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By Steve Brearton
Illustration: Seth
Career moves
Statistics Canada found that one in six professionals aged 25 to 45 left Canada within one year of
immigration. The report is inconclusive, however, about the impact of the brain drain to the south.
6.6 Dollars in billions in salary represented by professionals leaving
Canada to work in the US from 1982 to 1996. Authors of the 1998 C.D. Howe Institute study said the figure
represents a “subsidy by Canadian taxpayers to the United States.”
2,097 Number of engineers, according to Toronto-based Technical Service Council, who left
Canada between 1982 and 1987.
40 Percentage jump in Canadian professionals moving to the US one year after
the 1989 enactment of the free trade agreement.
43 Percentage of Canadian companies recruiting top talent from the US. Less than 30% of the
firms surveyed by Cambridge Management Planning said executives were leaving Canada for work opportunities
abroad.
20,000 Tax savings in US dollars, according to a Price Waterhouse study resulting from
the transfer of one individual from Canada to Chicago. in 1994. David Black, a partner at Price Waterhouse,
recommends that firms not sponsor employees for US immigration.
30,000 Number of academics represented by a professional association claiming the brain
drain was supported by little evidence.
2 Dollars in billions saved from not training educated workers arriving in Canada. In
1997, Statistics Canada chief Ivan Fellegi said that the arrival of highly trained immigrants represents an
increase of twice as many skilled workers.
 11.5 Dollars in billions of value to the
economy, from 1963 to 1972, from skilled immigrants. The 1982 UN study found Canada gained seven times more
educated talent than it lost during this period.
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