Includes new immigration data supporting an inclusive and vibrant Simcoe County
Midhurst/February 13, 2024 – The County of Simcoe has once again expanded its open data portal, easily accessed at open.simcoe.ca, allowing users to better understand the effectiveness of services and supports that are provided to newcomers in our region.
“We are incredibly thankful to the newcomers who have chosen to call Simcoe County ‘home’ over the years and this tool allows us to better support them when we make investments across the region, » said Warden Basil Clarke. “The information gathered on this site enables us to make data-driven decisions and track the outcomes of the programs that we are building up in our communities. It allows us to ensure that the choices we make in Council not only benefit newcomers but help them thrive in Simcoe County. »
This new tool builds up the social service offerings available on this site, which already includes homelessness and shelter data, a census tool, expanding data available to residents, researchers, and decision-makers across the region.
This data helps to support evidence-based policy making at a county and local level and showcases our immigrant population and pathways, as well as local demographics, including education, training, and skills. It allows users to see how immigrants are helping our local labour market thrive and expand across the region. The tool also highlights long-term trends in the local labour market, immigrant incomes, immigrant mobility and migration trends.
Longitudinal immigration data provides insights into the performance and local impacts of immigration programs and supports actions in the 2023 Community Settlement Strategy.
County staff developed this tool, which emulates a dashboard created by the Community Data Program. The County’s dashboard publishes Simcoe County specific data in a free, user-friendly format, enhancing the availability of this key information. The tool combines local information from the federal Longitudinal Immigration Database, immigration information from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, taxation data from the Canada Revenue Agency, and the date of death from the Canadian Mortality Database.
This information will allow for data-driven solutions aimed at supporting community programs and strengthening the local economy by attracting and retaining talent within our region.
About open.simcoe.ca
In October 2023, the County introduced open.simcoe.ca, a new online data portal to support the County’s 10-point Homelessness Prevention Strategy and further assist people in need in our communities and later expanded it to include data from the 2021 federal census. The online portal helps the County of Simcoe and its partners in building up our communities and informing strategies that support homelessness prevention and shelter efforts by tracking real-time data of shelter usage and other trends across the region. The Longitudinal Immigration Database is the latest in a series of resources available to the public, municipalities, and businesses, as part of the County’s new data portal, open.simcoe.ca.
About the County of Simcoe
County of Simcoe is composed of sixteen member municipalities and provides crucial public services to County residents in addition to providing paramedic and social services to the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia. Visit our website at simcoe.ca.