The dream of making it big in Canada is turning into a battle for survival for many immigrants due to the high cost of living and rental shortages, as rising emigration numbers hints to newcomers being forced to turn their back on a country that they chose to make their adopted home.
Trudeau has made immigration his main weapon to blunt Canada’s big challenge of an aging and slowing population, and it has also helped fuel economic growth. That drove Canada’s population up at its fastest clip in more than six decades this year, Statistics Canada said.
But now a reversal of that trend is gradually taking hold. In the first six months of 2023 some 42,000 individuals departed Canada, adding to 93,818 people who left in 2022 and 85,927 exits in 2021, official data show.
The rate of immigrants leaving Canada hit a two-decade high in 2019, according to a recent report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), an immigration advocacy group. While the numbers went down during pandemic lockdowns, Statistics Canada data shows it is once again rising.
… Emigration?
I thought that too, but emigration would probably be Canadians leaving. Reverse immigration would probably be immigrants leaving.
…or Canadians emigrating to the places that immigrants to Canada normally come from? Lol
I guess there’s a whole truth table of migration
Yeah, it seems like reverse immigration is being used to talk about new immigrants from other countries going back to their home country. But, the top result for the term is this article so I’m not sure if this is a standardized usage yet.
Nah, they’re both emigration.
Nobody gives a shit about words anymore.
Yeah wtf is reverse immigration?
Or just migration
You can migrate within your own country, it’s not the same.
Liberals have been pushing “migration” over “immigration” because they tacitly believe immigration is a dirty word.
I swear that stupid title was a deliberate form of clickbait
Ya I’m 29 years old born in Canada and have a really good job but living here is starting to not look sustainable. A small bag of groceries here is like 100 dollars it’s fucking mental. Rent starts at 2500. Gf and I are toying with the idea of relocating to Iceland, where the cost of living is actually lower and wages are higher lmao
Canada has essentially just become a housing pyramid scheme, actual work has become worthless
Iceland is in their own dumpster fire with housing. You’re better off in continental Europe if you can get a visa. You also have the New Zealand working holiday option, which is a good time. I toyed with Iceland and have close friends there, it’s rough to get housing, cost of living is expensive because everything is shipped in.
A pint of blueberries in Iceland which was shipped in is cheaper than if I go to the blueberry farm up the road from me and pick them myself
Not sure what you are paying but I checked a retail survey of fresh fruit and berries in Iceland and they are about 21g/$ CAD fresh where the current price of fresh organic blueberries is 36g/$ at my local Edmonton Walmart.
Iceland has a local blueberry harvest so not sure how that affects pricing but looks cheaper in Canada. Also upick are often priced above market now, its a family experience more than a way to get affordable food like when I was a kid. Just my two cents.
Good points, not sure where you checked prices though. Icelandic Costco is cheaper than the Costco here in Victoria for majority of items, and Bonus in Iceland is about on par with our grocery chains. Walmart in Canada might be cheaper than Costco in Iceland.
The funniest one to me was seeing cheaper motor oil in Iceland when we literally drill for that shit here haha
Meat in Iceland is way cheaper, same with dairy
Alcohol in Iceland is mad expensive, so is gas. Electronics are about the same. Restaurants in Iceland are like 3 times as expensive but I can’t afford to eat out here anymore either.
Used cars and service costs are also insane in Iceland and it’s even more car dependant than Canada.
If you are in Victoria, I get it; yikes…
That’s a very specific economic environment which is different from “the average Canadian” so, yes, you are probably bang on.
Iceland, Interesting. I really want to visit but I never considered living there.
You like colder weather? Seems like there are other places that might be a little warmer?
The weather in Iceland is absolutely terrible. That is a definite downside. A lot of people who move to Iceland leave after their first winter. But because of that, talented folks in Iceland who do my line of work usually gtfo to mainland Europe, which is creating job openings that accept English speakers.
Iceland also has functional healthcare and no crime. You don’t even have to lock your car. I am sick of not even trusting my neighbours here in Canada.
Iceland has a housing crisis too but I think we’d be making so much money it would be a non issue.
Weed is also super illegal and expensive in Iceland :(
Fight to make your country better! Otherwise, you’ll just contribute to the creation/enlargement of the same problem in some other place. Natives do not want that and start being very wary of digital nomads because of this.
I’m not a digital nomad, it would be a permenant relocation. Iceland needs immigrants too
If you’re moving to Iceland and working in Iceland, that’s fair. Moving to Iceland and working for a US company, earning a US salary, that’s not.
It’s a losing battle.
People don’t want the disparity in wealth to shrink, so it doesn’t.
At some point we need to stop relying on others who don’t want to solve these issues and start looking out for ourselves.
Don’t leave Canada. It is freaken awesome there. I would love to go into semi-retirement there one day.
Haha retire in Canada, good one
I would love to stay here too but it’s just not realistic anymore
Semi-retire. It is pretty common in my field. Some engineer who comes in one day a week or so on average as a consultant. There isn’t exactly a shortage of chemical/factory operations there and the tech/standards you guys use is near identical.
In any case I am like +30 years from that so who knows what the situation will be.
Yeah if you save a bunch in the states then move here you could do it. What’s impossible is working in Canada and trying to save, our salaries for engineering are probably less than half
Just to put things in perspective I am at the top pay scale at the university I work at and even working side jobs on the weekend I still can’t buy my own apartment
The only good way to get ahead here is to play the real estate game but I missed the boat
Less than half but you aren’t spending 10k a year on insurance that doesn’t even work and 20k a year per kid to send them to higher ed. Not going to do me much good that I have a slightly bigger home when I get a quarter of a million dollar medical bill or want to help my daughters get a four year degree.
I don’t think you’ve done your research. Yeah our healthcare is free, but it literally doesn’t exist, people are dying of undiagnosed cancers because we have no doctors
I recently went across the border to see a doctor about an ear infection because I was going deaf and couldn’t see a doc for weeks. So I paid out of pocket in addition to paying heavy tax for our “healthcare”
As for higher ed, we pay out the ass for that too…
I lived in the border for years. Whatever you have now is still got to be better than what we got. My hand was smashed by a falling beam, pretty nasty break. The only thing they would give me for pain was Tylenol. I had to go get me cannabis just so I could stop screaming and crying. I still have two wisdom teeth and yeah they hurt.
A university degree in Canada costs 16-20k CAD per year for tuition/books/etc, more if you’re an international student. Plus residence fees and food and other costs of living if the student isn’t staying at home and just commuting to university.
There’s a reason Canada suffers from brain drain of so many of our skilled workers leaving. Other places, particularly the USA, are popular destinations because they are better opportunities economically.
I wanna hug a moose and flee from geese
reverse immigration
So… like… emigration?
Do journalists even complete high school these days?
I think the point is that it’s recent immigrants leaving. Emigration describes all people leaving.
The data doesn’t seem to support the title of the article.
Am I misreading the data they are sharing in the article?
It shows data that suggests that number of immigrants leaving now is similar to how it’s been for the last decade. And the overall rate now is lower than it’s been most of the last decade, it’s only increased slightly this year for the first time in 4ish years.
Who knows how many people were waiting for the virus to be over and this is the backlog.
Why anyone would leave Canada is not something I get. Every time I visit I am basically of the opinion that this is about as close as utopia that anyone with this cold of a climate is going to get.
Lack of healthcare availablity, lack of good transit connectivity outside of like 3 cities, insane housing cost, low wages - especially compared to the US… The list is long.
I love it here, but it’s not even close to utopia depending on your circumstances. I personally know 2 recent immigrant families (I’m an immigrant too, so I run into a lot of them in community events etc) who went back to their home countries within 2 years of immigration because they were diagnosed with medical conditions that needed attention which the healthcare system here could not give.
Yeah but you don’t got bankrupt over a medical problem. Also the same only have a few cities with good mass transit, high housing, wages are only high if you are in a wall street scumbag or the ever diminishing super skilled workers. My 15 years in engineering and degree makes me me much closer to the salary of a Walmart associate than it does to the C suite of Goldman Sachs.
but you don’t got bankrupt over a medical problem
That seems to be a US centric comment. People who came to Canada from other countries are fine even after moving back due to health reasons. And, even otherwise, I’m sure that I’d be happy to be alive and broke than dead and not-broke.
only have a few cities with good mass transit, high housing, wages are only high if you are in a wall street scumbag
Again, a US centric comment. People can move to Germany/UK/France etc. A lot of “third world countries” have decent enough infrastructure too. So people may choose to just move back to where they originally came from rather than be stuck here - which is the point of the article we’re commenting on.
“Living fuels” as opposed to fossil fuels?
Yeah not the best headline.
Fuel, as a verb in the “stimulates” sense. Synonyms:
- Drive
- Trigger
- Instigate
- Ignite
- Incite
Fuels is being used as a verb here. The title could also be reworked to say “Canada’s surging cost of living is fueling reverse immigration”
or
“Canada’s surging cost of living exacerbates reverse immigration”I read that and thought that it was a weird way to say food prices.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
I think they house-heating fuels, but I’m not even sure.
As an American it is tempting to push the easy button. This would mean cash out and move to some tropical 3rd world country where the dollar is strong and retire early. This would probably involve some compromises that I’m not seeing but any direction in life has some downsides.
I know this is not the same as younger Canadians leaving because wages have not kept up but it is my version of that. I haven’t done it yet, but that day may come.
I wonder if/when governments will start doing something about it.
I could do that now but I don’t think I would enjoy it. Have money saved up and my wife’s family owns enough farm land there that neither of us would ever have to work again. Combine this with some consulting gigs if I get bored.
Last time I was there I hit up an Irish pub full of people who did that. Remember being disgusted with them. This is what they wanted? To be 40 years old and do nothing all day but consume, surrounded by people who actually work and struggle.
One does need to have the metaphysical questions answered for themselves before doing something like that.
I do think it would be hard to say if I would like to be idle and rich. But you always have other options if you’re rich.
I don’t believe in metaphysics.
If only we had a word for reverse immigration…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Trudeau has made immigration his main weapon to blunt Canada’s big challenge of an aging and slowing population, and it has also helped fuel economic growth.
Cara works three part-time jobs, making Ontario’s minimum wage of C$16.55 per hour, and goes to an adult learning school to earn university credits.
While the numbers are small now, lawyers and immigration consultants warn that a pick-up could cast a shroud over Canada’s appeal as the one of the favoured destinations for newcomers.
On average in Canada about 60% of household income would be needed to cover home ownership costs, a figure that rises to about 98% for Vancouver and 80% for Toronto, RBC said in a September report.
Myo Maung, 55, migrated to Canada from Myanmar over three decades ago and made a successful career as a real estate agent and a restaurateur.
Stankus, who pays C$2,000, including utilities, for a one-bedroom apartment, said increasing living expenses has made it difficult to afford basic necessities.
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