You know how both times Bush stole an election, people said they would move to Canada? Apparently it wasn’t an idle threat.
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…
Not only that, fewer Canadians want to be in America.
Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.
No doubt many of those making good on the threat we have all uttered are from places already Canada-ish, like Seattle and Fargo and Portland(s). Those of us further south have a little harder time with the whole concept of frozen things. Still, our country is losing some of its best and brightest.
“Those who are coming have the highest level of education — these aren’t people who can’t get a job in the states,” [Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies] 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.”
Would you have ever thought you’d understand — and agree — with that statement?
How about all the Americans moving to Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Britain?
I grew up on the southern shores of the Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. American by birth, Canadian by disposition. I absolutely understand and agree with that statement. And the bastards aren’t letting go anytime soon- you think we’re in an authoritarian state now, what until these Irag vets start showing up in local police forces.
As Europeans say, Canada the better America.
I am considering this myself.
How and where do I start?
I like Canada, same for England and Ireland. It’s tempting to leave. But some of us need to stay home and try to get this country back to the point where it cares about it’s people. And becomes less of a threat to the rest of the world. You can run, but you can’t hide.
As it was in the late 60s and early 70s, the Americans moving to Canada are those who share our values – anti-war unless it’s necessary to defend the country, a belief that government serves all the people (i.e. healthcare), not just those with influence, a strong belief in multi-culturalism, and especially a sense of being comfortable and friendly with the rest of the world rather than fearing it.
We welcome you, and encourage you to embrace the values that make Canada a sane society.
Having said that, I also note that we are becoming less sane by the day. *sigh*
Not surprised at all! This administration is living up to its reputation as one not associated with the people at all. Only the rich get richer and poor get poorer during these years of the BUshevicks. Texas was the start of it all for George with the Lone Star State being victim to a dictator wanna bee.
Remember when we talked about this?
Very interesting indeed. I read an article in April 2007 that approximately 450 Americans living in France decided to renounce their US citizenship to become French citizens. Perhaps those border security walls and the additional 360,000 bed prisons the US are building are intended to keep us in. Check out International Living.com for an escape plan.
Years ago an American friend of mine told me…
“You can’t save a burning building from inside.”
Come on up! The water isn’t all that cold.
I moved to Thailand 19 months ago after the police watched me on daily anti war demonstrations and a man was allowed to attempt to kill me with his truck and was allowed to go free with witnesses dismissed without even getting contact info…My radio show was targeted by FCC, etc etc etc and then tere was that prison camp in Cuba..
I made a tom of money on my house and refuse to pay taxes on it- No way I’m supporting Haliburton and BushCo any more..Americans allowed the Supreme court to install this cabalso Americans deserve what they get from here on out … I am now a citizen of Planet Earth
Bad News: Here (Canada) is about to be there (the former America).
Read absolutely everything you can on the SPP or SECURITY AND PROSPERITY PACT. Otherwise barely covered in the media, it is the deadly serious and certain to be fatal to us all NAU (North American Union).
A move by Americans to Canada will not buy them very much time unless this SPP is stopped in time.
Picture the entire continent under the Cheney/Haliburton regime.
As one cogent guest on Stephen Colbert said, just tonight, Mexico is already just a colony of the US and the NAFTA agreement should be renamed the Cheap Labour Agreement as the NAFTA deal is lethal and has already put over one half million Americans out of work.
This is not only a merger of three countries. It is an ILLEGAL coup d’etat.
Fight NOW to hang on to your own country and please LISTEN.
We as Canadians beg you to do what it takes to get rid of your administration before they sell all of us off into slavery.
THIS SPP IS REAL AND IT IS HAPPENING AT TOP SPEED. Three countries become one with truly evil tyrants overseeing all of this.
Maybe your verifiable ballots will make a difference in 2008, but do not count on it as the poor do not tend to vote in their own best interests, and there are more and more former middle class by the day ending up poor and dispossessed who may vote themselves right into the trap.
I moved to Canada in January 2006 and – unfortunately – have just moved back to the States. After a year and a half our family house would not sell and we were no longer willing to live apart or abandon our house in the States (plus we needed the money to meet permanent residency requirements). For all Americans contemplating moving to Canada, I say: do it. It is a wonderful, beautiful, free country. But if you are burdened by a mortgage in a depressed real estate area, you might want to make sure you’ve dumped that first.
I understand the move…BUT I also find it disturbing that the “boldest and the brightest” are willing to concede defeat and run away from their country when it needs them the most.
Yes, America is our country.
Where is the desire to fight back? Are we too busy with our own lives to stand up for what we believe in? I, myself, am guilty of not standing up for what I believe in over the last few years and the mindset of Canada is something that we all wish America could share.
It is tempting to run.
But why should we be the ones to give up. We are the majority! I need to find my voice. We need to find our voices and unite. We need to take our country back.
We owe this to our forefathers, our veterans, our parents and our children.
America is too young to die!!!
I seriously think Ron Paul can help us. I am a 39 year old Democrat, but for first time registering as Republican (ugh, choke back down vomit), so I can vote for Ron Paul in primaries. I would try to say why in a few words here, but I think it would be better to just watch his videos on youtube.com and then you will understand my very difficult decision and hopefully join me… If any other republican wins general election in 2008, then I will seriously consider moving up there.
Frankly I now believe the current crop of Dems cannot and do not really want to stop the corporatocracy that is flourishing here, so I may move even if Dems win. Each State can impose big gov taxing+spending if they want, but the Fed gov was NEVER supposed to be so huge with so many unnecessary restrictions on liberty…
We took one look at the Patriot Act and called a realtor and an immigration attorney. We made the move to Canada in January 2004.
It is NOT mandatory to stop fighting if you move. Democrats Abroad is a vital and thriving worldwide organization that allows you to support candidates and helps with voter registration of expats. (It also sends delegates to the Democratic Convention.) You can keep track of the news via blog. Or you can blog yourself, as I do. And you can return home at election time to work on campaigns. I do that, too. Part of living elsewhere is that you realize that the responsibilities of being American only intensify when you move away.
And Ron Paul is a John Bircher with ties to the farthest extremes of the right wing. (This is not rhetoric: we’ve documented this rather thoroughly at Orcinus.) He’s racist, sexist, anti-choice, and no friend of the working American — in short, every damned thing I moved north to get away from.
I was in Canada during the Vietnam war to escape. I returned and fought with what was my legal entitlement and guarantees by the Constitution.
Again the time is here. No more bull, on the streets now, make our voices heard now. Republican and Democratic rep., make their ears ache.
Been here since just after the 2004 election. Fantastic country. Great skiing. Vancouver is a utopia (other than the rain). Permanent residency is complete next week.
To those who say “don’t run, stay and fight.” Well, I still vote. And all the protesting I’ve done since the first Gulf war didn’t help a bit.
I decided to take my tax dollars to a country that was a better world citizen.
Look at your tax return from last year and think about how more than all that money (check the debt) went to an illegal war.
We have budget surplus and health care up here.
It is even better than I thought it would be.
I wish I could afford to move. During the ’80s, I spent a lot of time in the Toronto area on business. I felt more at home there than I do here. I even have some relatives in Ontario and BC – I’ve heard that it’s easier if you have resident family.
I am also moving back to the U.S. from Canada later this month and the move could not happen fast enough. If you like poor customer service, croonyism, vehement and smug anti-Americanism, and a very blatant “gouge the American†mentality, then Canada is the place for you. Just got tired of apologizing at every turn for being “the American imperialistâ€; refusing to declare Canada the utopia of the world; and being blamed for everything from people watching bad TV, to people’s dogs dying, to Cubans being poor.
I would love to track how long those Americans stay in Canada; maybe they will stay longer than I did (about 3 years). And, yes, Canada is a haven for gay American couples, and white Americans who do not want to deal with their own racism (ironic that one can have s-o much white privilege in a country that prides itself on ‘multiculturalism’wink.
I suspect that once American families get a couple of years full of “I hate America†in almost every facet of their lives, they will decide that even the “broken†U.S. is better than being second class citizens in a country that “literally†hates your
kind. In case I sound a bit offkelter, I am a educated professional.
Here are some examples of rampant anti-Americanism that Americans are in denial about:
http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002151.html
http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2004/08/carolyn_parrish.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595109686,00.html
To inconvenient truth
You’re just another victim of an american education. Perhaps if you couldn’t learn to spell or write in english you could at least learn how to use a spell check
F*ck ALL progressives. You are CLUELESS, and I for one don’t giving a flying F*CK what you think, Better yet, NEVER STEP FOOT ON US SOIL AGAIN!
We don’t want you….hae a nice day!
What crawled up your ass, Nope?
I’m a bit divided about moving to Canada at the moment. If a progressive candidate wins the election, I’m staying in the US. However, if any Republican candidate other than Giuliani wins, I am making plans to high-tail it out of the United States – after I get my PhD, but if Huckabee wins, I will think seriously about going to grad school in Canada. (In case you haven’t figured it out already, I’m a college student.) The shit in the United States is going too far .
How many of these postings are from that fat bastard Micheal Moore?
I just have to say that while Inconvenient Truth could have used a spell check, I am an educated American (master’s degree) who happens to agree with his sentiment. (And oh yeah, Canuckistan, I am also a “victim of the American educational system.”)
I have been in Vancouver for nearly a year, and we have decided to move back to Seattle and help fight for a better America from there.
I have lived all over the world, including recently in France, where the anti-Americanism is NOTHING compared to what it has been here in Canada. At least the French are highly informed about our system of government (in fact it was a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote most eloquently about democracy in America). The Canadians that I have encountered, on the other hand, haven’t even bothered to learn much about the States (outside of what they see in Orlando or at Disneyland); they just bash it at every given opportunity. I have never met a culture with such an enormous chip on its shoulder.
“Who cares about your irrelevant politics?” is the line I get the most often. “We already had a female PM up here; big deal about Hillary!” is another. Um…Kim Campbell wasn’t VOTED IN, so no, you didn’t have an election even close to what ours is, a contentious race between a person of color and a woman.
This negativity is partly understandable, since Canadians have lost a lot of their cultural identity to us. It is hard to fight McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. But my Canadian friends wonder why I prefer shopping at the Real Canadian Superstore to shopping at Wal-Mart. Don’t bitch and moan about U.S. imperialism while you support it with your weekly shopping trips!
It is wonderful to be here if you are a gay couple who would like to have equal rights, or anyone in general who can afford to live right near downtown; we are 10 minutes outside of the city and I may as well be in rural Idaho.
The health care system, while still admirable in comparison to America’s shameful one, is far from perfect: as a pregnant woman, I have to still use my fresh-out-of-school GP unless I am referred for some reason to an Ob/Gyn. It took me weeks to find a GP who was even taking new patients. The wait for an MRI is usually about 1 year, which is just one of the many reasons that private clinics are opening up. Again, I prefer France’s version of socialized health care to this one.
De Tocqueville said, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” We will be back. I just hope Canada starts spending more of its time finding its own identity, and quits wasting so much time resenting ours.
Just so everyone knows Meghan McCain is a perm resident of Canada.
I am a U.S. ex-pat too but not committed to perm residence until Nov. 4, 2008.
I would not want to live in a country run by a McCain either
What would even bring me to this web site? Ha! Are you kidding? The ultra-rich extremists are taking over America. The middle class is disappearing quickly. We have 2012 presidential candidates running who are anti-gay, anti-middle class, and anti-everything that is wholesome. There is so much hate in America. Everyone wants to take away from the other. Our roads, infrusturcture, schools; all crumbling so that the rich can get richer. Our president Obama is really quite powerless in all this. The money is not with him. I’m retired now and I wish I didn’t have my house and so many things. I feel as if they are keeping me from going to a better place.