From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Greeks/Peter D. Chimbos
The earliest Greek immigrants, who came to Canada between the 1840s and 1860s, settled in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Prior to 1905 urban settlements were observed as well in Halifax, London, and Winnipeg. This pattern has remained constant; according to the 1991 census, 68 percent of Greek Canadians (or Canadians with wholly or partial Greek ancestry) lived in Montreal and Greater Toronto, and about 84 percent in Ontario and Quebec.
In large Canadian cities Greeks tend to cluster. An immigrant’s accommodation would typically first be with relatives or co-villagers and then nearby. Large local concentrations would develop their own restaurants, coffee-houses, pastry shops, food markets, travel agencies, banks, social clubs, media, and churches, and Greek-Canadian accountants, doctors, and lawyers would establish offices. Montreal’s Jean Talon Street and Park Avenue and Toronto’s Danforth Avenue are classic examples of virtual institutional completeness. Many Greek businesses, such as restaurants, food markets, souvenir shops, and night clubs, attract large numbers of non-Greeks.
There are two possible explanations for urban concentration. First, many Greek pioneers were sailors who visited Montreal and Vancouver, liked the surroundings, and decided to stay. A chain of Greek immigrants followed their compatriots or relatives, often arriving via New York, which is close to Toronto and Montreal. Kin and hometown networks may shape immigrant settlement and community development over an extended period. For Greeks who emigrated for economic or other reasons, primary ties might determine the choice of city. It was through relatives and hometown friends in Canada that many Greek immigrants made their first contact with Canadian society and found their first jobs.
Second, many Greeks disliked farming – a depressed way of life in Greece that they had rejected. Canada’s cities were attractive to immigrants who wanted to work hard, make their fortune, and start their own business or return to a more comfortable life in Greece. Some immigrants, who could not adjust to harsh working conditions in restaurants and factories and to the values of the host society, soon returned to Greece. Others stayed for several years, made their small fortunes, and eventually returned to Greece, whence a few, unable to readjust, returned to Canada.
