Interprovincial Mobility & Out-migration

To understand the extent to which the program resulted in additional job opportunities for all Canadians and whether the benefits of expanded economic development activities are shared across Canada, the following sub-section focuses on interprovincial mobility and out-migration of BIs.

Finding #17: The majority of federally selected BIs reside in their province of intended destination, with little interprovincial mobility occurring. In terms of migration, INs have the highest out-migration rates after 10 years in the country, but similar out-out-migration rates to FSWs and other BI classes in the first five years following admission to Canada.

Finding #18: Investment funds are not distributed equitably across Canada. Among the federal funds, Ontario and British Columbia receive the highest share. Ontario and British Columbia are also benefitting the most from the economic activities BIs engage in (such as business and job creation) as most of the BIs settle in those provinces.

5.2.1. Interprovincial mobility

The analysis of the mobility of BIs across Canada looked at the intended province of destination for BIs at time of admission and compared it to the actual province of residence in 2010⁵². Of the federal BIs who filed a tax report in 2010, the majority indicated at time of admission that they were intending to settle in British Columbia (44%) and Ontario (40.8%). In 2010, the portrait was similar, with 46.8% actually residing in British Columbia, 41.4% in Ontario and only 12% residing in other provinces or territories (Table 5.19).

Similarly, the distribution of the province of intended destination of FSWs and PNs remained relatively similar when comparing it to their respective distributions for the province of residence in 2010. Most of the FSWs were residing in Ontario (63%) or in British Columbia in 2010 (19.6%), while PNs were more spread around the country, with Manitoba and Saskatchewan hosting a significant share of them (46.8%). When comparing with the Quebec BIs, the situation was somewhat different. 47.3% of them had indicated, at time of admission, Quebec as their province of intended destination; 33.3% reported British Columbia and 17.6% reported Ontario as intended destination. Of all immigrants admitted between 1995 and 2010, only 16% of the BIs selected by Quebec were residing in that province, as reported in the 2010 income tax report, while the majority were established in British Columbia (50.7%) and Ontario (30.1%). As such, inter-provincial mobility was highest for this group.

Table 5.19: Province of intended destination and of residence of the 2010 tax filers -Federal BIs, FSWs and PNs admitted between 1995 and 2010

Province Dest. Res. Dest. Res. Dest. Res. Dest. Res. Dest. Res. Dest. Res. Dest. Res.

Atlantic 7,4 2,3 3,0 2,4 1,9 0,7 4,6 1,8 0,4 0,6 1,4 1,1 11,3 7,0

Quebec 1,3 2,3 0,9 1,7 1,5 1,4 1,3 1,9 47,3 16,0 - 2,7 - 0,5

Ontario 46,7 48,8 47,3 44,6 28,4 28,9 40,8 41,4 17,6 30,1 68,1 63,0 3,6 8,3 Manitoba &

Saskatchew an 1,2 0,9 5,6 5,5 0,7 0,2 2,0 1,6 0,2 0,3 1,9 1,8 53,3 46,8 Alberta 7,6 6,2 11,5 11,1 3,5 2,9 7,1 6,1 1,2 2,1 8,7 11,2 15,2 17,2 British Columbia 35,6 39,1 31,0 33,6 64,0 65,8 44,0 46,8 33,3 50,7 19,8 19,6 16,2 19,6

Territories 0,1 0,1 0,6 0,7 - - 0,2 0,2 - - 0,1 0,1 0,4 0,4

Outside Canada 0,2 0,3 0,2 0,2 0,1 0,6 0,2

Total 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 Dest.=Intended destination

Res.=Residence in 2010 Source: IMDB

ENs Ses INs

BIs - Federal (no CSQ)

BIs - Quebec

(CSQ) FSWs PNs

52 The analysis of interprovincial mobility is done on all BIs, FSWs and PNs admitted to Canada between 1995 and 2010, and who filed an income tax report in 2010.

Comparatively, federal BIs engaged in little interprovincial mobility; most (83.4%) of them were still residing in their province of intended destination, with no significant difference between the BI classes. This rate is similar to what is observed for the FSWP (82.1%) and PNP (85.3%) (Table 5.20).

Table 5.20: Percentage of BIs, FSWs and PNs admitted between 1995 and 2010,

residing and not residing in their province of intended destination in 2010

Residing in

Despite the structure of the funding formula for sharing the funds across provinces (which ensures smaller provinces/territories receive a somewhat larger amount of the federal IIP funds than would occur based on single demographic or economic criteria), Ontario and British

Columbia still receive the biggest share of the investment funds as indicated earlier in this section (i.e., 41.9% of the federal funds go to Ontario and 14.3% to British Columbia). These two

provinces also benefit the most from the business and job creation by immigrants admitted under the EN program or through the other business classes, as they receive the biggest share of these immigrants. As a result, the provincial distribution of federal BIs indicates that although BIs settle across the country, Ontario and British Columbia are the two provinces that benefit the most from the program.

5.2.2. Out-migration

A study undertaken by CIC looked at out-migration⁵³ of immigrants admitted between 1995 and 2009⁵⁴, using IMDB data. This analysis allows comparisons between out-migration rate of ENs, INs, SEs, FSWs and PNs.

53 Out-migration can be defined as the reported emigration plus the estimated emigration and the other emigration.

Reported emigration includes both those who declare they have left the country on the final tax form they submit and those who disappear for two years and at least one of the members of their arrival group declared that they have emigrated. Estimated emigration happens when an entire arrival group disappears within a window of two years without reporting it, or if a person fills out a tax form from outside the country and then subsequently

It shows that the different classes of BIs have similar out-migration rates in the first 5 years, although INs have lower out-migration rates in the first and third years after admission (1.4% and 4.2% after one and three years in Canada) when compared to ENs and SEs (2.1% for ENs and 2.2% for SEs after one year; 5.2% for ENs and 5.1% for SEs after 3 years), after which they start to surpass both of the remaining BI classes (10% for INs versus 9.0% for ENs and 9.1% for SEs after 5 years). After 10 years, INs out-migration rate is substantially higher than that of other BI classes (26.2% for INs versus 19.8% for ENs and 18.2% for SEs), surpassing them by over 6 percentage points (Table 5.21).

Table 5.21: Cumulative exit rates (%) by years since admission and immigration class, 1995-2009

Years Since Admission

Class Year 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year 10

ENs 2.1% 5.2% 9.0% 19.8%

SEs 2.2% 5.1% 9.1% 18.2%

INs 1.4% 4.2% 10.0% 26.2%

BIs - Federal 1.9% 4.9% 9.2% 20. 9%

BIs - Quebec 1.3% 3.7% 8.7% 20.2%

FSWs 2.9% 5.8% 9.9% 19.2%

PNs 2.3% 3.9% 5.3% 5.3%

Source: IMDB

Results from this study also indicate that BIs have slightly lower out-migration rates than FSWs in the first three years following admission. However, after five years in Canada, rates are similar between BIs and FSWs, and after 10 years INs have the highest out-migration rate of all

economic classes (26.2%), while ENs, SEs and FSWs out-migration rate remained below 20%. In comparison, out-migration rates of PNs are substantially lower; after 10 years following

admission, only 5.3% of the PNs have left Canada.

The increasing rates of out-migration after five years (especially for INs) may indicate a relationship with obtaining citizenship (that is, that a share of these immigrants wait to obtain Canadian citizenship to move out of the country). As indicated by key informants when asked about program issues (further discussed in the next sub-section) as well as in a report from the Migration Policy Institute⁵⁵, BIs (and especially INs) use the program to obtain citizenship, as an insurance policy in the case of political or economic uncertainty in their home country, without having the intention to reside in Canada. Provincial nominees have the lowest out-migration rates, not reaching 5% for all years since arrival available for the analysis.

disappears. The other emigration is the remainder of the observations. This methodology is consistent with what others have used when analyzing the Canadian Census, such as Chen (2009).

54 As per the definition of out-migration, to be considered as having left the country, immigrants have to have disappeared for at least two consecutive years. As the last taxation year available in the IMDB was 2011 at the time CIC performed this analysis, it could not include immigrants from the 2010 cohorts as per population considered in other IMDB analysis presented in this report.

55 Migration Policy Institute, Migration Information Source, Top 10 Migration Issues of 2013,

(www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/migration-information-source/top-10-migration-issues-2013)