1000000% this is happening. And it’s going to beget a tidal wave of young people doing it. Thanks to the “elbows up” crowd and 11 years of mismanagement, zero accountability and a government bereft of political courage and leadership. *sigh*
Those are a lot of current rightwing buzzwords that I keep hearing from the "Canada is broken" Poilievre stans with no substance behind them.
"elbows up crowd" - Nobody says that anymore. It was a campaign slogan used a few times. Get the hell over it.
11 years of mismanagement - I won't argue with this for much of the Trudeau era, but if you think Carney is governing the same way, you are simply being partisan over objective. This is what drove me out of the CPC.
zero accountability - what government has ever been made truly accountable? welcome to the world
bereft of political courage and leadership - to do what exactly? what do you want them to be courageous to do? Why do you think there is no leadership?
Figure yourselves out, Conservatives. Until you do, you'll continue to lose and then yell about it on Facebook "community" groups.
You understand that this kind of dismissive "um actually Canada is great, nothing needs to change and you're a dumbass for wanting that" which you are saying, writ large is the reason more Canadians are just giving up on the possibility of change and leaving.
"Elbows up" was a gallingly stupid slogan and movement. It deserves to join "woke" as a term only used in derision.
Elbows up is currently in liberal use among commenters on this Substack. It’s a slapstick joke akin to Trump’s 51st state. Like lots of jokes, it’s funny the first time and insulting after the third time…
Carney has channeled the insult Canadians feel from Trump’s dismissive insults incredibly well. I wouldn’t have thought he had that talent. But- if it was unproductive for Trump, it’s self destructive for Canada. There’s a reason mom didn’t accept “but he said it first “
Carney is effectively the Viktor Orban of the north. Orban used parochial jealousy of Brussels and elbows up to rule for 16 years. But Brussels structure allows an Orban to persevere because it’s a quintessentially Northern European institution that expects members to play fair. US-Canada is different. And Trump is different…
Trump is a boor. But he’s running the US for 30+ months. And Trump is far more willing to escalate tit for tat against Canada in dirty nasty retaliation. And Trump runs an economy 10x bigger. Canada makes the NAFTA/USMCA better but it’s not essential. And in a war of nastiness, Trump can exclude Canada. It’s not reciprocal.
US/Canada is a marriage in need of a good therapist. America has legit grievances too. But neither side can afford a divorce- and divorce won’t solve the underlying challenges.
Trump will not be in office forever and the divisive tactics Carney and the Liberals are using in his name to claim power are akin to drinking poison to kill our enemy.
Yes. Every politician has a limited shelf life. Some like Harper, Orban, and Merkel beat the odds to last 15 years but most are done in 2 terms. Trump’s 2.5 years from seeing a successor elected and 6 months from a Congressional flip. But he is still a big lumbering bear that can do you damage. He didn’t eat PP, he just sat on him- that was an ally. Elbows up is antagonistic, it may be an electoral winner but a huge economic loser if Big lumber tariffs or exclusion from nafta renewal.
Not what Red Letters said. Nor is Elbows Up a stupid slogan. Look at Howard Lutnick, red in the face that Canadian provinces are not importing US booze. We lifted an elbow... albeit from the bar top. The Americans noticed. That's not a slogan. If someone has the wherewithal to live elsewhere they should live their best life. But the rest of us, anyone who wants to live in a nation where there is a separation of church and state, where the rule of law is at least a topic of concern, where people are sometimes considered citizens before they are considered consumers, I would suggest the United States is probably not ideal. Which means where? The social democratic nations of Europe???
Using a government monopoly to forcefully remove a narrow category of consumer choice from your own citizens in order to hopefully mildly anger your trading partner ahead of negotiations isn't the flex you think it is.
Be sure to tell that to the Secretary of Commerce. And you misremember: Doug kicked California wine and Kentucky bourbon out of the Liqbo right away. It was not, as you suggest, a pre-negotiation tactic.
Ugh, I'm so tired of people getting a big stiff rubbery one over this kind of petty and meaningless tactic to 'stick it to the Americans'. We continue to stock every other kind of US product.
I made a point to load up on US bourbon when I was in Alberta just out of pure contrarian spite.
Sorry, Red Letters! I didn't mean to suggest that's what you said. I'm just saying that the previous poster did not understand you. I apologize for any confusion.
The "elbows up crowd" are those who over attribute Canada's challenges to Trump. Poor productivity, low economic growth, unaffordable housing and regulatory gridlock all existed before November 2024.
Doug, nobody is villifying America. Donald Trump told us to our faces we're a bunch of losers. If you're OK with that, why are you even reading a Canadian Substack?
Trump is a showman. Too many people use his statements to justify their pre-existing biases. Canada's future is with the US. That is an undeniable fact due to geography and it being the largest and most innovative economy.
I follow interesting Substacks. The nationality of said Substacks is irrelevant.
I see the psyop is still working. Personally I hope it continues for both me and my more well off clients. Not so great for the country as a whole though.
Canadians think psyops are conspiracy theories and propaganda is something that happens in other places and that they would easily detect if it was used on them. Which makes them especially vulnerable to manipulation as long as it wears a smile and has "nice" rhetoric.
Red Letters, this subject isn't about partisan politics. It's about the direction of Canada as a state either getting better or getting worse. The host of metrics that fall into this category might be cause for slightly more reflection when those under the age of 35 rank Canada around 70th in satisfaction (compared with other national rates of satisfaction) while the older generation places it in the top 20. Both are regularly falling lower in yearly polling.
So two things.
The first is that this generational discrepancy is the kind of 'inequity' that offers some insight into Matt's thesis about the scope and extent of Canadians giving up on the country: are things getting better or worse and for whom (if those under 35 ranked Canada in the top 5 or 10, for example, would you feel more or less confident in the future of the country? I think the answer is pretty obvious.).
The second is the direction of the trend. From regular appearances in the top 3 in the 90s, we are constantly trending downwards regardless of which party holds what power. The problems are not political per se that create such trends over the course of only their tenure; the problems are therefore systemic. Something is broken on a national scale. That means the solutions are not political per se (elect a different party - filled with potential but perfectly justifiable individual floor crossers, I guess - and the sinking ship of state will suddenly gain buoyancy); the solutions have to be equivalently systemic, equivalently non partisan.
Are we seeing any attempts whatsoever (other than political separation) for systemic changes to address the litany of country wide problems that in total fuel such a drastic and unequal decline? Or should we just keep on blaming someone else - a national pastime more common today than hockey and weather commentary combined - and switch political horses en masse... all of which are statistically galloping in exactly the wrong direction?
I am curious about how you think Carney is doing any better, same team, same bad policies. So far we have not actually got one dime in new trade on shore, not one infrastructure project approved let alone shovels in the ground. We have more travel, more debt and lots of pretty words that amount to nothing. This is why people are leaving canada, or making plan Bs to leave if it gets worse.
I will say, as much shit as I've given Carney, he's worlds better than Trudeau. I don't love how he's handling US relations, and I could do without the constant gaslighting, but I find that we're not constantly talking about culture war issues anymore at least.
Also, I think he's doing a bit better job than Trudeau in communicating. Ironically, I think today, aside from being chippy with the Bloomberg interviewer, he did a pretty good job communicating our tone and position WRT CUSMA.
Carney hasn't made any tough decisions like cutting social programs, dismissing tens of thousands of public servants, deregulating industries, reversing Supreme Court decisions or ramming through major projects. Until he risks his political future and that of the Liberal Party, he will be a caretaker of the Trudeau legacy.
The author speculates about a phenomenon that he feels in his bones, but has no real evidence to support his hypothesis, to the point of correctly admitting to several.other factors thst might be at play.
When he talks about "people with money", he certainly isn't talking about even middle class professionals. He's talking about the uber rich who have been moving assets around for decades. The rest of us are stuck with shitty policies often crafted by shitty provincial governments who are more interested in.picking fights with the feds than rolling up their sleeves and trying to make life better for people in their province.
Except for the nagging problem that neither you, nor the author of the piece that got this discussion started, have any proof to support your hunch that people are leaving.
"elbows up crowd" - I'll stop using that when I stop hearing Maple MAGA.
I think you're right, Carney is governing differently. I also think he has most of the same team that Trudeau did, and he didn't exactly do a full 180.
As for accountability - it actually was a regular feature in the government prior to Trudeau. Remember Bev Oda's orange juice? Do you believe that Harper would have been just fine with the arrivecan debacle? or the 250 million dollars that we just lit on fire TRYING to get an electronic prescription system working? The very last time we had a conservative we had orders of magnitude more accountability than we currently do.
That's hilarious. Ditch your loser leader and rhetoric like this and you'll be surprised how quickly your electoral fortunes will change. I've voted CPC far more than I haven't voted for them but you guys have lost a lot of us.
Sure. I like that the consumer carbon tax is gone, the emphasis on energy expansion and infrastructure, increased defense spending, public service restructuring (for lack of a better word), the emphasis on establishing new trade partners, and desire to make it a big tent (maybe too big a tent?). There is lots to like and there is still lots not to like. It's politics, not tribal warfare.
I like that the consumer carbon tax was eliminated and the military are getting better pay. Not sure what to think of the Liberal party now including an anti-vax pro-lifer.
The other things are all aspirational, aren't they?
The fact they got a majority was not the result of a big tent. It was flat out bribery. They even offered a judgeship in one case. The hilarious thing about all of this is that the left all over the world were all giddy because Mark got his majority and compared it to Orban's defeat. Give me a break. Here is one of Biden's senior advisors with an example of the stupidity of the left down there when it comes to our country. Explains a lot that she was advising Biden. The irony is next level:
I'm willing to bet you are older than the average Canadian. Young Canadians recent data shows see Canada very differently. The world is global, why should they stay and keep this going?
As for Carney, you're old enough to understand this pop reference, "Where's the beef?"
You obviously follow the bought media and never look at stats. What economic stats are actually going in a positive direction under our economic genius PM?
Well who was it that said he wanted to annex Canada? And called our Prime Minister, Governor and slapped tariffs on us virtually day one, inventing excuses of unfair trading practices and flooding the border with fentanyl? That he mused he didn’t agree with the boundary and thought it needed to be redrawn. Of course it was in response to Trump and it wasn’t initiated by our Federal Government, they had a delicate, bizarre situation on their hands. It was started and propelled by ordinary citizens shocked and deeply insulted by that betrayal. Of course it was Trump and his venal ‘running dog lackeys’.
We(not me) have basically had ten lost years. If every Trump aside were a real plan, Canada would’ve been annexed, Greenland purchased, and we’d all be paying tariffs on maple syrup by now.
I just had a young employee get married to a nurse and leave for the US. He said "Canada is a scam against the young and immigrants to pay for old people."
He said "I'll be back when Alberta is part of the US."
That's the spirit! We don't need young people anyways. The boomers can just bring the debt up even higher while the young have better options elsewhere.
Blame the kid who calls out the emperor for having no cloths on.
Mexico and China are counterexamples for dealing with Trump. Note that China didn’t make a spectacle of its rare earth threat/retaliation. But quiet strength worked.
Look I’m not disagreeing that Trump has really f***ed things up for us but as a serious country, we f***ed ourselves before he arrived. He is a catalyst. A gift in many ways for us to finally get our heads out of our arses. Check out Build Canada memo today http://www.buildcanada.com called “Say It”
For a high skill westerner, Singapore clearly offers the easiest transition/opportunity set, but are there really more Canadians going east than Americans on a proportional basis. Funny if true since so many that can’t get into the US come to China.
Also, people in Canada's Jewish community, a small subset of people, but over-represented in entrepreneurial pursuits, are not comfortable in Canada and are actively working on PlanBs...
I must admit, I am glad it's hard to capture in data. I am glad when almost anything is hard to capture in data. It absolutely does not mean it's not real -- if anything, the opposite. A second point: I suspect the role of "Covid (policy) dissent" is greater than can be captured in data. A lot of people including many "elites" saw the power and felt the indifference of the Canadian state for the first time in the era of lockdowns and vaccine mandates. That does not fade when the lockdowns and mandates end. My hairdresser told me about attending gatherings of dissenters at "West side (Van.) mansions" during that era ... Wish I could have been there but I was living overseas.
Not according to Matt's research: "They confirmed what I more or less suspected: it wasn’t possible to prove or disprove my hunch. There just isn’t any metric that neatly captures the scenario I think is happening." 1500 words on a subject that doesn't exist.
I was just thinking about the bias - usually towards the right - across much of substack. Much is due I think to not seeing or reading or hearing counterpoint to the day's typical news/narrative stories or articles because there is so little of it of good quality that is available. I see substack more as an editorial section raising issues and concerns in greater depth than a news feed that have little exposure through other sources of mass and legacy media.
Matt's article here is just one such piece where he freely admits he doesn't have access to data that "neatly captures" this thesis about the increasing scope of those leaving Canada other than accumulating anecdotes. But isn't this exactly the problem we find in all kinds of growing chasms between people: like with political parties, and their growing distance (if not abandonment of) founding principles, how does one neatly capture the percentage of those who feel very strongly (strong enough to want to take drastic action) that it's not that they want to leave Canada but that Canada and its promise has left them?
Not because it isn’t valuable. But because of the cost of print. This is a real phenomenon. You can wait until 1M wealthier leave or you can begin the process of understanding now.
As a corollary: as a real estate developer I look ten years ahead. I make moves three or four years before main stream media talks about it. By the time they do, their data is always two years out of date. I don’t know anyone in an industry that has ever read newspapers about their industry. They read about factors that will affect their industry.
I am curious WHY such a metric does not exist...is is because it has never been necessary until now and now the government would have to admit they are failing if they created one???? Canada is a high tax jurisdiction, it isnt hard to see why people with lots of money would want out... That is in fact one of the talking points Alberta separatists are using, I dont believe it but it's there!
I don't think there's anything nefarious or willfully blind here. I just think what I'm asking about is genuinely hard to capture outside of a highly detailed poll or a census.
My hunch is that The Liberals, or somebody must have some interesting but confidential data on this, otherwise that ridiculous notion of charging an "exit tax" at the convention would never have surfaced. Somebody is clearly worried about a generational brain drain in Canada....just my thoughts...
I think you are on the right track. You candidly admit the limitations of the data and how your hypothesis is exploratory and needs specific types of data to determine if it's true.
Would stalling or negative growth in inflation-adjusted GDP per capita offer a clue? Especially when compared with peer countries? The challenge there is that growth of public service spending shows up as GDP growth in any one year, because money changes hands to each civil servant. But over time, a country that has a large public sector especially one that is used mostly to absorb the otherwise unhireable, or overpaid and overpensioned for the value it produces, will drag down GDP growth as it robs dollars from the productive private sector. But it's something that's hard to tease out in any one year.
Another clue might be a reduction in income inequality, the Gini coefficient. Most leftists would say that falling inequality is a good thing, because they operate on the politics of envy: if someone is making more than I am, he doesn't deserve it and we should take it away from him and give it to me. But that's the point: falling inequality could just mean that those who earn a good living or make a lot of profit are leaving so it can't be taken away from them. Even if there was no redistribution (which of course there is, a lot), a falling Gini would mean money is leaving. So, counterintuitively, if inequality was rising, it would tell you that those with money and profits are willing to stay here where their income now shows up in the statistics.
(Yes I realize that income a Canadian resident earns anywhere in the world is liable to be taxed in Canada, although the tax liability to Canada is less if the income was already taxed in the foreign country where it was earned. We agree that Gini is not a perfect indicator for the trend you hypothesize is happening. But it's a start.)
Falling Gini (more nearly equal incomes) and shrinking GDP per capita means we are all getting poorer collectively and the money of the better off is creating wealth somewhere else. These two values are both measurable by economists who should give your idea a hearing.
We are unique among G7 nations, in that we are the ONLY G7 nation who do not track all exits through our border.
....this is why "we don't know" how many International Students are still in our country, and why/how we lost track of so many people who had applied for refugee status.
We are literally drowning in federal bureaucrats, but they don't seem to accomplish much of value...
I don't think the United States does, either. When I drive back into Canada from the US, I don't get checked leaving the US. (They might photograph my licence plate for all I know, but we aren't logged out as persons.) The first official I come to is Canadian. Does Canada report entries to Canada from the US back to the Americans so they can log them as exits? Do the Americans report entries back to Canada so we can do the same? Dunno.
When (rarely) flying out of the US I don't recall ever passing Frontier Control the way you do leaving France, say. After check-in with my flight I go through TSA screening and then straight to the departure gate. The airline staff might report their boarding customers to the US government. If they do, there's no reason why Canada couldn't make the airlines report their departing passengers to the Canadian government.
I got thinking about this (always dangerous.) I'm not sure they really do, or if they do they don't act on it. For instance, Service Canada (who does the accounting for Old Age Security) requires Canadian residents planning to live abroad to notify it before they leave, so the time abroad can be charged against their eventual OAS entitlement (which is 100% only if you have racked up 40 years as a Canadian resident after age 18.) Also, you have to notify CRA that you are ceasing to be a Canadian resident for tax purposes. Neither CRA nor Service Canada just "knows" that you left the country. (I've never drawn EI so I don't know how that works.)
The provincial health care plans require soon-to-be-former residents to notify them of emigration so they can cancel their cards. Of course not everyone does -- it's fraud to try to use your card if you come back -- but the point is the provincial governments know you've left the country only if you're honest and tell them.
And as @gs says, Immigration admits they don't know how many people who were supposed to leave permanently (because their visas expired or because Immigration issued them a deportation order) actually do leave. We could find out from airline international passenger manifests but it seems we don't bother to, perhaps because the vast majority of people flying out will be flying back in in a few days to several weeks at most.
"Canada is a high tax jurisdiction." By the standards of the US. But, per OECD data, we're about the same as the UK, New Zealand, Japan and Israel, slightly higher than Portugal and Australia. Worth looking at... these are the 2025 numbers. https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-canada.pdf
Safe havens, it seems to me, are in short supply. In the Western World most governments are seriously in debt and continue to rack up serious deficits. There is no possible way, apparently, to raise taxes to pay the bills or no possible way, apparently, to cut spending on programmes for the people.
This cannot go on.
The US situation is emblematic of the problem - its deficits are epic (as are ours in my opinion) and their inability to do ANYTHING is a concern. The US can print money as a reserve currency to get out of it at the cost of INFLATION but that doesn't seem to be addressing the problem, just postponing the day.
Geopolitics are the worst in my lifetime of lo these many decades. The Cold War era was potentially existential in terms of threat in the days of my youth but the adults running the system kept a lid on it and we all carried on. Today looks increasingly like 1914 or 1939. Not a happy thought, particularly considering the characters of today's adults.
All to say, one can certainly move assets and one's self to more benign locations weatherwise but all the other problems exist basically everywhere to one extent or another. Exhibit A: UAE. Its security assumptions are in tatters and I wonder as to the long term for what was a pretty attractive bolt hole.
It might indeed be the better choice to tighten one's belt and see what one can do to improve things in our little slice of paradise.
Last I checked, three times as many Canadians were emigrating to the US as Americans were immigrated to Canada. Considering there are nine of them for every one of us, that’s a big differential. Rarely reported on because it challenges one of our many national myths. So thanks for the honesty
There is no question it is happening for economic reasons. The new fly in the ointment is UNDRIP and DRIPA in BC. When governments allow private property to come under attack by the courts (or in some cases encouraged it) then people start to consider leaving. UNDRIP is destroying another leg of our societal chair. Productivity and the ability to earn a living in business was already gone. The entire chair is now falling over. People are bailing. It is time for radical surgery but I see no urgency in the Carney government.
Until Undrip is repealed I will not invest another dollar in Canada. And yes, other countries are an option as there are safer, more democratic options.
The partially moved out is probably impossible to catch fully. However, in about 15 months it will be possible to catch the fully moved out.
We have a census coming up in June. Stats Can will begin to report out about a year later. Here's what can be done with the data:
Take population numbers by age for the 2026 census.
Strip out the ones who report arriving in the previous five years.
Then compare the numbers of people with the numbers that should be in each age range based on the numbers five years younger in 2021. This will have to be adjusted a bit for deaths, this can be calculated pretty precisely from vital statistics data.
This will leave us - for every age range - a good estimate of that the population numbers "should be" and "what they are." The difference will be the number of people who have left.
It will be a bit more work, but the same methodology can be used to calculate by educational attainment and occupation.
A Civil engineer colleague of mine in his early to mid 30s left a highly stable job in Toronto to move to LA last year with his wife. He got a far better paying job and a much better house to live in Orange county. That's my own anecdote for you.
It occurs to me that Canadians are much more likely to know the personal circumstances (before and after) of a close friend or family member who emigrated. Hence the richly-textured anecdote which gives it the power of vividness. Most of don't know anyone who moved the other way, even if there are millions of them, because we haven't made friends with them yet (or never will) to find out why they moved and whether they feel better off for having done so. A casual work acquaintance isn't likely to open up especially if he's unhappy. You see clickbait stories about Americans who moved here and wax enthusiastic about free health care, gun control, smaller black slums, no-hassle gender reassignment for their trans children, and our "niceness" (which isn't the same as kindness and generosity.) But we have no idea how many of them there are. They could be abundantly common, more than outnumbering our exits (which I doubt), or they could be rare as hen's teeth and newsworthy for their rarity and kookiness. (And being a magnet for people with expensive chronic health problems isn't something we should want to be.)
Follow the money Matt. Our Prime Minister has a great vision for Canada in a New World Order but he’s not risking his personal fortune on it. 91% of his personal investments are in the United States. .5% invested in Canada. He’s a smart money man. We’re following his lead.
I’m sure many Canadian politicians have already covered themselves with this approach however can’t prove.
Canada is in a unprecedented decline due to Liberal mismanagement over the last decade with wealth redistribution, staggering taxes, economy totally dependent on real estate, governments regulating everything and not getting out of the way of big and small businesses, extremely poor health care and infrastructure was allowed deteriorate.
Provincial government played along and did not improve health care or education.
Everything was DEI and woke! Not focusing on the best people to make Canada a great country.
Where Brookfield does the best tax avoidance work is in Bermuda. They figured out a way to get around the income trust scam the Tories got rid of after the Liberals let it get out of hand.
For me, we have been losing people for years - usually economic conditions; but the brain drain has been a thing many times in Canada.
But then there's now. Vile poisonous antisemitism has infected every thread of our society since October 7, 2023. It has infected our institutions, the academe, labour unions, K-12 education, public health and medicine, media and more. It has been allowed to threaten people, assault people, intimidate fellow citizens who have zero to do with the war in Gaza. Synagogues have been firebombed and antisemitic 'protesters' marched through Jewish neighborhoods.
We. Have. Been. Here. Before.
This has been allowed to fester. Inaction from the very institutions that are built to protect jews delivers coffee to the protestors. Jews are absolutely leaving Canada. Fellow citizens of ours who just want to live as free from fear as you or me.
Those with means who are managing significant assets in Canada do that through hard work, sharp financial acumen and generous faith in accounting and legal advice.
They most likely are also looking at the tea leaves and hedging on what the governance in Canada will be going forward and what the implications are for government to be able to manage the huge debt millstone that all levels of government are carrying.
In other words, there is no government anywhere in Canada that is reigning in spending, trimming the public service or launching any significant look at programming to eliminate duplication or redundancy.
On the current trajectory, the only option will be to target large financial assets for new revenue streams. Such as annual taxing on principal dwellings. Or pension fund raids to finance dubious investments. Or wealth taxes.
If I had millions of dollars and watching our three levels of government blundering their way into a financial crisis, I would be quietly hedging my money elsewhere too.
The issue also very much exists among immigrants: "Highly educated and highly skilled immigrants leave at twice the rate of those with less education and lower skills. Doctorate holders are nearly twice as likely to leave as those with a bachelor’s degree. And the occupations with the greatest labour needs face the weakest retention: ICT (information, communications, technology) professionals, engineers, business and finance managers, and architecture managers show the highest departure rates. Canada is losing people with the skills and experience it most needs to keep."
Yes, for really ambitious foreigners, Canada is the temporary consolation prize and a stepping stone to the United States. The ones that stay work at Tim Hortons and in the civil service.
Why would Canadians NOT be doing this? Our illustrious Prime Minister is leading the way, as he has his wealth almost entirely sunk into USA-based stocks and holdings. His FAMILY lives in the USA, for crying out loud.
HE has abundant options if things go sideways in Canada.
...and if he blows up the CUSMA negotiations (as he now seems to be trending towards doing), this mini-exodus of cash AND people is going to turn into a stampede.
It was a nice country, too bad we made some horrible decisions.
"...With the exception of when the pandemic first hit, exits don’t surpass starts. That hasn’t happened in 40 years." And who was the Prime Minister 40 years ago? That's right. Two of Canada's most economically illiterate Canadians.
How is it that 50 years after the last "oil shock" Canada still does not have energy independence? We've had 2 and a half generations to get it right and we failed. Our priority has been to keep control of the country (and it's immense natural wealth) in the hands of a select few. We've put profit ahead of all else. We told China in 1989 that we really don't care about human rights as long as we can profit financially and China has played along and now we are supplicants to China's whims and wishes...
Exactly. Thank you. Where are all the comments about the US chains & even Tim Horton's not being Canadian anymore? Yoo hoo. Anyone tried to find anything other than Asian restaurants in Vancouver? But we sold out a very very long time ago - I still go to PetroCan out of nostalgia... 😢
Of course it is happening and, in my business, I literally have the receipts. I am helping a few. Although I am not so sure that the top one percent won’t continue to make out like bandits like they have under Justin in the last ten years(hilarious that folks don’t understand this dirty little secret and have let the media up here convince them that Pierre leads the party of the rich but I digress). They will in the short run for sure.
1000000% this is happening. And it’s going to beget a tidal wave of young people doing it. Thanks to the “elbows up” crowd and 11 years of mismanagement, zero accountability and a government bereft of political courage and leadership. *sigh*
Those are a lot of current rightwing buzzwords that I keep hearing from the "Canada is broken" Poilievre stans with no substance behind them.
"elbows up crowd" - Nobody says that anymore. It was a campaign slogan used a few times. Get the hell over it.
11 years of mismanagement - I won't argue with this for much of the Trudeau era, but if you think Carney is governing the same way, you are simply being partisan over objective. This is what drove me out of the CPC.
zero accountability - what government has ever been made truly accountable? welcome to the world
bereft of political courage and leadership - to do what exactly? what do you want them to be courageous to do? Why do you think there is no leadership?
Figure yourselves out, Conservatives. Until you do, you'll continue to lose and then yell about it on Facebook "community" groups.
You understand that this kind of dismissive "um actually Canada is great, nothing needs to change and you're a dumbass for wanting that" which you are saying, writ large is the reason more Canadians are just giving up on the possibility of change and leaving.
"Elbows up" was a gallingly stupid slogan and movement. It deserves to join "woke" as a term only used in derision.
Let's all keep everything civil. No one has crossed the line yet but this ain't my first rodeo and I know where these threads go.
You guys could lead by not swearing during your podcasts.
Just sayin’.
Profanity is fine. Bickering with each other is not.
No, profanity is not fine within a civil society.
Each time we allow our standards to wither, we are ill-prepared for what steps into the void.
You're tempting me
And I was just about to type something else! Thanks
Elbows up is currently in liberal use among commenters on this Substack. It’s a slapstick joke akin to Trump’s 51st state. Like lots of jokes, it’s funny the first time and insulting after the third time…
Carney has channeled the insult Canadians feel from Trump’s dismissive insults incredibly well. I wouldn’t have thought he had that talent. But- if it was unproductive for Trump, it’s self destructive for Canada. There’s a reason mom didn’t accept “but he said it first “
Carney is effectively the Viktor Orban of the north. Orban used parochial jealousy of Brussels and elbows up to rule for 16 years. But Brussels structure allows an Orban to persevere because it’s a quintessentially Northern European institution that expects members to play fair. US-Canada is different. And Trump is different…
Trump is a boor. But he’s running the US for 30+ months. And Trump is far more willing to escalate tit for tat against Canada in dirty nasty retaliation. And Trump runs an economy 10x bigger. Canada makes the NAFTA/USMCA better but it’s not essential. And in a war of nastiness, Trump can exclude Canada. It’s not reciprocal.
US/Canada is a marriage in need of a good therapist. America has legit grievances too. But neither side can afford a divorce- and divorce won’t solve the underlying challenges.
Trump will not be in office forever and the divisive tactics Carney and the Liberals are using in his name to claim power are akin to drinking poison to kill our enemy.
Trump won’t be but Carney might…
Yes. Every politician has a limited shelf life. Some like Harper, Orban, and Merkel beat the odds to last 15 years but most are done in 2 terms. Trump’s 2.5 years from seeing a successor elected and 6 months from a Congressional flip. But he is still a big lumbering bear that can do you damage. He didn’t eat PP, he just sat on him- that was an ally. Elbows up is antagonistic, it may be an electoral winner but a huge economic loser if Big lumber tariffs or exclusion from nafta renewal.
Not what Red Letters said. Nor is Elbows Up a stupid slogan. Look at Howard Lutnick, red in the face that Canadian provinces are not importing US booze. We lifted an elbow... albeit from the bar top. The Americans noticed. That's not a slogan. If someone has the wherewithal to live elsewhere they should live their best life. But the rest of us, anyone who wants to live in a nation where there is a separation of church and state, where the rule of law is at least a topic of concern, where people are sometimes considered citizens before they are considered consumers, I would suggest the United States is probably not ideal. Which means where? The social democratic nations of Europe???
Using a government monopoly to forcefully remove a narrow category of consumer choice from your own citizens in order to hopefully mildly anger your trading partner ahead of negotiations isn't the flex you think it is.
Be sure to tell that to the Secretary of Commerce. And you misremember: Doug kicked California wine and Kentucky bourbon out of the Liqbo right away. It was not, as you suggest, a pre-negotiation tactic.
Ugh, I'm so tired of people getting a big stiff rubbery one over this kind of petty and meaningless tactic to 'stick it to the Americans'. We continue to stock every other kind of US product.
I made a point to load up on US bourbon when I was in Alberta just out of pure contrarian spite.
Except I didn't say that.
Sorry, Red Letters! I didn't mean to suggest that's what you said. I'm just saying that the previous poster did not understand you. I apologize for any confusion.
all good, I was referring to something KRM implied that I said.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
Can you elaborate? I don't know what you're referring to.
The "elbows up crowd" are those who over attribute Canada's challenges to Trump. Poor productivity, low economic growth, unaffordable housing and regulatory gridlock all existed before November 2024.
It's also such a weird and obscure reference that I'm convinced they used AI to come up with it.
It plays to the innate Laurentian desire to villify America while craving it's attention. Loyalists gotta be Loyalists.
Doug, nobody is villifying America. Donald Trump told us to our faces we're a bunch of losers. If you're OK with that, why are you even reading a Canadian Substack?
Trump is a showman. Too many people use his statements to justify their pre-existing biases. Canada's future is with the US. That is an undeniable fact due to geography and it being the largest and most innovative economy.
I follow interesting Substacks. The nationality of said Substacks is irrelevant.
Laurentian Elite: aka the United Empire Loyalists. Canada was fine before they showed up...
Laurentian Elite is right up there with Flat Earth and Faked Moon Landings.
I see the psyop is still working. Personally I hope it continues for both me and my more well off clients. Not so great for the country as a whole though.
Canadians think psyops are conspiracy theories and propaganda is something that happens in other places and that they would easily detect if it was used on them. Which makes them especially vulnerable to manipulation as long as it wears a smile and has "nice" rhetoric.
Red Letters, this subject isn't about partisan politics. It's about the direction of Canada as a state either getting better or getting worse. The host of metrics that fall into this category might be cause for slightly more reflection when those under the age of 35 rank Canada around 70th in satisfaction (compared with other national rates of satisfaction) while the older generation places it in the top 20. Both are regularly falling lower in yearly polling.
So two things.
The first is that this generational discrepancy is the kind of 'inequity' that offers some insight into Matt's thesis about the scope and extent of Canadians giving up on the country: are things getting better or worse and for whom (if those under 35 ranked Canada in the top 5 or 10, for example, would you feel more or less confident in the future of the country? I think the answer is pretty obvious.).
The second is the direction of the trend. From regular appearances in the top 3 in the 90s, we are constantly trending downwards regardless of which party holds what power. The problems are not political per se that create such trends over the course of only their tenure; the problems are therefore systemic. Something is broken on a national scale. That means the solutions are not political per se (elect a different party - filled with potential but perfectly justifiable individual floor crossers, I guess - and the sinking ship of state will suddenly gain buoyancy); the solutions have to be equivalently systemic, equivalently non partisan.
Are we seeing any attempts whatsoever (other than political separation) for systemic changes to address the litany of country wide problems that in total fuel such a drastic and unequal decline? Or should we just keep on blaming someone else - a national pastime more common today than hockey and weather commentary combined - and switch political horses en masse... all of which are statistically galloping in exactly the wrong direction?
I appreciate your comment.
I am curious about how you think Carney is doing any better, same team, same bad policies. So far we have not actually got one dime in new trade on shore, not one infrastructure project approved let alone shovels in the ground. We have more travel, more debt and lots of pretty words that amount to nothing. This is why people are leaving canada, or making plan Bs to leave if it gets worse.
I will say, as much shit as I've given Carney, he's worlds better than Trudeau. I don't love how he's handling US relations, and I could do without the constant gaslighting, but I find that we're not constantly talking about culture war issues anymore at least.
Also, I think he's doing a bit better job than Trudeau in communicating. Ironically, I think today, aside from being chippy with the Bloomberg interviewer, he did a pretty good job communicating our tone and position WRT CUSMA.
Carney hasn't made any tough decisions like cutting social programs, dismissing tens of thousands of public servants, deregulating industries, reversing Supreme Court decisions or ramming through major projects. Until he risks his political future and that of the Liberal Party, he will be a caretaker of the Trudeau legacy.
Which is what the boomer base east of the Ottawa River wants. They wanted all the free stuff of the Trudeau era but without the culture war crap.
The author speculates about a phenomenon that he feels in his bones, but has no real evidence to support his hypothesis, to the point of correctly admitting to several.other factors thst might be at play.
When he talks about "people with money", he certainly isn't talking about even middle class professionals. He's talking about the uber rich who have been moving assets around for decades. The rest of us are stuck with shitty policies often crafted by shitty provincial governments who are more interested in.picking fights with the feds than rolling up their sleeves and trying to make life better for people in their province.
Except for the nagging problem that neither you, nor the author of the piece that got this discussion started, have any proof to support your hunch that people are leaving.
Someone helping folks leave putting his hand up here.
"elbows up crowd" - I'll stop using that when I stop hearing Maple MAGA.
I think you're right, Carney is governing differently. I also think he has most of the same team that Trudeau did, and he didn't exactly do a full 180.
As for accountability - it actually was a regular feature in the government prior to Trudeau. Remember Bev Oda's orange juice? Do you believe that Harper would have been just fine with the arrivecan debacle? or the 250 million dollars that we just lit on fire TRYING to get an electronic prescription system working? The very last time we had a conservative we had orders of magnitude more accountability than we currently do.
Some valid points and I appreciate your comment.
He's been working extremely hard undoing Justin's disastrous reign...
Not really.
While keeping the same people from the old regime around?
What do you think Carney's successes have been?
Other than rigging the circumstances of an election, abusing many Canadians' basest fears, and bribing his way to a majority.
That's hilarious. Ditch your loser leader and rhetoric like this and you'll be surprised how quickly your electoral fortunes will change. I've voted CPC far more than I haven't voted for them but you guys have lost a lot of us.
I note that Red Letters did not answer the question.
I did. It's not much, but I wanted to provide something.
Right. Pointing out abuses and manipulation is bad. Change is bad.
Let me guess, the CPC leader you have in mind is Michael Chong?
No and No. Another swing and a miss of an assumption.
Sure. I like that the consumer carbon tax is gone, the emphasis on energy expansion and infrastructure, increased defense spending, public service restructuring (for lack of a better word), the emphasis on establishing new trade partners, and desire to make it a big tent (maybe too big a tent?). There is lots to like and there is still lots not to like. It's politics, not tribal warfare.
The consumer carbon tax still exists, but the rate was set to zero.
Now that Carney has his majority, what makes you think it can't (or won't) come back?
There has been NO energy expansion, there has been NO reduction in the federal civil service, there have been NO new trading partners added.
MOST of the things you count as Carney's "successes" are in fact things which have been TALKED ABOUT, but have not actually occurred as of yet.
If you like the watered down versions of selected conservative policies, the real thing might blow your mind.
Get rid of your idiot leader. I’ve always been a conservative.
I like Pierre. If he weren't effective, the Liberals wouldn't be trying so hard to unseat him.
I like that the consumer carbon tax was eliminated and the military are getting better pay. Not sure what to think of the Liberal party now including an anti-vax pro-lifer.
The other things are all aspirational, aren't they?
That floor crossing was a real head scratcher. It seemed to piss off the left and right equally too.
The fact they got a majority was not the result of a big tent. It was flat out bribery. They even offered a judgeship in one case. The hilarious thing about all of this is that the left all over the world were all giddy because Mark got his majority and compared it to Orban's defeat. Give me a break. Here is one of Biden's senior advisors with an example of the stupidity of the left down there when it comes to our country. Explains a lot that she was advising Biden. The irony is next level:
https://x.com/neeratanden/status/2043880152589861250?s=20
Investing in America. Oh, you mean as Prime Minister...
So well said!
I'm willing to bet you are older than the average Canadian. Young Canadians recent data shows see Canada very differently. The world is global, why should they stay and keep this going?
As for Carney, you're old enough to understand this pop reference, "Where's the beef?"
I started played hockey this year - after 25 years. My slogan was "head's up". I got rookie of the year.
I am in favour of not using hockey imagery in our politics. But if we do, I recommend "head's up".
You obviously follow the bought media and never look at stats. What economic stats are actually going in a positive direction under our economic genius PM?
What is "bought media"? Provide examples. And suggest alternatives. "Unbought"?
"Unbot"?
That must be it! I only follow certain media. That’s why I read The Line.
But how do you really feel?
You want to blame the ‘Elbows Up’ crowd? Victimhood has no bounds.
Lemme guess? And you wanna blame Trump? Our problems started in at least 2015….well before Trump 2.0 and I am NOT A FAN of Trump or MAGA.
Well who was it that said he wanted to annex Canada? And called our Prime Minister, Governor and slapped tariffs on us virtually day one, inventing excuses of unfair trading practices and flooding the border with fentanyl? That he mused he didn’t agree with the boundary and thought it needed to be redrawn. Of course it was in response to Trump and it wasn’t initiated by our Federal Government, they had a delicate, bizarre situation on their hands. It was started and propelled by ordinary citizens shocked and deeply insulted by that betrayal. Of course it was Trump and his venal ‘running dog lackeys’.
It is not T’s fault that we are in the mess we are in. That was literally a psyop that folks fell for.
I’m not going to argue with you but you are clearly wrong. 100% categorically incorrect.
BTW, I’m talking Trumps second term and the annexation talk which was the subject at hand.
The problems you have with the Federal Government is another topic that I have no interest in engaging in.
We(not me) have basically had ten lost years. If every Trump aside were a real plan, Canada would’ve been annexed, Greenland purchased, and we’d all be paying tariffs on maple syrup by now.
I would definitely blame the Liberal government, and by extension, their supporters.
What's your alternative? Poilievre?
Of course you would but you just don’t know why.
I just had a young employee get married to a nurse and leave for the US. He said "Canada is a scam against the young and immigrants to pay for old people."
He said "I'll be back when Alberta is part of the US."
Let him stay in the USA
That's the spirit! We don't need young people anyways. The boomers can just bring the debt up even higher while the young have better options elsewhere.
Blame the kid who calls out the emperor for having no cloths on.
Mexico and China are counterexamples for dealing with Trump. Note that China didn’t make a spectacle of its rare earth threat/retaliation. But quiet strength worked.
Look I’m not disagreeing that Trump has really f***ed things up for us but as a serious country, we f***ed ourselves before he arrived. He is a catalyst. A gift in many ways for us to finally get our heads out of our arses. Check out Build Canada memo today http://www.buildcanada.com called “Say It”
But that is another subject entirely. Have a nice day.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/joel-kotkin-canadians-must-stop-romanticizing-a-failing-europe
Ok, where are they going? Asking for a friend
The US and some to Asia
Asia has over 50 countries, which are the best and why?
Start with Singapore. Do some homework. Good economy, high trust society, nice weather.
For a high skill westerner, Singapore clearly offers the easiest transition/opportunity set, but are there really more Canadians going east than Americans on a proportional basis. Funny if true since so many that can’t get into the US come to China.
Who is they?
They = the people who are leaving Canada
It’s happening. Has been for several years. It’s very real.
Also, people in Canada's Jewish community, a small subset of people, but over-represented in entrepreneurial pursuits, are not comfortable in Canada and are actively working on PlanBs...
I must admit, I am glad it's hard to capture in data. I am glad when almost anything is hard to capture in data. It absolutely does not mean it's not real -- if anything, the opposite. A second point: I suspect the role of "Covid (policy) dissent" is greater than can be captured in data. A lot of people including many "elites" saw the power and felt the indifference of the Canadian state for the first time in the era of lockdowns and vaccine mandates. That does not fade when the lockdowns and mandates end. My hairdresser told me about attending gatherings of dissenters at "West side (Van.) mansions" during that era ... Wish I could have been there but I was living overseas.
Not according to Matt's research: "They confirmed what I more or less suspected: it wasn’t possible to prove or disprove my hunch. There just isn’t any metric that neatly captures the scenario I think is happening." 1500 words on a subject that doesn't exist.
"Neatly captures" is not synonymous with "a subject that doesn't exist."
Such is the tension between sub stack and traditional journalism. No assignment editor would’ve let that piece in print.
I was just thinking about the bias - usually towards the right - across much of substack. Much is due I think to not seeing or reading or hearing counterpoint to the day's typical news/narrative stories or articles because there is so little of it of good quality that is available. I see substack more as an editorial section raising issues and concerns in greater depth than a news feed that have little exposure through other sources of mass and legacy media.
Matt's article here is just one such piece where he freely admits he doesn't have access to data that "neatly captures" this thesis about the increasing scope of those leaving Canada other than accumulating anecdotes. But isn't this exactly the problem we find in all kinds of growing chasms between people: like with political parties, and their growing distance (if not abandonment of) founding principles, how does one neatly capture the percentage of those who feel very strongly (strong enough to want to take drastic action) that it's not that they want to leave Canada but that Canada and its promise has left them?
Not because it isn’t valuable. But because of the cost of print. This is a real phenomenon. You can wait until 1M wealthier leave or you can begin the process of understanding now.
As a corollary: as a real estate developer I look ten years ahead. I make moves three or four years before main stream media talks about it. By the time they do, their data is always two years out of date. I don’t know anyone in an industry that has ever read newspapers about their industry. They read about factors that will affect their industry.
Or you can say “Best of luck!”
I am curious WHY such a metric does not exist...is is because it has never been necessary until now and now the government would have to admit they are failing if they created one???? Canada is a high tax jurisdiction, it isnt hard to see why people with lots of money would want out... That is in fact one of the talking points Alberta separatists are using, I dont believe it but it's there!
I don't think there's anything nefarious or willfully blind here. I just think what I'm asking about is genuinely hard to capture outside of a highly detailed poll or a census.
My hunch is that The Liberals, or somebody must have some interesting but confidential data on this, otherwise that ridiculous notion of charging an "exit tax" at the convention would never have surfaced. Somebody is clearly worried about a generational brain drain in Canada....just my thoughts...
Revenue Canada collects data on who owns property outside of Canada. Year over year data could tell how much it is increasing.
I think you are on the right track. You candidly admit the limitations of the data and how your hypothesis is exploratory and needs specific types of data to determine if it's true.
Would stalling or negative growth in inflation-adjusted GDP per capita offer a clue? Especially when compared with peer countries? The challenge there is that growth of public service spending shows up as GDP growth in any one year, because money changes hands to each civil servant. But over time, a country that has a large public sector especially one that is used mostly to absorb the otherwise unhireable, or overpaid and overpensioned for the value it produces, will drag down GDP growth as it robs dollars from the productive private sector. But it's something that's hard to tease out in any one year.
Another clue might be a reduction in income inequality, the Gini coefficient. Most leftists would say that falling inequality is a good thing, because they operate on the politics of envy: if someone is making more than I am, he doesn't deserve it and we should take it away from him and give it to me. But that's the point: falling inequality could just mean that those who earn a good living or make a lot of profit are leaving so it can't be taken away from them. Even if there was no redistribution (which of course there is, a lot), a falling Gini would mean money is leaving. So, counterintuitively, if inequality was rising, it would tell you that those with money and profits are willing to stay here where their income now shows up in the statistics.
(Yes I realize that income a Canadian resident earns anywhere in the world is liable to be taxed in Canada, although the tax liability to Canada is less if the income was already taxed in the foreign country where it was earned. We agree that Gini is not a perfect indicator for the trend you hypothesize is happening. But it's a start.)
Falling Gini (more nearly equal incomes) and shrinking GDP per capita means we are all getting poorer collectively and the money of the better off is creating wealth somewhere else. These two values are both measurable by economists who should give your idea a hearing.
We are unique among G7 nations, in that we are the ONLY G7 nation who do not track all exits through our border.
....this is why "we don't know" how many International Students are still in our country, and why/how we lost track of so many people who had applied for refugee status.
We are literally drowning in federal bureaucrats, but they don't seem to accomplish much of value...
I don't think the United States does, either. When I drive back into Canada from the US, I don't get checked leaving the US. (They might photograph my licence plate for all I know, but we aren't logged out as persons.) The first official I come to is Canadian. Does Canada report entries to Canada from the US back to the Americans so they can log them as exits? Do the Americans report entries back to Canada so we can do the same? Dunno.
When (rarely) flying out of the US I don't recall ever passing Frontier Control the way you do leaving France, say. After check-in with my flight I go through TSA screening and then straight to the departure gate. The airline staff might report their boarding customers to the US government. If they do, there's no reason why Canada couldn't make the airlines report their departing passengers to the Canadian government.
Canada and the US exchange entry and exit information with each other.
How do you think Canada knows when you are in the US when one is on EI for instance?
I got thinking about this (always dangerous.) I'm not sure they really do, or if they do they don't act on it. For instance, Service Canada (who does the accounting for Old Age Security) requires Canadian residents planning to live abroad to notify it before they leave, so the time abroad can be charged against their eventual OAS entitlement (which is 100% only if you have racked up 40 years as a Canadian resident after age 18.) Also, you have to notify CRA that you are ceasing to be a Canadian resident for tax purposes. Neither CRA nor Service Canada just "knows" that you left the country. (I've never drawn EI so I don't know how that works.)
The provincial health care plans require soon-to-be-former residents to notify them of emigration so they can cancel their cards. Of course not everyone does -- it's fraud to try to use your card if you come back -- but the point is the provincial governments know you've left the country only if you're honest and tell them.
And as @gs says, Immigration admits they don't know how many people who were supposed to leave permanently (because their visas expired or because Immigration issued them a deportation order) actually do leave. We could find out from airline international passenger manifests but it seems we don't bother to, perhaps because the vast majority of people flying out will be flying back in in a few days to several weeks at most.
"Canada is a high tax jurisdiction." By the standards of the US. But, per OECD data, we're about the same as the UK, New Zealand, Japan and Israel, slightly higher than Portugal and Australia. Worth looking at... these are the 2025 numbers. https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-canada.pdf
Well, that's the point. The US is right next door and is the magnet. Few Canadians are going to be able to emigrate to Japan or New Zealand.
Hunch? Or an agenda looking for corroboration?
Safe havens, it seems to me, are in short supply. In the Western World most governments are seriously in debt and continue to rack up serious deficits. There is no possible way, apparently, to raise taxes to pay the bills or no possible way, apparently, to cut spending on programmes for the people.
This cannot go on.
The US situation is emblematic of the problem - its deficits are epic (as are ours in my opinion) and their inability to do ANYTHING is a concern. The US can print money as a reserve currency to get out of it at the cost of INFLATION but that doesn't seem to be addressing the problem, just postponing the day.
Geopolitics are the worst in my lifetime of lo these many decades. The Cold War era was potentially existential in terms of threat in the days of my youth but the adults running the system kept a lid on it and we all carried on. Today looks increasingly like 1914 or 1939. Not a happy thought, particularly considering the characters of today's adults.
All to say, one can certainly move assets and one's self to more benign locations weatherwise but all the other problems exist basically everywhere to one extent or another. Exhibit A: UAE. Its security assumptions are in tatters and I wonder as to the long term for what was a pretty attractive bolt hole.
It might indeed be the better choice to tighten one's belt and see what one can do to improve things in our little slice of paradise.
So well said!!! Agree
Last I checked, three times as many Canadians were emigrating to the US as Americans were immigrated to Canada. Considering there are nine of them for every one of us, that’s a big differential. Rarely reported on because it challenges one of our many national myths. So thanks for the honesty
Canadians prefer being lied to. It's more polite that way. God forbid we be held accountable
There is no question it is happening for economic reasons. The new fly in the ointment is UNDRIP and DRIPA in BC. When governments allow private property to come under attack by the courts (or in some cases encouraged it) then people start to consider leaving. UNDRIP is destroying another leg of our societal chair. Productivity and the ability to earn a living in business was already gone. The entire chair is now falling over. People are bailing. It is time for radical surgery but I see no urgency in the Carney government.
Until Undrip is repealed I will not invest another dollar in Canada. And yes, other countries are an option as there are safer, more democratic options.
Here's my suggestion:
The partially moved out is probably impossible to catch fully. However, in about 15 months it will be possible to catch the fully moved out.
We have a census coming up in June. Stats Can will begin to report out about a year later. Here's what can be done with the data:
Take population numbers by age for the 2026 census.
Strip out the ones who report arriving in the previous five years.
Then compare the numbers of people with the numbers that should be in each age range based on the numbers five years younger in 2021. This will have to be adjusted a bit for deaths, this can be calculated pretty precisely from vital statistics data.
This will leave us - for every age range - a good estimate of that the population numbers "should be" and "what they are." The difference will be the number of people who have left.
It will be a bit more work, but the same methodology can be used to calculate by educational attainment and occupation.
A Civil engineer colleague of mine in his early to mid 30s left a highly stable job in Toronto to move to LA last year with his wife. He got a far better paying job and a much better house to live in Orange county. That's my own anecdote for you.
It occurs to me that Canadians are much more likely to know the personal circumstances (before and after) of a close friend or family member who emigrated. Hence the richly-textured anecdote which gives it the power of vividness. Most of don't know anyone who moved the other way, even if there are millions of them, because we haven't made friends with them yet (or never will) to find out why they moved and whether they feel better off for having done so. A casual work acquaintance isn't likely to open up especially if he's unhappy. You see clickbait stories about Americans who moved here and wax enthusiastic about free health care, gun control, smaller black slums, no-hassle gender reassignment for their trans children, and our "niceness" (which isn't the same as kindness and generosity.) But we have no idea how many of them there are. They could be abundantly common, more than outnumbering our exits (which I doubt), or they could be rare as hen's teeth and newsworthy for their rarity and kookiness. (And being a magnet for people with expensive chronic health problems isn't something we should want to be.)
Follow the money Matt. Our Prime Minister has a great vision for Canada in a New World Order but he’s not risking his personal fortune on it. 91% of his personal investments are in the United States. .5% invested in Canada. He’s a smart money man. We’re following his lead.
me too! and I don't mean that in the 2016 way!
Brookfield moved to NYC to access to more capital and, I speculate, to a better tax environment.
I’m sure many Canadian politicians have already covered themselves with this approach however can’t prove.
Canada is in a unprecedented decline due to Liberal mismanagement over the last decade with wealth redistribution, staggering taxes, economy totally dependent on real estate, governments regulating everything and not getting out of the way of big and small businesses, extremely poor health care and infrastructure was allowed deteriorate.
Provincial government played along and did not improve health care or education.
Everything was DEI and woke! Not focusing on the best people to make Canada a great country.
Where Brookfield does the best tax avoidance work is in Bermuda. They figured out a way to get around the income trust scam the Tories got rid of after the Liberals let it get out of hand.
For me, we have been losing people for years - usually economic conditions; but the brain drain has been a thing many times in Canada.
But then there's now. Vile poisonous antisemitism has infected every thread of our society since October 7, 2023. It has infected our institutions, the academe, labour unions, K-12 education, public health and medicine, media and more. It has been allowed to threaten people, assault people, intimidate fellow citizens who have zero to do with the war in Gaza. Synagogues have been firebombed and antisemitic 'protesters' marched through Jewish neighborhoods.
We. Have. Been. Here. Before.
This has been allowed to fester. Inaction from the very institutions that are built to protect jews delivers coffee to the protestors. Jews are absolutely leaving Canada. Fellow citizens of ours who just want to live as free from fear as you or me.
Those with means who are managing significant assets in Canada do that through hard work, sharp financial acumen and generous faith in accounting and legal advice.
They most likely are also looking at the tea leaves and hedging on what the governance in Canada will be going forward and what the implications are for government to be able to manage the huge debt millstone that all levels of government are carrying.
In other words, there is no government anywhere in Canada that is reigning in spending, trimming the public service or launching any significant look at programming to eliminate duplication or redundancy.
On the current trajectory, the only option will be to target large financial assets for new revenue streams. Such as annual taxing on principal dwellings. Or pension fund raids to finance dubious investments. Or wealth taxes.
If I had millions of dollars and watching our three levels of government blundering their way into a financial crisis, I would be quietly hedging my money elsewhere too.
The issue also very much exists among immigrants: "Highly educated and highly skilled immigrants leave at twice the rate of those with less education and lower skills. Doctorate holders are nearly twice as likely to leave as those with a bachelor’s degree. And the occupations with the greatest labour needs face the weakest retention: ICT (information, communications, technology) professionals, engineers, business and finance managers, and architecture managers show the highest departure rates. Canada is losing people with the skills and experience it most needs to keep."
https://thehub.ca/2026/04/22/canadas-brain-drain-is-only-half-the-story/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=EABOD/magazine/Canada+Eh.+
Yes, for really ambitious foreigners, Canada is the temporary consolation prize and a stepping stone to the United States. The ones that stay work at Tim Hortons and in the civil service.
Thanks for the link. Good stuff.
Why would Canadians NOT be doing this? Our illustrious Prime Minister is leading the way, as he has his wealth almost entirely sunk into USA-based stocks and holdings. His FAMILY lives in the USA, for crying out loud.
HE has abundant options if things go sideways in Canada.
...and if he blows up the CUSMA negotiations (as he now seems to be trending towards doing), this mini-exodus of cash AND people is going to turn into a stampede.
It was a nice country, too bad we made some horrible decisions.
"It was a nice country, too bad we made some horrible decisions." - LOL :) you should make a hat or a shirt.
"...With the exception of when the pandemic first hit, exits don’t surpass starts. That hasn’t happened in 40 years." And who was the Prime Minister 40 years ago? That's right. Two of Canada's most economically illiterate Canadians.
How is it that 50 years after the last "oil shock" Canada still does not have energy independence? We've had 2 and a half generations to get it right and we failed. Our priority has been to keep control of the country (and it's immense natural wealth) in the hands of a select few. We've put profit ahead of all else. We told China in 1989 that we really don't care about human rights as long as we can profit financially and China has played along and now we are supplicants to China's whims and wishes...
Mulroney.
But, but, but, he wanted you to say PET. Doggone facts just seem to get in the way!
Exactly. Thank you. Where are all the comments about the US chains & even Tim Horton's not being Canadian anymore? Yoo hoo. Anyone tried to find anything other than Asian restaurants in Vancouver? But we sold out a very very long time ago - I still go to PetroCan out of nostalgia... 😢
This is a great trend to watch, just as the government-subsidized media are paid to ignore the same.
Good on you, Matt.
Yes, Big Data sets are collections of individual anecdotes. That is precisely why Big Date sets are so valuable.
“In God we Trust, all others must bring data.” Edward Deming
As these perturbations increase in frequency and intensity, so too will the folks on the margin unwilling to put up with them any longer.
Remember too, this trend can be manifested also as movement within Canada.
My wife and I are in the process of leaving London, Ontario to escape the lawlessness, decay, filth, congestion, and abdication.
We are moving to Bayfield. If Bayfield follows the trends, we are off for Texas.
Of course it is happening and, in my business, I literally have the receipts. I am helping a few. Although I am not so sure that the top one percent won’t continue to make out like bandits like they have under Justin in the last ten years(hilarious that folks don’t understand this dirty little secret and have let the media up here convince them that Pierre leads the party of the rich but I digress). They will in the short run for sure.