Growing up in and around Toronto, there were two questions my parents never asked me.
One was “when are you gonna get married?” My folks split up when I was young and marriage was, you know, not an issue.
The second was “would you please promise me you’ll stay in Ontario after school is over and never leave?”
Premier Wab Kinew (middle) chats with attendees before giving a state of the province address at a Manitoba Chambers of Commerce breakfast on Tuesday morning. (Mike Deal / Free Press)
As it turned out, I did leave my home province upon completing school to take a summer internship at the Calgary Herald. When that ended in the fall, I landed at gig at the Winnipeg Free Press.
I can’t say this was all planned out: Winnipeg was really just the first job offer I got as I was travelling eastward on my way back to my mom’s basement in Etobicoke.
I didn’t think my decision to leave Ontario and head west was that noteworthy. That was, until I was firmly rooted in Manitoba and learned that leaving your home province — and perhaps contributing to a net loss in population from interprovincial migration — was a crime against the economy.
I looked on with stunned awe as governments of all stripes took enormous abuse when out-migration numbers were high, prompting politicians to make passionate pledges that as God was their witness, they would find a way, any way, to keep the youngins at home.
The problem is, other than saving the government from getting pilloried on out-migration numbers, there’s no good argument for asking your kids to resist the temptation to study and work in other cities, provinces, countries or even continents.
Even so, the “stay home, please” refrain has been a standard part of the economic development narrative for Manitoba’s political leaders for as long as I’ve been in the province.
Premier Wab Kinew joined the choir on this issue in a speech this week, pledging to do more to keep young Manitobans at home while attracting people from other provinces to stem the tide of net out-migration. His comments came after data released earlier this spring showed Manitoba lost more than 10,000 residents on a net basis to other provinces last year, the largest net out-migration here in more than four decades.
You can’t blame Kinew for wanting to get in on this pledge. However, urging the province’s youth to stay home fails to acknowledge how unlevel the interprovincial migration playing field really is.
Cities like Winnipeg and provinces like Manitoba are at a general disadvantage in the battle for inter-provincial migration.
It’s a medium-sized city (by Canadian standards) in one of the smaller provinces. Young people all over the world, particularly when they haven’t started a family yet, tend to chase their fortunes in bigger cities.
Younger people also tend to chase resource-based booms in provinces where resources (minerals, oil and gas) dominate economies.
On a playing field like that, can a province like Manitoba actually turn an annual net loss into a net gain? Before we consider solutions, it’s important note that inter-provincial migration is going through a rather weird era.
First, we’re living in a time when urban populations across Canada, and in most developed countries, are falling.
Following the arrival of COVID-19, millions of Canadians have fled the biggest cities in the country, seeking a lower cost of living and less dense conditions. Among our largest cities, only Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton have seen population growth in the last two years.
The exodus out of big cities is certainly reflected in net provincial migration.
Alberta gained more than 55,000 people from interprovincial migration in 2023. But outside of Alberta, the only other provinces to have a net increase in interprovincial migration were the Maritime provinces — Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI — all of which are smaller provinces with much smaller cities.
Provinces that had been among the greatest net winners in interprovincial migration, like British Columbia and Ontario, suffered a net loss in 2023.
Where does that leave Manitoba?
Kinew said that out-migration was a major indicator of the health of a province’s economy and standard of living. Perhaps, but net out-migration is the result of many factors, only some of which speak to the relative health of a province’s economy.
When a resource boom overheats a provincial economy and draws workers from across the country, it does not necessarily mean other provinces have ‘bad’ economies. Manitoba has a diversified economy that does not experience the highest of highs, but also avoids many of the lowest lows.
Unfortunately, when the numbers are against you, telling people a net loss in migrant movement is no big deal isn’t a really great political strategy.
In his speech, Kinew hinted he will implement as-yet unidentified policies to keep the cost of living low in Manitoba, while creating new jobs in exciting industries and showcasing this province’s rustic, natural beauty and the splendors of a city that — despite all of its problems — still hits way above its weight in affordability, arts, entertainment and culture.
Can all that reverse the interprovincial migration equation here? Perhaps.
But you’re not really doing the economy any favours by urging your kids to burn their passports.
Instead, encourage them to travel and see world with the comfort of knowing that when they want to buy a house, they’ll come home.
dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com
Dan Lett
Columnist
Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986. Read more about Dan.
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