Syrians in Canada reflect on a decade in the country

It started with a small group gathered in Mississauga’s Celebration Square and rejoicing that 10,000 km (6,200 miles) away, the Syrian city of Homs had fallen to rebel forces.

But when news broke that President Bashar al-Assad had fled the country, ending the country’s civil war, this town square in a small Canadian town was flooded with people celebrating, many of whom had fled the Assad regime for Canada just ten years ago.

“I cried for more than 45 minutes,” said Khaled Abdulwahed, a 31-year-old Syrian who resettled in Toronto when he was just a young man and helped organize Sunday’s impromptu event.

Now a Canadian citizen, Mr. Abdulwahed – who was 17 when he first took part in anti-government protests in Syria – has continued to advocate for human rights in his country, earning him the title “the Syrian mayor of Toronto”.

While many have begun planning trips to see family and friends, they have also shared how for most of them Canada will remain home.

“Right now it’s our turn to help our people, to rebuild our country and support them from here,” he said.

Abdulwahed was part of a wave of Syrian refugees who came to Canada between 2015-2016, backed by a campaign promise by Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau to help resettle 25,000 Syrians at a time when many died trying to flee from their country.

Canada’s warm welcome was in stark contrast to its neighbor to the south, where Donald Trump ran his first presidential campaign on a promise to ban Muslims from entering the country. He would try that later ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

As Mr. Abdulwahed, Muzna Dureid was forced to make the trip to Canada alone when she was a young woman.

Within the first three months of the revolution, the then 21-year-old witnessed her brother’s arrest, her social media accounts hacked by Assad’s intelligence officers and the assassination of an uncle for his pro-democracy activities.

“This was the turning point,” she said on a call from her older brother’s new home in Spain. He was released a year after his arrest, but by then the family had fled Damascus and scattered around the world.

While Ms. Dureid’s parents stayed in Saudi Arabia, she managed to secure a scholarship in Turkey before landing another in 2016 to study in Montreal.

A call on Facebook for a couch to stay on soon turned into a lifelong bond. The Quebec family that put her up for the first night — and continued for the first year — would later go on to privately sponsor the rest of her family to join her in Canada.

Since 1979, Canadians have helped resettle over 390,000 refugees through private sponsorship – which differs from state-sponsored programs as the cost of resettlement is borne by an individual or group.

As Canada raced to resettle Syrians fleeing the war, it proved crucial to achieving that goal; nearly half arrived through some form of private sponsorship, according to Government of Canada.

Canadians have moved on to resettle more than 100,000 Syrians, all through a mixture of government-supported and private sponsorships.

That’s a small number compared to how many refugees countries surrounding Syria — namely Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan — have taken in since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. But their warm welcome in Canada has helped make them feel as an integral part of their new society, Ms Dureid said.

“That’s why people believe that they belong to this country, not for a temporary period, but that this is their country,” she said.

The human rights activist and policy adviser, who has worked with Canada’s Department of Gender Equality, says now that Assad is gone, she will likely split her time between Syria and Canada.

“My dream is to have a ministry of equality in Syria and be part of this work,” she said.

“I think many of us will be between both countries and serve both countries equally.”

But there are signs that Canada’s open-door attitude has changed in recent years, with Trudeau’s government moving to reduce the number of permanent residents in the country as it grapples with an ongoing cost of living and housing crisis.

It is unclear what effect – if any – this would have on Canada’s refugee resettlement program. In 2023, the country became the fifth largest recipient of asylum seekers worldwide.

Maya Almasalmeh, a sociology student at Western University, was just 17 years old when she arrived in London, Ontario with her family in 2016.

In the Syrian city of Deraa, she lost her grandfather – “another father figure” – along with her home amid the siege of the city that would become known as the birthplace of the uprising against Assad.

“He stole our childhood,” she said.

Being the oldest daughter of seven siblings in an immigrant home, she said, meant she also saw herself as a second parental figure to her many brothers and sisters. And that sense of responsibility extends beyond her front door in London.

“Canada is the country that gave us peace, it (gave) me my education and helped me develop into the person I am today,” Almasalmeh said. But she stressed that we “want to go back” to help “build the new generation”.

She goes on to outline in detail her long-term goals.

“I want to be a social worker because the people who helped us in the beginning, they were many kind social workers,” she explained, noting that her “second home” in Deraa will need people with her skills to rebuild.

But like Mrs. Dureid and Mr. Abdulwahed, the 25-year-old does not foresee Syria becoming a permanent base.

“Canada is our home. I would say it’s our heart,” she said. “We will never forget how Canada gave us the chance to live happily again.”

But some of those celebrating are also exercising a great deal of caution before booking flights to see distant relatives.

“Edmonton – this is my home. This is where my family is,” explained 36-year-old Basel Abou Hamrah, who resettled in the Canadian prairies with his mother and three siblings in late 2015.

Mr. Abou Hamrah said there are concerns when he thinks about returning to Syria. Part of his struggles when he first arrived in Edmonton stemmed from the fact that he hadn’t yet come out to his family as gay.

There is also uncertainty about what the future holds for Syria, which was liberated by an Islamist rebel group that was once an offshoot of al-Qaeda, although it had rebranded itself in recent years.

Questions have swirled about what type of government the group would form and how many freedoms Syrians will have under this new leadership.

“It is not safe for LGBTQ refugees back home in Syria,” he explained.

Before the 2011 revolution, there were reports of gay men be charged by the police.

Mr. Abou Hamrah said that is why the news this week that some European countries choose to do so pause asylum decisions for Syrian refugees, causes him serious concern.

“There are lots of LGBTQ refugees who – whatever the new government in the new Syria is – they will not be safe,” said Mr. Abou Hamrah and cited how the situation in the country is still in “flux”.

For others, moving back to Syria on a more permanent basis may be the news they’ve been waiting to hear since civil war pushed them from their homes years ago.

“Canada gave us safety and dignity,” explained Israa El Issa, a mother of four, from her home in Prince George, British Columbia. “There was never a day when I felt like a refugee or not Canadian or unwanted.”

She and her family fled Aleppo and were later sponsored out of Lebanon by a group of private citizens on Canada’s west coast.

Until this week, she had planned to continue her studies in Canada to one day become a nurse. But she now said it’s all on hold: “God, I want to end up in Syria instead.”

A motivating factor for returning to Syria is an intense sense of “alienation” she has felt from the family she left behind after trying, and failing, to bring her father and mother to join her.

“That’s all I wanted,” she explained. But her father died of cancer about eight months after she moved. She tried to bring her mother along, but said she had a hard time navigating the system.

“I tried so many times but to no avail,” she said.

Despite these difficulties, she does not disparage the country that took her in and instead sees it as a natural process to want to return home.

“At the end of the day, Syria is our country. And why are we refugees in the first place? Because there was war in our country and it wasn’t safe to stay,” she said.

“But now that Syria is free from the oppression of Assad and, God willing, security will return to Syria, then of course we will also return.”