American Mass Migration to Canada (CTV and Vox)

With 2022 being an election year, although not a presidential election year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on a trend I have noticed through my entire life. There has always been a threat, a fairly empty threat from the American left to mass migrate to Canada if the Republican presidential candidate in any given election were to emerge victorious. The Canadians also have a history of egging them on to do so, and tend to post media favoring the idea in some profound sense of Canadian exceptionalism, a glaring example of how Canadian nationalism is fundamentally bound in anti-Americanism. Canada TV, a Canadian News network posted an article back in 2020 titled "'I'm not comfortable living here': More Americans did actually try to move to Canada since Trump's 2016 election." The article shows a graph of the number of permanent resident applications submitted by Americans, with a spike from about 7,700 in 2016 to over 9,000 in 2017. The article actually does a fair job of outlining that not every American considered the option like the American and Canadian left wants you to believe, but this small concession of a spike in numbers can be conflated and propagandized by American media in reaction. 

Vox, an American news outlet, posted the article "Moving to Canada, explained" which outlines a position that seriously considers moving to Canada because of Donald Trump. It begins with showing the trend in interest of the idea, showing a massive spike in George W. Bush's second term. Conceding that around that time, people were more interested in Canada for job opportunities or to move closer to family than the president in office. They waste no time in attempting to outline how Donald Trump was different, even though the idea had been widely popular for all Republican candidates since 2000. They then continue to briefly outline the history of seeking asylum in Canada, the barriers that will have to be overcome during the process, and the conditions in which people are able to actually complete the process. Vox is attempting to shape the narrative as if Americans are desperately wanting to seek asylum in the great white north, but the process is too hard and most people that would want to would not be able to. While the latter may be true, the former is not. Based on the government immigration reports from 2017, many more Canadians actually emigrated to the United States than the opposite. Canadians are actually emigrating at twice the rate of that of Americans. 

Canadian permanent resident immigrants to United States 2017: 123,067

        .000379% of Canadian population in 2017

United States permanent resident immigrants to Canada 2017: 6,925

        .000189% of United States population in 2017

So what does this mean in the end? I would say that the main motivation to move to or from either country very seldom has to do with the political climate, and more to do with the economy and job opportunity. It is no secret as a global superpower, the United States has one of the worlds largest economies and consistently offers job opportunities. By this metric it would make sense that more Canadians would move to the United States than the other way around, but the media doesn't always want you to focus on that. The liberal media of America will romanticize Canada as a progressive safe haven when in fact that is not entirely the case. This form of media is utilized only to villainize the establishment, which I find to be a gross abuse of the position. If you're only looking for cheap shots for political gain, it can seriously harm the chances of further partisan cooperation and consensus on real everyday issues that affect everyday Americans. 

Signing off,

Jake Hughes