Toronto / April 2026
The long- awaited Ontario Budget has been tabled. Our immigrant and refugee serving sector, underfunded for a number of years, will need to wait a couple of more weeks for the expenditure estimates before we know whether the programs that support newcomers’ settlement and integration- language training, employment supports, investing in women’s futures, preventing and addressing gender-based violence and intimate partner violence will be adequately funded.
Toronto / January 2026
Ontario’s immigrant and refugee serving sector does the important work of facilitating the settlement and integration of refugees and im/migrants. Across Ontario, the sector supports refugees and immigrants to find jobs, access workers’ rights, housing, education and training, health and mental health services, food security, safety for women and girls facing violence, access to justice, and much more. We are part of the larger non-profit sector that contributes over $50 billion to Ontario’s GDP and employs more than 850,000 people.
Refugee Rights Day is commemorated on April 4 every year in Canada to bring attention to the advances made in the protection of refugee rights in Canada as a result of the Supreme Court Singh decision in 1985.
Join us this year to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the 'Singh decision'.
Toronto / 10 March 2026
OCASI joined immigrant and refugee-serving sector umbrella organizations representing more than 500 community organizations from across Canada in sending an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship – Lena Metlege Diab regarding funding cuts to federally funded settlement programs.
The organizations expressed concern that these measures will negatively impact immigrants and refugees, and are in fact contradictory to the government’s stated goal of strengthening Canada’s economy.
Toronto / March 2026
I watched the faces of the sector leaders who sit on my Board as they received news of their Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) settlement funding allocation for the coming fiscal year. Although a virtual meeting, I watched the air and energy get sucked out of the space. This immediately following a meeting with IRCC National Headquarters (NHQ) and Ontario Region. The pain has begun for our sector here in Ontario.
