As crowds of protesters in Beirut grew with each passing week, Roland Hage felt the distance between Canada and Lebanon widen.
"It didn't make sense to stay here in Canada and just watch what was happening. I felt like I was too far away," he said yesterday from Halifax.
Mr. Hage, who has been living in Canada for the past four years, decided to return to Lebanon later this month to be another voice among hundreds of thousands.
"It's a crucial time and I feel it's a time I should not let pass without doing what I can to be part of what is happening."
Canada is home to more than 250,000 people of Lebanese origin, many of whom have kept close ties with their homeland. The community has roots in Canada dating to the late 1800s, with a large-scale influx after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
The diaspora has been riveted by news from home in recent weeks, and some have already returned to Beirut to join the throngs of anti-government protesters in Place des Martyrs square.
"There are cases of people who just took the plane and left. They feel very powerfully about what's going on there," said Louis Abi Habib, spokesman for the Lebanese Student Association at Concordia University in Montreal. "It's very, very emotional for everyone."
Others, however, remain more cautious. Charlie Khoury, a businessman from Halifax, said he has doubts that the rallies and protests will result in significant changes immediately.
"This is not like the Ukraine. People are not willing to risk returning. They placed their faith in change once and lost out."
After the war ended in 1990, Mr. Khoury said, many people he knew returned to Lebanon to try to rebuild Beirut to its former glory days of the 1940s. Within five years, Mr. Khoury said, almost all of them returned to Canada.
Hassan Isidean, who has been in Canada for 40 years and runs a Montreal bookstore specializing in the Middle East, hopes the country becomes more stabilized.
Mr. Isidean, who returns to Lebanon each year, wishes he could take part.
"I'm for the Syrian people, but not for the Syrian government [in Lebanon]" he said.
"They are our neighbours. But I think we've had enough of being told what to do."