Mohammad Nadi: Hello, good evening to you. Thank you very much, Mrs. Sabaghpour, for honoring us with your presence in this session. We are delighted to have you here as an active female representative in the Iranian-Canadian community. Please enlighten us in your special interview about your professional experience in Canada. We are well aware of your significant contributions, both in entrepreneurship and in efforts to enter municipal politics. Could you share with us the stages and challenges you encountered in these endeavors? Especially for other women aspiring to follow similar paths, what aspects should they consider and what challenges might they face?
Shahre Sabaghpour: Thank you very much. Greetings to you and all the dear listeners. I appreciate your opportunity, Mr. Nadi, and your magazine for allowing me to share some of my experiences with the Iranian community, particularly with women. As you are aware, I am Shahre Sabaghpour. I immigrated to Canada in 2011, and since then, I set a ten-year goal for myself. Within this ten-year plan, both in my personal and professional life, including business, social activities, and, importantly, motherhood, I had specific objectives and plans that I meticulously pursued. Canada, in my opinion, offers a highly organized and structured society. This organization facilitates rapid growth, especially for individuals who have clear goals and prior experiences. There’s a saying that when you want to start something anew, you don’t start from scratch; you build upon your past experiences. Before migrating to Canada, I was involved in volunteer activities in Iran, starting from the age of 21. Hence, I value community involvement and prioritize it in my life. I believe that with the help of associations and organizations, growth can be accelerated. Associations offer a variety of activities and provide a structured environment for members. Upon my arrival, I became acquainted with two associations: the Iranian Women’s Association of Ontario and the Engineering Association. I am still in contact with both associations and have supported them to the best of my ability. In 2013, I participated in a program called the Self-Employment Program, which was a one-year program for immigrant women with business experience from their home countries. I applied, went through a series of interviews, and was accepted into the program based on my language proficiency score. This program completely transformed my life path. It’s remarkable that there are so many resources available now for individuals immigrating and wanting to venture into entrepreneurship. In my first 10 years in Canada, such resources were not as abundant. I remember the first place I went to seek assistance for starting a business was the Welcome Center in Richmond Hill. I expressed my desire not to seek employment but to receive support in setting up a business, which unfortunately wasn’t available at that time. It was by chance that I participated in the Self-Employment Program through a project management hub. I joined this program with the intention of starting a business to support my ex-husband’s easier transition from Iran to Canada. I asked him to choose the business topic, and he selected LED light bulbs. He has an electronics engineering background, whereas I studied computer software engineering in Iran, and that’s where the journey began. This business venture had many ups and downs, both in my personal and professional life. In 2018, we reached a point of separation, and I decided to take over his share of the company. Since 2018, I have been the sole owner of the company, bearing significant responsibilities. As a mother of a 16-year-old daughter, challenges have been plentiful. Life, in my opinion, cannot be without challenges, and we must learn how to grow and adapt to them. Migration alters the type of challenges we face; however, challenges are always present in life, and the satisfaction comes from overcoming the challenges we choose to pursue with better alignment of our spirits.
The best example I can give is like choosing course units. Eventually, you have to pass certain courses, but depending on your circumstances, you choose different units each semester. However, life doesn’t always give you the choice, and regardless, it imposes certain units on you, even ones you didn’t want. This is how I became the owner of Blue Smart in the LED lamp field. The process was very tough; I had a lot of doubts. A woman doing technical work alone? I used to think that was a mental belief encoded in me. I believe humans are like computers; when we are born, we have certain programs in our minds, then a series of programs is also encoded in our minds. Well, I worked hard on my mind to get rid of this belief that there must be a male alongside me for this work, which is considered electronic and, idiomatically, masculine. I went through this process, then started the restart, and in fact, I restarted commercial projects, projects related to office spaces and warehouses. When we faced COVID, the company’s relocation was done in 2019. So, the refreshment was in the fall of 2019, then it became 2020 after January, and then we faced COVID. It was very difficult because all companies were working from home; nobody went to the office. As a result, there was no motivation to switch to LED lamps, and the question was very heavy. I was looking for a solution, and then I don’t know, I became internally concerned about the food crisis. At that time, I became acquainted with greenhouse agriculture. In this regard, I went to study, and the result of these studies I summarize is that adding a new production line in the field of agricultural lamps for greenhouse products, for greenhouses and vertical farms, which is a growing industry. Throughout this time, whenever I had doubts, I can say the only thing that helped me was commitment and belief, and that goal that food should be available to all people at an affordable price and healthy food should be available to them. Of course, this is much more than just providing food, because from a broader perspective, when each region can produce its own food, the need for transportation decreases, resulting in less pollution, which means less pollution, helping to combat climate change. I mean, it’s a very big transaction, much bigger than just wanting to produce some products in a greenhouse. Well, it can’t cover all the bases right now, because most of the products produced now are more vegetable-based, and it can’t cover the trend completely. Nevertheless, it’s very industrial; I’m very interested in it, especially that it’s like a combination of both genders. I don’t want to genderize it, but it’s like a combination of both female and male sections. The cultivation part, well, that part I really love, it’s very appealing to me, and the fact that they’ve used technology in this regard. Well, now we have lamps that can adjust their light based on the product to be produced, and the products are registered in Ontario. And recently, I also renovated the website, that is, I renewed the website, and now they are discussing strategies that, with the help of the college and their research department, we are actually working on entering the market. And now, the point about the challenge we had, you asked a question. I’m still talking. Wherever you think it’s enough, tell me. No, no, it’s very good. I had many questions in mind, but I said that this continuity should continue so that it can be very easy for the text written in this podcast to have its own coherence. No, it’s very good. I didn’t want to interrupt you. One to the same software section you read and I wanted to bold it here, and that you were in the software field is great. And that these greenhouse sections you mentioned, if we have them, and I also wanted to mention the municipal experience I have. If you want to use my voice, I’m also preparing myself. Anyway, I’m trying to be formal and use Persian words as much as possible so that if you want to use them, you can. However, maybe not, I don’t know, that’s up to you. Now I had the continuation, I was saying, oh, I was in college, yes, I was saying, yes, in line with that point I mentioned about commitment and the challenges ahead, I started a partnership with Naia College last summer, and I was very excited and I tried very hard to have this chic partnership for the company, and I asked them to make sure my daughter should be in this team as an intern. One of my conditions, and well, they accepted, and I was very happy about starting this project and that my daughter is supposed to be in the team as an intern And right on the day of the first presentation scheduled by the team on July 7th, they gave me the news of my father’s passing in Iran in the morning. The meeting was at 10 o’clock, and at 9 o’clock, I was going to pick up my daughter, and I saw my cousin’s son contacting me on the way, saying something like, “We’re home and we wanted to come an hour earlier, we had a card.” I was surprised, then I thought, what business does he want to talk about at six in the morning? He wants to start a business, what happened? Well, I picked up my daughter from her friend’s house, exactly on the way, on Yang Street towards Rich Yang, at the intersection of Yang Wei. There’s a mausoleum there that I really love. I mean, I even said, “Every day, whenever I leave this world, I want to be there.” I really love the mausoleum. It was very random; it was on the way. And the moment I passed by the mausoleum, I felt like I had lost one of my parents. And throughout this path, from the distance of this mausoleum to the intersection of Yang and Garden Street, I was thinking which of my parents I had talked to. My mother was in Tehran for her eye treatment, and I was checking which one it was exactly. The moment I turned left from Yang towards Garden, as they were turning left, exactly at the moment I turned the indicator, I said, “I lost my father.” I mean, I knew completely that my father had passed away. And when I arrived in front of my cousin’s son’s house, I saw him with his wife, but I didn’t want to tell them that I knew. And well, I had half an hour to inform the college, and I didn’t know what to tell my daughter. My daughter was very close to my father; we had a very close relationship with my father. They were very close to each other. They used to leave voice messages as a joke. I mean, I didn’t know what to do at that moment, and the first thing I did separately, I didn’t reply, I emailed separately because I didn’t want my daughter to know. I emailed the college members separately to inform them. I emailed them that I just found out my father passed away in Iran. The meeting was canceled with a lot of sympathy, and I also told them, “You too, they had also sent a message,” but they sent an email that today’s meeting is canceled. Then my daughter came, complaining, “Mom, I was awake all night until 1 o’clock, this information was reset, why did they cancel the meeting? I went to my friend’s house yesterday. But maybe I’ll continue this research after two weeks, and basically, when a crisis arises, I become creative. In crises, I like to create something. I like to take the energy of the crisis towards creating something valuable. After that, we continued the research, and ultimately, I rebuilt the company’s website from scratch. And actually, I can say that maybe this website is a kind of memorial to my father’s passing because all the processes happened after that. You see, I wanted to put this part here in the middle because if we have an excuse not to move towards our wishes and goals, it’s always an excuse. I think no excuse is more important than losing one’s father. So, it’s not like if someone is striving for their goal, they’re insensitive. I think people who are familiar with me should be very familiar with my emotions as well. Those who are in touch with me on social media, on Facebook and Instagram, on these platforms, should be familiar with how we can manage both aspects of our existence, that is, advance our logic part simultaneously and it’s good to actually learn from each other. If you see someone achieving something because I see this feedback in our society that they think the person is insensitive or indifferent when maybe that person knows how to manage his different feelings. Maybe that person knows how to use his unpleasant feelings to create and grow something.
Mohammad Nadi: So far, if it’s okay, there’s a text from Mrs. Puran Pirhadi that says we must know how to turn great sorrow into great work.
Shahreh Sabaghpour: I become creative in such moments, exactly. I truly become creative because, you see, sometimes I see certain feedback, and in that regard, I can’t say it upsets me, but I think it’s something very good for us to practice in Iranian society. That is, if we see a value in someone, even if we don’t know how to appreciate it at least, let’s not devalue it. And then I wanted to mention this point. Now, following the phone conversation we had today, I told you I definitely want to bring this up with dear ones who are listening to this interview or reading it. And that is, even in the world of social media, if you have engagement, you’ll receive more. It’s very interesting; a while ago, I came to check the impressions on LinkedIn. I saw that a post I shared from my own company got much fewer impressions compared to a post of one of my friends that I reshared. Then I thought, maybe that post has more tags, or from a marketing perspective, because these are details that have an impact. Believe me, I checked this issue several times with different posts that I reshared. When you share another post from friends that certainly resonates with your taste, your page gets more views, you get more impressions. That is, even in the digital world and the virtual world, engagement actually appreciates you. And with the more feedback it gives you, it actually helps you. This point was very important that I wanted to mention regarding women’s activities that you had referred to, and the question that was raised. As I mentioned earlier, I had passed a self-employment program in 2013. At that time, I promised myself that whenever I settle down, whenever I land in Canada, I will return this gift that Canada gave me. And at that time, I also proposed to the board of directors of the Iranian Women’s Association of Ontario to launch an entrepreneurship committee, but it didn’t materialize. Well, the reality was I didn’t want the responsibilities of being a director, being a board member. Anyway, it was a responsibility that added to the number of responsibilities. For this reason, I suggested, and ultimately in the fall of 2019, which was a very eventful autumn, both starting a company and becoming a board member of the Iranian Women’s Association of Ontario, I suggested launching an entrepreneurship committee, and well, I launched the entrepreneurship committee with the help of friends on the board and volunteers. We had planned things out, but then COVID happened, and well, from the beginning, there were no platforms for online workshops. Well, it was a change, and actually, I think maybe that was a suitable time for me to go and do this because I completely changed all the planning based on the needs of society at that time and with the help of Iranian-Canadian representatives who were in parliament, I got help. In fact, the Iranian Women’s Association of Ontario was the only association that had business-run table programs in Persian during the COVID period, and we held this program very successfully. Mr. Michael Parsa was a guest on the program, and he shared information about the support and assistance of the Ontario government for entrepreneurs there. Then I held two workshops; I got help from a professional lady in the field of accounting who came and provided information about the loans offered at that time. She came and provided information to the community, and in fact, the entrepreneurship committee that was launched took a different direction initially due to the circumstances that arose. Of course, the goal was the same; the goal was to serve, the goal was to help, but the tool changed. The tool became online, and well, the subject changed too because the priority was given to those topics that were more urgent at that time. Then in the summer of 2020, and on December 22, I suggested that other friends come and play a role in the entrepreneurship committee so that this movement could continue. In fact, I believe that associations should be like a river in flow; it’s as if it builds something and then passes it on to the next person, hand to hand. This can lead to better growth, and I didn’t want to express it as if social activities are separate from business activities. My social activity aims to create collaboration and then deposit it, and it’s an opportunity for others to come and experience it in that environment. In fact, I think organizations, apart from serving the community, provide a space for individuals who want to gain experiences. These are different from companies, for example, which I have an emotional attachment to, just like my child. These two are different from my point of view. At least in the mental definitions I have for myself. And regarding the municipal issue you mentioned, well, again, it was one of the goals I was a 10-year plan? Will I be in a point in my life in 10 years where I am confident enough to run for city council? It was a goal for me, and I indeed pursued it. And the only person I asked for permission from before registering was my daughter, because after all, this decision had consequences for her too, and well, I talked to her about it, I said, “I really want to try this, but you will also be colorful with me. There might be an attack, a good attack, I mean just any kind of attack. Now, through the news and social media and these talks, she accepted it. She agreed, and it was a very special experience, a very special experience, and I’m really happy I did it, and I’m really proud of myself for doing it. It was interesting; someone was talking about winning and losing, and I said to him.
Regarding winning and losing, which was actually brought up in a conversation with one of my friends, I pointed out that we need to see what the parameter of winning or losing is. If the criterion for winning is merely getting votes and actually getting into the city council, well, yes, I didn’t win, but I consider myself a winner in this regard. Not just 100, but 120 because I achieved all those things that were in my mind, the parameters that were important to me, as winning. First of all, I preserved all the ethical and belief criteria that I had in my mind with the definitions I had for myself throughout the entire election process. I didn’t compromise on any of them. And well, this, in my opinion, given the pressures that existed, and because of the events that had occurred, was a very big achievement that I am proud of. The next parameter is creating belief in women and girls in the next generation, that they can not only think about this issue but also take action. When I was campaigning with minimal risk, for example, young girls would come along, and it was very interesting for them. One of them said she wanted to become a police officer, and I could see that me being there and talking to them at their doorstep was very interesting for them. One of the mothers told me that her daughter had put my flyer on the fridge, and it was very interesting for her that I had come to their doorstep. Well, she had a younger sister, and when I went there, her younger sister was at home. This older sister was in school, and she had put her hair in two braids. I used to watch cartoons, and at that time they used to call her “Pippi Longstocking” because that was my favorite cartoon character when I was young. I told her she had made her hair like that cartoon character, and it was interesting. Her mother said that her daughter actually really liked that, and just like that, a small detail, a ponytail that now had a strange connection to a cartoon character that I liked in my childhood, created a strange connection between me and the older daughter of this lady. When I went there again to remind them to vote, her older daughter was at home, and she was very happy to see me and said she had put my flyer on the fridge and looked at it every day. Well, this is from my point of view, and then I remember one of the families that had said they supported me. When I went, they said, “You are too extreme in your beliefs.” They were also supporters of Mr. Masni at the time. I talked to him and said, “Look, since the moment I entered Canada, I decided not to get involved in this game of which party, faction, whatever you want to call it, I never wanted to get involved in it, and I won’t because in my opinion, everything has its pros and cons, and cohesion and unity are the most important thing for us.” After a very intense conversation with him that day at their doorstep, well, I was very upset about why, why I, being from the next generation, am here in a free country, and these repetitive stories, meaning us, meaning us, we can really leave these behind with a different view, with a different approach. I mean, logically, when one method doesn’t work, it’s better to try another method. Anyway, I was very upset about the judgment I was receiving, and well, it was expected of me, while the expectations that people had of me in my professional field were not defined at all. Anyway, now, because there will be a lot of talk about this, if I want to get into this issue, I mentioned it to you from the time electronic voting started. This gentleman called me at half past midnight on Thursday, and when I answered the phone, I saw from his voice that he said, “Hello, good morning, my daughter.” I said, “My wife and I only went and voted for you today.” That day, at half past midnight on Thursday, I had won in my own eyes. I mean, ultimately, all the hard work and destruction that could have happened, well, this is part of the political games anymore. It wasn’t something very unexpected, but I was happy that he called and saw the truth because the truth from my perspective is the truth in people’s eyes because the heart’s words are evident in the eyes. You can’t look into someone’s eyes and easily conceal the truth, and I spoke to 700 people in the Rich Hill area. They invited me to talk, and actually, they said, “Have you forgotten me? Do you remember me?” I said, “After that, I told them something like, you were in that corner of your house, I was very happy to see you.” This winning from my point of view and these are just part of the achievements. And most importantly, after 10 years, I did what I wanted to do. I respected all my competitors throughout the process. I was careful when putting up my signs so that they wouldn’t obscure others’ signs. I put a lot of effort into a healthy and honest campaign, and this was my goal because if we keep saying that politics is a world that cannot be entered with truth, and then we send out this vibe and receive this energy, this was one of my goals that could be achieved with honesty and had good results. Now, you mentioned for those who want to run in this regard, and another important point I wanted to mention, another goal of mine was to sum up the campaign financially under $10,000. I also achieved this goal. This was another goal I had set for myself, and overall, let me say the bottom line to you and to everyone. I said to all my friends throughout the process, if you believe in me, whether you help me with your time or not, if you believe in me, do it. Otherwise, if you think you might regret it later if you don’t help, be honest with yourself and with me. It was very important to me the team I gathered, in fact, the energy space they create by working together, in what collection they are, the cooperation they have.
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