Deputations & Submissions

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.

The Ontario government has announced pre-budget consultations. The government has identified the following priority areas:

• protecting Ontario’s economy and workers
• creating more jobs
• keeping taxes low and costs down
• delivering better services
• getting critical infrastructure projects built

Read the full OCASI submission [PDF]

Toronto / November 2025

There is growing inequality in Ontario, and poverty rates are higher for immigrants and refugees, and Indigenous groups and most racialized groups.

By working together we can make the needed change that will benefit everyone.

OCASI made ten recommendations to the Ontario government for its next Poverty Reduction Strategy.

OCASI has submitted 11 strategic recommendations to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance to the Committee’s annual pre-budget consultations

Recommendations

1. Invest adequately, appropriately and equitably in settlement services and language training for all refugees and migrants, regardless of immigration status. – say something about potential cuts – Include investment in Francophone settlement outside Quebec.

Toronto / January 2024

OCASI's 2024 pre-budget submission for Ontario highlights growing and deepening disadvantages in employment, housing and settlement faced by im/migrants and refugees, and calls for more investment in services and supports.

OCASI made a written submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, for the pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2024 federal budget.

OCASI made the following four recommendations for the 2023 Federal Budget, in our pre-budget submission to the Standing Committee on Finance.

1. Establish a minimum core funding threshold that invests in quality services and decent work for the non-profit immigrant and refugee serving sector and the larger non-profit sector.

April 2022 / Toronto

Remove the term “visible minority”, use the term “racialized people” as a designated group and remove citizenship status discrimination. These are some of the recommendations we made in a joint submission to the Federal Employment Equity Act Review Task Force. Read the joint submission by Colour of Poverty – Colour of Change, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario and OCASI.

August 2021 / Toronto

OCASI made a written submission to the Standing Committee on Finance for pre-budget consultations on the 2022 Federal Budget.

OCASI made the following recommendations:

Toronto / January 26, 2022

OCASI made a verbal presentation on January 19, 2022 to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs for its Ontario 2022 Pre-Budget consultations, and made a written submission.

Almost two years into the health pandemic we have ample evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly increased long-standing structural and societal inequalities. Indigenous, Black and racialized communities – including immigrants and refugees - were put at higher risk of exposure to the virus and were at higher risk of contracting the infection.