Resources

Latest resources in the settlement sector of Ontario.

Here we post new resources and more.

Personal finance for newcomers to Canada: Opening a bank account, saving for a mortgage, credit scores and more

Kelsey Rolfe The Globe and Mail 24 November 2022

Getting established in a new country and understanding an unfamiliar financial system can be overwhelming. If you’re new to Canada, here’s what you need to know about getting your financial footing – from setting up a bank account to building your credit to saving and investing for life’s major milestones.

How can I open a bank account?

Social isolation on the rise while civic engagement has dropped in Toronto, study finds

CBC News · Posted: Nov 22, 2022

Civic engagement among Torontonians has fallen markedly in recent years while the proportion of city residents who feel socially isolated has risen.

That's according to the Toronto Social Capital Study 2022, a sweeping report released Tuesday that explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the wellbeing of people who live in the city through a wide range of perspectives.

Moving beyond the media’s ‘deficit lens’ is essential for racialised peoples to claim belonging. Here’s how they’re doing it

The Conversation November 7, 2022 Sukhmani Khorana

Australia’s mainstream media has long viewed refugees, migrants and Indigenous communities through a “deficit lens”. That’s where these populations – in all their glorious complexity – are framed simply as a “problem” that needs to be “fixed”. Never achieving enough. Never grateful enough. Just never quite deserving enough to be seen as legitimate Australians.

Home is where the community is: housing as a human right

October 11, 2022 Rabble

In the third episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Series III, Dania Majid, director of the Tenant Duty Council Program at the Advocacy Center for Tenants Ontario (ACTO); John Ecker, director of Research and Evaluation at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness; and Haydar Shouly, senior manager of Shelters and Shelter Programs with Dixon Hall discuss the current crisis of housing insecurity and homelessness facing our most vulnerable communities.

Canada should recommit to bilingualism

Steve Lafleur Policy Options September 28, 2022

Canada is officially a bilingual country. In practice, though, there are few parts of Canada outside of Quebec where one can live a primarily francophone life. This probably won’t change. But Canada can and should aspire to be a more functionally bilingual country. That doesn’t have to mean large, divisive policy changes. A slight shift in attitude and some carrots, rather than sticks, could help reinvigorate bilingualism in at least some parts of the country outside of Quebec.

Ukraine war: why Russians fleeing conscription should be treated as refugees

The Conversation September 29, 2022 Martin Jones

People fleeing across borders is a hallmark of armed conflict. We first saw millions of Ukrainians flee the country when the Russians invaded Ukraine in February this year. Now there are reports of hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing their country in order to avoid Russia’s first mobilisation since the second world war.