One-third of Ontario newcomers say they felt safer in home countries, survey finds
Newcomers from Ukraine, India share stories of frightening incidents after moving to Canada
This story is part of Welcome to Canada, a CBC News series about immigration told through the eyes of the people who have experienced it.
Oleg Redko came to Canada in 2022 to escape the war in Ukraine, while Parth Shah moved to Canada from India with dreams of prosperity and a specialized education.
Both had an image of what Canada would be, but soon after arriving, they had experiences that shattered their sense of safety in their new country.
"I was going to the metro station while somebody was stabbed and then people were running out," Redko said.
"For me, it was kind of shocking because I imagined like for many years, I knew that Canada is like one of the safest countries in the world, one of the best countries in the world."
Shah, who came from India to study design in Toronto in 2021, says he's also had experiences that have shattered his perception of Canada as a safe place.
"I have lived in three major cities before this, all of them are in India," he said.
"And sadly, this is the most unsafe I felt."
While many newcomers immigrate to Canada in the hopes of finding safety, a new survey has found nearly a third of Ontario newcomers reported feeling safer in their home countries.
A little more than 1,500 adult Canadian residents took part in the Pollara survey commissioned by CBC News between Nov. 1 and 18, 2024. They all arrived in Canada in the past 10 years.
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To read more about CBC's immigration survey, the methodology, and its results, visit cbcnews.ca/welcometocanada.
While a large majority of Ontario newcomers who took part reported feeling safer here than back home, 29 per cent of newcomers in Ontario say they felt safer in their previous country of residence than they do in Canada.
Nationally, 23 per cent of total respondents to the survey said they feel less safe in Canada than they did in their homeland.
Like Redko, Shah says he's witnessed violence on the TTC but also had an unsettling experience while studying in a library where he was threatened by a random person.
"This man walks by and he points at me and says, 'I know what you are and I'm going to beat you up,'" he said.
Shah said the man was pointing at a rainbow sticker on his laptop.
"He's like, 'You come here with this filth and you spoil our culture.'"
What was the most shocking for Shah is the fact that no one in the packed library intervened, until a librarian asked the man to leave.
Safety concerns driven by various factors
Those who work with newcomers in the Greater Toronto Area say those feelings of fear and anxiety go beyond just physical safety and are driven by a variety of factors, like unsafe housing and economic insecurity.
"Particularly last two years we have seen many newcomers, especially asylum seekers, they were living in a very precarious situation," said Qazi Hasan, director of newcomer programs at WoodGreen Community Services.
"They didn't have housing, they didn't have food or hygiene materials and it was really crisis situation."
Gurpreet Malhotra, CEO of Indus Community Services, which works with South Asian newcomers, said he's heard from international students living in homes with 20 other people.
Another concern is "unscrupulous employers" taking advantage of newcomers' precarious situation, forcing them to work without pay or even withholding their passports, Malhotra said.
"That's the kind of anxieties that we've been seeing, the kind of fear that has been generated in that particular newcomer community."
When put in those difficult situations, newcomers often feel like if they speak up, they could lose their housing or employment, which is hard to come by as it is, he said.
"Even if they don't happen to you, but they're known of or have happened to a friend or a colleague, then you're anxious that you can't fight back, push back against that mean employer, that overly invasive landlord, because what you have to lose is so great."
Looking to the future, newcomers and advocates hope to see better planning and more support from all levels of government.
Hasan says that while organizations like WoodGreen need more resources to meet the demand, there's also power in community.
"Give them the feeling that they are not here alone. You are not here by yourself, you are here together."
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With files from Talia Ricci and Kirthana Sasitharan