Honourable senators, it is my pleasure to rise today to pay tribute to those who work on the ground with immigrants to ensure that their talents are fully deployed. We have all heard stories about engineers, doctors and lawyers driving taxis, and while they may now be driving an Uber, it is still a significant loss to our economy, estimated by the Conference Board of Canada to be roughly $6 billion a year.

In response to this long-standing, wicked problem, very creative and innovative solutions are being tested on the ground in local communities where immigrant employment councils are working in places like London, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary. They are working locally with big and small employers, colleges and universities, all levels of government and civil society organizations to break down barriers. They focus on changing perceptions about global talent. They engage business to improve and change hiring practices, so it is not just the sound of one hand clapping but two, and so that employers can stay in step with changing demographics and evolving labour market needs.

I am particularly enthusiastic and attached to the work they do in providing mentoring opportunities for immigrant talent. These are based on the premise that while immigrants may bring many experiences and talents, they often lack an understanding of the unwritten rules of behaviour in corporate Canada. It’s often not what you know but who you know that matters. These mentoring opportunities are finely calibrated to match an unemployed immigrant with their employed counterpart, journalist to journalist, engineer to engineer and maybe even chemical engineer to chemical engineer. They produce enormous results for our society and for the immigrants.

In my hometown of Toronto, I had the pleasure of founding the local immigrant employment council called TRIEC, whose mentoring program has been at the forefront of creating a national movement of mentoring opportunities. So far, 14,000 immigrants in the GTA have been provided with mentoring opportunities, and 75 per cent of them have found work. That is an amazing figure, and I hope to be speaking to you at some time about amplifying this further.

As with all things, there are unintended consequences. You may have a mentoring match that will lead to visits to the cottage, to invitations to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and friendships.

In a very indirect way, these mentoring programs are like glue, contributing not only to the broadening of social networks but also to the creation of necessary but elusive social cohesion.

Honourable senators, I hope you will agree with me that this is important work. We need to ensure that immigrants come to this country and succeed, because when they succeed, so does Canada.

Thank you very much.