FEATURE
TAKE YOUR BIG IDEA TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Immigrant entrepreneurs, facing barriers compounded by the pandemic, do better with a little help By Margaret Jetelina
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very immigrant has an emotional story about their journey, and Bita Jamalpour has started up a new business venture to capture them in a creative multimedia way. Her new business, Logue, is in the creative business of writing, illustrating and publishing immigrants’ stories through books, videos and even merchandise at thelogue.ca. For Jamalpour, an urban planner from Iran who immigrated to Canada nine years ago, Logue is an entrepreneurial venture close to her heart. “My idea is to help immigrants like myself have a voice,” she says. “Many services are available in Canada to help immigrants get the support they deserve and have a full life. But there is another side of immigration often untold or ignored; there are many emotions involved in the process of immigration. Immigrants need space to share their stories.”
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CANADIAN IMMIGRANT Volume 18 Issue 5 | 2021
Jamalpour’s business is just in its infancy, but she is following a long line of immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada. Studies show that immigrants to Canada are more likely to be entrepreneurs than people born in Canada, often due to being shut out of the labour market as internationally trained professionals. That means immigrant-owned businesses make up about 25 per cent of small and medium enterprises in Canada. And it’s no secret that small business is critical to Canada’s economy; of the 1.2 million employer businesses in Canada, 1.18 million (or 97.9 per cent) were small businesses, according to Statistics Canada (2018). The month of October has even been designated Small Business Month in Canada to celebrate the contributions that entrepreneurs make to the country and the economy.
sector hard, and immigrant-owned ones even worse. In a recent article, Supporting Immigrant and Newcomer Entrepreneurs in Canada During the COVID-19 Pandemic, published in Canadian Diversity, authors Wendy Cukier, Miki ItanoBoase and Akalya Atputharajah found: “While small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and self-employed entrepreneurs face catastrophic challenges (e.g., layoffs and closures), immigrant and racialized entrepreneurs face an even greater burden due to structural inequality, discrimination, and access to supports.”
Further, immigrant-owned businesses tend to be smaller and less connected to supportive organizations or financing. Being new to the country, immigrant entrepreneurs also face But the pandemic has hit the small business language barriers, lack of networks, and lack of
