The Canadian city of Hamilton, situated south of Toronto on the shore of Lake Ontario, was the only Canadian city represented among global metropolises talking about their immigration strategies at a recent meeting hosted by the United Nations in New York City.

Hamilton was represented by Sarah Wayland, the senior project lead for the Global Hamilton, an initiative within the city's economic development department that focuses on helping the city attract and support skilled immigrants and international students, as well as promoting the benefits of such strategies to the city’s existing population.

Weyland cited the need for medium-sized cities such as Hamilton to attract new immigrants in an active way, as most newcomers to Canada tend to move to larger cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. She says immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurial and create jobs for Canadians. Immigration will play a crucial role as Hamilton tries to reach its 2035 growth targets of 660,000 residents and 300,000 jobs. The current population of the city is around 520,000.

"The bigger cities like Toronto don't have to worry about immigrant attraction . . . but for cities like Hamilton, it's critical to economic growth,” says Weyland. "Immigrants go where the opportunities are. If they're not coming to Hamilton, they either don't know of the opportunities here or there are no opportunities.”

Wayland added that the way in which municipalities and governments think about immigration has changed in recent years. While immigration used to be seen as a competition between nations, that competition is shifting to a fight for skilled immigrants among regions and cities within nations. "Immigration is under the jurisdiction of national governments but cities are on the front lines in receiving immigrants who need to find places to live, schools for their kids and employment."

The meeting was hosted by the World Bank, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and the Joint Migration and Development Initiative under the auspices of the Office of the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Migration. Other cities represented included Barcelona, Quito, and New York City itself.

Hamilton immigration facts:

• Statistics gathered from the 2011 census revealed that 24.5 of Hamilton residents were foreign-born
• Between 2001 and 2006, the foreign-born population increased by 7.7 percent while the total population of the Hamilton census metropolitan area (CMA) grew by 4.3 percent.
• The share of Canada's recent immigrants who settle in Hamilton has remained unchanged since 2001 at 1.9 percent.
• Hamilton was home to 20,800 immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2006, half of whom were born in Asia and the Middle East, while nearly one-quarter (23 percent) were from Europe.