<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Christianity, Islam, and Judaism </Td> </Tr> <P> Syrian Canadians refers to Canadians who can trace their ancestry back to Syria . According to the 2016 Census, there were 77,050 Syrian Canadians compared to the 2011 Census where there were 40,840 . </P> <P> Syrians started immigrating to the Americas in the early part of the 1880s, the vast majority made South America their permanent home, a small percentage made their way to US, and an even smaller percentage settled in Canada . The overwhelming majority of Syrians who settled in Canada from the 1880s until the 1960s were of the Christian faith . The so - called Shepard of the lost flock, Saint Raphael Hawaweeny of Brooklyn, New York, came to Montreal in 1896 to help establish a Christian association called the Syrian Benevolent Society and then later on an Orthodox church in Montreal for the newly arrived Syrian faithful . </P> <P> Since 2015, When Justin Trudeau was elected Prime Minister of Canada, over 40,000 Syrian refugees have been brought into Canada . </P>

When did the first syrian refugees come to canada