It wasn’t just a pandemic blip—more Canadians are leaving the country for good. Statistics Canada (StatCan) data show emigration, when citizens or permanent residents move abroad, hit a new record in 2025…
Canadian emigration has been climbing for years. StatCan’s annual estimates, measured July 1st of each year, shows 120,016 emigrants left Canada in 2025. This represents a 3.0% increase from a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive year of growth. The volume has nearly doubled in the past decade, reaching a level likely to outpace population growth this year…
Workers aged 25 to 49 now account for more than half of Canada’s rising emigration. In 2025, 64,734 people in this age group left, up 3.0% from a year earlier and the largest volume on record. Last year marked the fourth consecutive year of growth, nearly doubling the count over the past decade…
Losing these workers is also incredibly problematic…
As of early 2026, over 180,000 to 200,000 citizens are estimated to have relocated annually, driven by political instability, high costs, and remote work, often targeting countries in Europe, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia
It seems the highest rate of emigration is from British Columbia which has their mildest climate, so I’m not sure what one makes of that.
British Columbia saw its highest-ever Q2 emigration this year — a continuation of last year’s record-breaking trend in the province.
In just the first six months of 2025, a whopping 12,017 people left B.C. That might not sound massive on its own, but when you compare it to B.C.'s population share, the scale of the exodus becomes clearer.
B.C. makes up about 13.7% of Canada’s total population, but it accounted for 22% of all emigration in the first half of 2025. That means British Columbians are 61% more likely to leave the country than the average Canadian.
I didn’t see this in the article. Does it say where they are moving to and reason for leaving? It’s the the “we’re the poor helpless jillionaire class and movie stars” whiners. It’s working people. Are these the “we don’t like laws” people? They’re not moving to Somalia I’ll bet. They’re moving to 3th world countries who need help? Or big wealthy “socialist” countries where they can continue their cossetted lives as economic pampered poodles?
I noticed that none of the articles about the emigration mentioned destinations. The most recent data available seems to be from 2024.
The United States is overwhelmingly the most popular destination for emigration of Canadians, according to 2024 UN Population Division estimates. Other top destinations were the United Kingdom (81,800), Australia (57,200), Italy (23,300), and China (23,200). https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/canadian-immigrants-united-states#global
There were 19% fewer immigrants to Canada in 2025 than in 2024; that reflects a total of 393,530 new immigrants compared to 483,655 the year before, according to the latest federal government data.
It also has insanely expensive housing, likely a result of a big surge of elite Chinese buying Real Estate to park lots of their money in a nice safe place…. same in Silicon Valley (with more nationalities mixed in, and with the bigger action being the successful residents).
Maybe. The provinces with the highest percentage of old folks (Newfoundland and Labrador) have the lowest percentage of emigrants. I suspect it is the high cost of living hitting the 25-49 group. Not a positive for the Canadian economy.
I’ve been told that the housing prices in Ontario are just as insane, especially anywhere near good jobs (Toronto vicinity? Ottawa?).
I’m pretty sure most of these numbers about Canada must be fake, because after the 2016 election, and again after the 2024 election, TONS of people moved from the USA to Canada!
I don’t know. You would think that the universal healthcare and the generous social benefits would surely overcome such trivial things as a high cost of living. My wife has a friend who currently lives in Canada and her HUSBAND received about 3 months of paternity leave to be taken within the year after the baby is born. They chose to take a long cross-country camping trip (a few months) in Australia when the baby was 6-7 months old. My wife and I thought it was a little nuts to do that with a small baby, but they apparently had a great time. I think I posted about it here at the time, maybe a year or two or three before COVID.
