page_title: Iranian Canadians
section_title: Business
hierarchical_section_title: Iranian Canadians / Notable Canadians of Iranian descent / Business
caption_attribution_description: English: Sea Life Cavern wing at West Edmonton Mall
context_page_description: Iranian Canadians or Persian Canadians are citizens of Canada whose national background is traced from Iran or are people possessing Iranian and Canadian dual citizenship. From the 2016 Canadian census, the main communities can be found in Southern Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. The vast majority, however, live in northern suburbs of Toronto such as Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Markham, and Thornhill, and in certain municipalities of Vancouver, including North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam. As of 2016 a total of 97,110 Iranians reside in the Greater Toronto Area, 46,255 in the Greater Vancouver Area, 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.
context_section_description: Ghermezian family, billionaire shopping mall developers
  Hassan Khosrowshahi, founder of Future Shop
  Karim Hakimi, founder of Hakim Optical
  Michael Latifi, founder of Sofina Foods Ltd and owner of Nidala (BVI) Limited which holds a share in Mclaren.
  Shahrzad Rafati, founder of BroadbandTV Corp
  Shahin Assayesh, publisher
caption: The Ghermezians, an Iranian-Canadian family, own the West Edmonton Mall.
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