By Arundati Dandapani
Read more about Tastes of Tomorrow 2026: A Festival of Global Identities on August 7th, Friday
At a time when opposition to immigration is rising sharply across Canada and the United States, Generation1.ca’s vantage point has never been more consequential. Our work is vital to advancing the social and economic cohesion of an essential immigrant and multicultural workforce and to ensuring its place within the broader narratives and workings of democracy. Public opinion is not only a mirror of how immigrant and native-born populations perceive their societies; it also shapes who belongs, whose experiences count and which futures become possible.
This urgency is amplified as traditional cross-border alliances reach a breaking point, particularly in the trading relationship between Canada and the United States. As a grassroots community organization serving immigrants across both countries as they transition into more sustainable career pathways and programs through our open access Future Ready Innovators credential, Generation1.ca is increasingly conscious of how shifting political, economic and diplomatic realities create new challenges for cross-border and global collaboration, including the international research partnerships required to understand increasingly interconnected populations and diaspora stories. At precisely the moment when deeper global cooperation is needed, the systems enabling such cooperation become more fragmented and uncertain.
Sponsored by returning collaborators Securian Canada, Vividata, Fuse Insights, AAPOR’s Global Research Affinity Group, World of Opinions with support on AI intercepts with Peekator’s technology platform, Generation1.ca’s Tastes of Tomorrow 2026: A Festival of Global Identities foregrounded this persistent reality marking our 11th year of service and accomplishments on Friday, August 7, 2026. This was a perfect sequel to our 10th-anniversary campaign last year, Fuelling Immigrant Futures: Data, Insights, Democracy, that first marked an important decade of being, becoming and belonging for our 2,000+ members across diverse walks of life and professional society, sponsored by Remitly, Vividata, Esomar and Securian Canada..
Diversity, equity and inclusion tend to be interpreted differently across factions of society, particularly when questions of representation arise. Yet census data, survey and public opinion research and lived experience repeatedly reveal persistent gaps in the products, services and opportunities available to underserved individuals, groups and communities from wage inequities and workplace discrimination to exclusion encountered in professional settings and everyday public and private spaces, particularly for visible minorities and equity-deserving groups, the vast majority of our membership.
This is why it is essential to apply a transnational-publics lens to the issues affecting immigrants and the narratives they carry of their past, present and futures. These are not peripheral stories. They are central to the larger story of a country’s and continent’s growth, productivity, innovation and democratic resilience. They also shape whether immigrants ultimately decide to remain in or leave the societies they actively contribute to, advance and enrich, and have chosen to call home. The bundle of paradoxes that define the citizen experience from immigrant perspectives forms the backbone of my work What is the Point of Canada? A No Holds Barred Guide to Immigrant Integration in the Americas.
Our latest evidence makes these stakes concrete. A question we fielded through the Ipsos KnowledgePanel found that 57% of U.S. adults were either unsure of—or had not seen—any employer action supporting immigrants’ workplace access, participation or advancement. The findings reveal a significant visibility gap: most adults could not identify an immigrant-support initiative, with the strongest differences in awareness emerging across education, income, region and race. These results are best interpreted as measures of public recall and the visibility of employer initiatives, not as direct measures of whether such supports exist or how effective they are. Even so, they align with Generation1.ca’s Global Industry Skills Study: while 59% of employers supported structured assistance for internationally trained professionals, the absence of formal immigrant supports or workplace inclusion policies remained the most commonly reported condition cited by 12% of employers overall and by more than 20% within the country-specific US and Canada based employer samples, with less supports reported by Canadian employers than the US like last year. However, supports in the US have declined from last year.
Our 2026 Global Industry Skills Study, sponsored by Fuse Insights and Unlock Surveys, found that 71% of employers plan to hire, with desired employability skills led by project management (29%) and emerging technologies such as AI and automation (24%) and business development (23%). Yet strong demand for global talent has not translated fully into immigrant talent integration.
Vividata’s findings from the Vividata Multicultural 2025 study extend this picture from the workplace into the marketplace. Costco ranked as the grocery retailer shopped most often among Filipino, Chinese and South Asian Canadian households cited by 18%, 22% and 17%, respectively. The finding demonstrates how multicultural consumers are already shaping mainstream purchasing patterns, reinforcing why brands and retailers must understand these populations as influential markets rather than peripheral audiences.
I explored some of these realities in my globally award-winning essay and research piece, Voicing the Global Immigrant Realities: Empowered Insights for an Underserved Market, in which Generation1.ca served as the central case study for what ails and perpetuates the poor understanding of multicultural groups. I have also researched, authored and presented on the implications for immigrants and other underserved populations before audiences at Esomar Latin America and Esomar Congress, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA), the Canadian Marketing Association and the Market Research Institute International (MRII), Chief Data Analytics Officers’ Conferences and other industry forums with work that has generated recognition, fascination and, at times, necessary bewilderment among diverse audiences.
