https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/canada/immigrants-canada.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Many heartwarming stories have developed in the seven years since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted Syrian refugees arriving by plane in Toronto. But few caught the public’s attention as much as that of Tareq Hadhad, who was aboard the third planeload of Syrians to land in Canada, and his family.

Tareq Hadhad, a medical student in Syria, became known in Canada for restarting a family chocolate business.Credit...Ian Austen/The New York Times

In addition to receiving widespread media attention, Mr. Hadhad’s story has been made into a movie and also been told in a book.

For those of you who don’t quite remember their tale, a quick recap. Back in Syria, Mr. Hadhad’s father, Isam, had founded a confectioners in Damascus that eventually employed hundreds of people and shipped its chocolates throughout the Middle East. Bombing during the civil war leveled it.

The Hadhads became privately sponsored refugees in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. While the town is the home of St. Francis Xavier University, it is generally known for having an aging population rather than being economically vibrant.

Mr. Hadhad was midway through medical school when he fled Syria. But once in Canada, and with considerable help from the people of Antigonish, he vowed to re-establish his father’s business under the name Peace by Chocolate.

Mr. Hadhad agreed to meet me in Halifax for an update on the business and to talk about the role of immigrants in Canadian society.

Our meeting point, the brightly lit Peace by Chocolate flagship store in heart of the Halifax waterfront tourist zone, was one obvious symbol of the company’s fortunes, with a design featuring both peace symbols and motifs drawn from Syria, including a tiled archway.

Its opening in the spring of 2021 during the pandemic was something of an act of faith. But Mr. Hadhad told me that the return of cruise ships to Halifax this year has often brought long lines of customers outside the store. And even on a bitterly windy and dark late weekday afternoon, it drew a steady flow of chocolate fanciers.

This month, Mr. Hadhad opened a new, bigger shop and expanded the factory that produces the company’s chocolate. In all, Mr. Hadhad told me, Peace by Chocolate now employs about 75 people and could hire 30 to 40 more workers — if they were available in Antigonish. About 1,000 stores across Canada now sell its chocolates, thanks in part to a deal with the Empire Company, the Nova Scotia-based grocer that owns the Sobeys and Canada Safeway supermarket chains.

Building a business in Canada, he said, is much easier in than in Syria.

“It took my dad 10 years to establish the business in Damascus,” Mr. Hadad said. “You did it here kind of within a month.”

While Mr. Hadad said that factors like easier access to investment money in Canada make it possible for immigrants to set up successful businesses, community support for immigrants is just as important.

Mr. Hadhad is obviously proud of his family’s success and was pleased to talk about it. But he was also keen to discuss what’s become something of a personal mission for him: eliminating barriers for newcomers and showing Canadians the economic value of immigrants.

A former medical student, Mr. Hadhad is disturbed that many immigrants are unable to use their skills immediately when they come to Canada; instead, they often must undergo additional schooling, and face slow and costly certification processes.

Mr. Hadhad was told that if he wanted to pursue his medical studies, he would have to return to high school, obtain a Canadian undergraduate degree and then take medical school admission exams.

“It was absolutely ridiculous,” he said, adding that the regulations forced him to turn his thoughts to the chocolate business.