Canadians flocking to B.C. mostly come from Alberta
Economics pegged as ‘principal driver’ pulling people to province
The net number of people coming to B.C. from other provinces has almost quadrupled since 2012, with a recent spike fuelled in large part by people leaving Alberta.
In the first quarter of 2016, between January and March, B.C. gained 5,000 more people from other parts of Canada than it lost, Statistics Canada figures show.
This made B.C. the largest net recipient of interprovincial migrants in Canada.
About half — 2,600 — were from Alberta.
This was the second-highest quarterly gain in four years, with only July to September of 2015 higher, at 6,315. This compares with a net loss of nearly 1,800 people in the first quarter of 2012.
Meanwhile, in Alberta, the number of people entering the province from within Canada has been relatively stable, but there has been a large increase in the number of people leaving, meaning B.C. and Alberta have become mirror images of one another, said Jack Jedwab, president of the Ca- nadian Institute for Identities and Migration.
“The principal driver of interprovincial migration, and migration in general, is economics,” Jedwab said. “People are going to jump to the conclusion, I think legitimately, that the oil ... decline, which is a serious decline, has meant that jobs are not as plentiful.”
Former Albertan Steven Elliott made the same evaluation. Elliott, a software engineer, moved to Burnaby from Calgary in January. His fiancée, who also works in the tech sector, followed in April. Both found work in their field.
“We started realizing that oil and gas ups and downs were not really a sustainable way to live, so we moved out here for the ... strong tech sector and the more diversified economy,” Elliott said.
Several of Elliott’s coworkers are also recent arrivals from Calgary, he added.
“I notice a lot of people jumping ship from Alberta, especially a lot of my friends and coworkers from back there (that) are slowly making their way west.”
International immigration is a bigger driver of population growth in all provinces than internal migration. In the first quarter of 2016, B.C. had a net gain of just over 7,400 international immigrants. This is up significantly from just 1,800 in the first quarter of 2015, but roughly on par with the same period in previous years. Overseas immigration to B.C. has been declining over the last decade, driven in large part by a drop in the number of permanent residents from China.
Some of the bump in the number of interprovincial migrants could be due to secondary migration, or overseas immigrants who land in another province and eventually make their way to B.C., Jedwab said.
One example of this is investor immigrants who enter Canada through Quebec’s program and then make their way to Toronto or Vancouver.
While jobs are an important driver of migration, they aren’t the only one, Jedwab said.
“It’s also about perceptions ... of what the hot market is,” he ex- plained. “I think there’s a strong perception for now — we’ll have to see how this plays out over the coming months and years — that B.C. is the place to go.”
Media coverage of the hot real estate market may add to this perception, he added. While some migrants from other parts of Canada are lured to B.C. by jobs or money, others are driven by love.
Kerilee Raven’s job search in Winnipeg was going nowhere at the end of 2015, and the travel bug was biting, so she got on a plane to Vancouver to visit her friend Dan in Whistler.
“I ended up falling in love with my friend Dan and with B.C.,” she wrote in an email. Months later, she saw her dream job posted online. It was in Surrey.
“Things have been scary, traffic and commuting have been even downright terrifying, but there’s tons of support and welcoming communities for new B. C.ers,” she wrote. “Whenever I get scared or panicked, I look for a mountain ... When I see a peak a calm washes over me and I know I’m in the right place.”