TIMELINE OF ARABS IN CANADA

1882 | the First Arab Settles in Canada

Immigration from the Arab world to the Americas began in the 1860s. Migrants would usually first arrive in New York by boat, before spreading into the region. The first known Arab migrant, Ibrahim Bounader, left his hometown of Zahleh, Lebanon at the age of 19 and apparently transited through the United States before eventually settling in Montreal in 1882. The first Arab immigrants to Canada were mainly Christian and arrived primarily from the Levant region (modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan), escaping poverty and socio-political strife. Other regions where Arabs settled in the late 1800s include Halifax and Kitchener.

1882-1907 | first wave of Arab immigration to Canada

By 1907, around 7,000 migrants from the Levant were admitted to Canada. In the 1890s, many were labeled as “Turks,” despite not being Turkish speakers, since they arrived with Ottoman papers. However, starting in 1900, new categories of “Syrian” and “Egyptian” were added, which would encompass anyone arriving from the Arab world.

1908-1930 | A Community of Pioneers Dealing with Discriminatory Immigration Policies

• 1908: the government imposed the “continuous journey rule,” requiring all immigrants arriving in Canada come directly, without any stopovers, from their countries of origin. Indians and Japanese were the main targets, but migrants from the Arab world were also affected because they stopped at European ports before heading to Canada. 

• 1908: the first Arab-Canadian newspaper, Al-Shehab (meaning star in Arabic), began publishing biweekly editorials in Montreal until 1910. The founder, Michael Zarbatany, was central to the cultural and political life of Montreal’s Arab population. However, the restrictive size of the Arab community and the size of the territory made it difficult to sustain the newspaper.

• The 1910 Immigration Act further restricted immigration by enforcing a tax of $250 on arrival in Canada; Arab immigrants had an average of $14 on arrival. 

• 1911: Bedouin Ferran (“Peter Baker” in English) moves to Edmonton via Chicago. He was a free trader, who was given the nickname of “the Arctic Arab” by Indigenous peoples. For the 10,000 Arabs who settled in Canada before the discriminatory immigration practices began, most worked as pedlars and shopkeepers.

• 1917: First Arabic language school opened in Montreal, but soon closed due to lack of enrollment. Other Arabic schools attempted to open in 1922 and 1924, but were closed as the Arab population was not able to renew itself while the Canadian borders were closed to Arabs. 

• The 1919 Immigration Act gave power to border officials to deny the entry of individuals of any nationality or race deemed “undesirable” or “unsuitable”.

• 1919: The “Syrian National Society of Canada,” generally considered the oldest, non-confessional, Arab organization in Canada, is launched in Montreal on the initiative of a group of Syrian business owners.

• 1920: a collective of new Arab associations took political action to challenge the Canadian government’s inclusion of Arabs in the “Asiatic” category.

• 1920s: Syrian National Society of Canada led the campaign to end a tax imposed by Quebec school boards on Orthodox children.

• The 1930 Immigration Act prohibited entry to all migrants of “Asiatic race,” except for the wives and children of Canadian citizens. From 1908 to 1930, hundreds of thousands of Arabs migrated to the Americas. Around two-thirds settled in the US, and the rest settled in South America. By 1931, there were 10,000 migrants of Arab origin in Canada, compared to 200,000 in the US, due to friendlier immigration policies of the latter.

1931-1950 | A Period of Establishment

The Arab population only grew from 10,000 to just over 12,000 by 1950, almost exclusively due to natural growth. Because of the Great Depression and World War II, the Canadian border was virtually sealed, halting immigration. By the 1930s, Arab migrants moved from being a collective of pedlars preoccupied with economic survival to a community of established residents connected through associations, newspapers and political mobilization.

• 1933: the Syrian Canadian Association, a fusion of three smaller organizations, was established

• 1935: The Syrian Canadian National Review, a magazine, is first published.

• 1938: Hilwi Hamdon and a group of Arab women, who formed the Arabian Muslim Association, met with the mayor of Edmonton to ask for land to build a mosque on. In  December, the first mosque in Canada opened its doors in Edmonton.

• 1943: during the struggle of independence throughout the Arab world from European forces, the Arab community in Canada mobilized in support of the freedom of their homelands from the colonizers. A coalition of the largest Arab organizations across the country sent a letter to the King asking him to intervene by putting pressure on France to stop the bloodshed in French colonies in the Arab world.

• 1944: The Canadian Arab Friendship League was founded by Muhammad Massoud, a fierce community leader and activist. The League’s newspaper, The Canadian Arab, was the first editorial to be published in English and Arabic, signifying the establishment of the Arab community in Canada.

• 1946: community leaders Hulusy Khairy, Dr. Kheirallah, and Muhammad Massoud testified at the Foreign Affairs Committee about the troubling situation in Palestine. This was the first time the Canadian government heard the position of Arabs on Palestine. The group promoted the scenario of Jews and Arabs living in harmony in Palestine through a democratic state.

• 1947: As the Second World War ended, Arab mobilization against the discriminatory immigration laws became possible again. The same group of community leaders who were advocating for better immigration laws in the 1920s were the ones advocating in this period, including Elias Karam and Joseph Helal. In February, the Syrian Canadian Association sent a petition to the government requesting Arabs be excluded from the restrictive immigration measures.

• 1948: Elias Karam and Joseph Helal joined forces and created the Canadian Federation of Syrian Lebanese Societies (CFSLS), the first coordinated Arab lobby group, offering the Canadian government a single interlocutor.

• 1949: The Minister of Immigration met with a delegation from the CFSLS for the first time. They advocated for the exclusion of Arabs from the anti-Asiatic immigration policies, as opposed to fighting against the racial categories themselves.

• 1950: a series of internal memos were sent to the Immigration Branch allowing the entry of Syrians, Lebanese and Armenians on a case-by-case basis, and expanding the category of family members for sponsorship to siblings, nephews and nieces. These directives were allegedly made secret, in fear of arousing demands from other minorities