The 2012 Local Immigration Partnership Conference was held in Toronto from February 8-10. It brought together researchers, delegates from organizations and municipalities involved in delivery of the LIPs and government officials.  The goals of the conference were to learn from research studies, to discuss challenges and strategies for action, and to obtain a better understanding [...]

The WCI Governing Council met to take stock of progress and to discuss future directions. This was followed by presentations and discussion of research examining LIP best practices. The morning session was restricted to WCI Governing Council members (university, community, and ex officio members). The afternoon session included the WCI Governing Council and additional invited government representatives.

The conference focused on Northern and smaller communities’ LIP strategies and action plans and explored how best to support them analytically. With this in mind, the following objectives were established for the conference:   1. To identify crucial issues associated with four inter-connected themes: (a) economic development; (b) attraction, retention, and branding (including Francophone recruitment [...]

The conference’s objectives were:   To build and solidify the WCI-LIPs knowledge partnership To prioritize key research needs To identify the major themes and cross-cutting challenges that have surfaced as the LIP program matures and transitions from strategies to actions To clarify how the LIP program can establish a robust innovation strategy that locates and builds on promising practices [...]