Whether in the pie-shaped arena of City Hall's council chambers or beneath the rusty copper roofs of Parliament, this is the era of the line item, of remedy-now economics, making it tough for systemic solutions to find political traction. So Carol Wilding is patient.

Now in her fourth year as CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, Wilding is not in a rush to criticize Rob Ford's Toronto for being slow to respond to the board's immigrant inclusion recommendations put forward before the election.

"Ford was elected with a particular mandate on the fiscal and financial front," she says, "and there's a lot of attention needed to be paid to that. So the days are still very early."

And yet, as the hunt for gravy continues, so do the socio-economic challenges faced by Toronto's immigrant population, an ever-bursting demographic with a lot to offer and a lot to overcome. Nationally, it's thought that between $3.5 billion and $5 billion are lost to the Canadian economy because immigrants are not able to fully participate. In Toronto, the figures are $1.5 billion and $2.25 billion. The social fallout is well-documented, be it poverty-begot contact with the health and criminal justice systems, or geographic marginalization of disadvantaged groups.

In early March, Wilding delivered a speech to the Symposium on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness held at City Hall. She again called on the city to establish a Mayor's Office for Immigrant Affairs, a coordination of the city's Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPS), and tax reform that's cognizant of the three cities paradigm established by University of Toronto professor David Hulchanski.

"The City needs to be proactive in showing their leadership," she says. "They could also take some of the civic bureaucracy in the back offices and move some of those into the priority neighbourhoods to create more of that business and that economic opportunity in those disadvantaged neighbourhoods. And that shows a commitment on the City's part that we do want these disadvantaged areas or priority neighbourhoods to flourish."

Wilding traces her interest in social cohesion back to her childhood, when family values promoted an eye for society beyond the walls of the home or sidewalks of the neighbourhood. In her adult life, she spent 10 years at the head of Foster Parents Plan, now called Plan International Canada. She travelled extensively in the developing and underdeveloped worlds, from Africa to Asia to South and Central America, coordinating programs for struggling communities.

"I think that kind of experience just stays with you in your family life, and your parenting and your professional life," she says. "You don't walk away from that."

She sees continuity between the socio-economic challenges in other countries and those experienced by newcomers in Canada and Toronto.

At the same time, new immigrants are arriving in Toronto with more education than ever before. It seems paradoxical that they can't integrate into the economy, and part of the problem is a dysfunctional translation of their work experience and credentials from nations abroad to jurisdictions at home. Wilding says the conversation is ongoing among the board's 10,000 members.

"I think they grapple with it on a couple levels," she says. "One is how do I access that talent and richness of diversity and people who are coming into the Toronto region? If you're a small or medium sized business, they don't really know how to access, to find those people and find that talent, because they're caught up in day-to-day business. Some of the larger ones are quite sophisticated in that approach."

Those larger companies may create opportunities for nationalizing credentials and work experience. The smaller entities have a harder time even making contact. Volunteers with the board have been trying to address that problem, building a database for employers showing where immigrants go for support, whether its guidance in writing resumes or preparation for job interviews in a Canadian context.

"Part of it is how do you bring the two groups together?" Wilding adds.

 Another part of it is certainly in the realm of government. The board is in an almost constant state of lobbying and advocacy, whether its membership is interfacing with councillors, or its leadership is having private or public meetings with municipal, provincial and federal officials. If there's an election, they might insinuate their ideas through campaigns like VoteToronto2010. If not, it's back to meetings and speaking engagements. 

Federally, they've called for national strategies on transit and affordable housing, important measures for the geographically marginalized communities new immigrants often call home. More specifically, they've called for better immigrant settling, education and training services. On the provincial level, they've requested funding for similar measures.

While the current political climate does not seem particularly able to take on systemic changes, Wilding does have some praise for the Ford administration.

"There's the citywide LIP initiative that's moving forward, and that's something we recommended. It's still in its formative stages and beginning to see how they work together and look at it from a regional perspective."

Still, a cohesive city strategy -- one that incorporates neighbourhoods, taxation, services, and departments -- does not seem forthcoming. And so the problems of immigrant alienation, social malaise, and economic underperformance continue. Wilding says the LIPS initiative is a solid step in the right direction. But there's much more to be done.

"We're going to have to continue to be a loud and strong advocate," she says.

Paul Carlucci is a freelance writer based in the GTA.