Episode Description
In today's episode, I'm talking with Diana Palmerín Velasco of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce about how we go about rebuilding trust in Canada's immigration system.
Diana moved to Canada in 2011 with all the credentials you'd think would make settling into the country easy. She had a PhD and five years of UK work experience. It still took her two years to land her first job. And she only got it because someone she knew referred her.
That was almost 15 years ago, and not much has changed. We are still underutilising talent. And now we have a public trust crisis on top of it.
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Diana and I chat about:
The communities across Canada that are desperate for people and can't get them
How the Chamber network is advocating for regional immigration strategies
The global war for talent and why Canada risks being left behind
Why she believes immigrants are being blamed for problems they didn't create
The paradox of selecting for PhDs when most job vacancies require a high school diploma
What the business community can do to bring Canadians back on side
Why immigration success happens at the local community level
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Dozie's Notes
A few things that struck me as I listened through this week's conversation:
We need to recover public trust before anything else can work. Diana frames this as the foundation. If immigrants land in communities and don't feel welcomed and valued, everything else falls apart. We all just end up retreating into ethnic enclaves which ends up causing more damage to an already fractured society. The work now is about showing Canadians that immigration benefits everyone, not a few regions or employers , but everyone.
When Diana spent two years unemployed, she lost. But Canada lost too. Those were two years where she wasn't paying taxes or contributing to the economy. We talk about immigrant resilience like it's a badge of honour. But the question we should be asking is: should it be this hard? And what does it cost us all when talented people are stuck on the sidelines?
We've allowed immigrants to be blamed for systemic failures. Diana says the silence from government on this hasn't been helpful. Housing, healthcare, education—Canadians keep pointing to immigrants as the cause. But that isn't exactly true. The youth unemployment piece, for example, is far more complicated than "immigrants took the jobs." AI is eliminating entry-level roles. Trade uncertainty has businesses freezing hiring. None of these issues deserve simple answers, but simple answers are all we keep getting.
Immigrants are not a monolith but the Canadian immigration system tends to treat them like they are. It's frustrating to see people assume all immigrants are the same: desperate, penniless, struggling with English. The reality is wildly different. Canada attracts some of the most talented and experienced people. Folks with advanced degrees, global networks, and multinational work experience. The settlement sector, the policy system, the public conversation just seems to collapse all this diversity into one box. And then we wonder why nothing works.
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Official Links
✅ Connect with Diana Palmerín Velasco on LinkedIn
One Ask
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