Torstar acquires The Canadian Immigrant; to launch Toronto edition

Torstar's Star Media Group has acquired the B.C-based monthly The Canadian Immigrant and is planning to launch a Toronto version of the magazine next year. The announcement was made yesterday by Naeem “Nick” Noorani, Publisher, President and CEO of The Canadian Immigrant.

The Canadian Immigrant magazine is an important resource tool for those in their first years in Canada.Our mission is to inform, educate and motivate more newcomers to see what life in Canada can be like,” said Mr. Noorani. ”Star Media Group has distribution channels that reach across the country. I’m optimistic that opening up a national distribution network will allow us to reach more immigrants in new areas of the country, benefiting those who see us as a bridge towards a new life in a new home.

Noorani said the two-year-old magazine's operation in the lower mainland will remain the same and he will continue to manage the operation.

The Torstar Media Group jointly operates Sing Tao Daily, the largest Chinese language publication in Canada, Metro, the free subway paper, and Eye weekly. It also controls almost all of the weekly and daily newspapers published in the Greater Toronto Area and south central Ontario, including the Hamilton Spectator, The Record (Waterloo Region) and the Guelph Mercury and all the community newspapers of the former Metroland Group (such titles as the Mississauga News).

The magazine (actually, a tabloid newspaper format) publishes solely in English, which Noorani calls "the language of success" in Canada. Many of the magazine’s readers are already fluent in the language. “People think immigrants don’t speak English. That’s such a myth,” he said, noting the federal government has increased its English requirements in the last decade for some categories of immigration.

“Most immigrants have a higher education than people give them credit for," he said in an interview last May. At the time he was suggesting that the company would expand to other Canadian cities across the country.

Noorani's story is typical of his readers. He and his wife Sabrina started out at a travel trade publication and later published a book called Arrival Survival Canada to answer immigrants' questions about their new home.

Then came what Nick called the “3 a.m. dream. It was almost like an epiphany. Why isn’t there a magazine for immigrants?” In August 2003, he quit his sales job to work full-time on The Canadian Immigrant.

“We sunk our life savings, our credit cards were maxed out,” recalled Noorani, in an interview with the Burnaby News Leader. They’d just bought a house and, because of the rising property values in the hot real estate market, were able to take out a second mortgage to finance the dream.

“It’s part of the story of most immigrant businesses,” Nick said. “You start with very little capital, work long hours, recruit free labour like your kids,” much to their chagrin, he added with a laugh.

The magazine started out in a small room in their North Vancouver home and the first issue was 24 pages with a circulation of 10,000. The publication is now averaging 40 pages and 21,000 copies on the streets each month, claiming 100,000 readers.