An exodus from Canada’s priciest provinces is driving many to plant ‘New Roots’
“Alberta is calling,” read the ads plastered across Toronto’s transit system.“Find things you’d never expect,” they coax, “like an affordable house.”The advertisements, a blunt recruitment initiative from the Alberta government launched last fall, tout ample job opportunities alongside comparisons of housing prices between Toronto and Calgary.For the family of Suzi Hansen and Tyler Brown, Alberta’s advertising campaign seems to have worked.After years of being unable to break into the housing market while renting a townhome in Oakville, Ont., Hansen says she floated the idea of moving to Alberta to her husband. She says Brown was initially hesitant, but the siren song of an “Alberta is calling” radio ad playing on the drive into work as an industrial mechanic pushed him to think twice about the idea.“Their ad campaign really, really sold it for him,” Hansen recalled in an interview with Global News as she packed up their Oakville home.The family, with three kids aged 15, 12 and two, was preparing for a cross-country U-Haul trek to a small Alberta hamlet a couple hours west of Edmonton where they were immediately able to buy a detached house.The decision was familiar territory for Hansen, who originally came to Canada from Los Angeles because of unaffordable housing prices in California.
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