Pathways to Prosperity 2025

Day One: Opening Reflections

Ready to be system architects, not just service providers?

Day 1 at Pathways to Prosperity 2025 felt less like a typical conference opening and more like being told, kindly but firmly, “We are out of runway. What happens next is on us.”

From different angles, we heard the same message:

• Public opinion on immigration has been and is shifting.

• Our systems are straining because we planned for the wrong future.

• This is not a moment for caution; it is a moment for courage and re-positioning.

I’m not in the settlement sector, but I do work alongside it every day with clients from the nonprofit sector, post-secondary institutions, and employers who support immigrants and international students. That’s the lens I’m writing from: workforce and talent development, with a deep belief that how we treat people is economic strategy.

1. What Canadians actually think about immigration (and why it matters)

Keith Neuman from the The Environics Institute for Survey Research walked us through almost a decade of public opinion data on immigration, and a few things really stuck with me.

Yes, just over 50% of Canadians now feel there is “too much immigration” – but when you dig into why (and contextualize the “now” part of this sentence), the picture gets interesting.

In recent years, the top reason people give is not “immigrants take jobs” or “threat to our culture.” It’s that immigration is poorly managed by government / lack of screening, and that concern has climbed sharply from 13% in 2022 to about a third of respondents in 2025.

In other words: people aren’t rejecting immigrants. They’re losing faith in our ability to manage the system and the infrastructure around it.

At the same time:

• Most Canadians still agree that the economic impact of immigration is positive – that trend line remains strong, even with a recent dip from a high in the mid-80s to around 70% agreement.

• When asked about the impact of immigration in their own community, most say it either makes their community a better place or makes no difference; very few say it makes things worse.

• When people are asked what makes Canada unique, multiculturalism, diversity, and being a place that welcomes immigrants and refugees still sit near the top of the list.

So we have this tension:

Nationally, people are anxious about levels and capacity. Locally, many feel things are “mostly fine” or even better, and economically, most still see immigration as a net positive.

Keith also reminded us of something crucial: public opinion research measures opinions, not behaviour. How people actually act depends heavily on context and social norms.

That’s where my mind immediately went to mentorship and relationship-based work. When a Nova Scotian born-and-raised professional mentors an international student, that student stops being an abstract “number in the system” and becomes a human being with a story, skills, and aspirations. Those kinds of relationships can help bridge the gap between what people say in a survey and how they behave in real life.  Working with organizations like EduNova, NSCC, and the YWCA to name a few, we’ve seen hundreds of examples of this come to life - and you don’t have to my word for it, check out Naddine and Anna’s story or Rakesh’s. 

Keith’s closing point has stayed with me: “Another story is being written.” We are not going back to the old chapter; our job now is to help write the next one in a way that balances immigration inflows with real capacity — housing, healthcare, infrastructure, and workforce pathways.

2. We planned for the wrong future – and it caught up with us

Greg Landry did a tour through the world of strategic foresight – essentially, the discipline of preparing for multiple possible futures instead of pretending there’s only one straight line ahead.

One slide, in particular, hit like a brick (in a helpful way):

• Nova Scotia’s population forecast for 2011–2025 predicted a decline of around 6,000 people.

• Actual population change over that period? An increase of more than 136,000.

We didn’t just miss the mark; we were playing a completely different sport.

If you under-forecast growth by that much, it’s no surprise that housing, healthcare, and other systems are now under pressure. It’s not “immigration vs Canadians” — it’s a planning failure problem.

Greg framed foresight as a process: scanning for weak signals, identifying critical uncertainties, developing scenarios, and then actually integrating those insights into action. He also reminded us that the World Uncertainty Index is at a record high, a sign of how our world has become more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (and yes, there's an acronym for how brittle and anxious all that can feel: VUCA). 

3. “This is not a moment for caution” – a challenge to the sector

Shamira Madhany from World Education Services , who basically said the quiet part out loud — with both urgency and hope. She named the context we’re walking into:

• Funding cuts of 20–40% are expected by next year.

• Immigration targets will likely be lowered.

• Competition for funding will increase dramatically.

At the exact same time:

• More than 20% of Canada’s population is already over 65.

• Canada's population reached 42 million around early December 2024, just 18 months after reaching the 40 million mark on June 16, 2023.

• Recent immigrants face almost double the unemployment rate of Canadians overall (13% vs 7%), one in three is in a job that doesn’t use their skills, and immigrant youth face 23% unemployment.

So we need people, desperately. We are bringing them here. Then we waste their skills and make it harder than it needs to be for them to fully contribute.

Shamira painted two pictures of Canada 20 years from now:

1. Picture one: long-term care facilities understaffed, people working until 80, shrinking GDP, and Canada no longer a top immigration destination.

2. Picture two: Canada as a destination of choice for global talent, licensure barriers reduced, immigrants fully using their skills as doctors, engineers, nurses, and more — with the settlement sector recognized as an essential policy and program partner.

Her line that stuck with me was essentially: this is not a moment for caution; this is a moment for boldness. And boldness, in her view, means:

• Stop seeing yourselves only as “service providers.”

• Start positioning settlement and related work as system architects and core partners in economic inclusion.

• Connect local work to national policy, coordinate narratives, and ensure immigrants are at the heart of those conversations.

I agree with her – and I’d go one step further: this isn’t just about changing terminology from “settlement” to “economic inclusion” or “talent integration.” Language matters, but the real work is the mindset and behaviour shift that has to come with it. 

4. So where does that leave us?

From my seat – straddling workforce development, talent strategy, and the post-secondary and nonprofit worlds – Day 1 raised more questions than answers. And that’s a good thing.

A few reflections I’m taking away:

• The public isn’t the enemy. Poor planning is. Much of the anxiety about immigration levels seems to come from real strain on housing, healthcare, and other systems.

• We already have a strong foundation to build a new narrative. Most Canadians still see immigration as economically positive, celebrate diversity as a core national attribute, and don’t see immigrants as a problem in their own communities. That’s an incredibly important base to work from.

• Relationship-based interventions are not “nice to have”; they’re necessary narrative shaping, community-building, and talent mobilization infrastructure. Mentorship, study-and-stay programs, and employer partnerships humanize the data. They help align opinions with behaviours.

• The sector is at a crossroads. Funding cuts, shifting targets, and political polarization could push organizations into survival mode. Or they could push us into re-imagining our role as system architects of an inclusive, talent-rich economy and propel critical thinking and new ways of working. 

So I’m sitting with a few questions, and I’d invite others—whether you were in the room at P2P or not—to sit with them too:

1. Do you believe we’re at a crossroads when it comes to talent and workforce development in Canada?

2. If yes, what stands out most to you at the intersection of talent needs, economic prosperity, and inclusive workforce development?

3. Are you, in your organization, acting more like a service provider or a system architect right now?

4. And which of Shamira’s two pictures of Canada are your day-to-day decisions quietly feeding?

This made one thing very clear to me: another story about immigration, talent, and prosperity is being written. The question is whether we help write it intentionally, or let it be written around us.

Day Two: AI, Talent, and the Real Work of Re-Imagining Our Systems

Day 2 at P2P 2025 felt like a collective gut-check. If Day 1 was about recognizing the crossroads, Day 2 was about staring down the oncoming headlights and deciding whether we’re building a bridge… or diving into the ditch.

We spent the morning inside a fast-moving conversation about artificial intelligence — not the glossy “AI will write your emails” version, but the deeper questions around labour markets, misinformation, immigration, and the systems that tie them all together.

Later in the day, I was “on stage” with long-time clients and partners NSCC and EduNova, and new friends at ISANS and Dalhousie talking about connecting sectors, not as a feel-good tagline but as the core competency Canada needs if we’re serious about talent integration. Spoiler: we should be very serious. 

1. AI Is Not Coming “For the Future” — It’s Already Sitting at the Table

Tahsin Mehdi from Statistics Canada opened with “AI is a “mix of uncertainty and opportunity”, and underneath that gentle phrase? A caution: we have no idea how big the labour market impact will be, and pretending we know is wishful thinking.

What stuck with me:

AI ≠ automation. Automation replaces routine tasks. AI reaches into the cognitive space — decision-making, analysis, even creative work. That means a much broader segment of the workforce is exposed, including highly skilled workers. We can’t disentangle AI from everything else happening at the same time. Tahsin pointed to overlapping shocks:

• pandemic aftermath

• massive demographic shifts driven by immigration

• trade tensions

• general economic precarity

Trying to isolate AI’s labour impact in that mess is… optimistic. And yet—AI exposure is not evenly distributed. The StatsCan chart is a quiet bombshell: newcomers, especially those who arrived in the last five years, hold jobs that are MORE exposed to AI and LESS complementary with AI. This means a higher share of their current tasks could be automated, and fewer of their tasks are supported or enhanced by AI.That’s a double vulnerability we have to be aware of when designing and delivering workforce interventions. 

The second StatsCan session built on the morning’s AI context. Key points that jumped out:

• Job vacancies surged during the pandemic, then fell back to pre-pandemic levels. That’s for most experience levels.The narrative that “there are tons of jobs out there, people just need to apply” is oversimplified. The labour market is tightening, not loosening.

• A new “AI job implications tracker” is coming in January. This is going to be important, especially for workforce development planning.

The jury is out on short-term impacts. We don’t know if AI will eliminate jobs, shift tasks, increase productivity, or simply make some companies more competitive at the expense of others.

2. The Big Picture: The Skills Earthquake Has Already Started

Philip Mai from TMU’s Social Media Lab brought the global view: by 2030, 39% of workers’ core skills will fundamentally change, not disappear — change. Meanwhile:

• 170 million new jobs will be created

• 92 million will be displaced

• 59% of workers will need reskilling And 11% won’t get it — meaning 120+ million people at risk globally

This isn’t a “future of work” issue. This is “we’re already late” territory. Philip showed a simple triangle from TMU — Building AI Skills Across Levels — basic literacy → mid-level familiarity → deep technical skills. The real kicker? Everyone in the country right now sits somewhere on this pyramid, including newcomers. AI literacy is no longer “nice to have.” It’s the new reading comprehension.

3. “We’ve Been Here Before”… Except This Time We Haven’t

Alysha Saleh Baratta from PeaceGeeks had one of the best reality checks of the morning. She threw up an old Ask Jeeves graphic and reminded us what it was like when the internet was new. But then she pushed back on the comparison. Here’s what’s different this time:

• Newcomers aren’t behind. AI is new for everyone.

• This is happening way faster.

• AI is free and accessible, assuming internet. The real barrier is knowing what to ask.

• The leap from analogue → digital was bigger than the leap from digital → AI.

Her framing matters. Newcomers often feel like they’re “catching up” to Canada. But with AI? Everyone is a beginner again. There’s power in that. She also hit a chord on the career pivot opportunity, 56% of Canadians want to change careers and newcomers share that desire, often because they arrived with limited professional experience, or they were forced into a field by placement tests, or they’re in survival jobs and want out. Her point: If every industry is reinventing itself for AI, this is the perfect moment for people to reinvent themselves too.

5. The Feedback Loops Are Broken

Mark Patterson said what many are thinking: we’re having the wrong conversation about AI. The mainstream framing is: “How can AI make our existing processes more efficient?”

He argued instead: Ask how AI allows us to work completely differently.

That landed for me — because it’s exactly the challenge Shamira laid down on day 1 for the settlement sector: stop seeing yourselves as “settlement agencies” and start seeing yourselves as economic integration and inclusive talent agencies.

Mark also noted:

• Canada has settled into a precarity mindset (see Abacus Data below). People feel like the floor is shifting under them. That shapes attitudes toward immigration, AI, and change in general.

• Tech advancement without adoption doesn’t boost productivity. Canada cannot innovate its way out of a labour crisis if no one implements the tools.

• Youth unemployment is climbing (again) — and AI is only one part of that story.

6. AI’s double-sword

Philip walked through TMU’s research on how generative AI is already being used to create anti-immigrant content — quickly, cheaply, and with frightening believability. His slides are worth studying closely but here are a few highlights for you:

• Deepfakes of “immigrants committing crimes” are already circulating. The images look real. They spread fast. And they shape perception before facts can catch up.

• Newcomers and racialized people are 50–100% more likely to face hate speech online in Canada.

• AI makes misinformation cheaper, faster, more visual, more targeted. Exactly the wrong combination for an already polarized climate. 

•  Disinformation exploits fear, demographic anxiety and political tensions. It spreads faster than any public agency can respond.

The Southport (UK) example was chilling, an AI-generated image posted less than three hours after the attack, before any facts were confirmed, viewed ~4 million times, and used to incite violence. Canada is not immune.

He also covered the operational risks for organizations themselves, from brand deepfakes to fake “official” calls targeting newcomers. This is happening now, not in theory.

Then the Energy Shift: Connecting Sectors, Building Bridges

My own session with Nova Scotia Community College, EduNova Co-operative Ltd. , ISANS Business and Employer Support , and Dalhousie University was centered around moving from problems to solutions - together. The thread that tied us together was simple:

When sectors connect, talent thrives. When they stay siloed, we all lose.

Our presentation walked through:

• The evolution of Study & Stay™ (Foundations, Capstone, Entrepreneurship) and its above 80%% retention rate

• The Pathway to Stay model at NSCC  and with BHER’s help Dalhousie— scalable, accessible, and built to bring the power of WIL and intentional career connections to more international students at those institutions.

• The role of mentorship (both peer to peer, alumni to student, and industry professional to student) in creating programs that transform confidence and outcomes.

• The power of collaboration — NSCC + EduNova + EnPoint + BHER and ISANS and Dalhousie— because Nova Scotia’s talent pipeline cannot be built by any single institution or organization

We heard the same themes again and again:

• Involving employers early.

• Needs-based programming (needs change!).

• Creating multiple entry points for engagement.

• Building community — mentors, alumni, employers, students — as infrastructure.

• Recognizing international students as the skilled, experienced, ambitious contributors they already are.

• EduNova’s Study & Stay™, NSCC’s Pathway to Stay, and Dalhousie’s Continuing Learning professional programs aren’t just programs. They are a key part of a provincial talent strategy.

The Question I Keep Turning Over

If AI is rewriting how work happens, and if misinformation is rewriting how people feel, then the real question is:

What — or who — is rewriting how we respond?

Because this is the moment where systems either evolve or calcify. If Day 1 gave us the stakes, Day 2 gave us the tools. The rest is on us.

What stood out for you?