Kitchener-Waterloo ranked fourth worst city in Canada for immigrants
Posted Mar 26, 2014 06:12:39 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kitchener-Waterloo is the fourth worst city to immigrate to in Canada, according to immigration law firm Immigroup.
Last year we were ranked second due to high rate of police-reported hate crimes, especially in 2009 where the region had the highest rate in the country with 17.9 per 100, 000 people.
Iman Arab immigrated from Jordan to Canada 6 years, and is now a Intercultural Relation Consultant, and she tells 570News she felt more welcome in Canada when she visited as a tourist in the 1970’s.
“When I compare the two situations I found the first one was better. After I immigrated here people were afraid to talk about what they were facing.”
Arab says unfortunately more people are heading online with their hate for immigrants — because she says online comments are not well moderated.
She hopes for more public education to increase our acceptance; immigrants already understand what’s happening and the problems they are facing, but it’s the host community that needs to be educated.
“Immigrants who travel ten thousand miles to come here deserve one step closer from the host community to understand them.”
Currently a quarter of the region’s residents are immigrants — that number is expected to grow to almost a third in 15 years, according to Immigration Waterloo Region.
You can listen to the full interview between 570’s Kathlene Campbell-Conlon and Iman Arab here:
