Hacker News Reader

Comment by mmanfrin | Hacker News Reader

Surprised me how much came from Canada -- has that been a thing, or is Canada a proxy for other countries?

Surprised me how much came from Canada -- has that been a thing

Looking at the absolute number of immigrants per year skews things a bit in Canada's favour; the low barrier to movement means that there's relatively more Canadians who live in the USA for short durations.

I'm sure that Canada is a much smaller proportion of the stock of immigrants than than its proportion of the annual inflow.

There was a massive (relatively speaking) emigration of Canadians (apparently mostly Canadiens français) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries[1]. The estimates for the period are of about 160K to 800K (including descendants) Canadians living in the USA, most of them living in the North-East, and most of them of French descent. An American census of 1870 counted about 160K in New England.

It's hard to get accurate numbers, but there definitely was a substantial number of emigrants.

http://www.cslf.gouv.qc.ca/bibliotheque-virtuelle/publicatio...

I was as well. It makes some sense, my family is an example. They were Scots they came to the British-American colonies in the 1750s after the clan system was extinguished in the post-Jacobite era. But part of the family went up to Canada in the early 19th century after the Revolution. Many of them are still there today but some have moved back down. My wife's family has gone back and forth between the US and Mexico a number of times, depending on economic factors. Her dad had dual citizenship and renounced his American just 20 years ago. Sounds odd but he does really well for himself in manufacturing and as a politician.

The ties between all 3 North American countries have to be pretty deep at this point.

Just anecdata, but my great-great- and great-grandparents emigrated from Serbia via Canada, ultimately ending up in St Paul, at the beginning of WWII.

One thing that stood out to me is that immigration from Canada nearly stopped altogether in the mid 1890s. I wonder if the klondike gold rush was a factor here. I know it spurred a mass migration to the North.

As a collateral effect, even Vancouver's population skyrocketed growing from around 13,700 in 1891 to over 100,000 in 1911.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Vancouver#Popu...

Probably one major factor was completion of the trans-canada rail road to British Columbia, finished in 1885 by CPR. This allowed free movement of immigrants from Coast to Coast, lowering immigration to the US and moving that migration to Western Canada.

Even today, the two countries share a huge border and basically share the continent. It's no surprise that a lot of people migrate back and forth.

I found this surprising as well. However, I'm wondering if there were nearly as many people leaving the U.S. for Canada at the same time. The source data might not be looking at "net" immigration, and for most countries it wouldn't matter, but it might for Canada.

I think so. When I read history from the 19th until the mid-20th century, it's almost like the border didn't exist. People would move back and fourth with little concern.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com