The Newcomers Podcast

In this episode, I'm speaking with Surranna Sandy, the CEO of CivicAction, about the decades-old issue of newcomers who come here but can't seem to find jobs that let them bring their best selves to Canada. Our immigration system filters potential immi...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Ciro Muiruri, who moved to Canada in 2015 to escape an abusive husband, about the magazine article that ended her eight-year wait to find her kidnapped daughter. In February 2023, Toronto Life published Ciro's story. ...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Shari Graydon, the CEO of Informed Perspectives, about the Alberta Referendum and the cost of Quebec's referendum to the province, even though both failed. Shari was six when her family moved from Montreal to Vancouve...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Jackie Pichette, Policy Lead for Skills & Higher Education at RBC Thought Leadership, about Canada's immigration targets and how the categories added to Express Entry got in the way of what the point system was built ...

In the third episode of the collaboration between The Newcomers and Canadian Immigrant, Baisakhi Roy, Editor at Canadian Immigrant, and I chat with Veronica Sepehr, an RCIC and founder of Westdale Immigration Consulting Inc., about your next move if yo...

In this episode, I'm speaking with David Hornsby, Vice-Provost (Academic & Global Learning) and Professor in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, about the polarizing debate over international students, the role o...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Andrew Pohlod, the Chief Operating Officer of BRIX Real Estate Group, about buying your first home in Canada, how much you need upfront, and all the little but important information you need to consider before committ...

In this episode, I'm speaking with George Carothers, the Senior Director, Ideas and Insights, at the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), about the Ready to Contribute report and how we got to the point where we have 640,000 degree-holding immigra...

In the second episode of the collaboration between The Newcomers and Canadian Immigrant, Baisakhi Roy, editor of Canadian Immigrant, and I chat with Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) and try to answer the question: Sh...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Juliette Morard-Duboisset about life in Canada and why she kept choosing Alberta. Juliette had started interviewing with Fairmont when the pandemic stopped the process. Her husband had resigned from his job, and she w...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Racha El-Dib, a Benefits Analyst and the Founder & Executive Director of Nadia's Hope Foundation, about domestic violence and why it can disproportionately affect newcomer and refugee women. After her sister Nadia was...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Blair Hyslop, the Co-CEO and Co-Owner of Mrs. Dunster's Bakery, one of the largest fresh commercial bakeries in Atlantic Canada, headquartered in Sussex, New Brunswick. Over the last twelve years, the business has gro...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Baisakhi Roy, editor of Canadian Immigrant, in the first episode of the collaboration between The Newcomers and Canadian Immigrant, where we look to go beyond the policies and headlines to ask the questions most newco...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Daniella Jasper-Okumagba, Founder and CEO of The BRDGE, a Canadian food platform that connects ethnic chefs with people craving their food. Daniella walked away from a cushy oil and gas job in her early twenties to bu...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Jonah Chininga, Co-Founder and CEO of Woveo, a Calgary-based fintech startup that operates on the basis that reputation can work as collateral for Canadian small businesses. Jonah is an example of the well-used cliché...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Wunmi Adekanmbi, the visionary behind Trade Without Borders, a platform that aims to advance Canada's global trade diversification through diaspora networks, international partnerships, and engagement with emerging ma...

In this episode, I am speaking with David Bradshaw, Co-Founder of BradshawBolton and President of Calgary Black Chambers, about what it's like walking into rooms where nobody looks like you. Once you're in there, do you use that privilege to build a br...

In this episode, the first of our collaboration with Immigrant Women in Business (IWB), I am speaking with Althea Samuels, a life and money mindset coach, and Patricia Giankas, who fondly calls herself a senior female in tech (SFT) and has spent decade...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Daria Lysenko, who's passionate about helping newcomers settle and find their footing in Canada. Daria spent most of our conversation taking apart a bias I had carried for a bit now. Which is that newcomers/immigrants...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Abu Hafejee, who runs a carpentry business in Toronto, teaches the carpentry apprenticeship program at George Brown Polytechnic, while supporting the Toronto Business Development Centre's (TBDC) Explore Skilled Trades...

In this episode, the last of our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Hamoudi Saleh Baratta, who filmed the first footage of the Syrian revolution, was imprisoned and tortured for it, and now tells that st...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Kumaran Nadesan, who spent 15 years in the Ontario Public Service in different roles, left to co-found 369 Global and just published a book, The Impolite Canadian. Kumaran thinks that the best kind of citizen is the i...

In this episode, the third in our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Ajlin Mehmedi, who fled the former Yugoslavia in her early twenties, arrived as a government-assisted refugee with an unfinished degre...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Ramon Calanza, who has worked in trucking for close to twenty years, started out as a recruiter, and now supports Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) with their work in the Canadian trucking industry. When most...

In this episode, the second in our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Ebrahim Al-Yousefi, who fled Yemen as a child during the 2015 war, moved through Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Egypt, and arrived in Can...