Conference Goals
Regional population imbalance has concerned policymakers in Canada for some time. Immigration has helped maintain population growth for Canada as a whole, but has been uneven. Atlantic Canada, for example, lost population between the 1996 and 2001 censuses, partly because of a loss of native-born population, partly because of the region’s inability to attract more than a very small share of the new immigrants coming to Canada, and partly because of the region’s inability to retain new immigrants. Loss of both human and financial capital, as economists will tell us, is symptomatic of a declining economy.
The major goal of this conference, initiated by the economics domain of the Atlantic Metropolis Atlantique (AMA), is to assess the factors responsible for Atlantic Canada’s inability to attract and retain immigrants and to determine what can be done to reverse this trend. To pursue this goal, the conference will provide a forum for government policy makers, NGOs, researchers, and employers in Atlantic Canada to explore immigration policy, models, programs, and best practices in other jurisdictions; establish contacts; seek further information; and explore the possibility of adapting these best practices to Atlantic Canadian context. The conference will pursue one of the major goals of the AMA, which is to promote a more balanced geographic distribution of immigrants in Canada.
This will be the first pan-Canadian conference to focus on the issues of regional mobility of immigrants and their integration. We expect to gather academic researchers, policymakers (at all three levels of governments), and NGOs from other regions of Canada that have adopted initiatives for immigrant attraction, integration, and retention. Researchers from the United States have been invited to provide their perspectives on the issues of population retention and ethnic diversity in small and large communities. Three plenary panels will present immigration experiences from the perspectives of Atlantic Canada, the Prairies, and Quebec. Recent information on the regional mobility of immigrants and on the ethnic diversity of the Canadian population will also be presented and discussed.
The conference proceedings will be published as a part of the AMA’s dissemination strategy.
Who Should Attend?
Government policy makers, NGOs, researchers, RDAs, business and industry associations, multiculturalism workers, immigrants, municipalities, employers and community organizations, etc .
