The Syrian family that rebuilt a chocolate empire in Nova Scotia

In the seven years as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received Syrian refugees arriving by plane in Toronto, there were many heartwarming stories.

But few have attracted more public attention than Tareq Hadhad, who was aboard the third plane loaded with Syrians to land in Canada, and his family.

In addition to receiving widespread media attention, Hadhad’s story has been made into a film and retold in a book.

For those who don’t remember his story well, a brief summary.

In Syria, Hadhad’s father Isam had set up a pastry shop in Damascus that eventually employed hundreds of people and shipped his chocolates all over the Middle East.

Bombing during the Civil War devastated it.

The Hadhads became privately sponsored refugees in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Although the city is home to the University of San Francisco Javier, it is known for having an aging population rather than being economically vibrant.

Hadhad was in the midst of her medical studies when she fled Syria.

But once in Canada, and with considerable help from the Antigonian people, he hit the road restore his father’s business with the name of Chocolate peace.

Hadhad agreed to meet me in Halifax, Nova Scotia to update me on the business and discuss the role of immigrants in Canadian society.

Our meeting point, the illuminated Peace by Chocolate flagship store, located in the heart of Halifax’s waterfront tourist area, was a clear symbol of the smooth running of the company, with a design that incorporated peace symbols and motifs from Syria , including a tiled arch.

Its opening in the spring of 2021, during the pandemic, was something of a leap of faith.

But Hadhad told me that the return of cruise ships to Halifax this year has often brought long lines of customers to the store.

And even on a dark and windy weekday afternoon, it attracted a steady stream of chocolate aficionados.

Hadhad opened a new, larger shop this month and expanded the factory that makes the company’s chocolate.

In all, Hadhad told me, Peace by Chocolate now takes approx 75 people and could hire 30-40 more workers, if there were any in Antigonish.

Peace by Chocolate now sells its chocolates in some 1,000 stores throughout Canada, also thanks to an agreement with Empire Co, the Nova Scotia supermarket that owns the Sobeys and Canada Safeway supermarket chains.

Setting up a company in Canada is much easier than in Syria.

“It took my father 10 years to open a business in Damascus,” Hadad explains.

“Here he did it more o less in a month“.

While Hadad said factors like easier access to investment money in Canada allow immigrants to start successful businesses, community support for immigrants is just as important.

Hadhad is obviously proud of her family’s success and is happy to talk about it.

But he also wanted to talk about what has become a sort of personal mission for him:

remove barriers for newcomers and show Canadians the economic value of immigrants.

Hadhad, a former medical student, fears that many immigrants may not be able to use their knowledge immediately after arriving in Canada, but must instead pursue further studieswhether to face slow and expensive certification processes.

Hadhad was told that if she wanted to continue her medical studies, she would need to go back to high school, earn a Canadian university degree, and then take the medical school entrance exams.

“It was absolutely ridiculous,” he says, adding that regulations forced him to focus on the chocolate business.

Hadhad speaks regularly across Canada, meeting with governments and testifying before immigration legislative committees.

For all these reasons, he says he has observed that finally there may be some movement regarding the credential recognition health professionals obtained abroad.

“The change is happening not because of the will of politicians to solve the problem, but because of the shortage in the health sector” due to the pandemic, he said.

“We are discriminating against all those people and making them live in the depression and anxiety and fearing for their families’ future.

Hadhad ensured that Peace by Chocolate has a social component.

He said there are now about 200 Syrians living in Antigonish, population 5,000, most of whom work for the chocolate company, and several dozen have recently been added. Ukrainian refugees.

Peace by Chocolate donates approximately 5% of its profits to various causes and charities.

Although Hadhad has occasionally encountered hostility from anti-immigrants (a man once accused him of coming to Antigonish to take his job), his experience is that such sentiments are very marginal.

“Everyone sees that this country is built on many values,” he says.

“The most important values ​​Canada has are compassion, empathy.”

c.2022 The New York Times Company