Because it’s my birthday, I’ve been spending more time than is healthy on social media, among other things, counting up all the greetings I’m receiving from people I will probably never meet. While surfing abroad in cyberspace, I’m bumping into quite a few Americans and Brits who are exploring the idea of moving to the .. wait for it .. ‘TRUE NORTH’ !
That’s right. Canada’s population recently passed 36 million, but if even 10% of these would be immigrants were really serious about moving here, the neighbourhood might never recover. Emigrating to the ‘new world’ has long been an option for the British. Their land, after all, is still regarded by many of us as the ‘mother country’.
But Google and other surfing tools have been humming a lot more since the Brexit vote last month. Hey, if they like hockey and three down football, and they don’t mind slapping mosquitoes, bring them to the prairies. The more the merrier on these wide open spaces.
Just how many Americans might seriously consider moving here will probably become clearer after we see who wins in November. If it should be the Donald, the flow of people north might equal or surpass what happened in the 1960’s when Lyndon Johnson had the U.S. fighting a war in Vietnam, and there was still a draft. There are many thousands of Americans who moved to Canada years ago for a variety of reasons. Unless they’re from the deep south like Chris Jones, they tend to blend in rather seamlessly.
The vast majority of them have stayed and enjoyed wonderful productive lives north of the 49th parallel. Relatively few have gone back. The ones I’ve gotten to know have mostly good things to say about the move.
I can think of a few rules that might be appropriate, like getting folks to leave their guns at the border, and making sure they learn to say please and thank you.
I’m Roger Currie
