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What Inter-Provincial Migration Trends Can Tell Us About Good Governance

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It turns out we move a great deal less than our American neighbors

Government policies have consequences. Among them is the possibility that they might so annoy the locals that people actually get up and head for the exit. Given how parting can be such sweet sorrow (and how it’s a pain to lose out on all that revenue from provincial income, property, and sales tax), legislatures generally prefer to keep their citizens on this side of the door.

Nevertheless, migration happens. And when enough people do it at the same time, they sometimes leave economic and social clues behind waiting to be discovered. This graph represents net migrations since 1971 into and out of the four largest provinces:

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It may just be possible to make out some broad patterns here. Quebec has never had a net inbound migration year (although there’s been plenty of immigration to Quebec from outside of Canada). But nothing matches the mass exodus of anglophones due to concerns over language and separation in the 1970s.

Curiously it seems that Alberta and British Columbia received far more migrants than Ontario around that time – although the actual numbers tell us that they were more likely to have come from Saskatchewan and Ontario than Quebec. By contrast, most disillusioned Quebecers found their way to Ontario. Besides the 70s, Alberta also enjoyed inbound spikes in the mid-90s, mid-00s, and early 10s. And it looks like they’re in the middle of another boom cycle as we speak.

The real value of all this data however, is in using it to test causation hypotheses. In other words, can statistical analysis tell us what it was that caused the migrations? And are some or all of those causes the result of government policy choices? Here are some possibilities we’ll explore:

  • Household income trends
  • Government debt
  • Crime rates
  • Healthcare costs
  • Housing costs

Right off the top I’ll come clean with you: there’ll be no smoking gun here. I could find no single historical measure that came close to explaining migration patterns. However I was able to confidently discard some theories. That’s a win I guess. And other numbers did hint to intriguing possibilities.

Inter-provincial variations in household income, crime rates (specifically murder rates), healthcare costs (including prescriptions, eye care, and dental care), and even housing affordability had no measurable impact on migration. This was true for both correlation coefficients and lag analysis (where we looked at migration changes in the years following an economic event).

Rising unemployment had, at best, a minimal impact on outbound migration. And even then, it was only noticeable for Alberta and Prince Edward Island.

Of all the metrics I explored, the only one that might have had a serious influence in migration was provincial government budget deficits.

Folks from Alberta, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland all responded to growing government debt by clearing out. Now, I doubt this was their way to telling the government what they really thought about bad fiscal management. Rather, people probably decided to move to greener pastures in response to the ripple-effect consequences of deficits, like higher taxes, reduced social services, and deteriorating infrastructure.


I suspect that part of the reason I wasn’t able to find any strong connections between those metrics and migration patterns is because there really isn’t all that much migration going on in the first place.

Take Ontario’s record net population loss of 31,018 residents back in 2021. That may sound like a lot of people, but it’s actually just a hair over two-tenths of one percent of the total Ontario population. And even Quebec’s epic 1979 loss of 46,429 people was still nowhere near one percent. It was 0.7117456, to be precise. Those aren’t significant numbers.

When so few people choose to move, it’s probably because there’s nothing on the macro level going on that’s pushing them. Those who do go, probably do it primarily for personal reasons that just won’t show up in population-scale data.

There’s also the very real possibility that Canadians are smart enough to realize that things probably won’t be any better over there than they already are right here. Fewer than two-thirds of one percent of Ontarians left for other provinces in 2023, while only around one-third of a percent gave up on Quebec.

By contrast, annual state-to-state migration figures in the U.S. typically range between 1 percent to 5 percent of each state’s population. In 2022, that added up to 8.2 million people, according to the Census Bureau.

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Bureaucrats are wasting your money faster than you can say “bottoms up!”

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Franco Terrazzano

Bureaucrats in one federal department spent more than $3 million on wine, beer and spirits since 2019.

They’re spending an average of $51,000 a month on booze and sending you the bill.

We really need someone in Ottawa to cut the number of bureaucrats. I’d cheers to that.

All that and more in this week’s Taxpayer Waste Watch.

Franco.


Bottoms up: bureaucrats guzzle down your tax dollars

Working in government is a thirsty profession.

At least, it sure looks that way, seeing as a single federal department billed you for more than $3 million in alcoholic beverages since 2019.

That’s right, Global Affairs Canada ordered up at least $3,311,563 worth of wine, beer and spirits between Jan. 1, 2019, and May 3, 2024.

And then they sent you the bill.

Isn’t that nice?

Sure, you weren’t actually invited to any of their fancy wine tastings or cocktails parties, but you do get the privilege of picking up the drink tab.

All told, alcoholic drink orders from bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada are costing you an average of $51,000 per month.

And keep in mind: that’s just ONE department.

According to the Government of Canada’s website, there are 213 departments and federal agencies.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation dug up the dirt on Global Affairs Canada’s boozy spending spree by filing an access-to-information request.

To add insult to injury, there’s good reason to suspect this $3.3 million doesn’t reflect the department’s total booze tab.

A Global Affairs Canada bureaucrat (presumably between sips from his rum and coke) told the CTF the department doesn’t track the total amount of your money it spends on alcohol.

So that $3.3 million figure represents their best guess.

In other words, these bureaucrats spent so much of your money on booze they can’t even keep track of it all.

It’s one thing to have a night where things get out of hand and memories are a little hazy. But when you have trouble nailing down five years’ worth of documents, you may have a problem.

At times, the records obtained by the CTF indicate the alcohol was ordered for a specific purpose – such as an official event or reception, or in one case, a $1,024 booze-filled “trivia night.”

But in many cases, the records provide no explanation for the booze orders beyond “bulk alcohol purchase” or “replenishment of wine stock.”

The largest single purchase came in February 2020, when bureaucrats “working” in Washington, D.C., expensed $56,684 in “wine purchases from the special store.”

Orders flown off to bureaucrats in far flung locales like Beijing, Oslo, Tokyo, Moscow and London routinely run into the thousands of dollars per shipment.

On March 19, 2019, bureaucrats in San Jose, California, ordered $8,153 worth of booze.

But apparently those bureaucrats didn’t get their fill…
Just 12 days later, Global Affairs Canada shipped another $2,196 worth of booze to San Jose.

Or take Reykjavik, Iceland, where bureaucrats ordered $8,074 worth of booze on Jan. 23, 2020, only to follow it up with another order for $2,849 less than two months later.

Does anyone remember the days when a $16 orange juice was enough to get a sitting cabinet minister to resign in disgrace?

Well good thing Global Affairs Canada wasn’t there, or it would’ve been a $68 screwdriver.

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Elon Musk Warns Harris Will Try To Shut Down X ‘By Any Means Possible’ If Elected

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Harold Hutchison

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk said Vice President Kamala Harris will launch “lawfare” in an effort to shut down X “by any means possible” if she wins the 2024 presidential election.

Musk sat down for a two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, released on Monday. Musk said that should Harris win the presidency, he anticipated that he and his companies would face legal action.

“If she wins, how can they let X continue in its current form, in its current role in American society?” Carlson asked Musk about the future of the social network if Harris wins the presidency.

“They won’t,” Musk responded. “They will try to shut it down by any means possible.”

WATCH:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Americans to be “criminally charged” for spreading what she viewed as disinformation during a Sept. 17 interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, and warned that a lack of censorship was causing a loss of “total control” in a Saturday interview with CNN host Mike Smerconish.

Carlson asked Musk to explain what he meant when he said a Harris administration would use “any means possible” to shut down X.

“They might try to pass laws,” Musk said. “They’ll try to prosecute the company, prosecute me. The amount of lawfare we’ve seen taking place is outrageous.”

Musk noted the Biden administration had sued SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers

“I mean… the Department of Justice, for example, launched a huge lawsuit against SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers,” Musk continued as Carlson expressed shock. “Not those granted asylum, but asylum seekers. Now, there’s also a law called International Traffic in Arms Regulations that because SpaceX develops advancements in technology that can be used in nuclear ICBMs… we have to be careful who we hire. We can only hire a permanent resident or a citizen.”

The Justice Department announced the suit against SpaceX in August 2023, claiming the company “discouraged asylees and refugees from applying to the company” in legal documents. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Tesla in September 20203. claiming black employees faced harassment and threats, including nooses.

The Biden administration launched other investigations and lawsuits into companies Musk is tied to, including Tesla, since he purchased Twitter in 2022. Musk predicted a dirty tricks campaign in May 2022, as his purchase of Twitter was in progress.

Musk has been an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House, funding America PAC, speaking at Trump’s Saturday rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, at the site of an attempted assassination of the former president and donating to efforts to elected House GOP candidates.

Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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