Toronto / September 2026
OCASI spent the summer talking with its members and others who work within the immigrant and refugee-serving sector affected by federal government cuts. We wanted to first offer supports where we could, gauge the disruption these cuts were causing to staffing, service levels and morale, and understand how organizations and their leadership were dealing with this newish normal.
A few months ago, shortly after the rollout of the federal government mandated departmental cuts (the second round of cuts after 2025-2026 reductions in immigration target numbers and the corresponding settlement services budget cuts), I wrote about having a sense from the membership that they were weary And perhaps understandably so. Some didn’t want to focus on advocating against the cuts or pushing back. Many just didn’t see the point, believing that nothing would change, that we would not be listened to. I suspect they were right after all.
The sector’s umbrella organizations outside Quebec sent a joint letter to the Minister of Immigration and the Prime Minister, outlining the negative impact the funding cuts were having on workers and communities. We shared what we were hearing from our members across the country and asked that they work with us to mitigate the impact of the two rounds of funding cuts. It has been six months since our original letter, and one month since our follow-up. We received no formal response.
We know that the letter was read by the Minister’s office. We know it was discussed with senior bureaucrats (thought how, and in what detail, we’re in the dark about). Yet nothing was said to the sector. We recently sent a follow up letter. I hope this one receives a response that is substantive, acknowledges the negative impact these significant funding cuts are having on workers and on the integrity of programs that immigrants and refugees depend on to support their settlement and integration journey in their new home.
The sense I had from sector colleagues wasn’t one of pessimism as I’ve said before, but of wanting to focus on the what comes next. How do we navigate this period of austerity while needs remain and, in many cases, are increasing? How do we support communities left in limbo, uncertain about their futures? How do we provide services to increasingly large numbers of community residents unable to access federally funded settlement services and programs as immigration policies change? How do we support the dedicated people who we must let go because of program discontinuation and shrinking budgets? How do I square the funder’s emphasis on GBA Plus policy and practice with the fact that the people most negatively affected by the cuts are women who are racialized women from lived immigrant and refugee experiences?
The various conversations over weeks and months convinced us that we needed to formally document the impact. To have the numbers tell the stories. We knew that our frontline service leaders were survey resistant (far too many in the last couple of years). But we trusted that our Ontario sector leaders would want to share their experience, would find time in the midst of their busy work lives to respond to the questions we asked – all thirty-eight of them. To those who participated, thank you.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared some initial findings from the survey, at the National Settlement and Integration Council (NSIC) sector-only meeting. The information was sobering:
- All regions across the province are affected by the cuts, but Toronto, Central West (Peel, Halton regions, etc.), and the South (Brantford, Hamilton, Niagara, Waterloo, etc.) regions were most impacted.
- Community Connections appears to be the hardest hit program.
- Women's organizations reported that the IRCC cuts are impacting core settlement services and specialized supports for women.
- Over half of the respondents are delivering fewer services and about a quarter have had to shut down specific programs entirely.
- More than two-thirds of respondents have had staff lay-offs, with just under half reporting a financial burden from paying severance or termination pay . About a quarter have frozen wages and overall compensation.
We are finalizing the report and expect to release it in a few weeks. There is so much information that I know we, as a sector here in Ontario and across the country, will use in our discussion with decision-makers at both federal and provincial levels of government. That will inform our what comes next. That will shape advocacy strategies and sector education. We are in a newish political moment. I say newish because this time reminds me of the mid-1990s Liberal government’s austerity agenda. It was during that period that the sector began to pull together to articulate a vision of the relationship that should exist between government funders and the civil society organizations they support. A vision that spoke to the critical role that our organizations play in nation-building, socially and economically.
A few years later the Voluntary Sector Initiative was launched by then PM Chrétien, and subsequently developed and released A code of good practice on funding : building on an accord between the government of Canada and the voluntary sector (October 2002). A few years later the federal government appointed an Independent Blue Ribbon Panel on Grants and Contributions, which released, From red tape to clear results : the report of the Independent Blue Ribbon Panel on Grant and Contribution Programs (December 2006). They were documents we, as a sector, used in our advocacy and joint sector building work with our government counterparts. They served us well.
We are at such a moment once more. We need an initiative that will support our collective work to resist the de-centring of immigration and humanitarian programs and the support services that enable their success. We need our twenty-first century Code of Good Practice on Funding.
In Solidarity….
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