TMCIS session:
Non-profits Serving Immigrants: Voices on Challenges in Uncertain Times
This session brings together important non-profit sector voices reflecting on contemporary
challenges faced by the sector and the migrant and other communities they serve. Emerging from
the pandemic crisis immigrant settlement service agencies and other non-profit providers
confront many pressing issues from funding to HR to rapidly increasing service demands in a
political environment shifting towards the embrace of austerity. The timely release of the volume
The Canadian Non-profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community offers a point of
critical consideration of some of these developments. Leading non-profit actors and the book’s
authors share their perspectives on what challenges and opportunities await in these uncertain
times.
Book Launch of The Canadian Non-profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community
This session also provides a backdrop for the official release of the book by Ted Richmond and
John Shields, The Canadian Non-profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community. This volume speaks directly to the challenges facing the immigrant
serving non-profit sector. Neoliberal restructuring has left individuals and families scrambling
for survival and increasingly reliant on the under-funded and over-regulated non-profit sector to
patch over the steadily growing fissures in our society. This book examines the creativity and
resilience of nonprofits in maintaining and expanding their services under difficult
circumstances. It also delves into the vital role of nonprofits in advocating for human rights, anti-
racism, Indigenous claims, migrant rights and improved health and social services. The decades-
long turn towards marketized solutions to social needs has created the conditions under which
privatized modes of service delivery have become the norm. An over stretched and under
resourced non-profit sector has been left to address ever expanding need in a society of growing
inequality. The authors place a critical lens on these developments in their analysis of the place
of the non-profit sector organizations like settlement agencies in neoliberal times in Canada. The
volume identifies the many challenges facing the sector but also highlights its promotion of
social justice moving forward.
Chair
Zhixi Cecilia Zhuang, Academic Director, TMCIS
Panelists
Ted Richmond, Author, The Canadian Non-profit Sector
John Shields, Professor Emeritus TMU, Author, The Canadian Non-profit Sector
Axelle Janczur, Executive Director, Access Alliance
Maureen Fair, Executive Director, West Neighbourhood House
Mwarigha, Vice President of Housing, Homelessness, Asset Sustainability & New Development
at WoodGreen Community Services
This session will be available in person and online.
