Canadians are leaving the country at record levels. Can anyone solve this pressing problem? - The Hub

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Canadians are leaving the country at record levels. Can anyone solve this pressing problem?

Analysis<br>3 April 2026

People wait outside a Service Canada office in Montreal, June 21, 2022. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press.

People wait outside a Service Canada office in Montreal, June 21, 2022. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press.

We can't keep losing our best talent for nothing

Charles Lammam<br>View bio

03 Apr 26

Table of Contents

Canada’s net emigration reached a 50-year high in 2024-25, with 65,372 departures.

Nearly 70% of Canadian emigrants have a university degree, significantly higher than the working-age population.

The United States is the primary destination for Canadian emigrants, accounting for over 60% of those living abroad.

Canadian founders in the U.S. raise nearly twice as much capital as those who remain in Canada.

Remote work, high tax rates, and declining institutional performance are driving emigration from Canada.

Roughly 40% of Canadians who would rank in the top 1% of earners have emigrated south.

Article<br>Summary<br>Key Stats

Canada is exporting its highest earners to the United States. This finding, highlighted in a recent Hub analysis on Canada’s GDP per capita crisis, including its causes and manifestations, generated substantial discussion and debate over the past week.

That discussion, coupled with a new article from The Economist entitled “Westerners are fleeing their countries in record numbers,” prompted a revisit of Canada’s brain drain.

The numbers

The Economist’s analysis highlights record emigration from Western countries. Roughly 4 million people left 31 Western nations in 2024, up 20 percent from pre-pandemic levels. Canada’s departures in the third quarter of 2025 were 34 percent higher than six years earlier.

Canadian net emigration—a series Statistics Canada maintains for long-term consistency due to methodological changes to the gross numbers—reached 65,372 in 2024-25, the highest level in the 50-year data series. Whether this represents catch-up from pandemic travel restrictions or a genuine new trend remains unclear.

Graphic Credit: Janice Nelson.

Statistics Canada relies on tax filing patterns and surveys, not comprehensive exit tracking, and the distinction between temporary and permanent departures is opaque. These uncertainties matter for policy. If emigration is primarily driven by temporary opportunities and most people return with enhanced skills and networks, the long-term impact differs substantially from permanent brain drain. But the trend and its implications for Canada’s economy are significant enough that policymakers ought to take note.

Who’s leaving Canada?

A recent “portrait of emigration” reveals that close to 70 percent of Canadian emigrants had at least a university degree, substantially higher than the working age population (roughly 33 percent). Canada’s educational skew is consistent with international patterns, as noted by The Economist. Data from New Zealand, for instance, suggest people with undergraduate degrees are at least twice as likely to emigrate in their 20s.

Canadian emigrants are predominantly young professionals—67 percent are ages 20 to 44. They’re also more likely to work in natural/applied sciences or finance. A 2024 survey by the Ottawa Science Policy Network found that nearly two in three current graduate students (64 percent) report being likely to move abroad upon completing their degree, with finances and job opportunities cited as the primary drivers.

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According to Bank of Canada research, the study that generated the much-discussed finding, roughly 40 percent of Canadians who would rank in the top 1 percent of earners have emigrated south, along with 30-50 percent of the next nine percentiles. Canadian-born individuals in the U.S. are more educated than native-born Americans, earn substantially more, and cluster in top income brackets. The study finds these top earners account for three-quarters of the Canada-U.S. GDP per adult gap and up to two-thirds of the labour productivity gap.

Taken together, these patterns suggest Canada is losing precisely the human capital needed to reverse its productivity decline.

Where do they go?

Among the 1.3 million Canadians by birth living abroad, the United States dominates as the destination of choice. In 2020, 793,897 or 61.4 percent of them resided in the United States. The next largest destinations were the United Kingdom (7.8 percent), Australia (4.6 percent), France (2.3 percent), and Italy (2.0 percent).

Graphic Credit: Janice Nelson.

This concentration reflects geography, language, and labour market integration. The U.S. offers immediate access to larger markets, deeper capital pools, and higher wages without the cultural and linguistic barriers that complicate moves to other high-income countries. For Canadian...