Iranian Canadians or Persian Canadians are Canadians of Iranian origin. From the 2016 Canadian census, the main communities can be found in

Southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a Region, primary region of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, with approximately 13.5 million people, approximately 36% o ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, and

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. a total of 97,110 Iranians reside in the

Greater Toronto Area The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the Toronto, City of Toronto and the regional municipality, regional municipalities of Regional Municipality of Durham, Durham, Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton, Regional ...

, 46,255 in the

Greater Vancouver Area Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term ''Greater Vancouver'' describes an area that is roughly coterminous with the r ...

, 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 The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

was known as "Persia". On the

Nowruz Nowruz (, , () , () , () , () , Kurdish language, Kurdish: () , () , () , () , , , , () , , ) is the Iranian or Persian New Year. Historically, it has been observed by Iranian peoples, but is now celebrated by many ...

of 1935,

Reza Shah Pahlavi Reza Shah Pahlavi born Reza Khan (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the roughly 53 years old Pahlavi dynasty. Originally a military officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war an ...

asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

of the country used since the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

, 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 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980) was the last List of monarchs of Iran, Shah of Iran, ruling from 1941 to 1979. He succeeded his father Reza Shah and ruled the Imperial State of Iran until he was overthrown by the ...

, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably.Yarshater, Ehsa
Persia or Iran, Persian or Farsi
, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) However the issue is still debated today. Majd, Hooman, ''The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran'', by Hooman Majd,

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the followin ...

, September 23, 2008, , 9780385528429. p
161
/ref> While the majority of Iranian-Canadians come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

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 The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow. It was first published in 1979. Corpus The dictionary uses language research based on the Collins Corpus, which is ...

'' uses a variety of similar and overlapping definitions for the terms "Persian" and "Iranian".

Demography

Population

Immigration

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 (49%) identified as Muslim. Among immigrants since 2011, about 39,860 (57%) identified as Muslim while most of the rest did not identify with any religion.

Geographical distribution

Provinces & territories

British Columbia

* North Vancouver (District) *

North Vancouver (City) The City of North Vancouver is a North Shore (Greater Vancouver), municipality city on the North Shore of the Burrard Inlet, in British Columbia, Canada. Anchored by the downtown town centre of Lonsdale, with which its urban core largely syno ...

West Vancouver West Vancouver is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, West Vancouver is situated on the north shore of Burrard Inlet to the northwest of the city ...

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard In ...

Coquitlam Coquitlam ( ) is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the List of cities in British Columbia, sixth-largest city in the province, with an estimated population of 174,248 in 2024, and one of th ...

Ontario

* Richmond Hill *

Vaughan Vaughan ( ) (2022 population 344,412) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increa ...

* Markham * Thornhill

Islamic republic politicians/sympathizers

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

Persian Newspaper Shahrvand in Toronto Editorial Team 2014

Academia

Persian Plaza - Yonge Street - Toronto 2014

Payam Akhavan Payam Akhavan () is an Iranian-born Canadian lawyer. He is nominated as a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague by Bangladesh. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto and is a visiting adjunct a ...

, pioneer in international criminal law and leading human rights advocate;

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

* Kaveh Farrokh, historian * Ramin Jahanbegloo, philosopher and university professor * Ali Khademhosseini, Associate Professor of Medicine; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology * Shahrzad Mojab, Professor of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education;

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

Reza Zadeh Reza Zadeh () is an American computer scientist and technology executive working on machine learning. He is adjunct professor at Stanford University, CEO of Matroid, and a founding team member at Databricks. His work focuses on machine learning ...

, computer scientist;

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Art and literature

* Hossein Amanat, architect, urban designer * Reza Baraheni, novelist, poet, critic, and political activist * Ila Firouzabadi, artist and screenwriter *

Jian Ghomeshi Jian Ghomeshi (born June 9, 1967) is a Canadian broadcaster, writer, musician, producer and former CBC personality. From 1990 to 2000, he was a vocalist and drummer in the Thornhill-based folk-pop band Moxy Früvous. In the 2000s, he became ...

, member of Moxy Früvous; former host of

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

's ''play''; former host of ''Q'' on CBC Radio 1 *

Siamak Hariri Siamak Hariri, OAA, AAA, AIBC, FRAIC, RCA, Intl. Assoc. AIA (; born 1958) is a Canadian architect and a founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects, a full-service architectural and interior design practice based in Toronto, Canada. Born ...

, architect * Nazanine Hozar, writer *

Ramin Karimloo Ramin Karimloo (; ; born ) is a Canadian actor, singer, and songwriter known for his work on the West End theatre, West End and Broadway theatre, Broadway theatre. He has played the leading roles in both of the West End's longest running musica ...

, West End performer, playing the lead role in

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broad ...

's ''

The Phantom of the Opera The Phantom of the Opera may refer to: Novel * The Phantom of the Opera (novel), ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (novel), 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux Characters * Erik (The Phantom of the Opera), Erik (''The Phantom of the Opera''), the title char ...

'' and the sequel '' Love Never Dies'' *

Navid Khonsari Navid Khonsari () (born 1970) is an Iranian-Canadian video game, virtual/mixed reality, film and graphic novel creator, writer, director and producer. Khonsari worked on several games at Rockstar Games, including '' Grand Theft Auto III'' and ...

, video game, film and graphic novel creator, writer, director and producer *

Fariborz Lachini Fariborz Lachini (; born August 25, 1949) is an Iranian film score composer. Career He started his career in Iran writing music for children, creating "Avaz Faslha va Rangha" at the age of 18 which caught the attention of the royal family of the ...

, music composer * , painter, photographer and husband of ex-

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

biathlete The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into shooting rounds. The shooting rounds are not ti ...

Myriam Bédard, convicted and sentenced in June 2007 for stealing paintings from the late painter Ghitta Caiserman * Sanaz Mazinani, photographer and curator *

Kaveh Nabatian Kaveh Nabatian is an Iranian-Canadian musician and film director, known as a trumpeter and keyboardist with the Juno Award winning orchestral post-rock band Bell Orchestre. Career As a filmmaker Nabatian was first noted for his 2010 short film ...

, musician and filmmaker *

Marina Nemat Marina Nemat (, ; born 22 April 1965) is the author of two memoirs about her life growing up in Iran, serving time in Evin Prison for speaking out against the Iranian government, escaping a death sentence and finally fleeing Iran to go and liv ...

, author * Ghazal Omid, nonfiction political writer, nonfiction children's book writer, speaker, NGO executive * Fariborz Sahba, architect * Bardia Sinaee, poet * Marjan Farsad, Animator, illustrator, singer, and songwriter *

Parviz Tanavoli Parviz Tanavoli (; born 1937) is an Iranian sculptor, painter, educator, and art historian. He is a pioneer within the Saqqakhaneh school of art, a neo-traditionalist art movement. Tanavoli has been one of the most expensive Iranian artists in sa ...

, Sculptor and painter * Sirak Melkonian, Painter * Mostafa Keshvari, Director and writer * Anahita Akhavan, painter

Beauty pageants

Nazanin Afshin-Jam Nazanin Afshin-Jam (, ''Nāzanin Afŝin Jam'', born April 11, 1979) is an Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, author, public speaker and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss World Canada 2003. She is also president and co-founder ...

, Miss Canada 2003, first runner-up of

Miss World 2003 Miss World 2003 was the 53rd edition of the Miss World pageant, held at the Crown of Beauty Theatre in Sanya, China, on December 6, 2003. It was the first time that the Miss World pageant held in China. Azra Akın of Turkey crowned Rosanna ...

, actress, singer-songwriter, human rights activist; wife of former Canadian Defence Minister

Peter MacKay Peter Gordon MacKay (born September 27, 1965), a Canadian lawyer and politician, served as Member of Parliament (Canada), Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2015 and as Minister of Justice (Canada), Minister of Justice and Attorney General (20 ...

* Ramona Amiri,

Miss World Canada Miss World Canada is a national Beauty pageant in Canada held annually in different incarnations since 1957 to select representative to the Miss World contest. In 2017 MTC-W Inc. obtained the exclusive rights to send the Canadian representative t ...

2005, semifinalist of

Miss World 2005 Miss World 2005, the 55th edition of the Miss World pageant, was held on 10 December 2005 at the Crown of Beauty Theatre in Sanya, China. María Julia Mantilla of Peru crowned her successor Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir of Iceland. 102 conte ...

* Samantha Tajik,

Miss Universe Canada Miss Universe Canada or ''The Beauties of Canada'' is an annual national beauty pageant that selects Canada's official representative to Miss Universe—one of the Big Four beauty pageants The Beauties of Canada Organization gained the exc ...

2008

Business

Sea Life Cavern wing at West Edmonton Mall

* Ghermezian family, billionaire shopping mall developers *

Hassan Khosrowshahi Hassan Khosrowshahi (; born 1940) is an Iranian and Canadian business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He founded Future Shop, a Canadian consumer electronics chain store that was acquired by Best Buy in 2001 for million. He currently i ...

, founder of

Future Shop Future Shop was a Canadian electronics store chain. It was established in 1982 by Hassan Khosrowshahi. By 1990, the chain had become the country's largest retailer of computer and consumer electronics. In October 2012, the company operated 149 l ...

Karim Hakimi Karim Hakimi (Persian: کریم حکیمی) (born 1933) is an Iranian-Canadian entrepreneur and optician, known for founding Hakim Optical, a large chain of eyeglass stores across Canada. Early life Hakimi was born in Iran. At the age of five, h ...

, founder of Hakim Optical *

Michael Latifi Michael Mehrdad Latifi (born October 1962 in Iran) is an Iranians in Canada, Iranian-Canadian billionaire businessman. He is the owner, Chairman and CEO of Sofina Foods Inc., a Markham, Ontario-based manufacturer of food products. Sofina acquire ...

, founder of Sofina Foods Ltd and owner of Nidala (BVI) Limited which holds a share in the

McLaren Group McLaren Group Limited ( ) is a British holding company based in Woking, England, which is involved in Formula One and other motorsport and the manufacture of sports cars. The group was founded by Ron Dennis shortly after his acquisition of the ...

. * Shahrzad Rafati, founder of

BroadbandTV Corp BBTV is a Canadian media and technology company founded by CEO Shahrzad Rafati in 2005. In 2019, the company was the second-largest video property by unique viewers, according to comScore. Its head office is in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ...

* Sam Mizrahi, real estate developer *

Shahin Assayesh Shahin Assayesh (born 1939, in Mashhad) is an Iranian publisher. Assayesh was educated at the University of London, the University of Tehran, and the University of Mashhad. She was a secondary school teacher in Tehran before moving to the Unite ...

, publisher

Crime

* Omid Tahvili, kingpin and international fugitive

Entertainment

* Pirouz Nemati, actor and screenwriter (''

Universal Language Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea o ...

'') * Mehdi Sadaghdar, YouTube personality, electrical engineer * Mani Soleymanlou, actor and playwright

Journalism

ITC TV - Persian TV Station in Toronto 2014

Various Persian-language media (including TV and newspapers) are active in Canada, including Shahrvand and Salam Toronto, which cover local events as well. * Maziar Bahari, journalist * Farid Haerinejad, CBC former producer, documentary maker, and editor-in-chief of

Radio Zamaneh Radio Zamaneh () is an Amsterdam-based Persian language exile news platform and former radio broadcaster with a leftist approach. "Zamaneh" is the Persian literary term for "time". Radio Zamaneh is an independent Persian-language exile media and ...

Shaya Goldoust Shaya Goldoust (; born 1 April 1986) is an Iranian-born Canadian journalist, human rights activist, radio host, and radio producer. She is one of the presenters of Iran Wire, and Radio Ranginkaman. She lives in Vancouver in British Columbia, Can ...

, journalist, podcaster, radio host * Zahra Kazemi, photojournalist *

Nikahang Kowsar Nikahang Kowsar (; born 1969), also known as The Dung Beetle is an Iranian-Canadian cartoonist, journalist, and blogger, currently living in Washington, D.C., US. Kowsar was also a reformist candidate for the second term of city council of Tehra ...

, cartoonist *

Touka Neyestani Touka Neyestani (; born May 4, 1960) is an Iranian political cartoonist who lives in Toronto, Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population ...

, cartoonist

Politicians

* Ali Ehsassi, Federal Liberal MP for Willowdale, lawyer * Majid Jowhari, Federal Liberal MP for Richmond Hill, engineer *

Amir Khadir Amir Khadir (; born June 12, 1961) is a Canadian politician in the province of Quebec. A member of Québec solidaire (QS), he was one of the party's co-spokespeople from 2006 to 2012, alongside Françoise David. From 2008 to 2018, he was a Memb ...

Québec solidaire Quebec is Canada's largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast and a coastal border ...

Former MNA for Mercier, microbiologist *

Reza Moridi Reza Moridi (; born ) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Ontario Liberal Party, Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2007 to 2018 who represented the riding of Richmond Hill (provincial electoral district) ...

, Ontario Liberal Former MPP for Richmond Hill, physicist, engineer

Sport

Nicholas Latifi Nicholas Daniel Latifi (; born 29 June 1995) is a Canadian former racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to . Born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, Latifi is the son of Iranian Canadians, Iranian-Canadian billionaire businessman ...

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

driver for

Williams Grand Prix Engineering Williams Racing, legally known as Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited and competing as Atlassian Williams Racing, is a British Formula One team and constructor. It was founded by Frank Williams (Formula One), Frank Williams (1942–2021) ...

* Khashayar Farzam,

Powerlifter Powerlifting is a competitive strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athlete attempting a maximal weight singl ...

and

Physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

Technology

Behdad Esfahbod Seyed Behdad Esfahbod MirHosseinZadeh Sarabi (; born September 27, 1982) is an Iranian-Canadian software engineer and free software developer. He is best known for creating HarfBuzz. He was a software engineer at Facebook from February 2019 unt ...

, programmer and creator of the

HarfBuzz HarfBuzz (loose transliteration of Persian language, Persian calque ''harf-bāz'', literally "open type") is a software library for supporting text shaping, which is the process of converting Unicode text to glyph indices and positions. The ne ...

text shaping engine

Notes

References

External links

PM meets with representatives of the Persian-Canadian community

Iranians of Toronto website
{{Iranian citizens abroad