The twin spans of the Blue Water Bridges international crossing between the cities of Port Huron, Mich. and Sarnia, Ont.ehrlif/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Christopher Collins is a fellow with the Polycrisis program at the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University.
Earlier this month, during a panel discussion on the Canadian economy at the Liberal Party convention in Montreal, former Google CFO Patrick Pichette suggested that the government should restrict the ability of young Canadians to work in the United States, because Canadian taxes had funded their education. A clip of these remarks went viral, and for good reason: as Shopify founder Tobi Lütke said in response, "making Canada a cage" is not the right strategy to build a strong economy.
But Mr. Pichette’s remarks highlighted a real anxiety: many of Canada’s most talented young people do leave to work outside the country. I was one of these people: from age 24 to 31, I lived and worked abroad – both in the U.S. and overseas. Many of my friends also fall into this category. Eventually, I came back to Canada, as did some of my friends; others put down roots and stayed in San Francisco, New York, Boston or London. But we all benefited from professional opportunities that did not exist in our home country.
The data show record numbers of people are leaving the country. Many of these are skilled young professionals, and the majority head to the U.S., drawn by greater professional opportunities, deeper networks and higher wages. This has major implications for Canadian businesses and the broader economy; as a trade publication for Canada’s human resources professionals put it last week: “the people leaving are disproportionately the ones your workforce plans were built around.”
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One dimension to this story that older Canadians of Mr. Pichette’s vintage often miss is the generational divide in how the U.S. is perceived. While polls show that Canadians overall disapprove of President Donald Trump’s America, that sentiment is strongest among those over 55. This is a global phenomenon; in many countries around the world, adults under 35 hold a more favourable view of the U.S. than those over 50. We should not assume that anti-Trump sentiment is sufficient to keep young talent at home.
Younger Canadians appear to be more willing to hold their nose and move to a country whose politics they dislike if it puts them in a better economic position. This makes sense; people building their careers don’t have as much flexibility as those who’ve already made it. We see a similar dynamic in Canada when it comes to attracting specialized talent to new governmental organizations such as the Major Projects Office – it has been harder to attract the younger professionals still building their careers.
Industry Minister Melanie Joly speaks during a panel discussion alongside former chief financial officer of Google Patrick Pichette at the Liberal Party of Canada convention in Montreal on April 10.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
So, what do we do about the brain drain? The instinct behind Mr. Pichette’s idea – wielding the stick – is wrong. In Canada, we don’t restrict interprovincial migration, and no one demands that an engineer trained in Ontario reimburse the province before moving to Alberta. And Canada also benefits from talent trained abroad. For example, the Philippines sends hundreds of thousands of health care workers abroad, including many to Canada; imagine the outcry if Manila tried to prevent them from leaving. The free movement of people is a foundational principle of liberal democracies; restricting it is an admission of policy failure and a concession to complacency.
The answer, then, is to look for carrots. For example, Canada could develop a scholarship model that generously funds graduate education but attaches this funding to a service obligation requiring recipients to work in the country for a defined period. This program could target fields where the brain drain is most acute, from AI research to health care to clean energy.
Finally, it is worth noting that not all emigration is a loss. True, some Canadians who leave will settle permanently abroad. But others will return with skills, networks and capital that benefit Canada enormously. We should want some of our future leaders to have spent their formative years operating in global nerve centres – not punish them for doing so. Perhaps the best example of this is Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose global experience and network from years working in the U.S., Britain and Japan undoubtedly help him navigate our country through an increasingly complex world.
People are rational economic actors, and they go where the opportunities are. This is not just a Canadian story: across the West, record numbers of young professionals are moving abroad. The question Canada should be asking is not how to stop people from leaving, but whether we are building the kind of economy that compels talented people to stay – or return home. Think of it as the Field of Dreams problem: if you build it, they will come.
So let’s focus on building, not caging.