Arab Canadians
Arab Canadians come from all of the countries of the Arab world. According to the 2021 Census, there were 795,665 Canadians, or 2.2%, who claimed Arab ancestry. According to the 2011 census there were 380,620 Canadians who claimed full or partial ancestry from an Arabic-speaking country. The large majority of the Canadians of Arab origin population live in either Ontario or Quebec.
Population
According to the 2021 census by Statistics Canada, 795,665 Canadians identified as Arab, constituting 2.2% of the entire Canadian population. The five provinces with the most Arabs in 2021 were Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia. Over 75% of Arab Canadians lived in either Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, or Windsor. Throughout Canada, Montreal contains the highest number of Arabs with 290,070.Just over 3 in 10 Arab Canadians are born in Canada. For the rest that are foreign-born, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, Egypt, and Iraq were the most common places of birth.
History
, who has served as President of the Canadian Arab Federation, in 2003 described the interconnected perceptions of a Canadian national identity and Arab identity. In 2009, University of Alberta professor Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar described the "double consciousness" of Arab Canadians, variously struggling with their Arab Canadian identity versus a sense of "being Canadian". Abdul-Jabbar has proposed that citizens or residents of Arab descent have come to consider a cautious dual-identity approach as essential to social integration in the country.Presented at the 2009 annual American Sociological Association meeting, research from Madona Mokbel detailed the "Dichotomous Perceptions of the Arab Canadian Identity in Canada", particularly since the 2001 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the attacks, Canadian Museum of Civilization postponed an exhibit, The Lands within Me, displaying the diasporic-based works of thirty Arab-Canadian artists. Moral outrage at the short notice of the postponement, suspicion of its connection to the attacks and subsequent protest at the decision, has been described as an early centralizing medium for Arab Canadian identity.
Dr Christina Civantos of Miami University, writing in Food for Our Grandmothers, has detailed the broad and sometimes conflicting elements that constitute the Arab world and which, therefore, do not always simply amalgamate into a coherent Arab Canadian identity. The collection of writing by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian feminists, in analysis by Amaney Jamal, has been described as shifting the definition of Arab Canadian identity onwards from "essentializing categories" while still explicitly confronting the racial and cultural realities of Arabs in North America.
In 2013, academic Paul Eid, a researcher at Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, has remarked that Canadians of a Coptic Egyptian background are the most likely to explicitly embrace an Arab-Canadian self-identification, due to the fact Copts were some of the earliest Arabic immigrants to Canada since the 1960s.
Geographical distribution
The distribution of the Arab population of Canada according to the 2001, 2011, and 2016 Canadian censuses was as follows:| Province or territory | Arabs 2001 | % 2001 | Arabs 2011 | % 2011 | Arabs 2016 | % 2016 | Arabs 2021 | % 2021 |
 QuébecDemographyNational originsReligionAccording to the 2021 Canadian census, 26.17% of Arab Canadians are Christian, 59.27% are Muslim, and 11.36% are irreligious. These number differ measurably from the numbers reported in the 2001 Canadian census, which showed an even split in the Arab Canadian community between those who practised the Muslim faith with 46% and those who practised the Christian faith 49%,. In 2011, less than 3% of Arab Canadians are Jewish. The largest Arab Jewish communities in Canada are Moroccan and Iraqi. Other Arabs Jews are of Egyptian, Syrian, Algerian, and Lebanese descent.The percentage of Arab Canadians were not affiliated with any religions only marginally increased from 6% in 2001 to 8% in 2011. The highest rates of Arab Christians in Canada come from Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq, while the highest rates of Arab Muslims in Canada come from Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. IdentityArab Canadian identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab Canadian and as relating to being Arab Canadian. The expression of the identity has been widely analyzed and observed by academics as a culturally challenging self-identification in the context of elements of Western culture in the 21st-century.A survey conducted in Edmonton, Alberta in the pre-2000, showed females 3 in 10, and 1 in 10 males, "tried to hide their Arab-Canadian identity". The research also significantly contrasted along lines of faith, with 44 percent of Arab Christians and 13 percent Arab Muslims also suppressing the identity. Research by academics Caitlin McDonald and Barbara Sellers-Young has also suggested that anti-Arabism and prejudice in North America can create a hostile environment for the expression of Arab Canadian identity. Notable individualsBusiness
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