Americans look to Canada following US election

As some Americans watched Tuesday’s US election outcome with feelings of trepidation, it appears that many were already planning an escape route – with Canada the destination of choice.

Not only did Google report a huge spike in the number of searches regarding emigrating to Canada, but the country’s immigration website suffered an intermittent fault that made it inaccessible to visitors during the US election vote.

Officials yesterday confirmed that the cause was a higher than normal level of traffic.

“The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship website became temporarily inaccessible to users as a result of a significant increase in the volume of traffic,” a spokeswoman told the BBC.

According to The Telegraph newspaper, internet searches for ‘apply for Canadian citizenship’ was up 500 per cent during US election day, while people typing ‘moving to Canada’ into search engines was up by 250 per cent.

An Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Canada’s Global News, had previously found that 19 per cent of American respondents would consider moving to Canada if Donald Trump were to become President. The number was especially high among young respondents: 28 per cent aged 18 to 34 said they’d consider the move.

Meanwhile, job recruitment site, Moster.com, reported last week that the number of US residents searching for jobs in Canada has increased by more than 50 per cent this year.

In all of 2015, there were about 20,000 such queries on the popular employment search engine. By 2016, there were more than 30,000.

Earlier this month, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada revealed that it would be increasing its annual immigration intake target to 300,000 next year.

Article published 10th November 2016