In Memoriam: Professor Jeffrey G. Reitz (1946–2025)

The Global Migration Lab, CEES, and the wider Munk Community were immensely saddened to learn of the sudden death of Professor Jeff Reitz. A Minnesota native and Columbia University graduate, Jeff taught at the University of Toronto for fifty years, and he was for decades the Director of the Munk School’s Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies.

Jeff was a towering figure in immigration studies. His main focus was his adopted country, but he always studied Canada from a comparative perspective, undertaking first-class collaborative research comparing France and Canada and, latterly, Mexico and Canada. His research was thoroughgoingly empirical and detailed. He was privately scathing about scholarship that drew sweeping conclusions from a few word searches of newspapers and political speeches. The strength of his empirical research and his cosmopolitan approach meant that he was a prisoner to neither academic fads nor nationalist shibboleths. His research on urban migration patterns demolished the widely cited claim that ‘global cities’ – New York, London –  draw in low-skilled immigrants for an expanding service sector.  In Warmth of the Welcome, a rigorous study of 79 cities demonstrated that the size of the service sector played no role in recruiting immigrants, low-skilled or otherwise. Rather, the size of existing immigrant communities draws them in. What’s more, New York’s service sector isn’t even that large compared to non-global immigrant cities. Similarly, Jeff discredited a large body of literature, including reports funded by a federal government that knew what it wanted to hear, claiming that official multiculturalism has a positive effect on migrant success in Canada. It does not and, as Jeff points out, current cohorts actually do less well than ones who arrived before the policy was adopted.

Jeff’s commitment to his students matched his commitment to scholarship. He frequently co-authored work with them. An annual student conference was the heart of the Harney Program. And one of the last of many interventions in the press was a Globe and Mail article, co-authored with a former student, on Black Disadvantage in Canada.  

Jeff was a serious scholar who did not take himself, or life, too seriously. He protected his weekends, vacations, and time with his beloved wife Donna. And he had a wicked sense of humour that could be expressed in a broad smile and an infectious chuckle or a dry, ironic comment. A booster of his adopted city, he was extolling the merits of Toronto to me on a summer patio one year. I pointed out that the weather is not always as it was on that day. He replied with the straightest of faces and the affected tone of a distinguished academic summarizing decades of work: “yes, winter is a very serious problem.”

For me as for so many mid-career and junior scholars, Jeff was a mentor and a friend. I will miss him, very much and forever.

Prof. Randall Hansen

Canada Research Chair in Global Migration

Director, the Global Migration Lab