Iranian Canadians


Iranian Canadians or Persian Canadians are Canadians of Iranian origin. From the 2016 Canadian census, the main communities can be found in Southern Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. a total of 97,110 Iranians reside in the Greater Toronto Area, 46,255 in the Greater Vancouver Area, and 23,410 in the Greater Montreal Area, with the remainder spread out in the other major cities of Canada, based on the 2016 Canadian Census. These numbers represent the people who stated "Iranian" as their single or joint ethnic origin in the census survey.

Terminology

Iranian-Canadian is used interchangeably with Persian-Canadian, partly due to the fact that, in the Western world, Iran was known as "Persia". On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the endonym of the country used since the Sasanian Empire, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian". In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably. However the issue is still debated today.
While the majority of Iranian-Canadians come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and Kurds within the Iranian-Canadian community, leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since the label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities. The Collins English Dictionary uses a variety of similar and overlapping definitions for the terms "Persian" and "Iranian".

Demography

Population

Immigration

The first known Iranian immigrant to Canada was Hakob Melik Vartanian of Miandoab who was naturalised in Montreal, QC on 2 October 1905.
In 2021, there were 213,160 individuals in Canada who had been born in Iran, of which 70,395 had immigrated to Canada since 2011.

Religion

Among all Iranian-Canadians, 103,560 identified as Muslim. Among immigrants since 2011, about 39,860 identified as Muslim while most of the rest did not identify with any religion.

Geographical distribution

Provinces & territories

British Columbia

Canada in 2022 banned ten thousand IRGC seniors and officers from entry.
Iranian celebrities and government former ministers and officials are often mentioned in the news residing or traveling in Canada as well.

Notable Canadians of Iranian descent

Academia

Various Persian-language media are active in Canada, including Shahrvand and Salam Toronto, which cover local events as well.