Why a Growing Number of Canadians Are Leaving the Country for Good—and What’s Driving Them Away

Lauren Chervinski left Canada two years ago and says she has no regrets. The 34-year-old Winnipeg native, who lived in Vancouver for her last seven years in Canada, moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband in August 2024. She says her new home offers increased financial opportunity, cheaper real estate prices, and safer streets.

Running a small yacht repair company with her husband, Chervinski said they saw their revenue grow by 50 percent in the first year.

“The most common theme I hear among people who want to leave Canada is that they’re not confident in the direction that the country is headed,” she said in an interview, noting that she’s heard this feedback from Canadians she’s helped move as part of her consulting business, as well as the expats she’s met in Florida.

Chervinski’s story is part of a broader trend that’s begun to show up in official data, with Statistics Canada listing approximately 120,000 people emigrating out of the country over a 12-month period between September 2024 and September 2025. This follows a similar trend in recent years showing increasing rates of emigration.

Some 94,576 people emigrated from Canada from mid-2022 to mid-2023, an increase of 1.8 percent from 92,876 in the year-earlier period, and up sharply from 66,627 in the period from mid-2020 to mid-2021, which fell during the pandemic lockdowns, according to data from StatCan.

Data Challenge

Canada’s overall population went down by 0.2 percent between July 1 to Oct. 1 of last year. Slight population increases in the first quarter of 2025 were driven entirely by immigrants coming into Canada, as deaths outnumbered births during that period.

However, growing emigration numbers are hard to fully analyze, according to several leading experts, because they do not break down the composition of who is leaving and why. Unlike various European nations, Canada does not track details on emigration, including demographic data.

Economist Jack Mintz, president’s fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, says this gap in Canadian emigration data is a serious shortcoming.

“We have very poor emigration data,” Mintz told The Epoch Times. “First of all, we don’t know if it’s young people that have left relative to older people. We [also] don’t know by income group who’s leaving.”

Better Opportunities, Cheaper Housing

Mintz said that according to his own research there are “various reasons” Canadians are leaving, depending on their lifestyle, profession, and demographics. When it comes to the younger demographic, he says it often comes down to the United States offering better opportunities and more affordable housing relative to income.

“I think it’s the opportunities, the income,” Mintz said. “U.S. incomes are now so much higher than Canada. And then if you can go to Midwest part of the United States with low housing prices, they are pretty reasonable.”

Kim Moody, a tax expert whose company helps Canadians relocating abroad with tax matters, says that among his clients, the exodus trend is unmistakable. He cited better weather, a more favourable business climate, and the ease of settling into a country that shares the same language and a similar culture as key factors drawing many Canadians to the United States.

“Lifestyle for one, warmer weather two, similar language and culture three, and taxes are on the list, but it’s not number one,” Moody told The Epoch Times.

In terms of exactly who’s leaving, Moody said he believes it’s disproportionately wealthy Canadians, noting that his high-income clients are increasingly willing to pay departure taxes in exchange for lower long-term tax burdens in the United States.

Although detailed data are not available, he said the increasing exodus needs to be taken seriously.

“When you have credible people … who are raising the alarm bells, in my view you should be listening; at least taking notes,” Moody said.

Mintz said he personally knows 10 multi-billionaires who have emigrated out of Canada, including to Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and the United States.

Permanent Residents Leaving

Moshe Lander, a senior economics lecturer at Concordia University of Montreal who resides in Calgary, told The Epoch Times that some of the debate over Canadians leaving could be caused by an “echo chamber” of those who are upset about the direction of the country and talk about leaving in a way that may inflate perception of the scale of emigration over its actual occurrence.

However, he said he’s particularly concerned that a growing number of permanent residents are giving up on the idea of becoming Canadian, and said he believes a significant amount of the departures noted by StatCan are permanent residents.

Statistics Canada estimates the number of non-permanent residents in Canada fell by about 58,700 in the second quarter of 2025—one of the largest quarterly declines since comparable records began—reflecting more departures than arrivals among international students, temporary foreign workers, and other temporary residents.

Lagging Productivity

In addition to housing affordability and taxes, experts point to lagging productivity in Canada that they say is contributing to emigration. Weak productivity growth—meaning the economy generates relatively less value per worker—makes it harder for businesses to raise wages and invest in innovation. Over time, this can contribute to slower real wage growth and fewer high-quality jobs, which in turn may encourage some skilled workers to seek opportunities abroad.

In a Jan. 7 Financial Post article, Mintz noted just how far Canada lags behind the United States in terms of productivity.

“Growth has been virtually at a standstill this past year, just 0.4 per cent since October 2024. With population growing 1.4 per cent, per capita GDP fell by a full percentage point,” he wrote, adding that “third-quarter U.S. growth came in at a surprising annualized rate of 4.3 per cent. And despite Donald Trump’s tariffs the year-over-year September growth rate was 2.3 percent, six times higher than Canada’s.”

Lander said Canada’s GDP per capita was around 90 percent of the U.S. level a few decades ago and is now below 70 percent, a sharp decline that he said is combining with wealth inequality to lead many Canadians to feel they’re getting a raw deal.

“When it’s 90 percent of the U.S. number, you might not notice,” he said. “I think that’s where Canadians have started to get frustrated. But again, that’s a policy that’s been driven at the federal level for over three decades now.”

Still, Lander argues that Canada technically hasn’t had a recession, and the real problem lies in a growing share of the population experiencing worse economic conditions at the micro level, especially due to the issue of the growing wealth inequality.

“The distribution of income is becoming more uneven,” Lander said. “If I look around me and I find I’m still living at home with mom and dad. I don’t have good job prospects. I’m working in a gig economy. I don’t think I’m ever going to retire. Then it really doesn’t matter what your macro data says. I’m telling you: my life sucks.”

Mintz and Moody place the blame both on government policies and more attractive opportunities elsewhere.

Mintz says the government should be diversifying the economy further and doing more to unleash the energy sector.

He notes that lagging productivity ultimately means fewer opportunities for people in the economy, something that translates into frustration and, sometimes, the desire to try out a new location. He says this is something that has shown up in his past research, indicating the biggest driver for younger Canadians leaving is better opportunities elsewhere.

Moody also notes that the availability of better opportunities elsewhere is a major driver of emigration.

“Why wouldn’t they [leave] when you have stagnant economic growth and productivity that’s in the tank?” he said. “I can’t tell you how many, especially startups, that are really wanting to do something, but really questioning whether or not they should do it in Canada. And that’s sad.”

For Chervinski and her husband, Jeremy Arnal, the decision to relocate feels final.

“Some advantages we’ve experienced since deciding to leave Canada are more affordable home prices, and honestly the health-care system down here is so much quicker,” she said, noting that private health-care insurance is affordable given the higher pay levels and lower taxes.