Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Good Riddance!

From ABC News:

It may seem like a quiet country where not much happens besides ice hockey, curling and beer drinking. But our neighbor to the north is proving to be quite the draw for thousands of disgruntled Americans.

The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000.

In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies.

Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.

"There has been a definite increase in the past five years — the number hasn't exceeded 10,000 since 1977," says Jack Jedwab, the association's executive director. "During the mid-70s, Canada admitted between 22,000 and 26,000 Americans a year, most of whom were draft dodgers from the Vietnam War."

The current increase appears to be fueled largely by social and political reasons, says Jedwab, based on anecdotal evidence.

[. . .]

One recent immigrant is Tom Kertes, a 34-year-old labor organizer who moved from Seattle to Toronto in April.

Kertes attributes his motivation to President Bush's opposition to gay marriage, and the tactics employed during the war on terror since 9/11.

Now 10,942 is a start, but it is nowhere near what is needed to actually affect the political balance in the nation.

If we could get 10,000,000 leftists to head north THAT would be progress. Let's have some ideas here on what we can do to encourage more of them to move to the Great White North. I'd like it to be voluntary, but if we have to cattle prod them onto flat cars and ship them in bulk then so be it.