One-quarter of us would consider relocating
Survey finds U.S., Australia most desirable places to live, especially for younger people
Nice place to visit, but would you want to move there?
One out of four Canadians would, in fact, be willing to relocate to another country, according to a recent online Angus Reid poll that asked more than 3,000 people across the country about pulling up stakes; that is, if they had the choice and money was no object.
The Vancouver-based public opinion research organization recently surveyed 3,017 Canadians in an online poll over a two-week period and found that 28 per cent said they favoured living in another country, compared to 72 per cent who preferred to stay put, as would 82 per cent of those aged 55 or older.
About two-thirds of Canadians aged 18 to 34 (65 per cent) and 35 to 54-year-olds (67 per cent) said they would stay here, while the other 35 and 33 per cent in those age groups, respectively, would like to move elsewhere.
“What was notable for me was that it was not tremendously surprising that so many young Canadians say they would move abroad,” said Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president with the Angus Reid Institute.
“We are, after all, a country of explorers and adventurers and I think a little bit of that tradition remains.”
As for the most desirable countries to move to, the U.S. leads with 36 per cent, followed closely by Australia or New Zealand (32 per cent), the United Kingdom (21 per cent), France (14 per cent), Western European countries other than Britain and France (19 per cent).
Of all those asked the question “Suppose for whatever reason you had to move, which other country or part of the world would you move to,” 11 per cent answered that they couldn’t say.
A declining percentage of responses followed by Central America and the Caribbean (8 per cent) topping that list, followed by South America (6 per cent), Mexico (5 per cent), Eastern Europe (4 per cent), Japan (3 per cent), Southeast Asia, Asia, Africa and China each at 2 per cent. India and other locations ranked at 1 per cent.
“The mechanics of living in a lot of these countries (lower-ranking places that are very popular vacation destinations) is not the same as simply visiting for a couple of weeks,” said Kurl. “How many times have many of us had an experience where we fall in love with a country, or really enjoy ourselves on a trip and think we should move there, and then we have a reality check?” she asked.
“It’s quite a different story when you’ve got to deal with learning another language, paying property taxes, health care and any of the other things that are part of our daily lives, so there are limits to how adventurous we really are,” Kurl said.
Since about 70 per cent of Canada’s population lives within 160 kilometres of the U.S. border, it’s not surprising it’s the country most visited by Canadians, who made 22 million trips south of the border in 2012, according to Statistics Canada.
Next came Mexico, attracting more than 1.5 million Canadian visitors that year, with 1.1 million trips made to Cuba, 908,000 to the U.K., 766,000 to the Dominican Republic, 729,000 to France, 375,000 to Italy, 345,000 to Germany, 314,000 to mainland China and 245,000 to Spain in 2012.
Other interesting data compiled by the ARI for the study includes:
More than half of all Canadians (56 per cent) have travelled to a country other than the U.S. in the past five years (Statistics Canada).
The desire to stay put in Canada is highest among those aged 55 or older at 82 per cent, although people in that group who do travel generally take longer trips.
Nearly half of those polled (47 per cent) who picked the U.S. as the top place to move to said they voted for the Conservative Party federally, followed by about one-third who voted Liberal or NDP.