page_title: Armenian Canadians
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Armenian Canadians / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Komitas, poète arménien, monument à Québec
context_page_description: Armenian Canadians are citizens and permanent residents of Canada who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. According to the 2016 Canadian Census they number almost 64,000, while independent estimates claim around 80,000 Canadians of Armenian origin, with the highest estimates reaching 100,000. Though significantly smaller than the Armenian American community, the formation of both underwent similar stages beginning in the late 19th century and gradually expanding in the latter 20th century and beyond. Most Armenian Canadians are descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors from the Middle East, with less than 7% of all Canadian Armenians having been born in Armenia. Today most Armenian Canadians live in Greater Montreal and Greater Toronto, where they have established churches, schools and community centers.
context_section_description: The first Armenians migrated to Canada in the 1880s. The first recorded Armenian to settle in Canada was a man named Garabed Nergarian, who came to Port Hope, Ontario in 1887. Some 37 Armenians settled in Canada in 1892 and 100 in 1895. Most early Armenian migrants to Canada were men who were seeking employment. After the Hamidian massacres of mid-1890s Armenian families from the Ottoman Empire began settling in Canada. Before the Armenian Genocide of 1915 some 1,800 Armenians already lived in Canada. They were overwhelmingly from the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire and usually lived in industrial urban areas. The influx of Armenians to Canada was limited in the post-World War I era because Armenians were classified as Asians. Nevertheless, some 1,500 genocide survivors—mostly women and children—came to Canada as refugees. In 1923-24 some 100 Armenians orphans aged 8-12, later known as The Georgetown Boys, were brought to Canada from Corfu, Greece by the Armenian Canadian Relief Fund to Georgetown, Ontario. Dubbed "The Noble Experiment", it was Canada's first humanitarian act on an international scale. The Georgetown Farmhouse (now the Cedarvale Community Centre) was designated historic and protected municipal site in 2010.
  Overall, between 1900 and 1930 some 3,100 Armenians entered Canada, with 75% settling in Ontario and 20% in Quebec. At the same time, there was migration to the United States. Between 1899 and 1917 the number of Armenians who entered the US from Canada stood at 1,577.  Between 1931 and 1949 only 74 Armenians migrated to Canada. By the 1940s the community was still no larger than 4,000. The two early centers of the Armenian community was in Brantford and St. Catharines, Ontario, with each having 500 Armenians in the 1920s. The first Armenian church was established in St. Catharines in 1930, becoming the hub of Armenians in Canada. 
  Immigration laws were loosened in the post-World War II era. Through the efforts of the Canadian Armenian Congress thousands of Armenians were allowed in. In the 1960s some 5,000 Armenians settled in Canada and by the 1970s Canada already boasted an Armenian population of 30,000. Most Armenians came from the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey) and Greece. Migrants from Soviet Armenia were also increasingly moving to Canada. The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia entry on Armenians (1980) by Suren Eremian estimated some 50,000 Armenians in Canada. The same number was given by Hrag Vartanian, writing for the AGBU Magazine in 2000.
  In the 2010s thousands of Syrian Armenian families fleeing the war there settled in Canada. By December 2015 the Armenian Community Centre, a government-sanctioned sponsorship agency, and individual Canadian Armenians co-sponsored around 2,500 Syrian Armenians. The Diocese of the Armenian Church of Canada sponsored some 1,000 Syrian Armenian refugees by 2016.
caption: A bust of Komitas in Quebec City, unveiled in 2008.[6]
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