FAQs Archive

Q: What is the practical application of the CIMI?

The CIMI is an evidence-based tool used to inform policy, service and program delivery as it relates to immigration and integration in Canada. It does not offer causal evidence of the effectiveness of any particular government policy but can provide valuable guidance in the development of policies and programs.

Q: How should the CIMI rankings be interpreted?

The CIMI provides rankings based on the gap in integration outcomes between immigrants and the Canadian-born. The smaller the gap between these two groups, the better the region ranks relative to the rest of Canada, and the closer they are to achieving parity. Each rank comes from a score assigned to a region, determined by a regression model. This model ensures that immigrants and the Canadian-born share similar characteristics like age, sex, language, education, occupation, full-time work, and visible minority status. All rankings should be interpreted with caution. Differences in scores can be minimal in some instances. See the resources page for spreadsheets with all the detailed indicator scores per dimension.

Q: Why is my region not represented in the CIMI?

If you do not see your territory or city/ Census Metropolitan Area (CMAs) represented, it is for one of two reasons: your region has a low immigrant population count; or it does not meet the minimum population criteria to be considered a Census Metropolitan Area (CMA).

Q: Why are there only 20 cities/Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) on the rank page, but more on other pages?

Since the CIMI is a data-driven index, all data sets (Canadian Census, General Social Survey and Canadian Community Health Survey) must have reliable counts of immigrants in each city/CMA. A minimum baseline of 15 immigrants per geography (for the unweighted sample) has been established for a city/CMA to be included in the CIMI. There are thus 35 cities/CMAs in the economic dimension, 20 cities/CMAs in both the social and civic and democratic participation dimension, and 24 cities/CMAs under the health dimension. The rank page only presents rankings for the 20 cities/CMAs that have ranks for all four dimensions across all time periods when the data is available.