A wave of young digital nomads is leaving Canada for cheaper, warmer countries | Canada Voices

An increasing number of young Canadians are leaving the country in search of opportunity and homes that they can afford.

This form of brain drain is not new, however. A growing number of countries, from Vietnam to Ecuador, are now attracting our best and brightest. And despite the harm this loss of talent causes Canada, much of this emigration happens in the shadows, untracked by our statistical agencies. That’s in part because of how difficult it is to measure, give that Ottawa doesn’t have the capability to know who is out of the country, when and for how long.

Canada’s limited data on emigration is enough of a cause of concern. Last year, a record-setting 120,000 Canadians moved out of the country, with 50 per cent of them being between the ages of 25 and 45, according to Statistics Canada.

Data is limited on which countries they moved to, though the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that roughly half move to the United States each year.

These figures understate the phenomenon, as they exclude both recent immigrants that leave, as well as shadow emigration.

With remote work the new norm, digital nomads take the opportunity to travel the world

Each person who leaves Canada has their own reason for doing so, but for many, the cost of housing relative to incomes is high on the list. A 2024 Angus Reid poll found that three in 10 Canadians are seriously considering leaving their province because of the cost of housing; that figure jumps to nearly four in 10 in British Columbia and Ontario, provinces with the most expensive housing.

Of those considering leaving their province, 12 per cent pick the United States as their top destination, and 27 per cent would choose a non-U.S. country, while the rest would choose to move to another province or territory, or are unsure.

Given the role of housing prices in migration, and the increased ability for many jobs to be fully remote, a new class of young digital nomads who are moving to relatively inexpensive warm-weather countries has risen. This trend is not unique to Canada, nor is it going unnoticed, with headlines including “Westerners are fleeing their countries in record numbers” in the Economist.

These migration trends are poorly researched, including the growth of new destinations over time. However, given that those who are leaving tend to work online, many of them document their adventures, with YouTube awash in videos with titles such as “I Left Canada at 35!” on moving to Ecuador and “How I feel moving to Thailand after leaving Canada.”

The countries receiving our young workers are not passive recipients – they are actively recruiting Canadian talent, introducing programs such as Costa Rica’s Digital Nomad Visa, Ecuador’s Professional Visa, and the Destination Thailand Visa, creating streamlined pathways for digital workers to move there.

These visas have caused a form of shadow emigration, where talented young Canadians have left the country, but they are not counted in our statistics, forcing policymakers to rely on anecdotes to determine the extent of the issue and how it is growing over time.

Opinion: Punishing young Canadians for leaving doesn’t solve the problem

The Canadians who live in work in those countries typically file Canadian tax returns each year, they continue to have Canadian bank accounts and Canadian passports, so in the eyes of data collectors, they still are domestic residents in Canada, even if they have been living elsewhere for years.

Their absence, however, is a loss for Canada. A 2024 study from the Bank of Canada found that two-thirds of Canada’s labour productivity gap with the U.S. stems from differences in the productivity levels of high-income workers in the two countries, and that the emigration of the high-talent workers from Canada to the U.S. is likely a contributing factor.

During the last Liberal Party National Convention, tech executive Patrick Pichette floated the idea of a $500,000 departure tax to any educated Canadian who moves abroad, as a way of recouping the country’s educational investment and to deter exit.

While the proposal addresses the cost to the taxpayer when Canada invests in a young person who takes their talents elsewhere, it was roundly criticized, and it is highly unlikely that any mainstream political party would ever consider the idea. The public is right to be critical, as taxing those who leave only addresses the symptom, rather than the root causes of why young people are leaving Canada.

Young Canadians are leaving in search of opportunity, to live in a community where hard work earns a wage high enough to cover the cost of living and affordable housing. Yet our governments do little to collect data on the phenomenon, to determine whether we are losing large numbers of Canadians or only a handful of online influencers.

But regardless of the scope of the migration, Generation Z has suffered the most from the disconnect between home prices and incomes. Taxing them on the way out only adds insult to injury.

Mike Moffatt is the founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative and co-host of the Missing Middle podcast.