Knowledge and Policy About LGBTQI Migrants: a Scoping Review of the Canadian and Global Context

This article aims to share key findings from a scoping review of the literature about LGBTQI migrants from a global context. The scoping review methodology allows for rapid assessment of a broad range of literature while also highlighting key knowledge and policy strengths and gaps. Although this review focuses on the Canadian-specific literature, it also compares the Canadian context with the broader global context. Upon presenting a synthesis of the knowledge produced about LGBTQI migrants, implications on Canadian refugee and newcomer settlement policies are critically assessed. This review presents how the Canadian literature has shifted over the past decade from a focus on legal scholarship to broader knowledge from multiple disciplines about the social, political, economic and transnational contexts for LGBTQI migrations to Canada. Although there have been key improvements to Canadian refugee policy, there remains a lack of federal and provincial policies and settlement programs designed to attend to the particular needs of LGBTQI migrants. The relevance of the Canadian knowledge and policies in relation to knowledge emerging from the Global South and elsewhere in the Global North will also enrich the discussion about present and future research and policy directions in this area.