Driving Canada
Driving Canada is an oral history exhibition about the immigrants behind the wheel. Five drivers and two more voices describe what it takes to rebuild a career, a household and a sense of belonging in a new country — recorded from the front seat.
The transcript will be published here alongside the intro film. Every interview in this exhibition is fully transcribed — open any driver's ride to read along while you listen.
What is this project?
In October 2024, Qissa sat down with immigrant rideshare drivers across the Greater Toronto Area and recorded life-history interviews — each one running close to two hours, covering life before Canada, the process of getting here, and what came after.
Between five drivers there are sixty-six years of professional experience: Microsoft, IBM, TCS, provincial bureaucracy, pharmacy. All of it is currently parked. This exhibition is about what happens to that experience, and to the people carrying it, when a country does not recognise it.
These are not stories about failure. They are accounts of ordinary people making deliberate choices under conditions they did not design — told in their own words, at their own pace.
Choose your ride
5 drivers · 2 more voices
Kulbir Singh Bhullar
“17, 18, 19 hours a day.”
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Mehakjot Singh
“Every Punjabi kid loves the maple leaf.”
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Yalgar Singh
“Deep inside me there was a feeling — just somebody say the word, 'don't go.' I'll just cancel my ticket.”
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Mohd Javed Khokar
“We were always considered as Pakistani who never belonged in the society.”
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Rammah Mohammad
“When a woman at the airport asked me what I wanted to do in Canada, I said 'I want to do something in music.'”
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Passenger seat
Niharika Aggarwal
“I saw it on social media from friends and relatives who seemed to be doing quite well.”
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Anam & Haroon
“Why we started listening from the front seat.”
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