In the midst of an immigration debate, I therefore call Canada my new home

Late one January afternoon, my wife, our one-year-old daughter, and I were standing at the window of a suburban Calgary hotel, staring out at the snow and freezing weather outside, when the phone rang.

It was my mother calling from Islamabad. Although she and my sister had just arrived in Pakistan themselves after weeks of trying to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, she comforted us with what we had left behind.

Our memories. Our friends. Our life together. And the whole generation to which my wife and I belong.

“My son,” she said as I could feel her broken tone on the phone, “I’ve buried all your documents and published articles and photos.”

At that time – in early 2022 – the Taliban were conducting house-to-house searches.

“I also buried your colorful socks,” she said, unsure if brightly colored clothes from the US, Europe and Dubai would arouse suspicion from the Taliban. It was only a few months ago that extremist fighters arrived and overthrew the US-backed government in Kabul.

She is only in her fifties, but my mother was once again on the run from regime change in Afghanistan. Only five decades on this earth, but displaced again and having to start her life all over again for the third time.

We were a big family and for a while we all lived under one roof, but now we are more spread out than ever. Nine of us on four continents.

It would be years before we would be reunited. It may not be possible.

I was too young to remember the first time my family had to start their lives again across the Durand Line in Quetta, Pakistan. My family struggled to survive in that country in the 1990s, where they received little support from the government or humanitarian organizations.

To make ends meet, my four siblings and I became child laborers, working as tailors and tapestry weavers for many years.

Looking at my daughter, enchanted by the sun peering into the gloomy winter sky, I was glad she didn’t have to spend her childhood working or going through a war.

In Canada she would have health and education, and most of all peace.

The country’s population has just passed the 40 million mark. With increasing immigration targets in the coming years, the debate on how to ensure that newcomers are accommodated, employed and integrated has taken on a new urgency.

As one of the newcomers, my main concern at first was basic needs. But despite the struggles and the knowledge that other immigrants face difficult roads, I quickly felt that Canada is my home.

Finally I hung up the phone with my mother and thought about our future in Canada. I didn’t know anyone in Calgary.

But a former colleague introduced me to his classmate, Monica Kidd, who had been a journalism graduate at the University of Toronto and is an author and physician in the city.

Immediately after the colleague gave her my number, my phone rang. This was not a comforting phone call but an enthusiastic message: “Welcome to Canada!” she wrote to me. “I’m so glad you and your family are here.”

While we spent our two weeks of travel quarantine in the hotel, she bought us a baby car seat, warm clothes and boots for my daughter, and of course warm but colorful socks for me. She left them all in the lobby because she wasn’t allowed to meet us. The hotel management did not allow her to take the biscuits she brought with her.

When we moved to another hotel for further processing of our immigration papers and house hunting, she came to visit us.

The hotel, on the outskirts of Calgary, housed hundreds of new immigrants from Afghanistan, with staff from a local resettlement NGO caring for them, funded by the Canadian government.

In the hotel, full of all the Afghans who recently fled the Taliban, the local NGO that provides services to newcomers was given offices on the first floor. Although easily accessible, it was understaffed. To process a settlement document, we had to wait days to meet with our case officer.

The food was Afghan cuisine, but poorly cooked and the menu did not change. My daughter lost her appetite at the hotel and we struggled for months to get her to eat rice – her favorite meal – because we weren’t allowed to cook for ourselves. After 5 p.m., the hotel gates were locked and migrants were not allowed to leave.

Looking for a flat in Toronto from Calgary was a nightmare, with a rent of $1,500 for a tiny one-bedroom. Convincing the landlord to rent to a newcomer was also difficult.

During the two months of our stay in Calgary, Monica’s family took wonderful care of us, and every weekend we were taken to Banff and the Rocky Mountains – which I had read about in school and never thought I would actually see.

The treatment and care we received from our new friends in Calgary and immigration officials further healed our pain.

Although Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada assigned us to live in Calgary, after two months we moved to Toronto because my employer’s headquarters were in the city. More importantly, my wife, a former multimedia journalist for the BBC in Afghanistan, wanted to explore work and study opportunities in the city.

Monica’s teenage daughter, Emma, ​​searched online for homes near Calgary where she lives to encourage us to stay.

That connection still exists and we regularly check in with each other. “Thought of you yesterday,” Monica wrote to us last winter when the family visited the Rockies.

We have been living in Toronto for over a year now. I left my employer, the Wall Street Journal, after nearly a decade of reporting the NATO-led war in Afghanistan for the newspaper. Then I got a one-year contract with the Star through a fellowship program sponsored by Journalists for Human Rights.

My wife began a prestigious journalism fellowship at U of T’s Massey College last year and completed it last month. She begins a new role in Canadian media, this time as an associate editor and journalist for Chatelaine magazine.

As new migrants, my wife and I are privileged to have a job and source of income in one of the most expensive cities in the world. We were both concerned that we wouldn’t find work in journalism – a career we built at great risk in Afghanistan.

While other friends of mine and I are grateful to the Canadian government for accepting us and helping us start a new life, let’s not forget that many of us don’t work in our chosen field and our talents are being wasted . Many Afghan journalists – some with more than 20 years of experience – work in Canada in construction, driving Ubers or waiting tables.

With high inflation and life getting more expensive day by day, renting is another challenge faced by a newcomer. Earlier this month, I met with an Afghan friend who had recently arrived in Canada and said he had to pay six months’ rent in advance for a house in a suburb of Toronto. He said the landlord made that condition because he has no credit history. He accepted the deal – he knew the request wasn’t legal, but he had no choice.

Canada is known abroad as ‘heaven for immigrants’. The country is heaven, not only for immigrants, but also because of the beautiful nature and landscape and the diversity that we can see. The different colors, cultures and communities are the beauties of this country. I know many here have experienced racism, but I have not faced it. That’s one of the main reasons why I feel like it’s my home, a house that I have to work on building over and over, just like my parents.

With the skills and knowledge my wife and I have in-house, we are grateful to be able to raise the voices of voiceless Afghans in Canadian media and spread awareness of the atrocities they have endured.

Despite the trauma of losing our home in Afghanistan, we both live in peace with our daughter, now two and a half. I believe that everyone deserves a peaceful life, whether they are from Ukraine, South America or the Middle East, and Canada is paving the way for a brighter future. The more immigrants that come in, the more contribution we will make to Canada.

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