Opening conference on Canadian immigration policy and politicsDetails to come

This panel examines the political and institutional dimensions of digital transformation in migration governance. Drawing on perspectives ranging from computational social science to critical border studies, panelists examine how algorithmic systems, big data infrastructures, and digitalized policy processes reshape state power over human mobility — and how the public is responding.

This panel focuses on the intersection of digital technologies and migrant labour, from the tools migrants use to find work, to the conditions under which they do it. Panelists will draw on cases spanning the recruitment pipeline, examining how fintech, recruitment platforms, and the gig afect migrants at every stage : from algorithmic matching and digital labour contracting in origin countries to platform-based work at destination. 

Fenwick Mckelvey (Concordia University) and Alessandra Renzi (Concordia) This interactive workshop brings together the People’s Consultation on AI initiative and the conference's focus on ADT in migration. The session opens with a presentation of the Consultations process and its results, offering attendees an overview of...

In recent years, UN agencies, global tech corporations, states and humanitarian NGOs have invested in advanced technologies from smart borders to digital identities to manage migratory movements. These are surveillance technologies that have intensified the militarization of borders and became a testing ground for surveillance capitalism. This talk explores how these technologies reproduce structural inequalities and grant extensive powers to states and big tech corporations to control migran...

This panel investigates the digital infrastructures that shape migration: from corridor-specific border technologies to the platforms shaping transit choices and the tools being developed to support integration. Panelists draw on urban planning, development studies, and digital media to explore how infrastructure is never neutral: it encodes assumptions about who migrants are, where they are going, and how they belong. 

This panel asks what digital tools actually do – and don’t do - for migrants navigating settlement, health, and civic life. From telecare and health platforms to chatbots aimed at supporting political integration, panelists look at how these technologies play out in practice  for diverse migrant populations, including older adults and racialized communities. 

This session brings together a small group of rapporteurs - drawn from civil society organizations and Bridging Divides researchers, who have followed the conference with a specific task: to listen, synthesize, and reflect critically on what was said, and what was left unsaid. Each rapporteurs to speak from their own standpoint, whether that is the realities of front-line service delivery, advocacy, or ongoing research.