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.

67 points

… Emigration?

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23 points

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

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12 points

I guess there’s a whole truth table of migration

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5 points

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.

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Nah, they’re both emigration.

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10 points

Nobody gives a shit about words anymore.

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4 points

Yeah wtf is reverse immigration?

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3 points

Or just migration

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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.

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0 points

I swear that stupid title was a deliberate form of clickbait

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47 points
*

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

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10 points

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.

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4 points

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

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5 points

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.

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6 points
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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?

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8 points
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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 :(

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1 point

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.

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3 points

I’m not a digital nomad, it would be a permenant relocation. Iceland needs immigrants too

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1 point

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.

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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.

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-1 points

Don’t leave Canada. It is freaken awesome there. I would love to go into semi-retirement there one day.

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4 points
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Haha retire in Canada, good one

I would love to stay here too but it’s just not realistic anymore

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3 points

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.

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1 point

I wanna hug a moose and flee from geese

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27 points

reverse immigration

So… like… emigration?

Do journalists even complete high school these days?

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16 points

I think the point is that it’s recent immigrants leaving. Emigration describes all people leaving.

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17 points

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.

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4 points

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.

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3 points
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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.

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1 point

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.

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11 points

“Living fuels” as opposed to fossil fuels?

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7 points

Yeah not the best headline.

Fuel, as a verb in the “stimulates” sense. Synonyms:

  • Drive
  • Trigger
  • Instigate
  • Ignite
  • Incite
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6 points
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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”

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4 points

I read that and thought that it was a weird way to say food prices.

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3 points

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

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2 points

I think they house-heating fuels, but I’m not even sure.

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