The number of Canadians packing and leaving the country for good is climbing rather dramatically. The volume of disenchanted Canadians choosing to exit the country has nearly doubled in the past decade. Today, in fact, Canadians are leaving their homeland at the fastest pace in our lifetime.
Statistics Canada recently reported that more than 120,000 emigrants left Canada last year. This number is a three per cent increase from 2024, and it represents the fourth consecutive year that increasing numbers of Canadians are checking out. Remarkably, the 2025 emigration data sets a new record high for the country – the largest number ever recorded by StatsCan.
Early 2026 data suggests that it will be even worse this year. StatsCan for Q1 2026 reveals yet another – the fifth straight – quarter of rising emigration numbers. A total of 30,092 Canadians and permanent residents left the country in the first quarter this year; this is the highest Q1 emigration count ever recorded. The country also saw 199,260 non-permanent residents (NPRs) leave in Q1 2026; this is up 16.5 per cent from last year and it also represents the biggest Q1 on record for NPR outflows. Based on Q1 data, some analysts project the emigration number will likely outpace population growth in Canada in 2026.
Canada’s emigration trendline is both dubious and worrisome. There has been a stampede of Canadians leaving for a decade now, since 2017 when StatsCan analysts first noted a clear structural shift in the emigration flow. That year emigration skyrocketed 76.7 per cent, as 119,964 people left in 2017 compared to 67,893 in 2016. Data shows that emigration through the years of the Trudeau government surged and, now with the Carney government, emigration is climbing at faster and higher rates.
Notably last year, workers aged 25 to 49 accounted for more than half of the people (53.9 per cent) who exited the country. This needs to be underscored: Canada is losing more than 5,000 mid-career workers on a monthly basis. These working Canadians choosing to leave are contributing taxpayers, and many with families. This has a direct impact on the country’s skilled labour supply and Canada’s tax base.
Not only Canadian citizens but also newcomers to Canada are choosing to leave the country, according to the Institute for Canadian Citizenship report “The Leaky Bucket 2025.” Highly educated and skilled immigrants are the most likely to leave Canada within five years of landing. One in five immigrants leave Canada within 25 years of being accepted as permanent residents. More than 60 per cent of the newcomers reflected in this data contribute to the Canadian economy as working, taxpaying citizens.
In 2024, the Bank of Canada issued a working paper that factored roughly 40 per cent of Canadians who are considered among the top one percent of earners, have already emigrated to the United States. It is also estimated that 30 to 50 per cent of higher income workers – Canadian citizens and skilled immigrants – have already made the move to the U.S. The bank also reported that the loss of the country’s best and brightest workers account for roughly three-quarters of the production gap between Canadian and American workers. The report concluded: “Our work suggests that selective emigration of high-ability workers—commonly referred to as brain drain—to the United States may play a significant role in accounting for the gaps in GDP per adult and labour productivity.”
In May 2026, TD Economics issued a report that hinted at the reason why so many Canadians are fleeing the country. The report “Canada’s Silent Brain Drain” documents an increasing exodus of well-educated young professionals to other countries, a majority heading to the U.S. The report suggests Canada struggles to retain their young enterprising workers because of the country’s high personal taxes, business regulations and taxes, and a noticeable lack of venture capital for startups and small businesses. Young Canadians are experiencing frustration and see that there are greater opportunities for income growth and career potential in the U.S.
The TD Economics report also contains these interesting points. Much of the working Canadian outflow to the U.S. is not factored in StatsCan emigration data because these Canadians have exited with U.S. employer-sponsored work visas, which are used by many as a permanent pathway to emigrating from Canada. Note that the U.S. hosts the largest number of Canadian diaspora – close to 800,000 Canadian citizens.
The key takeaway from Canada’s Silent Brain Drain: “The flows are quieter, more selective, and harder to measure—but potentially more damaging. Canada is not hollowing out; it is spilling out at the top.” The report concludes, “Absent progress on this front, Canada will continue to be a feeder system for the U.S. innovation economy.”
One prominent Canadian who made headlines this month regarding his decision to leave Canada is international best-selling author and social media personality Gad Sadd. Sadd is an evolutionary behavioral scientist, a former professor of marketing at Montreal’s Concordia University and soon to be working and teaching at the University of Mississippi. Sadd is best known for the brilliant works The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense and Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind, two books that document the corrosion and self-destruction of western civilization, including a critical look at the woke progressivism that has seized Canada.
In May on a Joe Rogan podcast, Sadd announced he was moving to the States because of the rising incidents of antisemitism in Montreal that has him fearing for the safety of his family. As a Lebanese-Jewish immigrant to Canada, with his parents Sadd fled Lebanon’s bloody civil war in 1975, and he found a safe homeland to raise his family – until recently. On X Sadd posted emotional farewell messages to explain his decision to leave Canada:
“I have been overwhelmed by the number of people that have come up to me on the streets of Montreal to wish me well as we prepare for our move to the United States. They also expressed deep regret and consternation at the unfolding realities in Montreal. The most heartbreaking feature of this is that it was all self-inflicted by a society and a government drowning in ill-conceived policies (rooted in parasitic suicidal empathy). Ideas have consequences.”
In another X message, Sadd observed, in part, “Seeing the endless attacks on both ideals throughout the West is soul-crushing…. It was all self-inflicted via parasitic suicidal empathy. Remember my words. We have signed up for endless strife and conflict.”
On a recent podcast with Dave Rubin, Sadd elaborates on the factors that have impacted Canadians’ present standard of living and future promise. He piques at the country’s progressive elites and their identity politics and ultra-woke moral posturing. According to his studies and written works, he explains to Rubin, that Canada is in “Stage 5 of suicidal empathy.”
“Canada is a collection of all the most dreadful ideas. Idea One: let’s have open border policies and let’s let in as many people as possible that don’t share any of our foundational values. That’s going to go really well, right? Here’s another one (Idea Two): let’s not have a society based on meritocracy as is the case in the U.S. Canada has a lot more of a nanny-state, social welfare system, socialist / communist ethos… you still have an entrepreneurial spirit in the U.S., but in Canada the tall poppy syndrome is really internalized… that’s why Canada is stage five.”
Sadd’s concerns for the country and his negative impressions of living in present-day Canada, the progressive post-national state that it has become, are shared by nearly half the population. In opinion poll after opinion poll, the frustrations with everyday life in this country are rising. The latest from Abacus Data: 44 per cent say Canada is on the wrong track and 14 percent are unsure. The Epoch Times asked, “When you think about the life you’ve built in Canada — your family, your work, your values — how do you feel about your future ahead?” and with more than 4,000 respondents there was a clearly negative sentiment: 60 per cent were either “concerned” or “pessimistic” and another 15 per cent were “uncertain.” In international survey data, Canada has now dropped to 19th spot on the list of best countries to live, which is a considerable fall from its past top five positions just a few years ago. Unaffordable cost of living, housing shortage, and poor economic performance all weighed down Canada’s score.
Final comment goes to a Blendr News editorial “Canada’s Best Are Leaving — And They’re Not Coming Back.” The editorial makes this important point on Canada’s disturbing emigration data:
“So Canadians aren’t just thinking about comfort anymore. They’re thinking about feasibility. They’re asking whether the basic building blocks of life — a home, stability, maybe a family — are even realistic anymore. That changes how people think about a country.
And that’s the story here. Canada may still feel okay day-to-day, but more and more people are starting to feel like it’s becoming a harder place to build anything meaningful. A business, career, and future. Effectively, a life.”
This editorial concludes: “once ambition starts flowing out of a country, it doesn’t come back anytime soon.”
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
