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.
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.