| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 7,955 [1] (2011 Canada Census) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, Calgary | |
| Languages | |
| Arabic (one of the dialects of Saudi Arabia), English and French | |
| Religion | |
| Islam |
Saudi Canadians (Arabic : سُعُودِيُّونْ كَنَدِيُّونْ, romanized: suʿudiyyūn kanadiyyūn) are Canadians of Saudi descent or Saudis who have Canadian citizenship. According to the 2011 Census there were 7,955 Canadians who claimed Saudi ancestry. [2]
Most Saudi Canadians speak Arabic, English or French. According to the 2011 Census there were 7,955 Canadians who claimed Saudi ancestry. [3]
Until August 2018, there were over 16,000 Saudi students on government scholarships in Canada. [4] There were more than 15,000 Saudi students in Canada in 2007, including 800 resident physicians and specialists who provided care to the Canadian population. [5] In 2015, Saudi Arabian students represented 3% of total foreign students in Canada. [6] Official figures provided by the Saudi Arabian Cultural Bureau in Canada (SACB) indicated that in 2014 there were 16,000 Saudi scholarship students in Canada and 1,000 medical trainees. [4]
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy. The Saudi government, which mandates both Muslim and non-Muslim observance of Islamic law under the absolute rule of the House of Saud, has been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. The authoritarian regime ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.
Arab Canadians come from all of the countries of the Arab world. According to the 2021 Census, there were 690,000 Canadians, or 1.9%, who claimed Arab ancestry. According to the 2011 census there were 380,620 Canadians who claimed full or partial ancestry from an Arabic-speaking country. The large majority of the Canadians of Arab origin population live in either Ontario or Quebec.
Lebanese Canadians are Canadians of Lebanese origin. According to the 2016 census there were 219,555 Canadians who claimed Lebanese ancestry, showing an increase compared to the 2006 census, making them by far the largest group of people with Arabic-speaking roots. As of the 2016 census, they are also one of the largest communities of Asian origin in the country.
Canada and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have had a generally cordial relationship marred by periods of diplomatic tension. Both countries, however, share robust economic ties: Saudi Arabia is Canada's largest trading partner in the Middle East, and is also one of the largest recipients of Canadian military equipment. In February 2014, the Saudi government had purchased Canadian armaments worth CA$15 billion in total. Until August 2018, there were over 16,000 Saudi students enrolled in Canadian schools on government scholarships.
Multiple forms of media including books, newspapers, magazines, films, television, and content published on the Internet are censored in Saudi Arabia.
Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Americans are Americans of total or partial Saudi descent. According to the 2000 census, 7,419 people of Saudi origin were living in the United States. In 2015, according to the American Community Survey, 96,783 Saudi-born people were living in the US. Saudi Arabia and the US have had important political relations since the 1940s. Population estimates are seen to have a very small diaspora, mainly because Saudi Arabia provides native Saudis with more than adequate welfare benefits, removing the need to live and work in other developed countries.
Samar bint Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi Arabian human rights activist. She and her father filed court cases against each other. Badawi's father accused her of disobedience under the Saudi Arabian male guardianship system and she charged her father with adhl—"making it hard or impossible for a person, especially a woman, to have what she wants, or what's rightfully hers; e.g, her right to marry" according to Islamic jurisprudence—for refusing to allow her to marry. After Badawi missed several trial dates relating to the charge, an arrest warrant was issued for her, and Badawi was imprisoned on 4 April 2010. In July 2010, Jeddah General Court ruled in Samar Badawi's favor, and she was released on 25 October 2010, and her guardianship was transferred to an uncle. There had been a local and international support campaign for her release. The Saudi NGO Human Rights First Society described Badawi's imprisonment as "outrageous illegal detention".
Kacem El Ghazzali, is a Moroccan-Swiss secularist essayist and activist and is one of the few publicly atheist Moroccans. Kacem speaks English, as well as German, French, Arabic and Berber. Mostly known for his publicly voiced atheism, his writings stress the importance of freedom of thought which, in his view, is lacking in countries dominated by Islam. His articles have been published in/by the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Huffington Post, Le Monde, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Basler Zeitung and others.
Raif bin Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi writer, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.
Waleed Sami Abulkhair is a Saudi Arabian lawyer and human rights activist, and the head of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA) organization. He is the first activist to be prosecuted by the Terrorism Law. He was arrested on 15 April 2014, and was sent to al-Ha'ir Prison while awaiting prosecution. On 6 July 2014, Abulkhair was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Specialized Criminal Court, and a travel ban for another 15 years, in addition to a fine of 200,000 riyals (US$53,333). On 12 January 2015, the case returned to the Court of Appeals, after which the judge requested increasing the previous sentence, because Abulkhair refused to apologize. Thus, the judgment was tightened to 15-year executed. In response, Abulkhair prayed for God's victory and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Specialized Criminal Court. Abulkhair is incarcerated in the Dhahban Central Prison in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a facility used to hold high-profile political prisoners, as well as members of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Canada and Qatar enjoyed friendly relations and coordination on the international field, long before Qatar's Embassy opened in Ottawa in 2011, including their joint military collaboration during the Gulf War and in the international intervention in Libya. Diplomatic relations between the two nations were established in 1974.
Patrick Lagacé is a Canadian columnist and television host who currently publishes columns for La Presse newspaper and hosts a weekly television show on Télé-Québec.
Copts in Canada are Canadian citizens of Coptic descent or people of Coptic descent residing in Canada.
Souad Al-Shammari, also transcribed as Souad Al-Shammary, and Suad Al-Shammari is a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist. She is well known for her opposition to Saudi Arabia's guardianship system which subordinates women's autonomy to the authority of male guardians. She has taken part in campaigns to lift the ban on women driving cars in Saudi Arabia. She is also the head of the Saudi Arabian Liberals Network, which is a network of activists peacefully calling for social and political reform and was associated with the activism of blogger and journalist Raif Badawi, co-founding the Saudi Liberal Network, and helped his wife Ensaf Haidar and their three children leave the country to avoid Raif's father claiming custody of them due to Raif's arrest.
Ensaf Haidar is a Saudi-Canadian human rights activist. Born in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, Haidar is the wife of Raif Badawi, a Saudi writer, dissident and activist who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1000 lashes in 2014. She actively campaigns for his freedom. Haidar is the President of the Raif Badawi Foundation for Freedom, which actively campaigns for freedom of speech and human rights awareness in the Arab World. She ran as the Bloc Quebecois candidate in Sherbrooke for the 2021 Canadian federal election but was defeated.
Libyan Canadians are Canadians of Libyan descent.
Ali Amjad Rizvi is a Pakistani-born Canadian atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith. He wrote a column for the Huffington Post and co-hosted the Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment podcast together with Armin Navabi.
Dhahban Central Prison, also known as Dhahban Prison, is a maximum security prison facility located near Dahaban, Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. It was built in 2015 as part of a renovation of the Jeddah Prisons infrastructure, at a cost of SR400 million. It has capacity for 7,500 inmates. When it opened, 3,000 inmates were transferred in from Braiman Prison. In 2015, the regional director for prisons Mani Al-Otaibi said it was the most advanced prison in Saudi Arabia, with state of the art surveillance technologies.
Nassima al-Sadah is a Shia human rights writer and activist from the "restive Shi'ite-majority" eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia. She has "campaigned for civil and political rights, women's rights and the rights of the Shi'a minority" in the eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia for many years. She ran as a candidate in the 2015 Saudi Arabian municipal elections but was disqualified. Sadah and another prominent activist, Samar Badawi, were arrested on July 30, 2018, by Saudi authorities in a broader "government crackdown" on "activists, clerics and journalists."
Arab Canadians by state of origin | ||
|---|---|---|
| Africa |  | |
| Asia | ||
| Related topics | ||
Based on state membership in the Arab League. | ||
