TALE OF THE TAXI
Tareq Hadhad tells his story to NSCC staff and students in Springhill
Tareq Hadhad, founder of Peace by Chocolate, has quite a story of how he and his family came to Canada.
SPRINGHILL, N.S. – Exhausted, Tareq Hadhad left his Beirut office at about 10 p.m. and climbed into a cab.
It was nearing the close of 2014, and Hadhad was going to see his family.
Studying to be a doctor, he lent his skills to the United Nations. His work was in hospitals, mainly along the Lebanon-syria border.
His cab driver on this night was particularly chatty. “They know everything, which is true,” Hadhad said, “they know lots of details because they meet lots of people.”
Asked about his life, Hadhad expressed his frustration. He wanted out of Lebanon.
“Why don’t you apply for this scholarship at the Canadian Embassy?” the cabbie asked.
And there is was.
The destiny of the man who was to become the force behind Peace by Chocolate was sealed.
Hadhad shared his journey recently with students and staff at NSCC’S campus in Springhill. Peace by Chocolate, with Hadhad as founder and general manager, is headquartered in Antigonish. It employs 55 people.
Thanks in large part to that Beirut cab driver. Hadhad applied for the scholarship, and just as soon, forgot about it.
Early in 2015 there was a call. A man named George spoke to him in Arabic.
George said his application was impressive and invited him for an interview at the Canadian embassy.
“I didn’t finish the call because I thought it was a scam and I hung up,” Hadhad said. “I hung up on the call that would change my life forever.”
It took an email from the embassy to convince him the invitation was legitimate. Hadid attended the interview.
At the time, Michelle Cameron was Canadian ambassador in Lebanon.
“She didn’t know me, but she said, ‘your application was really well done, so you and your family are invited to go to Canada.’”
Hadhad called his dad to say he was coming over, with “really sweet news for you guys.” They lived in a tiny room in Southern Lebanon. The entire family was waiting.
“My dad was there, my mother was behind him, my sisters, and they couldn’t let me in because they were excited to hear from me.”
What happened, his father asked.
“I said, ‘dad, we will travel.’” They all tried to guess where, exactly. It seemed they came up with every country on earth – except Canada.
“In one voice they all said, ‘Canada is too cold!,’” Hadhad recounted. The cold is nothing compared to hardships the Hadhads experienced before moving to Canada. Hadhad’s father owned and operated a chocolate factory in Damascus, Syria since 1986.
“It was the second largest chocolate factory in the Middle East,” Hadhad said. “The factory exported chocolate to everywhere in the world, including Germany and Belgium.”
In 2012, the bombing began. First, the Hadhads’ home was bombed, and that summer they moved to a second house in Damascus. Then, the chocolate factory was shelled.
“The factory was gone,” Hadhad said.
The final straw came in 2013 after a mortar rocket exploded near him and his brother.
“I was injured in my leg and my brother lost consciousness. I told my family, this is it. It’s not time to do medicine, it’s not time to do business, it’s time to survive.”
They left Syria the next day.
“We arrived in Lebanon and became refugees, with nothing on our backs except the hope that we could return to Syria.”
It wasn’t to be.
After living in Lebanon almost three years, Hadhad received a call Dec. 15, 2015 from the International Organization for Migration.
He was going to Canada in 36 hours, bound for Halifax – in 36 hours; his mom’s flight would be in three weeks. When he walked down the stairs at the Halifax airport he saw a large group of people. They held signs with his name, which confused him.
“There was this lovely group of people waiting and carrying flowers and signs in Arabic and English that said, ‘Welcome to Canada Tareq,’” Hadhad said. “‘I was like, Tareq? There are all these signs with the name of Tareq. Tareq must be a very famous name in Canada. Why are they holding signs named Tareq?’”
They shook his hand and asked if he was Tareq.
“They didn’t have a picture of me, and they didn’t know me at all. They went to the airport to welcome a stranger they didn’t know.
“What I realized is that these people didn’t care about my background, about my ethnicity, about my religion, about my skin colour, about what I did in Syria, about my hopes and my dreams in this country,” he added. “What they cared about was that I was a human being who was seeking safety and peace.”
And through it all, he says he’ll never forget the cab driver who set him on this course.
“I might have never met him before, I will never meet him again, and he doesn’t know the impact he made in my life,” Hadhad said. “It’s the power of little things. If anyone comes to you for help, help them. Everyone has something to offer.”
Peace by Chocolate was founded in 2016; their chocolates are now sold across Canada.
To learn more about Peace by Chocolate or where to purchase their products go to peacebychocolate.ca.