'Record spike' in number of immigrants leaving Canada in recent years, study says

financialpost.com:

There was a “record spike” in the number of immigrants who left Canada between 2016 and 2019, according to a new study that urged the government to make retaining newcomers a top priority to boost the economy.

On average, 0.9 per cent of people who were granted permanent residence in or after 1982 left Canada each year, according to the study conducted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) and the Conference Board of Canada.

However, in 2019, that figure went up to 1.18 per cent, which is 31 per cent higher than the average. There was also a spike in 2017, with the migration rate increasing by 43 per cent, to 1.15 per cent from 0.8 per cent in 2016. Put another way, about 67,000 people left Canada in 2019 and nearly 60,000 in 2017, the report’s researchers said at a press conference on Oct. 31.

This means that an abnormally high number of immigrants who were granted permanent residence between 1982 and 2018 preferred to leave the country between 2016 and 2019. The study also said the number of immigrants leaving the country has generally been on the rise since the 1990s.

“We are now seeing people who are coming to Canada and then saying, ‘Ah, no thanks,’ and moving on,” Daniel Bernhard, ICC’s chief executive, said. “And the number of those people are increasing. We have to believe that the lack of availability of housing, of health care, of other types of services are part of it.”

We are now seeing people who are coming to Canada and then saying, 'Ah, no thanks,' and moving on

The study included people who were granted permanent residence between 1982 and 2018 and those who filed taxes in Canada at least once after landing.

People were counted as onward migrants — immigrants who have left the country — if they