More On Americans Moving To Canada
ABC News picks up on a story I posted on yesterday about Americans moving to Canada. The number of Americans moving to Canada has increased somewhat in recent years, and that naturally prompts the media to suggest some massive outmigration of people fed up with America.
The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000.
In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies.
Of course, the fact that the number of Canadians who move to America is nearly double the number of Americans going to Canada is treated as secondary news.
Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.
Of course, there are more Americans moving to Canada these days, so who are they? Disaffected liberals according to the authors of this story.
The current increase appears to be fueled largely by social and political reasons, says Jedwab, based on anecdotal evidence.
“Those who are coming have the highest level of education — these aren’t people who can’t get a job in the states,” he says. “They’re coming because many of them don’t like the politics, the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer.”
One recent immigrant is Tom Kertes, a 34-year-old labor organizer who moved from Seattle to Toronto in April.
Kertes attributes his motivation to President Bush’s opposition to gay marriage, and the tactics employed during the war on terror since 9/11.
“I wanted a country that respected my human rights and the rights of others,” he says. “We joked about it after Bush won re-election, but it took us a while to go through the application.”
Kertes, who moved with his partner, is happy in his new home. “Canada is a really nice country. My mother is thinking about it. My stepfather has diabetes and has health issues. So, he’d be taken care of for free if he moved up here.”
My reaction? Let Canada keep all the rent-seekers moving up there looking for free health care. Who wants them in our country anyway?
Oh, and why doesn’t the media ever run stories about why all the Canadians are moving to America? I’d sure like to hear some of the reasons, and I think some of the people who keep talking about making America more like Canada should hear them too.
Kenny
realitybasedbob
Mark
robert108
Rodney Graves
goon
