigrants into the labour market; building the capacity of stakeholders such as
employers to recognize and value immigrants’ skills; and working with governments
on immigration programming and planning. because of its perceived flexibility many
stakeholders believed trIec was better equipped than local and federal governments to
address the issues facing toronto. At the time, toronto was home to more than 40 per
cent of canada’s immigrants. the labour market integration of skilled immigrants was a
burgeoning policy issue for the federal government, which provided trIec start-up funding
from citizenship and Immigration canada and canadian heritage.
In 2007, trIec was incorporated as an organization separate from the maytree foundation,
having functioned up until that point as a project of the foundation, with the same director.
trIec’s funding sources have included the maytree foundation, cIc, the fcro, the ontario
ministry of citizenship and Immigration, and a series of foundations, charities, and private
sector companies (Wayland, 2007).
the services offered by trIec gradually evolved over time. career bridge and mentoring
partnership, discussed below in this section, are two very important trIec initiatives that
have proved useful in facilitating the labour market integration of skilled immigrants.
trIec is also responsible for hireImmigrants.ca, a web portal that has proved successful
at connecting employers and immigrants, and providing both groups with LmI. trIec is
not unique in canada as an spo with a primary municipal focus. since 2002, many cities
across canada have seen similar developments, including the Waterloo region Immigrant
employment network (WrIen), which developed in parallel beginning in 2002 and serves
much of the same functions. trIec is an excellent example of how local, multi-stakeholder
engagement across public and private sectors has improved access to local labour markets
and labour market information for immigrants.
152 For example, Ontario’s Ministry of Citizenship created Ontario Immigration, an online information
portal, maintains a directory of dozens of organizations that provide some of the services discussed in
this section to immigrants. Most other provinces maintain similar directories and fund organizations
that provide similar services.
country studIes – CANADA
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